Realistic Roman Armies...

[Dayve]

Given the limitation of only being allowed 20 units in a 'stack'... What would be the most realistic units to fill up that 'stack' with... What different kinds of infantry and cavalry and importantly how many of this and that? I mean for all of the Roman era's not just early...

Oh and also... What kind of auxilia troops can Rome recruit when they conquer smelly barbarian land? Just plain old lightly armed spearmen or something?

[Narakir]

I would say 3-4 units of each type (velite/roari, hastatis, princeps, triaris) plus the general and 1-2 unit of equites, the general and the rest will be for auxillias. For post marian 9-12 cohorts of legionaries and the rest for auxillias. So you have your main core of legionaries.

[Kralizec]

This looks like a good online source on the Roman army.

If I got this right, there are roughly 3 times as much hastati as velites. As much principes as hastati. And about half as much triarii as hastati, as their maniples were only half in size. In other words...err, numbers...

2 velites
6 hastati
6 principes
3 triarii

That's without counting the equites or the allied soldiers, mind you.

[Dayve]

So does anybody know what kind of allied soldiers we will be able to recruit exactly or is it a surprise?

[vizigothe]

Suprises are the best!

[Reenk Roink]

There was an allied Italic cavalry unit revealed in the "Guess What Faction" thread .

[Ranika]

It is a surprise, but it should be sufficient that we have not short-changed Roman auxilia; we really want a much more vibrant auxiliary system than training generic 'auxiliary spearmen' and such; Romans will benefit from various native populations. I should hope you'd expect no less of EB.

[Reenk Roink]

It is a surprise, but it should be sufficient that we have not short-changed Roman auxilia; we really want a much more vibrant auxiliary system than training generic 'auxiliary spearmen' and such; Romans will benefit from various native populations. I should hope you'd expect no less of EB.

Yay!!

[Cheexsta]

Still on the topic of Roman armies, I believe they used a 2:2:2:1 numerical ratio for their core troops (Hastati:Principes:Velites:Triarii), with roughly equal numbers of allied/auxillary/mercenary troops to cover the flanks. So, in game terms, this could be 2 Hastati, 2 Principes, 2 Velites (or Roman Slingers, I forget the EB name for them), 1 Triarii and 7 Auxillia. These would be led by a general (usually >30 years of age) and with a cavalry wing led by a younger tribune (general aged ~20-30).

In my RTR games, this type of army tends to do pretty well. The numbers appear pretty low, but that's the best way to represent the Legion with a single stack. You could ditch the Auxillia, but they're usually not too bad anyway and can normally hold their own. The only weakness is against cavalry, even when 4/7 of my Auxillia forces are made up of spearmen. Even the lightest cavalry charging through the Hastati hurt like nothing else...

Hope that helps.

[tk-421]

Whenever I play custom battles in RTR I use the same ratio for types of units as in DBA. Polybian Roman in DBA has 2 Cav, 6 Blades, 2 Sp, and 2 Ps. For the 20 units in RTW it is about 3 Cav, 10 Bd, 3 Sp, and 3 Ps, an extra unit. For the 10 Bd I usually make it 5 hastati and 5 princeps. The extra unit I make a Hastati or some sort of native infantry.

[khelvan]

However, as we haven't set up the auxilia yet, Roman recruitment has a gap in the open beta. Where other factions recruit natives, the Romans don't have the ability, yet.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

That is only because the Romans will have even cooler 'auxilia' than the other factions though! It's a good thing!

[Kushan]

I my premarian legions consist of:
- 1-2 General
- 4 Hastai
- 4 Principes
- 4 Triarii
- 4 Velite
- 3-4 Cavalry

How I look at is, each unit represents ALL of that type of unit in a legion, so instead of say a group of 120 Hastai representing 120 Hastai, to me it represents 1200 hastai, which is the total number of Hastai in a Pre-marian Legion, and so on a some forth. When deploying "small" armies I deploy them follwing this forumal 1 Hasatai, Principes, Triarii, Velite and Cavalry so it would equal 1 Roman legion.

Kushan

[Chester]

I'm not sure if this is on topic. You can ignore if not.

Some of the roman units are not in the traditional red robes. I think they look beautiful regardless, but is it historic?

I heard some one say that nobody truely knows what color the legionnares wore, if this is the case, who made up the red look?

Red is seen as a "godly" color in many civilizations, Chinese come to mind. Did the Romans feel the same way about red?

[QwertyMIDX]

Red is pretty much the color of convention. White and off-white were likely more common, especially before the Marian reforms. Various Frescos from the 1st century BC show both red and white/off-white tunics. There was certinly no "team" color that all Roman soilders wore.

[Shigawire]

I'm not sure if this is on topic. You can ignore if not.

Some of the roman units are not in the traditional red robes. I think they look beautiful regardless, but is it historic?

I heard some one say that nobody truely knows what color the legionnares wore, if this is the case, who made up the red look?

Red is seen as a "godly" color in many civilizations, Chinese come to mind. Did the Romans feel the same way about red?

Most likely their colors were far less saturated than Hollywood has imagined.
"The Passion" gives a more gritty and realistic view on the imperial troops I think. Brownish leather and such.

The Romans certainly didn't have any team color as qwerty says. They had identifying plumes on their helmets though, as well as their "signae" (standards).
Velites were poor - and would probably not bother paying for dyed clothing. I'd expect to see a myriad of colors from one Roman army. With much white, brown and dark red.