650 28mm Late republic Romans

irondog068 · Post by **irondog068** » Sat Oct 03, 2009 9:07 pm

Since I am trying to do this on the cheap and got 2 boxes of Wargames Factory Romans for $9.00 each here is my thought for my 28mm Romans

1xFC
2xTC
5x4 Legions Superior standard Roman toys
2x4 Heavy Cav, Superior, armored, undrilled, standard toys
2x6 Light foot, Average, unarmored, undrilled, light spear
1x6 Light foot, Average, unarmored, undrilled
1x Camp

Comes to 649 points. and from Wargame Factory 2x Boxes Romans, 1x Box Celts and 2x Boxes Celtic Cav.

Not bad.

paulburton · Post by **paulburton** » Sat Oct 03, 2009 10:21 pm

Obviously you are limited by the figure mix. However three light foot units are too much for the army size and I would go with 1 heavy (compulsory) cavalry and a light horse (use the Celtic horse as Spanish lights), you could use the Javelin armed types as Spanish MF for terrain work and bump up the number of Legions (if you have the figures - are you basing them 3 or 4 to a base - I go with 3s for HF bases in 28 mm, 4s are too cramped - so you might be able to get more bases out of your figures.

A field commander may not be necessary (though if you use 1 inch to the MU then command ranges are short)

irondog068 · Post by **irondog068** » Sat Oct 03, 2009 10:52 pm

The reason I put 2 Cav units is my EIR 15mm Romans get chewed up a lot with only 1 cavlary unit. While my 15mm Late Republic with 1 cav and 2 light (all 4 base size) seems to handle there own. I have just started building/painting the Romans and it seems they will not fot on a 60x20mm base so all the infantry are going on a 60x30mm base with 4 Romans per base.

I thought about adding a MF unit and dropping a light and using the MF impact sword (figure Celts would fit nicely as mercs for this role). With the Wargames Factory cavalry box you get 12 horses and 24 riders (armored and unarmored). I could 8 horses for $15.00 and have a instant Light cavalry unit.

I like the idea of dropping the FC to TC. Our group in Chicago has been playing around with keeping 1 inch MUs for 25mm. With that movement I think the loss of a MU would not be as severe as a 15mm 800 point game.

Irondog

flameberge · Post by **flameberge** » Sat Oct 03, 2009 11:32 pm

Personally I would definitely keep two cavalry units, forget the LH and if you need to skirmish put your cavalry in a line. My LRR army which seems to work out well is:

IC
TCX2
Fort. Camp
Superior Legion X4
Superior Legion X4
Superior Legion X4
Superior Legion X4
Superior Legion X4
Armored Sup Cav X4
Armored Sup Cav X4
LF JavX6
Spanish MF Impact Sword X6

648 Points

I love the IC because
1. It helps immensely vs. shooting
2. he has a great command range
3. I want to win pre-battle initiative so I can fill the board with bad terrain.

I take the Spanish because they are great terrain troops that will defeat most any other MF. I don't much bother with skirmishers because I already know I'm not going to win that battle so why spend points on them.

irondog068 · Post by **irondog068** » Sun Oct 04, 2009 12:14 am

Hmmm,
I like it Maybe I will give your list a try.
Don't you miss not being able to "reach out and touch someone" with slingers or bow? of my 5 15mm armies all have some sort of longer range missle troops. Even my Spartans have slingers and max bow. The closet I have to no longer range is my Swiss and I added max crossbow and mounted crossbow to keep people off balance.

Irondog

irondog068 · Post by **irondog068** » Sun Oct 04, 2009 3:00 am

Okay how about this:
1 Inspiring commander
2x TC
1x4 Elite Legion
4x4 Superior Legions
2x4 Cavalry Superior armored
1x6 Slingers LF, Avg
1x6 Javalin LF, Avg
1x Fortified camp.

Let me know what you guys think. This list sastifies several things I have wanted to do and have yet to do with the Romans plus some other things:
1) Gives me a longer range missle weapon (slings)
2) Never had Ceaser on the field and with him and 2 cavalry units I hopefully will win pre battle initiative
3) Never used a elite Roman BG and kind of would like to see how they handle. I know in the Ren beta rules elite Swiss are terrorize all they run in to so Romans should be a hoot.
4) As was pointed out no real need for a lot of skirmish troops as my main focus with a Roman army is attack, attack, attack.

9 units 650 points. now soon as I get them all built and painted I am ready to rock.

Thoughts?
Irondog

flameberge · Post by **flameberge** » Sun Oct 04, 2009 3:20 am

That looks like a pretty good list to me. I personally like some MF because of their speed and ability in terrain a lot more than I care about shooting. Maybe you've had more luck than me but I've never been able to get a group of skirmishers to actually do any real damage with shooting and with armored superior troops and an IC I don't really have to worry about getting shot myself.

