Offensive Spears and Pikes

[Talizh2]

Hello, first off I would just like to say thanks for such a great game. I am really enjoying it. I love the scenario editor. I've been making some scenarios and really enjoying myself. They are not polished enough to post, yet. Still play testing them.

I have a question for all the players out there about offensive spearmen and pikes. I never played the TT game so I am wondering if there is any difference between attacking with them or letting the enemy units attack you first. Some boardgames, for example, give hoplites or pikes a bonus if they remain stationary and just defend whereas if they move into contact they suffer penalties. Anything like this in FOG?

For example, impact foot are killing my hoplites in a lot of games. Should I let them come to me, or should I go to them?

Thanks

[andersm73]

Hi, I'm not an expert by any means but I'll give my views for what they are worth...

For me it depends on the battle as a whole, am I looking to delay with my Pikes/Spears or are they the troops I am going to win the battle with. If I'm hoping to win the fight elsewhere then I would definitely let the Impact Foot initiate things, as I find you can really exploit any lack of cohesion in the enemy line in the first round of melee. Even if I wanted to be aggressive with my Pikes / Spears I would still hope the enemy initiated the combat when my line was in range. I usually try to arrange it so that only part of my line can be hit and will then try and work a flank on one side and refuse the other side.

Also the relative strengths of the troops has a big impact, average Pikes / Spear are going to have a tough time against Superior legionaries, against protected average impact foot barbarians I'd be far happier to have my Pikes / Spear get start the impact though, to deny them their superiority in the impact phase.

I'm still stubbornly using a reserve line in my games and having better results with it with less disruption from routing units, if you don't leave your flanks vulnerable then I think it's worth doing. Close proximity of Commanders to the frontline also seems very improtant to keeping good cohesion.

One part of the game that doesn't seem very realistic to me is that HF can retreat two hexes and if drilled reform perfectly, so can retreat from an HF clash indefinitely until they run out of map, surely an HF line would be able to charge to impact and catch such a move in my view....

[batesmotel]

Hello, first off I would just like to say thanks for such a great game. I am really enjoying it. I love the scenario editor. I've been making some scenarios and really enjoying myself. They are not polished enough to post, yet. Still play testing them.

I have a question for all the players out there about offensive spearmen and pikes. I never played the TT game so I am wondering if there is any difference between attacking with them or letting the enemy units attack you first. Some boardgames, for example, give hoplites or pikes a bonus if they remain stationary and just defend whereas if they move into contact they suffer penalties. Anything like this in FOG?

For example, impact foot are killing my hoplites in a lot of games. Should I let them come to me, or should I go to them?

Thanks

Pike, Spears and most other foot POAs do not count if they are charging shock mounted, e.g. non-skirmisher mounted with lance and Heavy Chariots. Other than that their POA is generally the same whether they initiate the impact or receive it. (Defensive spearmen are penalized more than the other foot POAs when charging. See the help section on impact combat for more details.)

Chris

[deadtorius]

the way it should work but doesn't always seem to is in impact pikes will be equal to other impact foot. Spears will be down -.
This applies whether they are charging or standing and taking it. My own experience in the game so far has been that it seems when I charge with my pikes I normally take the worst of it and end up disrupting, not a good thing as it gives your enemy back their sword and evens things out again so you lose the advantage. Generally I have taken the let the pikes stand approach and hope for the best. Not sure it makes much of a difference but then my TT pikes always seem to do better than the PC pikes do. Guess my prayers to the dice gods are answered in real life more so than in virtual life.

[batesmotel]

the way it should work but doesn't always seem to is in impact pikes will be equal to other impact foot. Spears will be down -.
This applies whether they are charging or standing and taking it. My own experience in the game so far has been that it seems when I charge with my pikes I normally take the worst of it and end up disrupting, not a good thing as it gives your enemy back their sword and evens things out again so you lose the advantage. Generally I have taken the let the pikes stand approach and hope for the best. Not sure it makes much of a difference but then my TT pikes always seem to do better than the PC pikes do. Guess my prayers to the dice gods are answered in real life more so than in virtual life.

One difference between charging or standing to receive in FoG PC is that it is generally much easier to insure your units have rear support when you stand. This can make the difference between disrupting or not which can be critical for pikes and spearmen. It is possible to make sure many of your attackers do have rear support if you are careful about how you move to attack and the the attacker does have the advantage of being able to decide which enemy BGs a BG will attack if there are more than one it can attack in a particular position. So it is probably easier to stand and receive with pikes and spearmen but it is really a matter of a specific tactical situation in deciding what to do.

Chris