"Does the maniple system work in wargames?" Topic

Just wondering,
How well do you think we do Roman manipulator systems? I use War and Conquest for rules. My Roman legions are made up of the following (note in these rules you need to be in a rank of 6 to get a bonus):
• 2 units of 12 Hastati (2 rows of 6)
• 2 units of 12 Principes (2 rows of 6)
• 1 unit of Triarii (2 rows of 6)
• 1 unit of 12 skirmishers
So I end up with a legion of 60 figs (not counting skirm), but only a frontage of 12 (plus a gap). That's a deep formation. Throw in some skirmishers, and it seems like in most game systems, the Roman line will be overlapped on both flanks as in most miniature games I have seen there is seldom a second line of units.
Because I am a soloist (live in the mountains), many of my armies are built based upon the figures I have, what fun things are to paint and sometimes a heavy dose of "stand-ins." Here is a big bash I am planning:
My Carthaginian army:
2 Gaulish cavalry: 12 & 8
2 Spanish cavalry: 10 & 10
3 Numidiana cavalry: 6 each
4 elephants
2 Carthaginian vets: 20 & 18
1 Spanish: 24
2 Gauls: 24 & 18
Skirmishers: 6, 6, 12, 10 (last are Spanish)
Slingers: 8, 6

Romans: 1st Legion: as above
Romans: 2nd legion as above, but slightly less quality (meant to represent hastily raised)
Allies: 2 units of 24 spears, 12 skirmishers
Allies: 30 & 24 spears, 12 skirmishers
Roman/Italian cav: 2 x12
Allied cav: 10 & 8

Going to be weird but should be quite the spectacle.

It should be fun. I look forward to photos.

Long ago I tried using DBA to represent Roman manipular system at roughly the scale (number of miniatures) you're talking about, and also double and triple that. I was never happy with the results.

The only way I've ever seen Roman maniples look and feel about right in miniature was with each maniple a unit of 4 stands (or 2 stands of Triarii), marching up in 1x4 columns arranged in quincunx checkerboard, then deploying the front line for action into 2x2 stand units side-by-side. I saw this done with the original Tactica rules, and a set of home rules by Brian DeWitt, and it made for one helluva spectacle, but a very big game with a lot of figures. In 15mm, two legions plus allies and cavalry wings fills a large real-life table with only a little maneuver room (if any) on the flanks for the cavalry to wheel around in. Really big battles with more than 2 legions would probably need to be done in 6mm.

- Ix

I have doubts that anyone understands the maniple system.

Tactica II switched to depicting the Republican Legion as three single rank lines of 12, Hastati, Principi and Triari. They also add 16 velite skirmishers. The rules do not attempt to depict each maniple individually but rather to recreate the overall effects of line relief. My friend and I also do a variation with 16 Hastati, 16 Principi and 8 Triari. The main advantage of this method is you can wield multiple legions within a normal gaming area. The line relief rules are abstracted. While not recreating the actual mechanics of manipular movement they allow you to recreate battles involving four to six legions in an army without taking up an excessively large gaming area.

I think a big problem is that most in ancients game systems unit depth is far too deep, then games that give bonuses for additional ranks compound the issue.

To illustrate, your manipular legion has about 1200 hastati, 1200 principes and 600 triarii. The hastati and principes deploy 6 deep, and the triarii deploy 3 deep. All 3 lines are 200 men wide, so the ratio of frontage to depth is 33.3 to 1 for the hastati and principes, and 66.6 to 1 for the triarii.

In contrast, the 2 units of hastati in the original post have a width to depth ratio of 12 to 1, which is almost 3x the actual ratio.

In contrast, classical hoplites tended to deploy 8 deep and as wide as they could, while Macedonians would deploy about 16 deep. I don't know exactly how Gauls deployed, but probably not much more than 10 or 12 deep, and relatively loose compared to Romans and Hellenes.

I personally think the most accurate way to represent ancients is to avoid rank bonuses. Units with a depth of 6-10 are represented 1 figure deep ideally about 30 figs wide,10-20 represented two figs deep and do get a rank bonus. The manipular Romans have the choice of deploying all 3 lines ranked up and get a rank bonus, to represent staying power provided by line changes, or they deploy as single deep lines with a space between. (All of the above assumes 28 mm figs, if using smaller figs, adjust as needed)

Of course, the above suggestion doesn't look as cool as deeper units… which is probably why rules went the way they did…

I also love the way Tactica II handles it, as described above by DFLange.

You get the intuitive tactical feel of maniples being withdrawn and replaced without actually having to, well, actually withdraw and replace them.

It is a great game mechanism.

From my experience it seems to revolve around whether or not the players want to use it or even think about it during the game. I ran several large Hail Caesar games at a con with Seleucids vs. Republican Romans. In the first few games the maniple system/special rules were explained, but none of the Roman players used them. Once the action started they focused on killing things and ground their units down to the last man. One team, however, fought the hastati to the breaking point, withdrew them through the principes, then moved the triari up to support the second line while the hastati rallied. That team rolled over the Seleucids, so it can be done.

I have doubts that anyone understands the maniple system.

+1 Bill

But a few hundred figures in quincunx looks really cool on the table.

