Too many Triarii?

[dwkay57]

I was glancing back through Episode 7 of Simon's Tactica2 battle reports and pondered about the organisation of a Republican Roman legion (not something I do that often .

Simon has his legions organised with 12 hastati, 12 principes and 12 triarii. I had always thought that there were less triarii than each of hastati or principes (in theory) in the early legions and so producing a 12-12-6 formation. This seemed to be confirmed by a quick skim through my reference books.

But as most of these are a bit dated now, I wondered if I had nodded off and missed something.

[Keraunos]

I was prompted to a similar thought by the puff piece for 'Hail Caesar : Epic Battles' in the latest Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy.  The box for Republican Romans vs Carthage comes with 12 bases each of Hastati, Principes and Triarii, each base of 30 figures, so exactly equal numbers for each type.

While it does seem that the size of the Republican Legion could vary, I am not aware of anything suggesting that the proportions of 2 parts each of Hastati and Principes to one part of Triarii changed significantly.  Am I too in ignorance of advances in scholarship?

[Jim Webster]

Indeed I remember reading somewhere years ago that Triarii were often left behind to guard the camp and they didn't drag the old lads out to  fight in the battle   

But it is interesting that when we see Polybius's camp design, the camp was built for a smaller number of Triarii

https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/secondary/SMIGRA*/Castra.html

[Duncan Head]

I had always thought that there were less triarii than each of hastati or principes (in theory) in the early legions and so producing a 12-12-6 formation.

You are quite correct, that's what Polybios explicitly says:

They divide them so that the senior men known as triarii number six hundred, the principes twelve hundred, the hastati twelve hundred, the rest, consisting of the youngest, being velites.

In larger legions the proportion of triarii would be even lower:

If the legion consists of more than four thousand men, they divide accordingly, except as regards the triarii, the number of whom is always the same.

But if, when converting to a wargame, your hastati and principes form up one figure deep, it must be tempting to use more triarii figures just to get a solid line; don't know if that explains it.

[Adrian Nayler]

Simon has his legions organised with 12 hastati, 12 principes and 12 triarii. I had always thought that there were less triarii than each of hastati or principes (in theory) in the early legions and so producing a 12-12-6 formation.

How to represent Republican legions in a wargame is something that rules have found problematic over the years. A number of factors need to be balanced and these will differ depending on the mechanisms adopted by the individual rule sets in use. This makes it difficult to generalise when comparing various sets.

Dissatisfaction with the way commercially available rules dealt with these issues caused me to tread my own independent path many years ago. How I solved the problem, at least to my own satisfaction, is largely irrelevant to this thread but I have given this quite a bit of thought.

One question to consider is "How 'strong' should the third line be?". In organisational terms it would seem obvious, from the account of Polybios, that the third line should be half the strength of the first and second lines. How one represents that with model figures depends very much on your preferred rule set and how it and you suspend your disbelief when considering what your wargame units actually represent.

I would suggest that representing the third line as the same strength in terms of wargames figures as the first and second is not necessarily as left-field as it may initially seem. From my perspective the point of the Republican Roman system is that tired troops in the forward lines are relieved by fresh reserves before they are truly 'beaten'. When the hastati are withdrawn they retire to form up behind and reinforce the triarii. In this way, what seems like a rather thin line of 'half-strength' maniples of triarii would in reality be a much 'thicker' line by the time it may have had to be engaged. In addition, the withdrawn velites may also have possibly reinforced the third reserve line.

I do not know what the design intention of Simon's Tactica2 formation may be but it might arguably not be as 'unrealistic' as it might appear.

Adrian.


 

[Mark G]

The thing is, if you represent a 60 man unit, how big are your phalanxes and warbands going to be?

[Chuck the Grey]

I have always used the same number of bases for hastati, principes, and triarii for my Republican legions. What I do is reduce the number of figures on the triarii bases to differentiate them from the hastati and principes. Since I'm currently focused on 6mm figures the first two lines have three ranks of eight figures and the triarii have two ranks of eight figures. It's not a perfect solution, but it works for me. All figures are on 40 mm square bases.

My phalanxes are mounted on the same size base with six ranks of eight figures. I haven't done any "warband" yet, but I'm thinking of three ranks of eight figures with a four rank with a variable number of figures, four to six figures, to represent the less uniform size of the warbands.

Obviously, I'm not using a set figure ratio of figures to actual soldiers. I decided a while back that going for a exact figure to soldier ratio was a rabbit hole that I didn't want to go down. Each base will represent an approximate number of soldiers, say around 400-500 men, just like in real life that any unit will have a variable number of men despite the paper strength for the unit.

This gives me a pleasing visual representation of ancient armies without the headaches of trying to recreate "exact" units.

[nikgaukroger]

Indeed I remember reading somewhere years ago that Triarii were often left behind to guard the camp and they didn't drag the old lads out to  fight in the battle   

I don't think there is actually any historical evidence for this. Would be somewhat odd given the formation of the legion is based around 3 lines of fighting men so why leave part of it behind and so remove an integral part.

