"Roman unit size in WAB?" Topic

My wife has volunteered to game with me from time to time, and we're going to play some WAB.

Her army will be a Belgae horde, and mine will be Caesarian Romans. I've perused and browsed a few web pages with WAB info, but can't seem to figure out how large my "cohorts" should be. I hear sixteen are too brittle, and twenty-four too unwieldy.

We're probably going to play at 1500 or 2000 points. Any suggestions?

20 is about the right size, 24 if for raw legionnaires. Smaller units of 16 or so might be useful to hold and outflank the barbarians. Romans in WAB are very subtle and often require knowledge of "drilled", "stubborn" and "disengage" rules to work properly.

If I'm at 20, I should plan to deploy into four ranks, to absorb the barbarians? (I'm asking so that I can plan to base properly. The figs I'm using have a big footprint, so I'm having trouble getting them to fit well on 20x20s.)

I use 24 for my Premier Cohort, and 18 for the second and third cohort. I am 4 ranks deep with the one, and 3 ranks deep with the other two. I think it looks really good!

Similar to Igwarg and Don. My guys represent a 10-cohort legion – first cohort has 24 figures, remaining 9 have 20 figures each. There are sufficient single and paired figures to allow them to be fielded as 18-figure cohorts though.

Cheers,
Paul.

Some like 16, as here:

link

Multiples of 3, such as 18 or 15, may be what you settle on in the end, as you gain experience with the rules.

Allen

If I'm at 20, I should plan to deploy into four ranks, to absorb the barbarians? (I'm asking so that I can plan to base properly. The figs I'm using have a big footprint, so I'm having trouble getting them to fit well on 20x20s.)

Don't get hung up with the base size. As long as both your army and your opponent have similar basing, then use what works best. I also use a combination of multiple-figure bases and singly-mounted bases for making "change" for casualty removal.

Although WAB is a great game, and calls for individually mounted minis, it works just as well with multiple-figure bases as long as you have some way to keep track of the casualties, like a marker, a die, etc, and then just remove an entire stand at a time.

And for the record, I'm building my legion with 16-figure cohorts, mounted 4X4.

respects,

But Don, your army always gets trounced , doesn't it?

I have 10 cohorts 45 figs each.Works for me.3x3,you can have a road march or a 3 deep line.Looks damn bad to the bone..
John

Nappy, at 1500 to 2000 points, 10 cohorts each with 45 figures is going to be VERY difficult to acheive. But thanks for the input. :)

My friend and I play with units of twenty four legionaries.

Obviously though we represent "smaller" engagements since with Auxiliaries we can rarely field more than two or three Legionary units at 2000 pts. We have on rare occasions reduced Auxilia to a bare minimum and fielded four Legionary units but that proves very unwieldy and easily outnumbered and outmanouvered.

In game terms three units, each with four ranks of six men (24 figures) looks good and isn't really too unwieldy, especially if you are facing big barbarian warbands.

For smaller games (ie 1500 pts) or when we want more manouverability, we sometimes reduce these to 18 or even 16 men per units, giving us three to five units with Auxiliaries.

Sixteen figures may seem too small but you retain the full rank bonus (just) and is a good size for flexible units able to manouver onto the enemy horde's flanks. It is the flank attack and Panic that will mostly likely win you (or lose you ) the game, so make sure you do have mobile/manouverable units of some sort to get round the enemy line.

I don't play WAB but it's WHFB 5th edition mechanics, right? With 4-wide ranks and a maximum of +3 for rear-rank bonus, but no outnumbering rule to give you additional payoff for more numbers?

The min-maxing approach would dictate at least 16, for maximum rank bonus. If you have exactly 16, a canny opponent will single that unit out with missile fire because only one casualty is needed to reduce the rank bonus down to +2. So 17 or 18 models is more advisable to make it harder for that to happen. (If you're concerned with looks and have the points, add a full rank to 20 models -- that unit is probably as nearly guaranteed as possible to arrive in combat with full rank bonus.)

If you expect a lot of maneuvering, you may want to use the Turn maneuver (90-degree right or left face in place) and retain the same shape / width / ranks without additionally reforming. You want to stay 4-wide and 4-deep when you do this, so make sure there's 4+ models in the rear rank: 16 models, 20 models, 24 models, or 25, but not 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, etc.

