Maniples are a must?

[noigrim]

You need to have at least one maniple to field a titan legion army?

[Mandragola]

In matched play, yes. Your battlegroup must have at least one maniple - unless you are playing a knight household army. In that case you need at least one lance of knights.

 

You can take a cheap maniple like a Venator and then freely add reinforcements, if you want.

 

Maniples are good, so it's usually no sacrifice to take one. Is there a reason you don't want to?

[Fajita Fan]

For your first couple of games it can be nice to skip maniple rules, strategems, victory conditions etc. but yeah, the buffs are free. Free buffs are always good.

[blackbabyjesus]

For your first couple of games it can be nice to skip maniple rules, strategems, victory conditions etc. but yeah, the buffs are free. Free buffs are always good.

Totally agree with this, the core game mechanics are very simple and easy to learn but once you add in maniple traits, princeps traits, Legio traits, special wargear, stratagems etc the game becomes quite complex and it's easy to forget things. Play a game or a few turns without all the extras to get the basic mechanics nailed and then move on.

[Interrogator Stobz]

I almost never play most of those things mentioned by the esteemed Frater above, and I really enjoy the simplicity of it.

But as stated, the free options cannot be a bad thing if you want to use them.