"wargaming rules that represents Republican Romans" Topic

Going to start a 28mm Republican army soon so need a good set of rules that represents the way Republican Romans fought e.i 3 ranks.

I´m a convert to WAB 1.5

My To the Strongest! rules do; there's a free Polybian supplement here:

link

Simon MacDowall's Legio rules do a good job, too.

I wrote my own house rules when I found out that FOG wouldn't or couldn't handle the interaction between the three lines. To an extent, I think the fact that they deployed in supporting checker board squares baffles some when trying to accurately represent this tactic. I simply allow them to deploy in line and allow them to pass through each other without morale penalty or disruption and impose a pretty strict penalties on all others. Also allowing a morale modifier when troops are supported by "better" troops is another mechanism.

Rather than slug in out with successive supporting lines of Romans like Pyrrhus did (who was in some ways just copying Alexander's strong right side line/hammer and anvil tactic), Hannibal employed the double envelopment tactic.

WAB, using the Hannibal and the Punic Wars supplement.

Impetus allows for this. The specific rule(s) and example(s)are found in Extra Impetus 4, along with the army lists for the Republican Army, Carthaginians, and others.

While I love Impetus I don't think these rules do well in representing Punic War Roman tactics. In fact, I've never really come across a set that does Republican Romans well. I am not convinced by To The Strongest either. Haven't played them but I have read with great curiosity BigRedBat's battle reports using these rules. I don't agree with his representing Roman battle lines with what I consider company level tactics (manipular tactics.) Romans advanced in large legion lines and rules that attempt to represent grand tactical battles should represent Roman lines in something above manipular tactics in my opinion.

Been playing 28mm Clash of Empires (COE) for several years with no problems for the Republicans.

Link to different COE games and their AAR's: link

Lost Battles does a decent job of simulating how Republican Roman armies functioned (among other things), but it is focussed on entire battles and pretty high level.

But yes, there are good reasons to deploy in depth and commit troops successively.

Second the Clash of Empires. It's close to Allen Curtis' WAB supplement, but there is hierarchy that realistically keeps the hastati (once retired) from replacing Prinicpes (unless they rearrange again); in WAB they can just keep switching back and forth, which is great for the player but not historical. In CoE Manipular units get to automatically go through each other when doing a tactical withdrawal, unlike other units.

Pulse of Battle by Brent Oman allows Romans to freely interpenetrate each other. Other armies cannot do this so Romans do have a nice tweak that is simple yet works quite well Unless of course, you are me and it's the Trebbia. I got stomped by my buddy Ed in our last Punic War game using Pulse of Battle.

Another vote for the WAB Hannibal and the Punic War supplement.

Yes as John said POB handles this simply and elegantly.

For 28mm figures my Civitates Bellantes rules are set up to represent the Roman multi-line formation
link

Simon

Scutarii also has rules that represent the multiple line formation of the Republican Armies link

Battle of Asculum
link

Did the romans really fight so much different then other adversaries?
I suppose they fought in lines as other did but were good at changing 1st and 2nd line better/quicker etc then their ennemies.
Imho no zipping across the field with small single centurios or manipels which you so see often in rules

@Brownbear: ROman citizens subjected themselves to a draft (the dilectus)and very intense training to do these small unit tactics. If they failed to show then their property could be confiscated, as has been told in several sources in later wars when the citizenry was not so enthused with fighting.

I wouldn't say "zipping" across the battlefield. The maniples go in vertical lines toward the enemy, though there is no ancient source that says exactly how this was done. It is commonly surmised that the rear century of the maniple would come around front to link up with the forward century to form a solid battleline. When retreating many simulations show the centuries reversing this so that the 2nd line maniple (principes) could maneuver around them to form the next line. It would all take lots of practice to coordinate this in battlefield conditions, but it has been noted that fighting a battle is not always solid fighting and that there are lulls in which this could be done more easily. Again, the specifics are theory, and there are alternative explanations on how they achieved the same ends.

