Background
Pompey vastly outnumbered Caesar, especially in cavalry. He had 11 full strength Legions and 6700 cavalry whereas Caesar had 9 Legions and only 1000 cavalry. Many of Caesar's Legions were woefully understrength, especially the VIII and IX Legions which had suffered serious casualties earlier in the campaign.
To balance the game and make it manageable I decided to scale the Legions down to 5 on each side with Pompey's being full or over-strength and Caesar's being under-strength. Caesar had thinned his Legions out in order to keep the same frontage as Pompey so this seems a reasonable way of representing things. Scaling the Legions down by half still gives the visual impact of a lot of troops but does not mean you have to paint up thousands of figures. Having scaled the legions down by half I then decided to use a scale of 1 stand representing a cohort of roughly 400 men, or 200 men in the case of understrength units. Caesar stripped out his third line to provide 6 cohorts to support his cavalry. I chose to represent these with 3 stands.
Caesar's legions were all hard bitten veterans. Although Pompey had some experienced Legions, including 2000 evocati (re-enlisted veterans), his ranks were swelled by relatively untested non-Italian allies along with the survivors of Crassus' Syrian army.
Although Pompey was said to have 6700 cavalry but only 3600 are named in the sources these are:
600 Gauls
500 Cappadocians
500 Thracians
500 Gallic and German auxiliaries from Egypt
800 'Shepherd Slaves'
300 Gallatians
200 Syrians
These were all deployed on Pompey's left flank. He may also have had some Pontic Cavalry on his right. The 'Shepherd Slaves' are sometimes interpreted as Patrician cavalry. Whatever they were I have interpreted them as raw troops given the overall poor performance of Pompey's cavalry.
In order to balance the game (and assuming that the victors may have exaggerated Pompey's numbers) I decided to represent only the named units using a scale of 1 stand representing 300 men.
Caesar had 1000 Gauls and Germans. The Germans may have had light infantry attached to them. To further bolster his cavalry, Caesar detached a number of his fittest Legionaries and re-equipped them as light infantry (antesignani) to work alongside the cavalry. I also chose to give Caesar a completely unattested unit of light cavalry on his left flank, simply to balance the game.
Deployment.
The armies deploy two bowshots apart on a plain bounded by a river on one flank and high ground on the other. Pomey's forces are on the left, Caesar's on the right
Republicans G. Pompeius
Right Wing L. Afranius
Pontic cavalry, 4 Light Cavalry, C Grade
Spanish caetrati, 4 Skirmishers, C Grade
Cilician Legion (3 lines) 10 armoured. Legionaries, B Grade
Spanish Cohorts (2 units) 8 Auxiliaries, B Grade
Evocati, 2 armoured. Legionaries, A Grade
Centre M. Scipio
1st Syrian Legion (3 lines), 11 Legionaries, C Grade
2nd Syrian Legion (3 lines), 11 Legionaries, C Grade
Left Legions D. Ahenobarbus
I Legion (3 lines) 11 armoured. Legionaries, B Grade
III Legion (3 lines), 11 armoured. Legionaries, B Grade
Cavalry T. Labienus
Macedonians, 2 Heavy Cavalry B Grade
Gallic Auxiliaries, 5 Heavy Cavalry, C Grade
Shepherd Slaves, 8 Heavy Cavalry, D Grade
Syrians, 4 Light Cavalry, D Grade
Thracian cavalry, 5 Heavy Cavalry, C Grade
Gauls & Galatians (3 units), 9 Heavy Cavalry, B Grade
Cappadocian cavalry, 5 Heavy Cavalry, C Grade
Cappadocian infantry, 4 Light Javelinmen, D Grade
Cretans, 4 Archers, C Grade
Caesarians. J. Caesar
Right Wing C. Sulla
Antesignani, 4 Light Javelinmen, A Grade
Gallic cavalry, 4 Heavy Cavalry B Grade
German cavalry, 4 Heavy Cavalry with attached infantry, B Grade
Veteran cavalry, 2 Heavy Cavalry A Grade
Greek javelinmen, 3 Light Javelinmen, C Grade
Greek Archers, 2 Archers, C Grade
Reserve Cohorts, 3 armoured. Legionaries, A Grade
Centre D. Calvinus
X Legion (2 lines) 8 armoured. Legionaries, A Grade
XI Legion (2 lines) 8 armoured. Legionaries, B Grade
XII Legion (2 lines) 8 armoured. Legionaries, B Grade
Reserve Line, 3 armoured. Legionaries, A Grade.
Left Wing M. Antonius
IX Legion (2 lines), 8 understrength armoured. Legionaries, A Grade
VIII Legion (2 Lines) 8 understrength armoured. Legionaries, A Grade
Reserve Line, 2 understrength armoured. Legionaries, A Grade
Aetolian cavalry, 3 Light Cavalry, C Grade
Balearic Slingers, 4 Slingers, C Grade
Order of Battle for a game with Legio VI Julia Augusta