[Adrian Nayler]

Indeed I remember reading somewhere years ago that Triarii were often left behind to guard the camp and they didn't drag the old lads out to  fight in the battle 

I don't think there is actually any historical evidence for this. Would be somewhat odd given the formation of the legion is based around 3 lines of fighting men so why leave part of it behind and so remove an integral part.

I suspect the notion of the triarii being used as camp guards comes from Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities 8.86.4 where he describes the triarii (Loeb translation):

"These are the oldest soldiers, to whom they commit the guarding of the camp when they go out to give battle, and they fall back of necessity upon these as their last hope when there has been a general slaughter of the younger men and they lack other reinforcements."

This comes from a description of a battle against the Volscians in the 5th century BCE where the appearance of triarii would generally be considered anachronstic.

Adrian.

[Keraunos]

How to represent Republican legions in a wargame is something that rules have found problematic over the years. A number of factors need to be balanced and these will differ depending on the mechanisms adopted by the individual rule sets in use. This makes it difficult to generalise when comparing various sets.

One question to consider is "How 'strong' should the third line be?". In organisational terms it would seem obvious, from the account of Polybios, that the third line should be half the strength of the first and second lines. How one represents that with model figures depends very much on your preferred rule set and how it and you suspend your disbelief when considering what your wargame units actually represent.

I would suggest that representing the third line as the same strength in terms of wargames figures as the first and second is not necessarily as left-field as it may initially seem. From my perspective the point of the Republican Roman system is that tired troops in the forward lines are relieved by fresh reserves before they are truly 'beaten'. When the hastati are withdrawn they retire to form up behind and reinforce the triarii. In this way, what seems like a rather thin line of 'half-strength' maniples of triarii would in reality be a much 'thicker' line by the time it may have had to be engaged. In addition, the withdrawn velites may also have possibly reinforced the third reserve line.

I do not know what the design intention of Simon's Tactica2 formation may be but it might arguably not be as 'unrealistic' as it might appear.

Adrian.


 

While I tend to like the thought of the figures put out on the table-top being proportionate to the 'real' manpower, so far as we know it, I think you are putting your finger on the real issue here.  It is not the number of figures that matters but whether the rules allow the Legion (or phalanx or war band) to operate as a system that is comparable to the historical counterpart.  A Republican Legion that is divided up into separate units of Hastati, Principes and Triarii that fight as separate units is not operating in a manner reflective of a real Republican Legion.  If they fight as an adaptable, supportive whole, with the flexibility and depth to absorb punches and exploit opportunities then it seems to me they are achieving much greater historical reality. 

[Ian61]

FYI The Hail Caesar Army Lists book follows the orthodox view suggesting the 2,2,1 organisation as an alternative to the much easier to field block of generic 'Legionaries'. It would be interesting to know if there is any new advise on fielding them than was already there.

[dwkay57]

Not placing importance on the number of figures on a base but concentrating on their "fighting value" instead is an interesting approach but might mean a lot of classifications if you have a lot of armies. I assume Chuck that your triarii have less of an impact or strength than the preceding ranks?

The A for Abstraction also plays a role. If your legion is the tactical / command / manoeuvre / morale / fighting strength "blob" then you have other options compared to those representing more detailed structures. As long as both sides are at the same level of abstraction and grouping then it should work.

[stevenneate]

I will be interested to see how the Strength & Honour rule set abstracts the early legions, given that its playing scale is one tabletop unit representing a legion. The rule set does skirmishers well, and toughens up veteran Imperial legions.

[DBS]

As someone who only has 6mm figures, I have long felt there to be a serious flaw in many rule sets, written with 25/28 or 15 in mind, pushing towards overly deep formations.  Bonuses for pike phalanxes four bases deep to get questionable melee bonuses are perhaps the most egregious example.  With 6mm, even on a simple 40x20mm base, one can easily have sixteen figures in two ranks of eight.  Two bases deep gives four ranks of figures; if one assumes a scale of 1 figure for 30 men, then those four ranks of figures roughly equate to twenty real ranks...  At 1:20, they represent perhaps 16 ranks.

My point is that a set of rules that penalises a row of single bases of triarii probably misses the point.  That is before one even starts to consider the nightmare of modelling a legionary disposition and mechanics that we do not fully understand.  If Polybius is correct, then the Romans clearly found value in a not very deep rear last-ditch line; were not worried about it being continuous or stretching across the whole of the frontal width of the legion; or were confident that it would be acting merely as the lynchpin for hastati and principes (and even velites) who had fallen back to muster on them.

[Erpingham]

I am reminded of recent discussions prompted by Justin about "manouevre units".  Should our focus be on modelling the individual parts of a legion or its function as a whole?  Modelling as a whole doesn't need to put all the figures on one base and you could still have individual parts, like triarii represented, but the legion would function in a joined up, mutually supporting , way.  But don't ask me how to do it