I think that we know more about the Roman way of fight than about the way other armies fought.

We want to have in the ruleset what we know about our armies.

Ancient sources tell us a lot about Romans and Greeks, but not so much about, let´s say Gallic armies, so we are comfortable with the ususal "warband rules" for the Gallics but we want our manipular legions do everything we´ve read in the books.

The only miniature battlefields I've seen with a recognizable quincunx pattern were Scutarii (sic), Tactica, and a set of homebrew rules I played once at a convention. Scutarii and Tactica had sufficient rules built in to enforce/encourage operation in the classic 3 lines of Polybian history. (The homebrew rules didn't, but the GM and I both did. )

Of the other rules I've played or examined, there doesn't seem to be much to enforce or even encourage operating Roman infantry in multiple lines. The DBx systems have even tended to encourage the opposite, prompting me to experiment with house rules.

I would be interested to know how L'Art de la Guerre deals with early- and mid-Republican Romans. Any comments from the peanut gallery?

While in theory I agree with Marcus Brutus that manipular tactics below the level of legion-sized lines may be inappropriate in grand tactical rules, it's harder to make that same argument about cohorts in the later Republican period, which after all were a next-stage development of maniples, and in any case I really appreciate seeing maniples on the table, because the visual aesthetics are an important part of miniature gaming to me. The final battle in the theatrical re-release of Kubrick's Spartacus was the catalyst that got me into miniature gaming, and that kind of physical pageantry is what keeps me coming back to it. I never liked playing Tactica much, but I loved looking at the Pyrrhic battles on the table.

- Ix

"Haven't played them but I have read with great curiosity BigRedBat's battle reports using these rules. I don't agree with his representing Roman battle lines with what I consider company level tactics (manipular tactics.)"

I don't represent maniples, exactly; each unit represents around 600 men so is rather larger than a maniple. Sometimes I split up the elements so that they look like maniples (as in the below photo of part of a game), but this doesn't affect play, it's purely for visual effect.

BTW those are my mate Ian's 15mm Donningtons, true veterans.

That is a lot of red….

Very impressive. Any wide-angle shots?

- Ix

Alas no. We subsequenty played a very much larger 28mm game using TtS! but the photos aren't the best; still it gives an impression of what we were up to.

More on t'blog link

Personally I've always favored interpretations of manipular tactics that show a solid front line. An open flank was clearly a deadly liability in ancient combat, and I have a hard time believing the Romans would deliberately make 18 more flanks along the frontage of each legion. Depictions of maniples in contact with enemy front lines with maniple-wide gaps between them disturb my suspension of disbelief.

I also don't like depictions that show triarii as isolated little packets of men too far apart to form a line. This is usually an artifact of rules that interpret a "unit" as "X number of men", leading to half as many triarii "units" as hastati units or principes units. However, this also leads to triarii being used in totally anachronistic ways, because they can't form a continuous line and are too widely separated for mutual support if deployed with even spacing. While we are told that there were half as many triarii as principes or hastati, I'm pretty sure the triarii must have also expected to fight in a continuous line, for the same reasons I state above (gaps bad!). I prefer to think of triarii maniples as understrength units with fewer ranks rather than fewer files, making up the quantitative difference with long arms (spears), extra combat experience (veterans), and help from retiring hastati and principes (and possibly even velites and dismounted equites). This should probably mean a number of triarii maniples equal to the number of hastati maniples and principes maniples, with each triarii "unit" half as deep (like in BigRedBat's very red photo above).

- Ix

Nice game Simon – I had forgotten Macedonians won at Pydna!

We usually play Hail Caesar. This allows drilled troops to interpenetrate other drilled troops – so princeps can charge through hastati for instance. Broken hastati do not count towards your break total.

I still have cold shivers remembering a game when velites pushed back my pike phalanx!