DavidT · Post by **DavidT** » Sun Oct 04, 2009 10:48 pm

My son uses Elite legions a lot in his LRR army (usually 4 BGs of 4 at 800 points) and they are extremely tough.
He also finds that his cavalry die often and I would recommend trading the second BG of cavalry in for more legionaries.

mbsparta · Post by **mbsparta** » Mon Oct 05, 2009 2:43 am

In a recent 800 point tournment I took 6x4 Superior Legionaries and spent the rest of my points on LF, MF, LH and Cav. I figured I would need as many auxiliary troops as possible not having any idea what armies I would face. In retrospect I feel I should have taken more legionaries and fewer supporting troops. When I needed them, I just didn't have enough legionaries and with the exception of the superior Gallic cavalry, my other support troops didn't hold up too well. Caesar filled his armies with legionaries for a reason huh? Not that it would have made much difference to the overall outcome, I am simply not a very good player.

So my ill advised advice is to take as many legionaries as you can even if it means buying another box of the plastic dudes. Gallic cavalry is good but often just take a unit of LH (usually Numidians), as I have had some luck drawing off my opponents mounted with them. Other than that, get legionaries. Take the minimum of other stuff.

Someone mentioned MUs. We normally play 600-650 point 28mm armies on 6x4 tables. We use 1"=1 MU. This works very well for the smaller armies and smaller tables. The tournament I played in used 40mm=1 MU on 8x5 tables. This sure changed the way the game plays. While things tend to develop slowly using 1" MUs, not so the case with 40mm MUs. I found myself forced into being much more reactionary during the 40mm MU games than I normaly have to be. The 40mm MU was much more WAB/Manuver-like than the 1" MU games we play. Just curious, if anyone else is trying 1" MUs for 28mm?

Mike B

petedalby · Post by **petedalby** » Mon Oct 05, 2009 7:09 am

I agree with Mike B - you want as many Legions as you can get.

This is as yet untested:

3 xTCs
1 x 6 LF Sling
1 x 4 Sup Prot Cav
4 x 4 Sup Legionaries
2 x 8 Sup Legionaries
Fortified Camp

The Cav aren't designed to fight anyone but to support the HF. Having the Legionaries in 8's means that you get maximum benefit from a TC with the BG.

But I must stress that it is untested - looks pretty good for a 6' x 4' table though.

Blathergut · Post by **Blathergut** » Mon Oct 05, 2009 9:25 am

mbsparta wrote: Just curious, if anyone else is trying 1" MUs for 28mm?

Mike B

1"/25mm has been all that Deadtorius and I have used....even for 800-1000pt games on 8x4 or 8 x 5 tables. Have enjoyed every game.

pcelella · Post by **pcelella** » Mon Oct 05, 2009 10:57 am

mbsparta wrote: Someone mentioned MUs. We normally play 600-650 point 28mm armies on 6x4 tables. We use 1"=1 MU. This works very well for the smaller armies and smaller tables. The tournament I played in used 40mm=1 MU on 8x5 tables. This sure changed the way the game plays. While things tend to develop slowly using 1" MUs, not so the case with 40mm MUs. I found myself forced into being much more reactionary during the 40mm MU games than I normaly have to be. The 40mm MU was much more WAB/Manuver-like than the 1" MU games we play. Just curious, if anyone else is trying 1" MUs for 28mm?

I've been using the 40mm MU and the 5x8 tables so far for all my 28mm FoG gaming. That's what I played with at the Historicon Open Tournament also. I used to play a bit of Warrior, so that made sense to me. Using a 6x4 table with 650 point armies and a 1"=1 MU measurement does seem like it would be workable though. I'll have to try that some time with some of the local newbies putting together new 28mm armies. I'm pretty sure that I'll end up preferring the larger MU's though.

Peter C

batesmotel · Post by **batesmotel** » Mon Oct 05, 2009 12:24 pm

mbsparta wrote:In a recent 800 point tournment I took 6x4 Superior Legionaries and spent the rest of my points on LF, MF, LH and Cav. I figured I would need as many auxiliary troops as possible not having any idea what armies I would face. In retrospect I feel I should have taken more legionaries and fewer supporting troops. When I needed them, I just didn't have enough legionaries and with the exception of the superior Gallic cavalry, my other support troops didn't hold up too well. Caesar filled his armies with legionaries for a reason huh? Not that it would have made much difference to the overall outcome, I am simply not a very good player.

So my ill advised advice is to take as many legionaries as you can even if it means buying another box of the plastic dudes. Gallic cavalry is good but often just take a unit of LH (usually Numidians), as I have had some luck drawing off my opponents mounted with them. Other than that, get legionaries. Take the minimum of other stuff.