Now, Romans are elite infantry, right? So if they are better fighters than their opponents, maybe the points for width get you more combat resolution (from causing casualties) than from rank bonus. But that is uncertain so it's smarter not to count on it, also the math is easier.

That's not all … if you do get stuck in combat with your rank bonus reduced (or deteriorating due to casualties), remember the Lap Round maneuver when you win combat. You pull up to 2 models off the rear for each side and put them on your enemy's flank, getting flank bonus as well as the extra attacks -- it's almost always worth it even when it reduces your rank bonus.

"I don't play WAB but it's WHFB 5th edition mechanics, right? With 4-wide ranks and a maximum of +3 for rear-rank bonus, but no outnumbering rule to give you additional payoff for more numbers?"

There is an outnumbering bonus, but only if the numbers are 2-1.

I play with cohors of 20 figures for Raw legionaires, 15 figures for the others.

"I don't play WAB…"

Yep. Got it.

"I play with cohors of 20 figures for Raw legionaires, 15 figures for the others."

Whereas he's done the math. Romans aren't barbarian warriors, or goblins, or whatever. They play differently, they're not fragile, and they're damned expensive to be putting in four ranks. You don't need the rank bonus. What you *do* need--which you won't find in WHFB--is the maneuverability conferred by a three-wide march column. This is one of the infamous WAB "stupid Roman tricks" inferred above.

Allen

One other point is this: When playing Romans, in the first round of combat they get to use the first TWO ranks to represent them trowing their pila. Therefore, a 4-wide unit of 16 minis still gets to use 8 figures in the first round of combat, and that is often enough to send the barbarians packing, or at least trim them down to size…

Respects,

Thanks for the help, folks. I have a pile of plastics and just wasn't sure how to organize them. I saw a lot of different organizations online, and just couldn't detect what seemed to work best and give the Romans the most historical feel possible. (And no, I don't know what I mean by that.)

I'm sure my wife will kick my tail, anyway, but I'll do my best.

Historical feel…

Have as many points put into auxiliaries as Legionaries (or at least as many as you feel comfortable with). Namely, use Cavalry and missile troops. On the field the Romans appear to have fielded as many auxiliary troops as there were Legionaries, and these auxiliaries were quite capable of bearing the brunt of the fighting – if not all of it. Most tv documentaries/Hollywood movies/reenactments give a rather inaccurate impression of Roman armies being almost nothing but Legionary troops. It wasn't so. :)

You could for instance use auxilia with thrusting spears to anchor down the line while cavalry and disciplined Legionaries march round the flanks. This could be considered a "historical" approach.

In some battles it would appear that auxiliaries actually did most of the fighting while the legionaries held back in "reserve," on occasion not engaging at all ( so that the general could honestly proclaim that "It was an overwhelming victory – not one Roman was lost in battle".) This happened at the battle of Mons Graupius in Caledonia for instance, where the auxiliaries fought and won the battle while the Legions held back in the rear.

In other battles, Legionaries held the line while others manouvered – or attempted to. For example, Suetonius at the Battle of Watling street against Boadica placed his legionaries in the centre in close order, with his auxiliaries and cavalry on the flanks.

In other battles there was little manouver at all, with legionaries and auxiliaries alike adopting something akin to a static shieldwall, supported by a "tremendous weight" of missiles from missile troops (such as Arrian's suggested formation against the Alans).

It would appear Roman Commanders were flexible and changed their deployment and tactics according to need and to what they had available. So for "historical feel" take your pick. :)

In the game, as Mr Curtis has already alluded to, Legionaries are the best infantry in the game (with expensive points to match) – both tough and manouverable the Legionaries are a true "elite," flexible enough to fulfill either the "hold the line" role or the "manouver round the flanks" role. Well armoured and stubborn they will soak up damage without suffering much in the way of casualties – and won't budge when they do. When they do lose a round of combat they can Fall Back in Good Order, frustrating the enemy no end. Disciplined, they can fast march round flanks and reform to present heavy infantry to the enemy's side or even rear – or redeploy to reinforce the other side of the field and overwhelm that side before your opponent can respond.