Garry

We did like the WAB system and felt it worked well for Romans.

For what it's worth, I have never consider that a Roman legion fought with anything other than solid lines. Perhaps a small gap between the cohorts, but certainly not a gap equal to the frontage of a cohort while engaged with the enemy.

To my mind, the legion deployed with it's cohorts massed in three lines, in the classic "checkerboard" formation. This was to ensure ease of movement during deployment and while advancing, maneuvering, etc.

However, once the legion reached it's place in the line, the first line would "undouble" (for lack of a better word) and be in line of battle, with the other two "lines" being kept in what amounts to a column formation.

When the first line needed to be relieved, it "doubled up" and retired, with the relief units marching up through the (now) gaps, and then "undoubling" into line of battle.

That's how I had envisioned things, anyway. It keeps the cohorts in what amounted to a column formation for ease of maneuver and then the first line deployed into the battle line almost to touching with the cohorts to either side. Makes sense to me. I have no historical data to back this up, but for whatever reason it's how I had always seen this system working.

I don't represent maniples, exactly; each unit represents around 600 men so is rather larger than a maniple.

It sure looks like maniples on the table top even if the intent is different. Why the gaps between the units? Once deployed the Hastati or Principes surely advanced as one solid line without gaps.

It is unfortunate that we do not have a more detailed description of how the manipular legion exchanged lines and what they did when they engaged the enemy in hand to hand combat.
Polybius III.113 describes the Roman deployment at Cannae as follows:
"The Roman horse he stationed on the right wing along the river, and their foot next them in the same line, placing the maniples, however, closer together than usual, and making the depth of each maniple several times greater than its front."
This implies that the lines were deployed with gaps between the maniples, with the gaps being narrower than usual at Cannae. As Ix stated they may have moved the rear half of the maniple up to create a continuous line, but would still need gaps for the front line to withdraw and be replaced by the following line Tkindred mentioned.

The distance from the front to back of a formation in 8 ranks is about 10 paces. If the second line is deployed at the back edge of the first line with the maniples od the following line covering the gap between the front maniples that short a distance would tend to discourage any opposing force from trying to move into the gap, assuming that there actually is any gap when the front line engages.

The later cohort legion of Julius Caesar's time also deployed in three lines, which both sides did at Pharsalus. The account of that battle also notes that Caesar had fresh troops from his third line which engaged the worn out troops of Pompey's army towards the end of the battle which would also tend to indicate that the following lines would relieve the forward lines of the cohort legion as they tired in a similar manner as the manipular legion did.

While the expansion and contraction of each line could be done with enough figures, the rules for the legions in Scutarii were written so that it is not necessary to do so and to reflect that the gaps between the units were either not present when the opposing forces engaged or were covered by the following line (your choice of interpretation as to the actual mechanics). The rules encourage the use of three lines, but do not prevent players from doing otherwise. However, I did observe one game where one player, who was used to rules that did not encourage the use of reserves/fresh lines, moved the second line of units into the gaps in the front line only to have his command rout when he had no fresh units to replace the worn out ones.

There is a video on Youtube(?) that shows Korean riot police performing the doubling and un-doubling of ranks that the manipular legion may have used.

Why can't you interpret Polibyus saying that the lines were closer together instead of gaps between manipels?

I agree with Tim and lx,

The quinqunx was not a proper battle array – the proper manner for engaging an enemy was a linear one.

The change from the manipular to the cohortal system was a rationalisation, it made the legion`s evolution (its deployment) to a linear battle array easier. These same has been said of the French re-organisation of 1808, in which the reduction of the number of companies made the battalion easier to command and control.

The French military experience gives us a parallel here, in that they frequently used the quincunx or checkerboard array as a means of executing a passage of lines. Shortly afterwards, the Prussian regulations of 1812 imitate this in their prescribed brigade battle arrays, but always this is a means to replacing lines and renewing battle. And… the use of column for shock was the last stage in the development of battle which would begin with skirmishing.

