The Greeks

[markw]

I have been playing FOG for approx 4 months and there is an issue within the game that is starting to bug me and that is simpley the Greek armies.

Any one of the Greek Armies are overtly week. I have tried various combinations to try and make them stand and fight but they all tend to route rather to easily.

Has anyone else noticed this? Compared to the Terminators of the game "Galations" the Greek armies are far to brittle. Was it not the Greeks that colonised the Med! In doing so they would have had to had a decent force to take on either each other or any invading force.
Your thoughts please.

[philqw78]

Are these Terminators a real troop type, or made up for the game "Galatians"? The main problem I find with Greeks is that nobody wants to fight them frontally because they are far too hard. Armoured Offensive spearmen. Add being Spartan if you like and it would be suicide to most troops contacting them frontally.

[MatthewP]

Are these the same Galations that are on a double minus in melee against a steady Greek line of Armoured Spear. If you survive the impact, which can be difficult I know, you should win. If your using protected hopolites then it's closer to an even fight but you should still win a few.

[grahambriggs]

It kind of depends which iteration of greek you're using. there's brobably a dozen or more of them in various army list books.

If you're using the "offensive Spear, heavy Foot" Greeks then Galatians are a problem at impact (so try and minimise the number of bases fighting, have rear support and generals). However, the Galatians are only protected, so armoured spear will have a POA on them in the melee even if disrupted, and two POAs if they are steady (as Sword doesnt count against steady spear). Protected Spear are still at even POA when disrupted, and are plus if not.

Greeks also get plenty of light foot, which are good to break up the Galatians. And some can be drilled and should out manouver the war bands.

Armoured offensive spearmen are a really nasty match up for protected impact foot IMHO.

[timmy1]

I'm with Graham here. My next FoG army will be Spartan.

[Saurocet]

I have yet to learn how to command my Spartan army. I lose just about every time with it.

Sure, those armored, superior, offensive spear sound awesome, but there are only a handful of those guys (read: expensive). Cavalry armies circle around both ends. Romans win in the impact phase. Phalanx can beat them in the melee phase. They are kind of one-dimensional. And a little boring.

I've had more success with my Western Wei Chinese.

[gozerius]

The problem with Greeks vs Galatians is that in period all Greeks are protected, not armored. And the Galatians are all superior.

[expendablecinc]

I have yet to learn how to command my Spartan army. I lose just about every time with it.

Sure, those armored, superior, offensive spear sound awesome, but there are only a handful of those guys (read: expensive). Cavalry armies circle around both ends. Romans win in the impact phase. Phalanx can beat them in the melee phase. They are kind of one-dimensional. And a little boring.

I've had more success with my Western Wei Chinese.

I have been playing almost exclusively with a hoplite armies this year and fine them perfectly fine.
tips:
- dont take too many spartans or you will be too ssmall
- take some protected hoplites as well to save on points
- take a mix of drilled and undrillled.
- drilled on the wings and undrilled in the centre
- take heaps of LF in 8s to absorb missile fire on your Bgs of 6 and to fill Difficult
- dont take an IC - The bulk of your army is armoured and you need to move first
- dotn be afraid to spread out one deep in some places. Its fairly easy to contract but much harder to expand.

[bahdahbum]

Nathan, my son has been playing spartan for some time and I used the army for a tournament . It is a good one but being heavy infantry it is slow .

Against roman, you should deploy in 3 ranks, generals to the front and have a rear support .

Your flanks will have to delay the ennemy as your front will be small ...but that is the price to pay .

Winning a stunning victory in FOG might be near impossible in a tournament game . I did it once against a mid-republican army af 23 BG . But all other games where more balanced .

[grahambriggs]

The problem with Greeks vs Galatians is that in period all Greeks are protected, not armored. And the Galatians are all superior.

Surely, in period the Greeks would have the option for Pike )(says he, not having the lists on him)

[hammy]

The problem with Greeks vs Galatians is that in period all Greeks are protected, not armored. And the Galatians are all superior.

