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 Post subject: Re: Roman (and Coryani) Legion breakdown
PostPosted: Wed Nov 20, 2013 4:27 pm 
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One level of variation which never seemed to be really incorporated into previous documents is how . . . uniform Legions are. In Roman Legion was infantry, and all other groups (cavalry, archers, etc) were never considered legionnaires, but were auxilia. Part of this was because of social class (Equestrians were the 'knight' class, while legionnaires were often plebian), stigma (Greeks, and to an extent, Romans viewed archers with a certain. Disdain), simple use (such as Immunes such as engineers being all grouped together), etc.

Do Coryani legions also have dedicated units? From ARPG and CoH we know Scouts and Equestrians are part of a legion, not an Auxiliary which is simply attached on an ad hoc basis. Does this mean we have mixed Centuries? Cohorts? Squads? How are Battle Mages assigned? Individually or as a unit? Priests or Divine casters? Would they be auxilia? Would each Legio have permanently assigned units as the 'legion' Battle tech style?

To clarify: Would you have a Legion of 10 Infantry Cohorts, followed by 1-10 Cohorts of support troops and Immunes? Would the Cohorts be made up of squads/lines of mixed people so each one could function as a whole unit, or would the Centuries have entire squads of dedicated troops? It all depends on what is considered the smallest 'maneuver unit' which would be expected to operate independently. If specialists, militia, irregulars, etc are assigned to the Legion on at the Legion level, they could simply be parcelled out as needed, but it all depends to what extent they are expected to operate together.

So, here is at least most of the issues I think an "Ideal" Legion needs to think about for structure:

Infantry Legion (10 Cohorts for ~5000 soldiers, plus command element)

Auxiliary (Cavalry) - 1 Cohort of 300-500 horsemen, mix of light and heavy cavalry, with maybe some archers.

Auxiliary (Missile) - 1 Cohort of Archers, slingers, and other 'ranged' troops which are assigned weapons aside from Pilum and javelins.

Auxiliary (Scout) - 1 Cohort, consisting of mounted and non-mounted scout troops.

Auxiliary (Immunes) - A 'catch all' unit of Surgeons, engineers, and possibly even Battlemages.

Auxillary (Religious) - Most Legions are dedicated to the Gods, which means that Priests and other 'divine' characters would probably have at least some clergy attached. Theses could be incorporated into the Legion itself with soliders simply wearing additional 'hats' as Divine casters/priests in addition to being soldiers, be part of a Cohort or Legion command staff and be attached on an ad hoc basis, or simply be an Auxillary force of Priests and Templars and whatnot, and basically act as 'religious mercenaries' for the Legion.

Auxillary (Battle Mage) - We know that Battlemages are considered part of the Legion, but again, would they be considered 'grunts' or even 'immunes' in the front lines, or would they be attached to specific units from a given pool? I would assume you wouldn't have more than a Century of Battle Mages per Legion (due to the rarity of the gift), but would they be considered Auxilia, or main line?

I would expect an overall structure for an 'ideal legion' to look like this:

Legion of [Insert Title Here]

Cohort 1-10, Infantry
Cohort 11, Cavalry
Cohort 12, Scout
Cohort 13, Missile
Cohort 14, Support (Religious, Battle Mage, Immunes)
Cohort 15, Training Cadre?

Seem reasonable?

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 Post subject: Re: Roman (and Coryani) Legion breakdown
PostPosted: Wed Nov 20, 2013 7:03 pm 
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Seems reasonable.

But at the same time unlike the one size fits all Roman Legion, in Arcanis the Coryani Legions specialize. At least sometimes. The Legion of the Watchful Hunter specializes in stealth operations for example. The Legion of the Creeping Asp, last seen keeping an eye on the border of Abessios, is very heavy on casters and has a reputation for "dirty tricks" and a mercenary outlook (it seems to me to be loosely modeled on the Black Company of Glen Cook's books). The Legion of Vigilance is the best of the best etc.

So rather than the Roman "Swiss army knife" (or maybe big hammer looking for nails), the Coryani Legion is at least sometimes a more specialized tool.

Also of course at various times and places the actual size and composition of Legions was at odds with what was listed on paper. It's my understanding that in the late Republic, Rise of Caesar era that many Legions were under strength. Maybe someone who has read more history on the period than me can chime in.

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 Post subject: Re: Roman (and Coryani) Legion breakdown
PostPosted: Wed Nov 20, 2013 7:24 pm 
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And I would expect Coryani Legions of the present day being no more than 50% of their establishment at present. Aside from operations around Abessios/Malfela and the invasion/liberation of Metra, Coryan hasn't really done much overt combat in the past 50 years. Then again, during Roman times the Legions were the regular forces, and if the Empire needed additional troops they would call up their auxilia (militia troops, knights, mercenaries, etc) to fill whatever hole they needed.

The more I think about it, the more likely it is that a Coryani Legion is 10 Cohorts, with the actual make-up of the Legion being determined by who is sponsoring it. Cadician Legions would have a higher make-up of scouts than heavier 'traditional' Legionnaires, Sarishan Legions would probably have more casters, while Nierite Legions would have a higher proportion of Heavy Infantry.

As such, the 'generic' Legion (let's say. . . Legion of the Singers of Sweet Savona) would probably have (on paper) something closer to 7 Cohorts Infantry, 1 Cohort Cavalry, 1 Cohort Scouts, and 1 Cohort of specialists and immunes (including priests and battle mages).

