"6mm Roman manipular legion basing" Topic

I'm starting on some Baccus 6mm Romans. When I base them I want them to reflect the distinctive manipular fighting system. I was hoping to use some sort of legion base/tray, but also retain the ability of the seperate maniples to move. Does anyone have any suggestions on base sizes, troop numbers, or rules that would support this?

A legion of the time was 4200 men. 1200 velites, 1200 hastati, 1200 principes and 600 triarii for the infantry with 300 cavalry.
A maniple was only 60 men strong so your figure scale will have to be very small for them to be worth representing. A ratio of 1:10 with 6 figures in 2 ranks of 3 maybe. Or two Baccus strips. That's 100 strips for the heavies (20 maniples each for hastati, principes and triarii with the triarii in 30 man maniples and only 1 strip deep to have a common frontage). So a legion of 60 individual elements (without velites) and a frontage of 40cm as Baccus strips are 2cm wide.
Personally I don't bother. Legions of the period fought in 3 lines (4 if you include the velites). and the maniples were very small sub divisions of those lines. Add in that nobody knows for sure how they worked and I think you would be adding an awful lot of complexity for little return. Though it would look fantastic.

I completely agree with Agent Brown!

Depends on what rules you use annd whether they allow rear element support but if you based everything on say 40x20mm bases you could have two maniples per base with the triarii stuck at the back of their base, half the hastati/principes stuck at the front of their base the other half at the rear.

Deploying alternate bases of the latter will give a chequer board look of sorts and when the fighting gets serious and the line closes up you move the elements around to present a solid 4 rank deep of figures.

If you want 3 discrete lines of heavies you'll have 2 ranks hastati then a gap between the figueres 10mm+10mm or so of empty bases then 2 ranks of pricipes followed by another 10mm to 15mm or so gap to the triarii all mounted on 40x 20mm and easily deployed from the shelf to the wargame table in a suitable tray.

A maniple was closer to 100 men made up of two centuries of around 50-60. One of the problems of showing the manipular fighting system is that we really don't know how it worked. By showing it your force yourself to choose the mechanics of how the lines exchanged. By not showing it directly but abstractly representing the line exchange you get around this problem.

I have been wrestling with this for decades! Like you lbspersqin, I felt that there should be a way of using a Legion base/tray and treat the Legion as the unit (especially in 6mil) but still representing the idea of line relief and the flexibility of the manipular system.
My Legio VI rules, specifically designed for 6mm figures, do this. The legion is represented by a single unit of up to 12 stands. Each Legion must be deployed in three lines (Hastati, Principes and Triarii) with a gap between each line. These lines may relieve each other providing fresh troops in combat and helping to reduce fatigue and disorder. The entire Legion moves and fights as a single entity. However it is possible to detach a line of a Legion and move it as a separate unit. Legio VI is available as a free download at link
I am currently revising Civitates Bellantes rules which can be used for all scales of figures. (an older version is still available on my website link These are the adaptation of Comitatus for the earlier period and I hope to release them in print later this year. Here I have gone a step further and use a different looser basing system for the manipular legion. The photos below show two 6mm legions deployed and the move trays they are based on. I agree with earlier posts that representing single maniples is not practical, but spacing the bases apart and off-setting them does give the right look and feel.

and here is the move tray (I use magnetic bases and steel tray painted and flocked. I find the addition of extra officers and supernumeraries adds to the visual effect

And here are two legions in 28mil similarly deployed

Simon

Hadn't seen your 6mms, Simon. A great idea to have them all based on one stand!

Cheers, Simon

Tarantella is correct of course. A century was 60 men and a maniple 120. However, I think my argument stands. A legion fought in lines and they are what needs to be represented.

Thanks everyone for your suggestions. I must say, I like the look of your system Mr MacDowall, I will probably use that or something similar. Also another question, do we know how the allied legions would have appeared? It seems essential that they would have been armed in standard Roman fashion, but would they have used native armour and clothing styles? And from which parts of Italy would they have been raised? I have seen Aventine's take on them and it seems reasonable, but I'd like to hear any other thoughts.

As far as the allied legions go it depends on the time. Probably by the time of the Punic and Macedonian wars there would have been little of no difference between Romans and most of the allies. That said, I personally like to give my Italian allies a different appearance.
This photo shows my 4 legions (28 mil) deployed. The two in the centre are Roman citizens and the two flanking are allies.

I think of the allied legion on the far left as 'Latins' and therefore very little difference from the Romans (other than they mostly come from a different figure manufacturer.
The legion on the right of the picture, however, has round shields and is much more 'italian' in appearance. I think of them as more recent converts to the Roman style of fighting. This is probably not entirely historical as it is more likely that allied legions would have had the oval sputum, however, I like the way they look and I think having a visual difference can only be a good thing.
Some Italian allies would have kept their more traditional style of fighting right through to the Macedonian wars. That is to say in independent cohorts armed with javelins such as the unit below.

Simon

I got my left and right mixed up. The round shields are of course on the left of the picture, right of the line. But then you probably had that already worked out!

Simon,thank you for sharing both your figures and your rules. I have always liked your site

Thanks!

Thanks again all!