Rules for this period should have lines as a manoeuvre element (and they should therefore be commanded), unless of course a CinC is able to detach legions or cohorts to achieve minor battlefield objectives.

I would imagine that early Republican Romans fighting a pike phalanx could divide into as many small units as they wished, because the pike phalanx needed to maintain a continuous line and consequently couldn't exploit the gaps between the maniples. This flexible, informal structure would explain how they were able to retire in the face of the advancing phalanx at Pydna and Cynoskephalae, without breaking as one might expect they would if they were in a continuous line.

I did think the same thing BigRed… Flanks may only be vulnerable if the enemy has some manoeuvrability to exploit it.
But at Cynoscephalae it may have been the reserve; the Triarii (making up the quoted 20 maniples) that was led across the rear of Phillip`s right wing?

I`ve a feeling that in the interaction between pikemen and swordsmen, the swords were quite literally pushed back and unable to close …and so therefore, better able to retire.

Mi HCH, yes indeed. I'm thinking of the Roman left that was pushed back by the phalanx but that didn't break. The manipular system seemed to have an elasticity that enabled it to survive the initial shock of the phalanx. Eventually the ground or casualties (or Roman tactical flexibility as at Cynoskephalae) would disorder the phalanx so that they could break into it and destroy it.

Hi Duc,

Polybius is describing the Roman deployment from its right to its left. He is also describing the deployment of the maniples and not the lines. With the maniples deployed in greater depth than normal they take up less frontage. The entire passage can be found at
link

Livy (Ab urbe condita, 8.8) description of the change from hoplite tactics to the manipular legion specifically states that the maniples deployed with a gap between them
"…what had before been a phalanx, like the Macedonian phalanxes, came afterwards to be a line of battle formed by maniples, with the rearmost troops drawn up in a number of companies. The first line, or hastati, comprised fifteen maniples, stationed a short distance apart" Livy's description has more maniples per line than the later manipular legion and also mentions additional classes of soldiers that do not appear in the later version.

duplicate posting

I think we`ve all seen games of Cannae photographed at conventions and they never seem to be able to handle the massive concentration of Roman troops on that day.

I`m not sure what the original Polybius is saying, but the translation has it that the maniples had depths several times their width. So what`s that, 5x16 men – a "half maniple" width ?

Maybe we need to get a better idea by looking at the forces directly opposed to the Romans – namely the Spanish and Celtic foot? For Hannibal`s tactic to work, these need to be equal to the frontage of the Roman legions.

I`ve always thought that the Romans needed to have been arrayed in two lines of legions – and well, might the allies have been following in support rather than arrayed on the flanks ?

Anyways, anyone care to do the maths for the above – given say, 10,000 Celts and 6,000 Spanish ?

Hi Michael,

I did calculate the frontages a while back. Polybius (III.112) gives Hannibal 40,000 infantry. Of these 8000 are African heavy infantry and 8000 are light infantry leaving about 24000 for the Gauls and Spanish. At a depth of 8 men this would be about 3000 yards if all are deployed in a single crescent shaped line of units.

If the Maniples doubled their depth and deployed closet to each other than normal then the 16 legions would occupy the same frontage as 8 legions at normal depth. If the maniples deploy 16 deep the frontage would be about 150 yards per legion or 2400 yards for 16 legions. This assumes an initial deployment with gaps between the maniples in each line covered by the maniples in the following line. At a depth of 12 men per maniple the frontage increases to 3200 yards.

The first depth allows the Spanish and Gauls to either overlap the legions or have some units in reserve. The second would require the Gauls and Spanish to eith leave some space between units to match the Romans or to deploy at slightly less than 8 men in order to match the Roman frontage.

Yeah William,
I`d say that 24,000 for Celts & Spanish lights & heavies is about right. So, is that with each maniple forming a column of 5x32 men ? Actually, I think I should have susggested a "half century" column! …and this would most certainly not have been a formation that the legions were accustomed to fighting in !

