Phalangites vs Thorakitai

marioslaz · Post by **marioslaz** » Sat Oct 31, 2009 4:06 pm

In a game yesterday (Later Ptolemaic vs Later Seleucid) a mine BG of Thorakitai in 6 fought a Phalangites BG in 8. After an impact phase where Phalangites had a +POA, that my heroics Thorakitai fought bravely, Thorakitai got an even POA, but they fought with 6 dice against only 4. So they routed the cowards in a couple of melee turns. Because the Phalangites were Argyraspides my friend was a little upset (ok, slight more than a little

). He claimed phalangites were stronger than hoplites (and their evolution thorakitai). In effect this conclusion has been a surprise also for me. Of course this could be achieved because the phalanx fought isolated, and so I could use an overlap, but...

timmy1 · Post by **timmy1** » Sat Oct 31, 2009 4:21 pm

Mario

Now this is not my specialist period but I think that the result is valid. Thorataki I would expect to be able to stand on their own. However everything I read about phalangites suggests that their power comes from mass. As a Roman commander, when fighting against a phalanx, everything (no matter the ruleset) is planned to get overlaps against the phalanx. If there had been no overlap, I too would have been surprised to have beaten the Argyraspides. As you have the overlap, I am not surprised - once the Thorataki survived the initial impact (which is by no means certain).

Blathergut · Post by **Blathergut** » Sat Oct 31, 2009 4:50 pm

At least the thor's are even on the dice after impact...Romans tend to be down one...your guys were better armoured and wider frontage so the phalanx's sides were compromised (if only in a game design way by giving the thor's more dice for overlap)...it then comes down to who disrupts first/who loses casualties first...that's the game bit of this whole thing, isn't it??

deadtorius · Post by **deadtorius** » Sat Oct 31, 2009 7:56 pm

I agree, running Selucids you want your pikes to be in one long line and try to avoid overlaps if you can. Getting more dice against your pikes is pretty common and it usually means your going down. Bad choice of your opponents to fight offensive spears with a single block of pikes.
I try to get my Thorakites in every army I can since they are the best MF crappy terrain guys my army can have. They have been the heroes of the day on more than one occasion.
My Agyraspides have a tendency to miss a lot on their first impact and melee, then get their act together once they have been shown up by the line pikes and usually do OK after that. In one game they survived a loss of 1 base from the phalanx and recovered disruption to go on to becoming undefeated in every other fight they took part in.

marioslaz · Post by **marioslaz** » Sun Nov 01, 2009 5:26 pm

I agree that phalanx need flanks cover and you should put one BG adjacent to both flanks of your pikes formation. Anyway, the impact of a pikes BG against a thorakitai BG with just a +POA for phalangites seems to much favourable to thorakitai. I think that the advantage due to longer weapons should be depicted with a better POA advantage. Of course, just an opinion.

pyruse · Post by **pyruse** » Mon Nov 02, 2009 3:37 pm

Surely the Pikes should be at ++ POA at impact (+ for charging pikes, + for 4th rank)?
In melee, the extra armour on the Thorakitoi will even things out, but they will lose their + POA for depth quicker than the Pikes in a prolonged melee.

babyshark · Post by **babyshark** » Mon Nov 02, 2009 9:06 pm

pyruse wrote:Surely the Pikes should be at ++ POA at impact (+ for charging pikes, + for 4th rank)?
In melee, the extra armour on the Thorakitoi will even things out, but they will lose their + POA for depth quicker than the Pikes in a prolonged melee.

The Thorakitai also get a + for their spears, netting out at a + POA for the phalangites. Also, the phalanx lose POAs for depth just as fast; their advantage is that they lose dice more slowly.

Marc

Blathergut · Post by **Blathergut** » Mon Nov 02, 2009 10:48 pm

I don't think I'd want to go into any wall of spears. Some suggestions are they were more intensely trained for close in fighting than the pikes. Just because there were only 8 ranks of them instead of 16...I think they deserve the + they get even against the pikes.

marioslaz · Post by **marioslaz** » Tue Nov 03, 2009 8:51 am

Blathergut wrote:I don't think I'd want to go into any wall of spears. Some suggestions are they were more intensely trained for close in fighting than the pikes. Just because there were only 8 ranks of them instead of 16...I think they deserve the + they get even against the pikes.

This is just an opinion, because I could say the opposite arguing that I would fear to fight a formation where 4-5 spear head are between me and my first opponent. And consider I was the thorakitai's owner so I was happy they fought so bravely. IMO, it's OK thorakitai fight melee at even POA against phalangites, but they should pay a heavier tribute during impact. But indeed phalanx need flanks protection, so if the present solution, with just a +POA for phalanx, is a way to encourage player to keep phalanx in a single group, with other troops to protect both flanks, I can agree the current POA can be a good solution.

ShrubMiK · Post by **ShrubMiK** » Tue Nov 03, 2009 10:08 am

I'm a bit puzzled that anybody could think + on impact is "not enough". ++ is clearly too much, since that is what the situation would be if the thorakitai threw away all of their equipment, turned around, and waited for the pikes to charge them in the rear.

When considering what happens in melee, a few other things to consider...

Anyone using a two handed weapon cannot use a shield in the same way, not just slightly reducing their ability to defend themselves, but they also cannot use the shield in an offensive manner. I suspect this is part of the thinking behind not allowing armoured pikemen.

I doubt the melee continues with a textbook "5 neat lines of pikes projecting beyond the front of the formation and holding the enemy out of reach". Even if the opponents cannot knock pikes aside or break shafts and get in between those that remain in the confusion, a pike with somebody impaled on it may become ineffective for some time. Pikemen did carry secondary weapons as well, and probably not just in case they got charged in flank or rear

The chance to score the first disruption is worth more in this sort of fight than against e.g. legionaries, because it also means more chance of getting the opponent to fragmented, which loses the depth POAs.

Fielding thorakitai as MF instead of HF would make them less effective as primary battle line infantry. There's a whole other debate to be had right there...but I would suggest that if you think HF thorakitai are too effective when comapred to historical performance you should argue that they shouldn't be graded as HF, rather than that (effectively) armoured hoplites are overpowered.

In terms of points per base frontage, 4 deep pikes are 20% more expensive than 2 deep thorakitai. So 24 bases of thorakitai 2 deep vs 40 bases of pikes 10 deep, with thorakitai overlapping at both ends would be about as close as you can get to an apples-vs-some-other-variety-of-apples comparison. I suspect that's advantage to pikes overall - assuming it is 5 BGs of 8 vs. 3 BGs of 8, 3 BGs of pike have an overall advantage (up in impact, even in melee if the impact is drawn), whilst the other 2 BGs are not clear cut...pikes still up in impact, if the thorakitai are disrupted in impact that effectively cancels out the 2 overlap dice in melee and the pikes have the edge (thorakitai closer to fragmentation disaster), whereas if the impact is drawn the pikes are obviously likely to lose over the next round or three.

And not forgetting the lesser chance that the thorakitai can, with a bit of luck, win the impact and then the pikes are really in trouble.

Finger in the air, it feels to me like the pikes come out slightly more cost effective in this confrontation. Not having experienced a similar matchup on the table yet I may be way out of line!

Hmmm...I'm looking for some little coding projects at the moment to refresh my knowledge of certain languages...maybe I should write a little simulator