Auxillia Palatina Ps(O) units.

[Valentinian Victor]

The current DBM army list Bk 2 indicates that Late Roman Auxillia Palatina can have Ps(O) archers 1 element per Ax(s) element. Now, in DBMM its readily apparent that Ax(s) elements actually benefit from being grouped as a group of one Ax(s) with a second rank of Ax(s) and a third rank of Ps(O) bows. If you do group your Ax(s) like this your going to have a 4th rank of Ps(o) bows.
Can these 4th rank Ps(O) elements act independently of the Ax(s), or are they forced to remain with the Ax(s)?

[Hammy]

In DBM and DBMM there are no restrictions on how supporting archers are used. There are some army lists that require them to deploy together but once deployed even if they have to deploy together then they can go their own merry way.

[Valentinian Victor]

Thanks, that was my thinking as well.
I do hope that they change the restriction in the new Army List Book 2 to the same restriction that the Legionarii archers have i.e. 0, or 1 per 1 or 2 Ax(s).

[Valentinian Victor]

On a related note- If you decide to have Legionarii or Auxillia Archer elements, Ps(O), are you forced to purchase either 1 per one or two Bd(O) for every element of Bd(O), or Ax(s), or can you purchase fewer i.e. I have 12 elements of Bd(O) and 12 elements of Ax(s). If I decided to have the supporting Ps(O) for the Bd(O) and Ax(s), would I be forced to have either 12 or 6 elements of PS(o) for the Bd(O), and 12 elements of Ps(O) for the Ax(s)?

[toby]

It depends what exactly it says:

'Supporting Psiloi - 1 per 1-2 Auxilia' would mean that if you had 6 Ax you would need 3-6 Psiloi.
'Supporting Psiloi - 1 per 1 or 2 Auxilia' would mean you would need 3 or 6 Psiloi (but not 4 or 5).

IMHO

[Valentinian Victor]

Thanks for all your kind replies.
I've been reading the book 2 lists for Late Roman, list 78, and it specifically states
'Archers supporting all Ax(s) or (O) except marines- Reg Ps(O)@2AP 0 or 1 per Ax'. So, all Ax elements must have a supporting Ps element if any of them do.
Teach me to read the whole description first!

I will be petitioning the authors of the new book 2 Late Roman lists to change the description to-
'Archers supporting Ax (S) or (O) except marines- Reg Ps(O)@2AP 0 or 1 per ax or 1 per 2 Ax.

This is to bring them in line with the legionarii so that there are no elements left over if the Ax decide to have three ranks of Ax, Ax, Ps.