"Dirty tricks" indeed. :) But be careful. the Legionaries, as good as they are, are NOT unbeatable. They are just as subject to Panic as anyone, and if you just sit there soaking it up waiting for the enemy to break, Panic will come and find you (in my experience anyhow).

As Caesarians, I was reluctant to use too many auxiliaries, but I'll certainly go about doing some digging around for what I might be able to use. The Spartacus list doesn't seem to represent a Caesarian army very well, so I was guessing I'd use the EIR list from the main rulebook, and salt it to taste.

Thanks for the excellent advice.

As Caesarians, I was reluctant to use too many auxiliaries, but I'll certainly go about doing some digging around for what I might be able to use.

Caesar himself had a detachment of German Cavalry as his personal body-guard. I would have no problem with using a large number of Germans, Gauls or Numidians alongside my Romans. I am also building a Caesarian-period Legion, and plan on, eventually, having an equal number of "barbarians" to the Legion proper.

FWIW, with the new Wargames Factory plastics, and also the Warlord plastics, you can build up quite a nice period force for a reasonable amount of money.

I have 24 men cohorts both for my Caesarians & EIR. As for aux, for Caesarians I use Spainish, Numidins, Gauls, Greeks and Germans. As for EIR the aux, that are available for that period, western , eastern archers etc. Mike Adams

The "Red State Ruckus" as alluded to by Allen is one of those proofs that one can have fun with WAB even with figures based for "one of those other game systems"… as a guest at Mike's I used his setup and figures. We used cards for the auxiliary units and they were randomly chosen, the Roman core troops and characters were mirrored forces.

The issue with multi-strip-based Romans is that they give up some flexibility. I'd have preferred some 15 figure groups here. Also I would have liked to spread out those cohorts into 3 ranks, so I could cover more ground, so that's the flexibility one gives up when using multi-based figures in WAB, but it did not distract at all from the enjoyment of our game.

I think Romans deployed and based 4x4 on DBx bases look a bit 'columnar'…. which is ok as I reckon we wanted to get it on and formed into wedges and deep formations and drop our pila and go sword to sword with the traitors :)

The multi-based figures cause no other problems to game-play other than casualty removal (done with rings) and the flexibility issues noted above. The armies would have been slightly more spread out if 4 figures were on 80mm wide bases, and the Roman depth would have looked a bit better.
Still if I had my troops on 20m bases against Mike's we would have adjusted… the only issue would have been if a tight squeeze had happened…that's really the only time an issue occurs with different basing schemes in WAB.

My own Late Republican WAB tournament force has three units of regulars of 16 single based models each, sometimes they are in 15's. Two unis of 24 raw recruits support them, but they would be more efficient as 20's, but they are scarier as 24's!!

The General and ASB often has to rally those raw recruits but in a tournament those raw recruits can really upset a shooty army like Persians or Indians by getting into testudo and soaking up fire!

With left over points I get whatever auxiliaries I am in the mood for, barbarian slingers, or archers, or Spanish (as auxilia), or even the "Brit smasher wrong elephant" if I fancy that.

Mike's multi-based unit of 16 auxiliary archers decimated my forces with wildly lucky rolls…. of course I made him feel bad by blaming it on the fact they were based at 15mm per model :) But that had nothing to do with my bad moves.

JJ

link

What in the wordl are you gonna do with a 450 figure EIR WAB Army? You´d need an opponent with at least some 800 Celts to put up a somewhat balanced game and it would take a week and a tennis court sized table to play ….

Did you ever play that army?

Simon of the initially Early Imperial Roman blog (see his earlier posts) "iron mitten" bases his Roman legionaries 3 to a 50mm wide x 25mm deep GW cavalry base:

iron-mitten.blogspot.com

I'll go for 18's in 6x3. That'll do fairly well now and even better in the new version. ;-)

Guy

I have played with my whole Caesarian Legion against about 480 Celts it was one HELL of a game! Tactica rules were used! Mike Adams

I'll go for 18's in 6x3. That'll do fairly well now and even better in the new version. ;-)

-------> Yes this will probably be the new unit size of choice, although 15 5x3 may become more attractive.
JJ