Someone mentioned MUs. We normally play 600-650 point 28mm armies on 6x4 tables. We use 1"=1 MU. This works very well for the smaller armies and smaller tables. The tournament I played in used 40mm=1 MU on 8x5 tables. This sure changed the way the game plays. While things tend to develop slowly using 1" MUs, not so the case with 40mm MUs. I found myself forced into being much more reactionary during the 40mm MU games than I normaly have to be. The 40mm MU was much more WAB/Manuver-like than the 1" MU games we play. Just curious, if anyone else is trying 1" MUs for 28mm?

Mike B

I've found that playing with 40mm MU's with 25's ends up feeling fairly close to the 15mm game. (For what it's worth, I enjoyed playing DBM in 15mm and 25mm equally well and similarly for various editions of WRG).) 1" MU's fee llike it might well be a playaqble game but would feel significantly different than with 15's, more than I think the difference between 15 and 25mm was for DBM when using proportionally sized tables, e.g. 4x6 and 5 or 6x8.

Chris

flameberge · Post by **flameberge** » Mon Oct 05, 2009 3:05 pm

I use the Cav in this army as rear support rather than going out on the attack. This gives the superior legions an even better chance to hold with the +cohesion bonus. Then when the enemy inevitably moves to flank the legions I move the cav out a little to protect the flanks from any charge. This means he then has to deal with your cav before he can do any kind of flank charge on your legion. By this time hopefully (as has happened for me) your legion has completely chewed up the center of his army and his army collapses.

So far I've not tried 25mm MU. I've used 40mm on 8''X5' in the two tournaments I played (700 point and 800 point tournaments) and just recently I played using a 2"MU on a 9'X6.5' table with some friends trying to get them into the game. We used 720 point armies. Since the guy had a game table that huge we decided to try 2" MUs and it worked out really well. We'll be trying again in a couple weeks hopefully.

Ghaznavid · Post by **Ghaznavid** » Mon Oct 05, 2009 3:58 pm

flameberge wrote:I played using a 2"MU on a 9'X6.5' table

How tall are you again? The thought of playing on an almost 2 m deep table makes my back hurt already.

pyruse · Post by **pyruse** » Mon Oct 05, 2009 4:10 pm

I find a 30mm MU is a good compromise for 25mm games.
It makes MUs a multiple of base widths, which makes them easier to eyeball.
Also has the merit that the 2MU 'restricted zone' is one base width

durrati · Post by **durrati** » Mon Oct 05, 2009 7:49 pm

My general experience with this army is that you want legions and then maybe a few more. Support troops are a target. A good rule is that if your army can be broken without the enemy having to get seriously stuck into your legions then you don't have enough. If interested in the army for historical reasons then do what the Romans did and raise Legions to go to war, placing your trust in effete foreigners like that ponce Marcus is just so unroman. If interested in the army for gaming reasons and you want a solid core with decent support troops there are other armies that would do that much better.

On the 'upgrade some to elite' debate - feel that it is in general a waste of points. A large amount of Drilled, HI, Arm, Sup, Impact foot, Sk Sw is really hard and if they can not do it, then you are asking them to do the wrong job - go and work on your plan rather than fool yourself by thinking 'if only a few were elite it would have worked'.

irondog068 · Post by **irondog068** » Mon Oct 05, 2009 8:08 pm

Okay, how about this. rome is my favorite army this is 646 points.
1x IC
2x FC
6x6 Superior Legion
1x4 Cav armored, superior, undrilled
1x6 Slingers
1x6 Javalin.
1 fortified camp.

If I drop the Javalin to 4 I could make the eagle cohort elite. but I find BGs skirmishers in less than 6 a waste of time.
I am still underved about only 1 cavalry unit. Like I said in a eailer post my EIR Romans get chewed with 1 cav unit while my late Republic list with 1 cav and 2 light seem to handle them selfs.

batesmotel · Post by **batesmotel** » Mon Oct 05, 2009 8:51 pm

Try some of the alternative suggestions and see what works for you. A list is good only as far as it matches your style and ability to use it well. So see whether one or two BG of cavalry works better for you, etc.

Chris

flameberge · Post by **flameberge** » Tue Oct 06, 2009 4:48 am

Ghaznavid wrote:
flameberge wrote:I played using a 2"MU on a 9'X6.5' table
How tall are you again? The thought of playing on an almost 2 m deep table makes my back hurt already.

I'm 6'3". It didn't seem anyone had any problems with reach. Sometimes we'd walk around to the other side of the table when our troops got far enough across rather than reach across but our armies clashed near the center of the table and so it wasn't necessary very often. He has his game table in a pretty big room so there was plenty of room to walk around.