early successor army (again) :)

Dareun · Post by **Dareun** » Wed Sep 23, 2009 3:32 pm

Hi!

I have been busy (and still am) painting my macedonians to build up my early successors army.
It gonna be a macedonian one (pre galatian one)

It gonna be build up that way:
Xystophoroi HC drilled arm sup lancer sw 2*4
Phalangite HF drilled prot average pike 2*8 and 1*10
Iphicratean hoplites MF drilled prot average off spear 2*6
Javelinemen LF drilled unprot average jav – light spear 1*6
Archers LF drilled unprot average bow 1*6
Light cav LH drilled unprot average jav light spear 1*4
Allied hoplite HF drilled prot average off spear 1*6
Thrace MF undrilled prot average HW 1*6
And last but not least Elephant 2*2

So I end up with 3 TC, 14BGs and exactly 800pts

I would like to have your opinion regarding this list, especially regarding its weakness.

The iphicratean, the thracian and the nellies give me a great potential on rough terrain as well as some speed. They could be nicely brigaged together.
Most of the BG got a limited frontage (usually 2) so limited vulnerability to bows

The main issue would be to rely only on 3 TC. Once one committed with the nellies, one with the xystophoroi and the last one with the phalanx I wonder how I will do once the initial plan will start to screw down…

Every comment will be welcome (even if it is “paint more hoplite and kick the nellies out”)

paulburton · Post by **paulburton** » Wed Sep 23, 2009 8:34 pm

Other threads suggest that Elephants can be vulnerable. 2 wide BGs are actually more vulnerable than many to bow fire. They need 2 hits out of 2 shots. At evens (for protected foot) this is a 25% chance of causing a test. The same BG of 8 deployed 4 wide needs 3 hits out of 4, while a 10 in a 4-4-2 needs 4 out of 4.

Frontage looks like it will be limited and you will be vulnerable to overlaps or concentrated force against your light and medium troops. 3 MF foot BGs look like they might be a bit vulnerable and a single unit of LH can be overwelmed quite easily (I have had problems with a single unit of Numidians in my Roman armies). Still the Phalanx is strong and I would be inclided to support it with some Hoplites and just have the Iphikratians for the one piece of terrain you are likely to have on your armies flank. Comments on the DomRom Swarm' thread suggest that light troops are the key to success with MF based armies.

Best of luck (I have a Macedonian army in 25 mm which I tend to use as Asiatic Successor- Antogonos Monopthalamos or Eumenes are the preferred options). Not tried it out yet.

DavidT · Post by **DavidT** » Wed Sep 23, 2009 8:56 pm

paulburton wrote:Other threads suggest that Elephants can be vulnerable. 2 wide BGs are actually more vulnerable than many to bow fire. They need 2 hits out of 2 shots. At evens (for protected foot) this is a 25% chance of causing a test. The same BG of 8 deployed 4 wide needs 3 hits out of 4, while a 10 in a 4-4-2 needs 4 out of 4.

The probability of scoring 3 hits (or better) out of 4 on evens is 31.25%

.

deadtorius · Post by **deadtorius** » Wed Sep 23, 2009 10:15 pm

I would keep the nellies on one flank of the pikes, they can form a battle line with the foot. Nellies are great against heavy or medium foot, but they are a risk they either do well or go down fast it seems. Try to protect them from shooting as its easy to force a test on them being a small unit.

Depending on your opponent thracians are hit and miss, if they have superor skilled swords you lose out since they will cancel your heavy weapon and keep the sword for a +. Also being undrilled can get you in a position you can't manouver out of against a drilled opponent, my advice is stick to drilled if you can. Maybe consider Thracian offensive spears.

Offensive spears are my choice of troop type, armoured ( Thorakitai) . Spear cancels the sword bonus, they still get armour but that makes it an even roll. Armoured spear they lose sword, lose armour and you get a + for spear, puts you up one. Much better for the money in my opinion. if you can stick, to the MF for the offensive spears, gets them into the rough and they can move about faster if you need help later.

I run Selucids and I would not waste the points on having a 5th row of pikes that don't do anything for you.
Very important to keep your pike line together or you will get overlapped and outdiced by most opponents who have wider frontage with the same number of figs in 2 rows, downside to pikes.

