Romans vs Barbarian impact foot - how to rebalance?

[jonphilp]

In our last club campaign I used a Syracusan army against a range of foes from Immortal Fire and Rise of Rome. Fortunately I won the campaign but found over a long series of battles that the most problomatic unit was my Gallic Mercenaries. Often they were the first unit to crumble compared to my hoplites. The best tactic I used was to take the maximum amount of bases (10-12) , use a three line formation supported on both sides by Hoplites. When I used this formation the battlegroup could better stand up to Pike blocks etc as they extra bases to obsorb initial casualties without diminishing their fighting value. I think perhaps the allowed size of "warband" battlegroups could be addressed to make them better resistant to casualties, an 8 strong battle group in very brittle. In addition as I have said in an earler post, give "warband" types an enhanced POA in the first round of impact/melee . Warbands are the issue not the Roman Ssw.

[pcelella]

Warbands are the issue not the Roman Ssw.

Exactly.

Even if taking away Skilled Sword from Romans did a better job of balancing the relationship between legions and warbands, barbarian armies would still be trash against all the other troop types in the game. Barbarians would still be extremely rare on the table at open events, and the result would only be a weakening of Romans against several other troop types.

Peter C
Sword and Sandal Gaming Blog
http://swordandsandalgaming.blogspot.com/

[Polkovnik]

Even if taking away Skilled Sword from Romans .......... the result would only be a weakening of Romans against several other troop types.

Such as ?
As has been pointed out previously, this change would make Romans better against most other troop types, especially the ones they normally struggle against - Pikes and Mounted (and also spears), as they become 1 point cheaper per base. Currently they pay points for something that is often not used, and most of the time when it is used it is not required as they are +POA and better quality anyway.

[ethan]

Barbarians would still be extremely rare on the table at open events, and the result would only be a weakening of Romans against several other troop types.

Such as? As best I can tell historically the Romans sword using opponents tended to be either mounted (against which SSw doesn't matter) or generally pretty weak foot (such as warband types which they will still beat as armoured superior) and the odd Lt spear/sw types which again they will generally beat without the SSw. The only interaction that will become meaningfully worse is agaisnt Hvy Weapons. Out of period maybe they aren't quite as strong against Dailami, Scottish Thegns, Qin Chinese dagger-axe wielders or English Longbows...but I am not sure that is a basis for much.

I actually think this change makes Romans stronger by making them 1AP cheaper which is worth more against most enemies than than the SSw. I do agree this won't "Fix" warbands, more changes are probably needed for that. But I don't think this hurts the Romans, it probably helps them if anything IMO and it helps fix part of the warband issue wrt to Romans.

[Strategos69]

Even if your "rough calculations" are correct, you are talking about BGs, not legions. Take (say) 4 BGs of superior vs the same amount of average legionaries. I don't think the average would win 30-40 % of the time then.

You are right that in the overall veterans will tend to win (and the more you win in one point, the more effects it has because of the CT), but you have also to bear in mind that they will be outnumbered. The point here is that the average will outnumber the veterans roughly 3 to 2, thus the correct proportion should be 6 BG's against 4. Making the calculations would take a while and I don't have a simulation program, but with 2 extra BG you can have rear support, and maybe overlaps or a flanking manouver.

Historically Caesar legionaries stood against and won over legions that doubled their number and if the skilled swordsmen is removed I am not that certain it could be represented in the game. I don't know of any battle where Pompeian legions broke Caesar legions in open battle (the closer was Dyrrachium, very particular). My guess is that if Pharsalus is to be redone with FoG rules, there are already a good number of issues that should be fixed through special rules and without skSw there would be more:
1) The battle will be over before the Romans can take any advantage of winning the cavalry, if they are able to do so, because the cavalry is too powerful and they might lose (the cavalry wing will be 3 to 1 against legionaries)
2) Legions alone will decide the battle (even if the victorius Pompeian cavalry does what it was asked to)
3) Some Pompeian average BG's will be able to make it through the Caesarian line and there would be no reserves to contain them unless in odd columns

In the other hand, as a game, FoG already has just a few PoA's, would it be the best to decide all combats with who is the one that gets more 4's?

[ethan]

Assuming they don't get flanked, if Caesar's boys were elites vs. Pompeiian average and I would say you have a pretty good chance of seeing a whole line win without any BG breaking. It is unlikely they will lose any combat, they are unlikely to take casaulties in any fight they win (with a 2 base frontage) and the averages are likely to break fairly quickly from casaulties in 4 element BGs. The odd elite that does lose is pretty unlikely to even disrupt (elite being worth something on the order of a +1.5 to +2 on the morale roll).