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 Post subject: Re: Roman (and Coryani) Legion breakdown
PostPosted: Thu Dec 05, 2013 11:00 am 
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So, looking at some of the older books, I noticed this in the original "Forged in Magic":

Page 109, Forged in Magic, PCI1113 wrote:
While each legion has its own specific standard, there are numerous minor standards that are used by the Centuries (groups of 10 Deciums) or Deciums (groups of 10 men) within a Legion.

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Jorma Osterman, Arcane Coryani Battlemage


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 Post subject: Re: Roman (and Coryani) Legion breakdown
PostPosted: Thu Dec 05, 2013 1:58 pm 

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Nierite wrote:
<snip>
As such, the 'generic' Legion (let's say. . . Legion of the Singers of Sweet Savona) would probably have (on paper) something closer to 7 Cohorts Infantry, 1 Cohort Cavalry, 1 Cohort Scouts, and 1 Cohort of specialists and immunes (including priests and battle mages).


From my perspective, priests and battle mages are integral parts of each century and cohort. So for a 'generic' legion, I wouldn't see them broken out into their own cohort. The cohort of 'specialists' could easily be a cohort of whatever that unit's known for - heavy infantry, an extra cavalry unit, extra scouts, etc.

With a sweep of his...

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 Post subject: Re: Roman (and Coryani) Legion breakdown
PostPosted: Thu Dec 05, 2013 2:04 pm 
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The notion of combined-arms is a tricky one when it comes to military units. Using ROMAN ideals, priests, archers, equestrians, etc would all form their own units, while a Legion is a purely Infantry formation. For ROMANS, this was due to things like their aversion to archers (not as much as the Greeks, but they still considered archery to be a less honourable and manly way of fighting) or the social classes of the Equestrians (who were above the Infantryman in the heirachy of the military and society).

For the CORYANI, we have noting in canon that would suggest that they share a similar focus on the Infantryman being the 'proper' way of fighting a war (hand to hand, as it were), so we cannot make the same assumptions really either way as to how their organized, which for someone who focus' on such tiny details, is slightly maddening (though entirely understandable as it has never come into a story ;) ).

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 Post subject: Re: Roman (and Coryani) Legion breakdown
PostPosted: Thu Dec 05, 2013 2:34 pm 

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Cody, I'll agree that archers and equestrians would be considered separate units from a combined arms perspective. I'm not sure that I'd look at priests the same way. Now, I could see the equivalent of a templar's unit being separate, but they would be less common.

For battlemages because of both their potency and the fact they're actively hunted by Ymmandragore, the fluff very much puts them in the middle of other centuries. The flavor text for the 3.5 Arcanis write up was a legionnaire notifying the next of kin that the battle mage had been harvested.

While we can't make assumptions on how they operate, we can throw out ideas and see if Henry or the other powers that be comment on it.

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 Post subject: Re: Roman (and Coryani) Legion breakdown
PostPosted: Fri Dec 06, 2013 12:07 pm 
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Some awesome fiction that is loosely based on Roman Legion setup is the "Codex of Alera" by Jim Butcher. He wrote it on a dare after bragging to a college class he was guest lecturing that he could take any two tropes and write a good story. They dared him to write about Pokemon' and a lost Roman Legion. The outcome looked more like a Lost Roman Legion combined with Pokemon'/Avatar the Last Airbender. All the books spent a great deal of time on the Best Seller List.

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 Post subject: Re: Roman (and Coryani) Legion breakdown
PostPosted: Sun Dec 08, 2013 5:51 pm 
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The Videssos cycle is good for this too. A "classic" Roman unit transported to a world of magic (and are the only 'heavy' infantry unit to start).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Videssos

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 Post subject: Re: Roman (and Coryani) Legion breakdown
PostPosted: Wed Mar 05, 2014 12:02 am 
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I am in the process of re-reading the Codex Arcanis, and I think this book puts much of my assumptions to rest. If we use the Codex Arcanis (pg. 35), Legions are exactly 1,000:

1 Legion is made of 10 Centuries, each with 10 Deciums. The outfitting of these legions depended entirely on the individual or group who sponsored the Legion. For example: If the Legion was founded in Balantica, they may be much heavier in Cavalry, while one raised in Plexus would rely more on Light Infantry. While Enpebyn is the main source of weapons for the Legions, it is probably not the sole source (it isn't a national factory, simply the biggest arms manufacturer).

By the sounds of it, a Legion is less like the Roman style of a national, professional army, and more akin to the Feudal Levies of the Middle Ages (or Milandir) with Governors, Patricians, Cities, Adventurers, etc founding the Legions in addition to the Emperor himself (and the Imperial Government).

Furthermore, according to the Codex Arcanis, Legions consist of Light Infantry (probably Gladius and lighter Lorica), Heavy Infantry ('standard' Roman formations), and Cavalry. Attached to these 1000 troops of these three types were auxillia (Auxilary Centuries and Legions) made up of Archers, Engineers (Sappers), Slingers, Battle-Priests, and Battle-Mages.

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Haakon Marcus val'Virdan, Divine Holy Judge of Nier
Ruma val'Vasik, Martial Crusader and Master of the Spear
Jorma Osterman, Arcane Coryani Battlemage


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