Slitherine

Another possibility that I have thought about in the past is to allow both players to choose armies with more points (say an extra 50...or perhaps up to 100 if you really want to bend the lists), but allow each of them to leave some of the selected troops off table (if justification is needed : armies often detached forces to garrison nearby towns, guard their communications routes etc.)

Obviously you wouldn't have to actually have painted figures for the troops "left off table"

I still don't see how forcing what would otherwise presumably be an army of pikes and elephants and not much else to have 2 cavalry BGs is so terribly "unbalancing", but then again I would always have at least 2 cavalry BGs in any of the Macedonian/Successor lists I play. Each to their own I suppose.

The list writers (I helped with Blood and Gold) did not have a fixed ratio of men to bases in mind. Instead, the approach was (amongst other guidelines):

- make sure we are happy that the army numbered at least 5,000.
- work out the troops that always seem to be present (compulsory) and those which were not (optional)
- complusory minimas or troops should be about 250, maxima should be able to stretch to 1100, 1200 or so. Excluding generals.
- don't let minority troop types be fielded in greater proportions that seems historically justified

So it is nonsensical to talk about a troop to base ratio. There isn't one. The focus was far more on proportions.

Unfortunately, that does mean that reanactments of particular battles will need to make some assumptions to translate numbers of troops into bases.