"How do you represent your manipular legion(s)?" Topic

I have my 15mm groupings of Hastati and Principes in 16 man units. Up till now I've been using them as 2 rows of 8. I recently saw a game, where someone had their units as 1 row of 16.

So I was wondering, how do you represent your units. 2x8? Or 1x16? Or other ways?

Thanks

I have my 15mm groupings of Hastati and Principes in 16 man units. Up till now I've been using them as 2 rows of 8. I recently saw a game, where someone had their units as 1 row of 16.

So I was wondering, how do you represent your units. 2x8? Or 1x16? Or other ways?

Thanks

Depends on your figure scale and your ground scale.

I have always wondered why rules and lists apply restrictions on Roman armies that are applied to no other army over a period of 4000 years or so. We don't know how the Manipular legion worked at the tactical level so why do you need to depict it at the tactical level? In most rules, reserves (triarii) are irrelevant since you lose when a proportion of your army is lost – and it doesn't matter which troops. There is no "It's down to the Triarii!"
The legion should be depicted as a single unit, perhaps with higher resilience than other heavy infantry and different troop types depicted just for aesthetics.

What rules?

I guess what I was meaning to some extent was what do people prefer with regard to the look of their units.

I've represented my units as 2x8 hastati, with 2x8 principes and 1x8 triarii behind them.

Clearly the width of the unit does make a difference.

I've played Hail Caesar, to the strongest and right now I'm going to try a mish mash of a few sets of rules, with my own modifications.

Check the new "quincunx" formation rules for To the Strongest at Big Red Bat. They seem very intriguing. I have not tried them yet, but will soon. These rules allow for the principes to relieve the hastati and the triarii to relieve the principes. We do not know exactly how this worked but relief of the various lines in battle appeared to have given the Romans the advantage in the Punic Wars period.

In Hail Caesar, my Hastati/Principes are represented as 4x2 units while a standard sized unit is 8x2. The small size gives a significant maneuver benefit, allowing the Roman player to focus their power in small areas of the battle.

I've seen (but not yet played) the "quincunx" for TTS. It turns the Republic Legion into a single big block. Seems to take some of the fun out of it.

Age of Hannibal has standard sized bases for all units. The rules allow for Principes to automatically replace Hastati from the second row. Simple, effective.

This is from an old game of TtS! at Partizan in Kelham Hall (hence the Stygian gloom). Back then we used 16 hastati as a unit, 16 principes, and 8 Triarii, so there were three units in the line. It wasn't a bad system, but I do think the new quincunx arrangement is better- the Roman line is much more resilient than under the old system.

PS the quincunx rule is in the Polybian army list in the free army list book at link

For FOG I base my H&P combined as 2 rows of 6 with the Triarii as 2x3 behind them. My "rationale," such as it is, is the tactical activity of the H&P is below my level to worry about so it occurs within the combined block. I know FOG is supposed to be 4 figures per base but I use 3 as with modern large mini's I think 4 is just too crowded.

I just did multiple DBA armies with a ratio of 2 hastati to 2 princeps to 1 triarii element.

Depending on the rules I arrange the how I want. In CnC Ancients the triarii are usually represented as separate elements to the rear of the main line anyway.

Thanks for all your responses