Even protected Greeks are not that bad against Galatians.

OK, the impact is a POA down for the Greeks but if the Greek cohesion holds at impact then they are a POA up in the melee. That is not a desperate situation for the Greeks. Commanders in the right places and rear support are important.

Also if playing equal points then the Galatians will be outnumbered by the Greeks.

[Polkovnik]

I have been playing FOG for approx 4 months.......

Any one of the Greek Armies are overtly week. .....
Has anyone else noticed this? Compared to the ..."Galations" the Greek armies are far to brittle.
Your thoughts please.

Presumably you have mainly played against the same opponent, you with Greeks, he with Galatians ? Are you sure then that there isn't another factor affecting the outcomes other than how good the armies are ?

Four months isn't long to have been playing and there is a lot of player skill involved in this game.

[Polkovnik]

Any one of the Greek Armies are overtly week.

Look at the army rankings here (sort by average points per game) :
http://www.slithdata.net/files/fog/rankings.html

I'm not sure what you include as a Greek army (whether or not you include Macedonian & Successors), but we have, out of 245 armies used in tournaments :

52 Hellenistic Greek
103 Early Successor
106 Later Seleucid
111 Alexandrian Macedonian
153 Classical Greek
166 Galatian

[Saurocet]

tips:
- dont take too many spartans or you will be too small
- take some protected hoplites as well to save on points
- take a mix of drilled and undrillled.
- drilled on the wings and undrilled in the centre
- take heaps of LF in 8s to absorb missile fire on your Bgs of 6 and to fill Difficult
- dont take an IC - The bulk of your army is armoured and you need to move first
- dotn be afraid to spread out one deep in some places. Its fairly easy to contract but much harder to expand.

I will certainly have to remember these. I admit that I haven't been doing the 1st, 3rd, 4th, and 5th points at all. I may have to set aside my Western Wei for a while and start practicing with the Spartans again.

My biggest problem is that I want to engage my best troops to win, which means getting my Spartans into the fight. But they move so slow that my opponent usually has the upper hand at getting his troops matched up against mine. The end result is that my flanks get exploited, or my offensive spear get out of line due to charging, or just poor match-ups. Either way I end up on the short end of inflicting break points.

[will05]

I am not a very good player, I like my greeks, and my armies are in the 400 to 300 BC area. This means that I have a lot of protected hoplites. They are quite good until they get disrupted and then they don't hang about, it's often down like a brick. My main army is Macedonian at 650 points, so having pike as my best offensive troops gives a short frontage, and I kind of rely on my hoplites to incresase that frontage. All I can say is I don't seem to get the victory's of Phillip2.....but there again his victories were as much about politics as about battles.

The thing that I thought as I read this thread is that the main Gallic invasion of Greece was ( I believe) the main catalyst towards the change from hoplite to Theurophori. The Greeks didn't do too well against the gauls, and the defeat of the invasion was possibly as much to do with the Gauls running out of steam as their invasions often did.

So youre not alone in you're troubles with Greeks, there's me and there's the Greeks!

[peterrjohnston]

Even protected Greeks are not that bad against Galatians.

No they're not, they're crap!

OK, the impact is a POA down for the Greeks but if the Greek cohesion holds at impact then they are a POA up in the melee. That is not a desperate situation for the Greeks. Commanders in the right places and rear support are important.

Without generals and rear support, you're likely to be taking an impact CT on -3, which is bad news.

The standard advice seems to be narrow your frontage, use rear support and put generals with them. Well, you only have four generals, and using a narrow frontage and using rear support means the Galatians are now wider than you. Even then CTs are likely to be on a -1, all too easy for average foot to fail.

And if the spear do go disrupted, get the generals away as fast as possible, they will rout before the general can do anything about it.

Protected spear are reasonable against mounted, but if fighting decent foot they are very brittle.