Give it a shot and see how it workds for you. personally I just play for fun so not much good at tournament advice.

Dareun · Post by **Dareun** » Thu Sep 24, 2009 9:49 am

paulburton wrote:Other threads suggest that Elephants can be vulnerable. 2 wide BGs are actually more vulnerable than many to bow fire. They need 2 hits out of 2 shots. At evens (for protected foot) this is a 25% chance of causing a test. The same BG of 8 deployed 4 wide needs 3 hits out of 4, while a 10 in a 4-4-2 needs 4 out of 4.

Frontage looks like it will be limited and you will be vulnerable to overlaps or concentrated force against your light and medium troops. 3 MF foot BGs look like they might be a bit vulnerable and a single unit of LH can be overwelmed quite easily (I have had problems with a single unit of Numidians in my Roman armies). Still the Phalanx is strong and I would be inclided to support it with some Hoplites and just have the Iphikratians for the one piece of terrain you are likely to have on your armies flank. Comments on the DomRom Swarm' thread suggest that light troops are the key to success with MF based armies.

Best of luck (I have a Macedonian army in 25 mm which I tend to use as Asiatic Successor- Antogonos Monopthalamos or Eumenes are the preferred options). Not tried it out yet.

regarding the 6 base BG, if deployed in 3 rank they got a frontage of 2 and can receive let say 4 hits max (hypothesis: they are not at the end of the battle line and the shooter is cav or MF). Since the 3 first rank counts for the shooting for the HF/MF 2 hits and above will cause me a CT but unlikely a death roll (i will need 3 or 4 hit for so).
The choice i made was to reduce the frontage to avoid getting more shooting (a 8BG deployed in 2 line or even in 3 line will attract more arrow). I need to check if i fear more CT or death roll after a couple of games

The elephant got hit on even by bow. Each base count for 2 for the hit. So if deployed in a single line i need over 2 hits to cause me a CT and 4 hits and over to cause me a death roll (shooting +2 and nellies +1)
Since they are costly a good screen (i thought about the javeline men) could be perfect. I also read in a thread about one guy that lined up his nellies in 2 rank so they were unkillable (but CT at first hit). Did any of you tried that one?

I did choose the nellies because we got fairly limited in terms of heavy cav (max 12) so i wanted something a bit punchy (ok this is nice but expansive toys). The concept is having them on one wing with MF to make a sweep move while the other wing would be totally refused to the opponent.

I feel bad about the few LH i got. They could be outshot any time and indeed they wont stop any infiltration move behind my wing.
I m thinking about trading my thracian for one bg of 4LH (pity those guys would have been colorful on the table).

I will need some practice with it first i guess!

Btw in 25mm your army would be splendid, any pix?

Dareun · Post by **Dareun** » Thu Sep 24, 2009 10:20 am

deadtorius wrote:I would keep the nellies on one flank of the pikes, they can form a battle line with the foot. Nellies are great against heavy or medium foot, but they are a risk they either do well or go down fast it seems. Try to protect them from shooting as its easy to force a test on them being a small unit.

Depending on your opponent thracians are hit and miss, if they have superor skilled swords you lose out since they will cancel your heavy weapon and keep the sword for a +. Also being undrilled can get you in a position you can't manouver out of against a drilled opponent, my advice is stick to drilled if you can. Maybe consider Thracian offensive spears.

Offensive spears are my choice of troop type, armoured ( Thorakitai) . Spear cancels the sword bonus, they still get armour but that makes it an even roll. Armoured spear they lose sword, lose armour and you get a + for spear, puts you up one. Much better for the money in my opinion. if you can stick, to the MF for the offensive spears, gets them into the rough and they can move about faster if you need help later.

I run Selucids and I would not waste the points on having a 5th row of pikes that don't do anything for you.
Very important to keep your pike line together or you will get overlapped and outdiced by most opponents who have wider frontage with the same number of figs in 2 rows, downside to pikes.

Give it a shot and see how it workds for you. personally I just play for fun so not much good at tournament advice.