The hits and casaulties of elites vs. average is pretty shocking really, even at even PoAs. Assuming everyone is in 4 element BGs:

The elites do 2/3 of a hit per die rolled, the averaged do 1/2. So basically every time the average guys lose a BG vs BG fight they face basically have about a 50-50 chance of losing a base. Which means they probably on average break from casaulties after about four rounds of combat (including impact). My guess is that over the course of 1.5 turns a line of elites will break substantial numbers of BGs in a line of averages.

[Polkovnik]

Even if your "rough calculations" are correct, you are talking about BGs, not legions. Take (say) 4 BGs of superior vs the same amount of average legionaries. I don't think the average would win 30-40 % of the time then.

You are right that in the overall veterans will tend to win (and the more you win in one point, the more effects it has because of the CT), but you have also to bear in mind that they will be outnumbered. The point here is that the average will outnumber the veterans roughly 3 to 2, thus the correct proportion should be 6 BG's against 4.

No, the point was was about the probability of average legion beating a veteran legion, so equal numbers.

[Strategos69]

Even if your "rough calculations" are correct, you are talking about BGs, not legions. Take (say) 4 BGs of superior vs the same amount of average legionaries. I don't think the average would win 30-40 % of the time then.

You are right that in the overall veterans will tend to win (and the more you win in one point, the more effects it has because of the CT), but you have also to bear in mind that they will be outnumbered. The point here is that the average will outnumber the veterans roughly 3 to 2, thus the correct proportion should be 6 BG's against 4.

No, the point was was about the probability of average legion beating a veteran legion, so equal numbers.

And in that regard halved Caesarian veteran legions always won against complete average ones, not that that would happen in similar proportions if we take away the skilled swordsmen PoA. In the other hand, it is very hard to find a veteran legion in equal numbers with an average one. Basically veterans are so because they have been fighting for a long time. If you fill a veteran legion with too many raw recruits, you downgrade its quality. In fact, what Pompeii did was getting the old renlisted veterans among the raw recruits to increase the quality of his legions (a reason why I think that the poor grading would not be good for most of his legions and some of them might be considered even superior). Regarding making all of Caesar legion elites, I would reserve that for the Xth legion, which proved this battle after battle.

[zocco]

Barbarians would still be extremely rare on the table at open events, and the result would only be a weakening of Romans against several other troop types.

Such as? As best I can tell historically the Romans sword using opponents tended to be either mounted (against which SSw doesn't matter) or generally pretty weak foot (such as warband types which they will still beat as armoured superior) and the odd Lt spear/sw types which again they will generally beat without the SSw. The only interaction that will become meaningfully worse is agaisnt Hvy Weapons. Out of period maybe they aren't quite as strong against Dailami, Scottish Thegns, Qin Chinese dagger-axe wielders or English Longbows...but I am not sure that is a basis for much.

I actually think this change makes Romans stronger by making them 1AP cheaper which is worth more against most enemies than than the SSw. I do agree this won't "Fix" warbands, more changes are probably needed for that. But I don't think this hurts the Romans, it probably helps them if anything IMO and it helps fix part of the warband issue wrt to Romans.

I don't necesarily agree with the above. But having said that wouldn't it be better according to it to merely allow romans the option of SSW - which they can either then take (and pay the additional 1 pt) or not (and use SW). The player thereby gets to choose - dependent on there views of cost effectiveness.

[hazelbark]

I don't necesarily agree with the above. But having said that wouldn't it be better according to it to merely allow romans the option of SSW - which they can either then take (and pay the additional 1 pt) or not (and use SW). The player thereby gets to choose - dependent on there views of cost effectiveness.

So gamesmanship would triumph?
What's more some troops would have it and others wouldn't in the same army so they could save a little and retain the ability.

[DavidT]

What's more some troops would have it and others wouldn't in the same army so they could save a little and retain the ability.

I would think that it would more likely be 'all or none' of the superior legions to be SSw.

[SirGarnet]

The Roman military machine for some centuries was founded on machinelike efficiency with sword and shield.

I spoke with the person I know who knows most about Romans and he points out that the Romans "really were that effective" in a head-on fight in suitable terrain against Warband types. Their defeats occurred when something went wrong for the Romans, which is what the barbarian player must engineer (unless the Romans bring raw troops to the table - scarcely ever seen in FOG).

Definitely the "wasted" points on Swordsmen and Protected for barbarians reduce the potential numerical superiority they might otherwise bring to bear, but that is a problem most lists have against some opponents. SSW may be a waste for Romans at times, but that is entirely appropriate during the period in question. They were optimized to fight certain kinds of opponents, and with their troop quality and training still did quite well against others.


