Legion: Tactical Warfare in the Roman Age, 100BC-700AD


Legion: Tactical Warfare in the Roman Age, 100BC-700AD is a board wargame published by Simulations Publications, Inc. in 1975 that simulates battles involving Roman legions against a variety of historical foes. Originally published by SPI as Centurion, the game was revised and republished with the title Legion as part of a series called PRESTAGS.

Description

Legion is a two-player tactical board wargame in which one player controls Roman legions, and the other player controls one of Rome's historic enemies during the period 100 BC to 700 AD, including barbarian hordes, Carthaginians, and rebel legions. Twenty scenarios are outlined, including the battles of Carrhae, Pharsalus, Teutoburger Wald, Placentia, and Adrianople.
The game system used by all games of the PRESTAGS series is a simple "I Go, You Go" system of alternating turns where one player moves and fires, followed by the other player. More complexity can be added by using optional rules for panic, leadership, facing, melee and simultaneous movement.
In addition to the PRESTAGS rules, Legion also has rules unique to the Roman era, including the ability of Roman legions to form a testudo formation that, unlike other formations in the game, is not vulnerable to a flank attack.

Publication history

In 1971, Albert Nofi designed a game about historic battles during the Roman period that was published by SPI in Issue 25 of Strategy & Tactics as a free pull-out game titled Centurion. Over the next three years, SPI published other similar games set in ancient and medieval eras. In 1975, SPI decided to gather five of these disparate games together under the name PRESTAGS, and tasked John Young with creating a single set of rules that all the PRESTAGS games would use. One of the games converted to the new system was Centurion, retitled Legion.
Legion immediately moved into SPI's Top Ten Bestseller List, debuting at #5 as soon as it was published; it stayed in the Top Ten for four months.

Reception

In a 1976 poll conducted by SPI to determine the most popular board wargames in North America, Legion placed a very respectable 44th out of 202 games.

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