Slitherine

G'day all,

I'm new here and to FoG. I have yet to play a game but have read the rules quite extensively that like what I see! I usually take the approach of having two opposing armies when I start out so I can introduce others to the game. To start with I have chosen the Mid-Republican Roman and Late Carthage starter armies from Rise of Rome. Next year I hope to do Troy using swifter than eagles lists, but that is another story!

My first question is related to the Hastati & Principes Battle Groups (BG) and relates to the composition and type of armour. Modeling wise, is it intended that within each BG the front rank be Hastati and the rear be Principes or that each BG is made up of all Hastati and all Principes? Gaming wise, If the former option is taken, which armour value do you use in combat, Armoured or Protected? I haven't been able to find rules for mixed Battle groups in the book so how is this dealt with?

My second question was about the Late Carthaginian starter army's African spearmen. In the starter list they are listed as "protected", does this mean that they represent citizen levy? If so, what kinda of armour etc should I model them with?

Thankyou for your time and help.

Cheers,

Sergio

Airborne wrote:G'day all,

I'm new here and to FoG. I have yet to play a game but have read the rules quite extensively that like what I see! I usually take the approach of having two opposing armies when I start out so I can introduce others to the game. To start with I have chosen the Mid-Republican Roman and Late Carthage starter armies from Rise of Rome. Next year I hope to do Troy using swifter than eagles lists, but that is another story!

My first question is related to the Hastati & Principes Battle Groups (BG) and relates to the composition and type of armour. Modeling wise, is it intended that within each BG the front rank be Hastati and the rear be Principes or that each BG is made up of all Hastati and all Principes? Gaming wise, If the former option is taken, which armour value do you use in combat, Armoured or Protected? I haven't been able to find rules for mixed Battle groups in the book so how is this dealt with?

My second question was about the Late Carthaginian starter army's African spearmen. In the starter list they are listed as "protected", does this mean that they represent citizen levy? If so, what kinda of armour etc should I model them with?

Thankyou for your time and help.

Cheers,

Sergio

The armor class within a BG must all be the same. You may buy separate groups as armoured or protected but all the stands within a group must be the same. The scale which the rules represent do not treat the Hastati and Principes as distinct entities so it's probably simplest to think of each BG as including both but you should feel free to use all Hastati figures for one BG and all Principes for the second if that provides a better visual effect.

The protected African Spearmen in the Carthaginian list are the same troops classed as Libyan spearmen in other descriptions of Hannibal's army. They should probably be equipped similar to later Greek hoplites in a linen cuirass or in a canvas or leather spolas along with a large round shield to count as protected.

Chris

Thanks Chris.

Some of the armour ratings are confusing. Especially for Mid-republican romans. I still am not 100% on which to use. Armoured, purely from a gaming perspective seems best...It's the hastati that are the issue. From what I can gather, early in the rebuplic Hastati and Principes where armed alike with Maile armour being introduced more to the Principes as you get closer to the mid-late republic with later republic legionaries being armed all in the same fashion. So I supose Protected for early mid-republic and armoured for mid-late republic...Still is confusing as to which models to use and where. At this scale, as you say, it does not seem right to have hastati BGs and Principes BGs each with protected and armoured rating respectively... or is that how it is intended? If not, why the option? I'm probably confusing myself over something that is rather simple, but there you go..we live and learn.

That really helps, re african spearmen! Any idea what happened to the citizen levy in the armylist? I know several manufacturers who include such in their ranges but I see no option for them.

Sergio.

For what it's worth I have a front row of hastati (with the traditional bronze pectoral) and a back row of principes (in mail) to represent my midrepublican BGs - as stated above, the scale of the game essentially means a number of maniples are represented by a BG (so the visual effect of the 2 lines doesn't have an overall impact on the way the BG fights, but gives an impression of 2 slightly different troop types). In a way I guess the decision between protected & armoured is to give you the option for more troops on table vs fewer more effective; you could bias "earlier" MRR armies towards protected as you suggest but certainly by the 2nd punic war era I understand that the triarii & at least a large proportion of principes had mail. Earlier roman armies than this are said to be covered in the Missing Scrolls lists due next year and will I understand include the "Camillan" and "Tullian" DBA/M eras.

Airborne wrote:Thanks Chris.
...

That really helps, re african spearmen! Any idea what happened to the citizen levy in the armylist? I know several manufacturers who include such in their ranges but I see no option for them.

Sergio.

In the period covered by the Early Carthaginian list, Citizen Spearmen were used in overseas campaigns in Sicily at least. For the period covered by the later list, I believe that Citizen levies are only mentioned as used in battles in North Africa, specifically at Zama but possibly elsewhere but not in campaigns not fought on north African soil. I don't have my Rise of Rome here so don't know if there are any specific troop options for the Later Carthaginian list for Zama or more generally for the campaign against Scipio Africanus in North Africa. That would be where citizen levy would be likely to appear. (It could be that the authors considered that they would be equivalent troops to the other protected African spearmen so did not call them out as a separate line on the troop list although my impression in general is that they might well be inferior in morale and training ,if not equipment, to the normal African Spearmen.

Chris

There are Poeni foot (MF, Avg, Prot, Drill, Lt Spear/Sw) in the list 0-8 and Poeni or other emergency levies (same except Poor) 0-40 available.

I have seen this discussion at least a couple of times before, in the French forum too. And I guess the reason why it emerges is because people interested in history don't share the authors view (mixing hastati and principes in the same battlegroup). It is a design decission which I personally do not like much, as the idea that legions BG cannot interpenetrate each other as it happened historically, specially hastati and principes being able of getting through their troops to retreat, leaving the expression "inde ad triarios redisse" ((the battle) "even came to the triarii").

I would recommend you to base hastati and principes separately (since there are another game systems that take into account the differences). If you want to play the difference between hastati and triarii you should mix two legions to do it according to the rules.

Regarding Carthaginians, as it has been said, Poeni foot and emergency levies are the men you are looking for and you should not see them in oversea campagins.

By the way, I remembered this discussion we had regarding the equipment of Roman legions. It can be helpful:

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