Age of Hannibal has a very simple system that nonetheless works extremely well. A legionary base with the Roman Drill ability that is forced to retreat in combat due to being demoralized can be automatically replaced by another, non-demoralized legionary base. This nicely represents the substitution of fresh troops for spent ones in the Roman manipular system, without diving into the minutia of precisely how it might have been accomplished in real life.

As Ix noted you would need a very large table to represent the maniples of a consular army properly. Otherwise a unit would have to represent multiple maniples if fielding a full consular army and representing an actual battle. Very little is actually known about how the system actually functioned in battle other than there was some sort of relief during combat. Rule systems also need to encourage the use of multiple lines for the Roman armies. Scutarii from Hoplite Research does that with each unit representing about four maniples. Romans on the right. Carthage on the left.

To expand on the Tactica 2 method of representing maniple relief, a Roman unit has three lines (hastati, princeps, triari), but the second and third lines can be deployed 4-8 inches or so behind each other, out of contact with the enemy.

At your option, you can move the 2nd or 3rd rank up to your 1st rank to immediately increase your fighting dice, or, you can let them hang back out of contact.

If they hang back, an opponent may be able to break the first line, but if he doesn't advance to break both the second and third lines, he doesn't get a victory point credit for the unit.

Does it show maniples scampering back and forth? No. Does it give the Roman units a distinct resiliency that simulates a fluid relief, while speeding play along? Yes.

…and williamb posted photographic proof of a third system I played with maniples on the table. I lost that battle, so I blame selective memory.

I've been looking to play with Roman armies in quincunx formations since I watched the re-release of Spartacus in the '90s. That final battle left a deep impression on my psyche. I'm automatically attracted to games featuring a big checkerboard of Romans, like a moth to a light.

It's also possible to make a manipular Roman army in To The Strongest look checkerboard, with the right aesthetic flourishes. There's no particular advantage to it, other than the special rules encouraging Roman legionaries to operate in 3 lines. We've usually played with just 3 lines and no real gaps.

- Ix

I am trying out the manipular system using the old WRG 6th edition rules. Units of 12 figures for hastati and principes, 6 for triarii and velites. The Romans, even in only 1.5 ranks, can win most combats, but if they lose (often when skirmishers pass through making the hastati receive a charge while standing still) then the large number of units means that the entire army can rout very rapidly. I am thinking of a rule change where only the first body of a cohort counts against the reaction test, thereafter the entire cohort counts as only one unit. A similar tweak is needed for the change of line from hastati to principes, with the principes charging the enemy at the same time as the hastati consolidate to 3-deep.

a few of points about Roman organisation and tactics…

1. Maniples continued in use as a minor tactical element well into the so-called cohortal system.
It is just that the larger organisation was changed.

2. I tend to think of maniples as column formations, but some think that the Romans were arrayed in ranks… anyways, most game bases tend to be rectangular and so in our games we end up with moving linear formations around the table.

3. Minor tactical options after Marius at least I think, were varied when one adds the order of troops (close, or open) to the mix… I think that centuries and maniples did more than just replace lines… there`s Caesar`s account of the battle of the Sabis River, when he ordered the maniples of a legion to open which could only have been accomplished by a manoeuvre of its centuries.

The maniple was a company level unit. In a grand tactical game it seems unnecessary to actually show the formation IMHO. Once the battle was joined the maniples would deploy and would move forward as one line. There is no reason that an Roman army would advance in the manner depicted in williamb's picture. Certainly the Hastati would be fully deployed going forward. Gaps are never a good thing in ancient combat. The question becomes is it worth depicting the maniples in game terms. Personally I don't think so. The rules should allow the lines to exchange but there is no reason to show the subunit characteristics.

William's pic pretty much illustrates my point. Deeper, but overlapped on both flanks.
Marcus makes an interesting point.

Hmmm.

Well, open and close order and minor tactical formation changes were thought to be of vital importance to even the highest of Roman commanders when they were carried out by the larger bodies of troops like cohorts…
Caesar`s words: "manipulos laxare iussit, quo facilius gladiis uti possent" (Caes. B Gall. 2.22.2–3)

In Regards to Marcus' comments this is a bit of an explanation as to why the legions are shown in the formation they are in the picture. The picture shows the deployment of the legions and not the changes made by the individual maniples during the battle. Each unit in the picture represents four maniples with the changes in formation covered by the rule mechanisms. The Roman army is two combined consular armies.

There have been some debates on the Society of Ancients forum as to the depth of the maniple when it is deployed and when it is engaged in combat and where the velites go after they have finished skirmishing.

There is also the greater depth and narrower frontage of the maniples at Cannae. If the depth of the files was doubled it would tend to indicate a six rank deep formation for 120 men under normal conditions, doubling to 12 at Cannae. If the Maniples normally deployed twelve ranks deep by ten files wide the doubled formation at Cannae would be five wide by twenty-four deep.

To form a solid line the maniple would then either halve the number of ranks or double the frontage per man if they maintain the same number of ranks. Since we game with figures on bases they either have to be left as mounted and the tactical changes covered within the rules or have different bases to reflect the difference between deployed and combat and during the exchange of lines.

Someone posted a video either on the miniature page or another forum some time back showing Korean riot police going through a drill with their formation expanding and contracting their frontage that the poster compared to the Roman maniples.

If a drill manual could be found amongst the scrolls from the library found at Pompeii it would help explain how the maniples acted in combat.