Mid-Republican Legion proportions
Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2009 4:24 pm
Fortunately, despite the recent data loss, we are able to repost this item, thanks to Mark Sieber saving it - many thanks Mark.
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Each legion must be organised in the proportions specified. However, the two examples in the book are not the only way that a legion could be so organised. (The "must" only applies to the overall proportions within a legion).
For example, if you wanted to represent a legion as 20 bases of HF (this being not far off standard representational scale), it could be organised 8:8/4 as per the example in the book, or it could be 4:4:4:4/2:2 or 4:4:4:4/4 (which wouldn't work for rear support) or even 4:8:4/2:2 (which would) or 6:6:4/4 (which wouldn't).
You can't have a legion represented as 6:6/3 because a BG of 3 triarii is not legal.
You can't have one legion as 6:6/2 and another as 6:6/4 because the proportions of triarii to hastati & principes must be correct within each legion, not just in the whole army.
However, if you played on a representational scale of about 125 men per base, you could have a legion organised 6:6:6:6/2:2:2 or 6:6:6:6/4:2. (But not 6:6:6:6/6 because triarii must be in BGs of 2-4 bases).
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Each legion must be organised in the proportions specified. However, the two examples in the book are not the only way that a legion could be so organised. (The "must" only applies to the overall proportions within a legion).
For example, if you wanted to represent a legion as 20 bases of HF (this being not far off standard representational scale), it could be organised 8:8/4 as per the example in the book, or it could be 4:4:4:4/2:2 or 4:4:4:4/4 (which wouldn't work for rear support) or even 4:8:4/2:2 (which would) or 6:6:4/4 (which wouldn't).
You can't have a legion represented as 6:6/3 because a BG of 3 triarii is not legal.
You can't have one legion as 6:6/2 and another as 6:6/4 because the proportions of triarii to hastati & principes must be correct within each legion, not just in the whole army.
However, if you played on a representational scale of about 125 men per base, you could have a legion organised 6:6:6:6/2:2:2 or 6:6:6:6/4:2. (But not 6:6:6:6/6 because triarii must be in BGs of 2-4 bases).