Newbie questions on RTW units

[Red Harvest]

The hastati carry pila, a fairly specific throwing spear with an iron head that bends or pivots after it strikes. This is considerbly different (and heavier) than the standard javelin. The thin shaft and head give it some armour penetrating capability beyond a simple javelin. The range is of course shorter for the pilum relative to the javelin. By the way, some spanish (celt/iberian) soldiers used the "soliferrum" which was a solid iron shaft like a very heavy javelin. The spanish had access to good iron, and they had excellent smiths, which made for high quality iron weapons. The soliferrum apparently was quite dangerous. This is not illustrated in the game visually, but the stats for the spanish "pila" units do reflect higher values if memory serves.

The early Republican armies were actually phalanx style, and changed to manipular style with swords and javelins sometime between 300 and 400 BCE as the result of defeats at the hands of tribes of Gauls and Samnites. "Hasta" might have been used for throwing spears, or regular thrusting spears that the forward ranks might have had at one time. (Going from memory alone here, but there is no real smoking gun, and lots of conjecture. The subject comes up at times.)

Peltasts were most commonly skirmishers with throwing spears (javelins.) They were successful in broken, mountainous, or woody terrain because they could harrass the phalanx with near impunity. Iphikrates apparently made his peltasts heavier with greaves and some quilted linen armour, so that they could actually engage in some melee when needed. Also his hoplites became lighter (with a longer thrusting spear than the traditional hoplite.) There is a fair bit of conjecture about what happened exactly, and specifically who made the next leap to a two handed pike. However, warfare in Greece was changing about this time and the end result was the Macedonian phalanx. Hypaspists are never well described, they were elite and seem to have carried out myriad roles. As such they are tough to classify.

One thing that is sorely missing from the game is the combination of one or two throwing spears with a thrusting spear. This was a rather common armanent for rank and file troops in various "barbarian" forces.

The starting position in Sicily is probably a compromise to get the Scipii going. The Romans didn't actually take Messana until a few years later, which is what prompted the war with Carthage.

I'm going totally from memory on this...so don't be surprised if something is a bit off.

[Krautman]

Well, thank you all for the helpful replies!