I have begun the Sumerian City State army list build in earnest and have come to the realization that I don't know where to put the divisions between troop types.

Grading troops as Light, Heavy or Ranged infantry and then as Common, Seasoned or Veteran, with additional possibility of Slave (levies) gives 9 to 12 possible combinations. And that before considering special abilities.

With the Mesopotamian City-states it becomes even trickier as in addition to rating the troops of the city-states themselves there are also numerous mercenary groups to consider.

60 AP buys 30 Common Light Infantry, 20 Heavy or 30 Ranged. At Seasoned it is 20 Light, 15 Heavy, or 20 Ranged. Veteran drops it to 15 Light, 12 Heavy, or 15 Ranged. Slaves allow as many as 60 Leavy Light Infantry!

The armies of this period consist mostly of Spearmen, archers, mercenary tribesmen with assorted hand to hand weapons and possibly light armour or shield, and a rabble of slingers, skirmishers, and asorted leavy light infantry.

Spearmen fought in formation with either shields or armour. So a Classification of Heavy Infantry seems appropriate, Determining the level is trickier, but if we assume the bulk of the army are Seasoned, the King's Guard and an elite unit or two are Veteran, and a few units are Common men with about enough training to stay in formation and stick the right end of the spear in the enemy we perhaps begin to get it right.

Archers are likely Seasoned and Slingers more likely Common with some skirmishing missile troops being given Slave to represent their untrained status.

For the allies and mercenaries we need to look at ow they fought. Those rated by other games as light infantry or described as lacking armour can be rated Light. Those fighting in a closer formation or with significant armour may be rated Heavy. troops primarilly employing missile weapons may be classed as ranged troops. Abilities such as Javelins, Berserker, etc can be used as appropriate to further characterize troops..

One of the oddest things to me about classifying MA:A troops is that swordsmen, spearmen, axemen, loose order and close order fighters may all be classed as "Heavy Infantry".

The trick is to create an army list that is more than just 3 classes of heavy infantry, and 3 grades of archers.

The armies in the MA:A rules range from Early Saxons with 6 unit types through Late Roman East and West with 16 types! Quite a broad range. I currently stand at 13 types for the Sumerians but some of these will be expanded into multiple grades and some will be merged. I hope to finalize the list at between 6 and 10. With some notes explaiing what each type and grade represents.

Myceneans will be much fewer, possibly only 5 types.

Does anyone else have thoughts or examples to share on this topic?