Now, since Pirazzo’s soldiers have crossbows, you should have them at least 6 wide to get 6 shots. The Lost Legion is an interesting Light Pike, in that the front rank of soldiers is actually equipped with crossbows. Now, being that you still have 3 ranks of pike, I’m considering the Lost Legion a pike unit. I will also compare them as a light crossbow unit later. Okay, for the base cost of Pirazzo, 4 crossbowmen, and 5 pikemen (160 points), you can purchase 13 Light Pike with full command.

Ricco’s unit has a base cost of 180 points, giving you a human hero leading the unit, and WS 4. For 12 more points, you get 11 pikemen in the Republican Guard (total point cost 192). In comparison you get 15 heavy pike with full command for only 195 points. Now, being as you get 4 ranks of pike that can attack, pike use more of “quantity” of attacks over a “quality” of attacks. As such, the WS 4 of the Republican Guard is a debatable bonus. You do get a full human hero leading the Republican Guard, which gives you LD 8 and some moderate strength attacks, but the 3 extra soldiers of the generic heavy pike is hard to discount. This discrepancy becomes more apparent when you look at the minimum unit size of 20 (to take advantage of the 5-wide ranks for CR and the 4 deep to fully use the pikes.) For the cost of 20 Republican Guard (300 points) you get 24 generic Heavy Pike (294 points). The generic heavy pike are more likely to get the “unit strength” Combat Resolution bonus, as well as survive missile fire better from the additional troops. In addition, you need to slay 6 Heavy Pike to get them to possibly panic to missile fire, in comparison to the 5 in the Republican Guard.

Warhammer 2 regiments of renown