Not to purloin rules from other sets, but one of the charms of Impetus is its deep unit rule, where two units of warband or pike that can be locked together front and back take the losses suffered by the front unit off the rear unit intead, so the front one stays in good condition while the rear hangs around. This means the barbarians can sometimes win a long fight. Having an 8-12 base BG doesn't really do the same thing in FOG, since bad CTs soon doom the barbarians and things are usually settled to the Roman advantage after the initial impact.

Maybe make special "tournament rules" so people can get a "reasonable game" notwithstanding their normal fate, but leave things more aligned with history for scenario, campaign and casual games.

Mike

[grahambriggs]

The Roman military machine for some centuries was founded on machinelike efficiency with sword and shield.

I spoke with the person I know who knows most about Romans and he points out that the Romans "really were that effective" in a head-on fight in suitable terrain against Warband types. Their defeats occurred when something went wrong for the Romans, which is what the barbarian player must engineer (unless the Romans bring raw troops to the table - scarcely ever seen in FOG).

Mike

Possibly the most watertight source reference ever

[SirGarnet]

It's not a cite - it's a point, one I'm not claiming credit for. It's important to me that rules get the interactions right.

[gaesati]

Impact foot such as gauls were renowned for their ferocity in their initial charge and this was when the romans and hellenistic greeks considered them most dangerous. Accounts of victories they achieved over romans seem to portray big men chopping their way through roman shields. I imagine a mass of charging gauls made up of small groups of neighbours and relatives charging tucked in behind the biggest and most ferociously adept crashing into a roman or offensive spear/pike line and, if succesful breaking into their opponents formation and forcing a melee as a mass of individual combats. At this time the combat would favour individual fighters rather than cooperative fighters. If unsuccesfull, the line of offensive spear and /or pike would hold them out and the cooperative fighting style of drilled troops would then chew them up. Similarly, if the roman pila unshielded or injured many they would be prevented from breaking into the roman formation and once more it would be strong individual fighters facing cooperative fencers. under these circumstances the romans should mince the gauls and this is what happens in the current rules.
Where it breaks down is modelling the succesful gallic charge. At the moment the gauls need to be lucky to win the impact and then lucky again to disrupt their opponent. Perhaps, another way of modelling would be to impose disorder on troops who lose impact to charging impact foot. this would simulate a loss of effectiveness from having to fight in an unaccustomed way. If the losers of the impact then keep losing in melee their chances of disruption increase. If however they defeat the gallic swordsmen in melee they can recover their order automatically and then mince up the gauls. This would simulate the broken into formation bouncing the barbarians out of their formation and then being able to revert to their accustomed style of fighting.

[ShrubMiK]

The argument about what proportion of the time average legions would win against superior seems a bit pointless to me.

With most armies, there is no way at all in FoG to differentiate veterans from their inferiors. And that is especially true in most of the warband armies. Should we get concerned about how to realistically model without scenario special rules civil wars fought by other nations?

I don't see why getting the exact details of Roman vs. Roman matchups should triumph over getting Roman vs. anybody else matchups correct. If the ruleset was called something like "Romans and unimportant barbarians" maybe

I also don't see why there should be such importance attached to representing that some people were better fighting with their swords than others. Why not add in skilled spear chuckers, skilled pike pokers, skilled heavy weapon twhirlers, etc.? Surely they weren't historically all of equal ability?

Answer: because this is a ruleset intended to capture the big differences, and not obsess too much over the lesser details. so there is inevitably a limit to the number of categories of troops and rules mechanisms that can come into play without making it over-complicated.

Although, having said all that, I am now going to turn around and say that it has occurred to me that perhaps what we need in this particular interaction is something like "double impact foot". Warband types would be categorised thus because they are reputed to be especially fierce in the charge, and historically-speaking Romans were allegedly wary of this. Thus "double impact foot" would trump "impact foot" in the impact phase, and there would be more chance of the warband sezing an early advantage. Of course, with 2.5 POA advantage in the melee that follows you would probably see the Romans recover from lsoing the initial impact and go on to win in tjhe end, but they are more likely to take some damage to cohesion and bases in the process, and take longer to win. and there will be more chance of at least some Roman BGs breaking along the way.

[Strategos69]

The argument about what proportion of the time average legions would win against superior seems a bit pointless to me.

The implied argument there is that, as far as I know, it NEVER happened. My point is that being a veteran legion was something more than what superior can reflect (in fact, Caesar did not commit at first his raw legions at Bibracte even if uphill). In the other hand, making all troops equal seems pointless as a game. In fact, as you proposed, I think the fix for this issue is having better Barbarians at impact and maybe, if skilled swordsman unbalances too much when defeated, allow it only when steady.

By the way, regarding of the absence of veterans in some list, you are right and I think that some lists (specially the ones that are absolutely flat) could be given one BG of superior and some BG of poor troops of their main type to reflect that it is highly likely that some peoples had their own veterans, even if not covered by the sources.