For 8 wide by 15 deep per maniple that would be 2560 yards wide for 16 legions side by side. 10 wide by 12 deep is the 3200 yard frontage. Definitely not the formation they were used to fighting in and probably would have caused problems trying to execute their normal drill and tactics.

YouTube films of Korean police using cohort-like tactics:

This one looks coreographed (drill field practice): YouTube link

This one doesn't: YouTube link

- Ix

Yeah – the second is quite real… but the obvious difference from the first (which is a drill) is the lack of any fancy manoeuvring.

All that you might see as a parallel with Roman tactics is the use of the shield as a weapon – thrusting at the enemy with the bottom of the shield.

Tkindred, I think you're exactly right. For wargaming aesthetics, I made "mini" movement trays for my maniples, two 2x4 centuries so that they set up in checkerboard and then the front line pulls an expansion to 2x8 just before contact with the enemy. See 5th picture down

mikeopolis.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-battle-of-heraclea.html

Though this kinda sucks when they blow past my hastati and charge into the principes who are in a collapsed position.

Yup. There ya go, Mars.

Every military has known that a column does 2 things. First, it creates a mass effect that helps to comfort the troops and give some self-assurance that they are all in this together. Sort of a herd mentality, if you will.

Second, it gives the commander an easy way to move a mass of troops from one place to another with a very good chance of them all arriving together and at the same time.

These two points are especially useful when dealing with raw or green troops, troops with a minimum of drill. Yet, they also work even better for VERY well drilled troops.

Whenever battle is threatened, or the troops arrive at the desired point, the front centuries swing out into line, a voila! a strong, reinforced position, with defense in depth if needed, or reserves ready to move to where they are needed quickly.

By the way, I very much like your work. Lovely minis all round. Thanks for those pictures.

Those Korean videos are quite interesting.

All that you might see as a parallel with Roman tactics is the use of the shield as a weapon – thrusting at the enemy with the bottom of the shield.

I can spot a few more things:

• deployment in depth (several ranks)
  
• maintenance of spacing
  
• practice operating in this formation – after clumping up, spreading out or shifting around, they resume a line in multiple ranks

The "real" riot didn't exhibit nearly as much discipline and coordination as the drill field, but you can see they are familiar with the operating principles.

- Ix

Roman manipular tactics is always fascinating. I found this article useful and interesting: academia.edu/1602947/Roman_Infantry_Tactics_in_the_Mid-Republic_A_Reassessment

Thanks for that link. I love reading analyses like this. That was very well researched and written.

- Ix

I`m not convinced by his idea that the Roman sword was primarily a slashing weapon.
I`m not saying that the Roman sword was useless when used to "slash" – but it`s primary use was a thrust; it`s what the pointy bit is for !

Later Roman sword points were shortened and therefore strengthened.

I`m also confused by the maths… are the maniples deployed or are they formed with one century behind the other?
It makes a big difference.

Even if you ignore intervals, the Romans would be arraying (and note that I`m not saying "deploying" here) more men on the same frontage as the Macedonians etc… not less than their opponents.

The missing element here is the "passage of lines" which would have worn down an enemy line …or at least, this manoeuvre would have sustained them longer in the fight.

I'm also unconvinced that a huge gap of more than a few meters is a tenable idea in ancient combat. Against a rigid opponent in phalanx or shieldwall (especially an unenthusiastic one) it might actually work, as the individual soldiers might be unwilling to break ranks to exploit a gap. Against an opponent like Samnites or Gauls or Spanish or really any sort of light troops with a loose formation and an individualistic fighting style, a big gap just creates two extra flanks to be attacked. I totally accept his argument that intervals between maniples had to be wide enough for manipular tactics to work properly, but I'm still not convinced they were still there by the point of contact with an army-wide line of enemy soldiers.

- Ix