Hi Dead!

Thx for your reply! This is right, you got a match coming against romans! May the gods of dice be with you has they have been when you were facing the spaniards!
My feeling regarding the phalanx is that once you lost a base the whole stuff is lost or unusable for the rest of the game, so i went for a 10 base phalanx to place where most of the fight will take place. It should buy me some time to react. Besides if it end of at the extremity of my line i can expand it in 3 rank as a arrow buffer.
Regarding the thracian i wanted something that could get a POA what ever happen, but since the opponent also get one all the time, it s pointless and pricewise Off spear are as costly...

Thorakitai are attractive (i dont say sexy, it might be misunderstood

) and efficient, the battle report against the spaniards was clear on that point, but... well... I m pre 279

Since i paint more than i play (and that i dont have truly time to paint as much as i would like to) I try to check out if the doctrine I got are sound. I guess i will have to rethink all of that after having my troops bled a bit!

let us know how it went with the romans!

hammy · Post by **hammy** » Thu Sep 24, 2009 11:01 am

Hi,

Your list is OK, just be aware that the elephants are brittle but can be effective at the right place. If you can find a way to make your spear BGs into 8s they would be better as then they fight 3 wide with a couple of 'spare' bases to fill in when you lose bases.

Certainly not a dog of an army, give it a go and see what works and what doesn't.

marioslaz · Post by **marioslaz** » Thu Sep 24, 2009 1:49 pm

Elephants are dangerous, because they cannot manoeuvre and a good player can manage to bring some skirmishers in front of your elephants. If you really want to play with them, I suggest you use a good skirmishers' BG in front of them, to protect them from shooting. This works better if you have good skirmishers that can fight against other skirmishers with a +POA (for example skirmishers protected, but I don't know if you have any in your list). Alternatively, you could leave elephants and get more LH and cav, so you can have a very strong flank to attack (Xystophoroi + LH to support them), and another flank which can keep down enemy (MF + Cav + LH). If you can keep your centre firm, it's likely you can use your Xystophoroi to attack enemy's centre from their back while they are still engaged with your pikes.

batesmotel · Post by **batesmotel** » Thu Sep 24, 2009 5:08 pm

Dareun wrote: ...
regarding the 6 base BG, if deployed in 3 rank they got a frontage of 2 and can receive let say 4 hits max (hypothesis: they are not at the end of the battle line and the shooter is cav or MF). Since the 3 first rank counts for the shooting for the HF/MF 2 hits and above will cause me a CT but unlikely a death roll (i will need 3 or 4 hit for so).
The choice i made was to reduce the frontage to avoid getting more shooting (a 8BG deployed in 2 line or even in 3 line will attract more arrow). I need to check if i fear more CT or death roll after a couple of games

The elephant got hit on even by bow. Each base count for 2 for the hit. So if deployed in a single line i need over 2 hits to cause me a CT and 4 hits and over to cause me a death roll (shooting +2 and nellies +1)
Since they are costly a good screen (i thought about the javeline men) could be perfect. I also read in a thread about one guy that lined up his nellies in 2 rank so they were unkillable (but CT at first hit). Did any of you tried that one?

I did choose the nellies because we got fairly limited in terms of heavy cav (max 12) so i wanted something a bit punchy (ok this is nice but expansive toys). The concept is having them on one wing with MF to make a sweep move while the other wing would be totally refused to the opponent.

I feel bad about the few LH i got. They could be outshot any time and indeed they wont stop any infiltration move behind my wing.
I m thinking about trading my thracian for one bg of 4LH (pity those guys would have been colorful on the table).

I will need some practice with it first i guess!

Btw in 25mm your army would be splendid, any pix?

I would consider trading the nellies for another unit of pike (I prefer to run 4x8 or 1x8 and 2x12 for Hellenistic armies) The pikes are good against many of the same things the elephants are, less brittle, and nearly as mobile given they are drilled versus the elephants being undrilled other., for about the same cost (48 vs 50 points). Alternatively, if you want something to use in coordination with mounted on the flank, I'd consider going with a unit of Thorakitai to use that way. (Would have to find more points for that than for the elephants.)