Hi
the first time a gamer got on me about "imitation legionaries", was in a game almost 30 years ago in Denver. Our Art of War rules love to distinguish between equipment and their capabilities. This is based on my fondness for building and using and feeling I know the details here.
Anyway, the short version is that the guy showed up with his 1st century BC imitation legionaries for his Pontic army. Wanted some flexibility in his Syntagma. Right.
In segmentata.
This always seems to be driven by the wargamer looking for another advantage for a Roman Opponent. It is absolutly true that every BIT of the roman army was derivitive. The "battle winner" was in the training and how they combined all these bits from everywhere into something both different and effective.
In a very real sense, the romans are near unique. Most armies are built around local prejudices about how armies work, local hunting weapons and tradtions. The romans cheerfully borrowed whatever looked good to them.
It ends up being a variant of "what if Patton had Tigers", or "what if hannibal had a hang glider". They COULDA!
By now it is probably clear that I fall into the prejudice that the use of "legion" is merely a term used because it is familiar to the audience. As well as "in the roman way".
Rocky
