Cohors Sagittariorum

 

I have three spare Antonine Miniatures small cohort blocks left over from the units I've assembled, along with four strips of specialised troops that I didn't end up using for the cohors milliaria base, so I'm thinking about combining them together to make a cohors sagittariorum auxiliary unit of archers. 

The idea is to have two parallel lines of archers up front backed up by the three infantry cohorts behind, or vice versa, as I've read that a tactical formation that was used by Imperial Roman auxiliary archers placed them behind a screen of protective infantry so that they could shoot over the top with plunging fire. I think this will look pretty good and clearly show that it's a unit composed primarily of archers rather than an infantry unit with some archers attached.

The other option is to base two of the archer strips together on a skirmish base, slightly wider than the usual 10mm x 120mm strip, and then attach them as required to auxiliary and legion units. The wider base will look better than a narrow skirmish one as the specialised troop castings are wider than the skirmisher castings, and it will have the bonus effect of making them look like larger contingents, even up to cohort numbers rather than just skirmishers. The only issue is how they would work in the rules?