Antesignani

[L.C.Cinna]

I have a question here for the EB members:

First of all I want to say that I love the mod. Best thing I've seen for ages, really. and the work and research you guys (and girls?) have made so far is simply astonishing.

Now to my question:

I already said that I know you guys did research a lot and especially because of that I'm a bit surprised by some things I've seen in the game concerning the Romani. I already wrote in the thread about possible improvements for Eb that I think several changes should be made to some Romani units (no braccae for Marian and Augustan legionaries, helmets of Antesignani, helmets and scuta of Evocati)

What I really wondered is, where you got the model for the Antesignani from? The term appears several times in ancient literature but it's so vague that it's impossible to know what they really are. Estimations vary from lightly armed legionaries for special duty to simply meaning the prior cohort in a maniple.

Besides the equipment you gave them is pretty unlikely. The helmet is about 150 years out of the timeframe for Marian troops, the musculata is very unlikely to appear among the lower ranks and actually seems to be the rarest of all kinds of Roman armour. The only soldier I know of who MIGHT be a member of the antesignani (really really vague MIGHT BE) is on a tombstone dating to the 1st century CE showing a legionary in "standard equipment" with a flat oval scutum and javelin.

So just out of curiosity, what did you base your antesignani on?

and sorry, don't want to sound picky or something. I'm really just curious because you usually put so much weight on historical accuracy (which I love).

[cunctator]

Most of our Roman units are rather old now and not up to our current standards, made a long time before the release of the first open beta (V. 0.72). We already have a lengthy list with things that have to be changed and we plan to rework many Roman units in future to fix such things, as anachronistic helmets and breeches but I don't know if we ever get the modeler and skinner time to do this for EB 1 or we have to wait for the new EB 2 units, since new units for more incomplete factions have priority.

The armour of the antesignani is(should be) a single breast plate and was choosen for this unit intentionally. I Don't have done this research but try to get an answer about the sources.