Light or skirmish infantry

[Mark G]

But any point in that hex is a quarter mile from the same point in the other hex.  How many men in your formed infantry in the quarter mile?

[Anton]

Yes. And therein lies part of the problem. I want to model both but suspect a more generic approach is going to be the best for me personally

Some rules provide for heroic combat between leaders or champions as well as mass combat.  It would be easy enough to extrapolate a skirmish combat system from that used for heroic fights.  I haven't tried but I'm pretty sure I could do that with say, Comitatus.  There might be some inspiration in that line of thinking.

[Imperial Dave]

agreed. I think it would be relatively easy to add this and also add this as an option not a compulsory element

[dwkay57]

 I'm not that specific as to where men stand within a hex Mark. I don't measure distances at all, troops are either in this hex or that one. So they could be 1/2 mile apart or 10 feet. The attached examples may help explain (?) my perceptions and process for trying to reconcile that in the real world you don't have turns (although I may have missed some of mine) and movement was more fluid and continuous than we see in current rulesets.

I arrived at the 1/4 mile per hex after another discussion on the forum came up with a suggested frontage for a Roman legionary cohort and as 4 of these fit in a line across a hex....

[Mark G]

I think your looking for a solution to a problem you don't have.

The notion that hexes are big, to incorporate a legion as you want to represent it is fine.
But you shouldn't also piddle about with a superfluous troop type the happens to float about permanently at the edge of that hex just so you can show you have them in the game.

And if I understood that legions aren't really your main thing, but more medieval- where your not even sure how this troop type should be represented- the solution is obviously to stop piddling about with skirmishing.

If your rules are to be coherent then they must maintain a basic level of logical consistency, and at a quarter mile hex there is no representation of skirmishing, and sod all of missile capabilities either.

If you really do want to represent skirmishing, then start by asking why.
The correct answer is never going to be "because other rules do", but answering your own why might also solve how you then represent it.

[Imperial Dave]

food for thought and I suspect the skirmisher question probably does fall into the trap of 'because other rules do' several times