roman loss of skilled swordsman

[grahambriggs]

What makes you think Romans charging without orders is unlikely?
Read Gallic Wars or the Civil War. Legionaries are forever piling in without orders.

Quite the reverse when fighting against foot I seem to recall from Roman drill. The soldiers and centurions were trained that at a certain distance from the enemy you start to advance, at a certain distance you throw your pila, then you get stuck in. Against an advancing enemy you needed to start the process from further away. This was such a feature that at Pharsalus Pompey went to pains to get his troops to receive at the halt. Caesar, from Civil War:

"Pompey had ordered his soldiers to await Caesar's attack and not to advance from their position, or suffer their line to be put into disorder. He is said to have done this by the advice of Gaius Triarius, that the impetuosity of the charge of Caesar's soldiers might be checked, and their line broken, and that Pompey's troops remaining in their ranks, might attack them while in disorder".

Caesar however, saw what was happening and halted and redressed his line before charging in from closer.

[grahambriggs]

The defeat at Aquae Sextae was more down to disunity within the Roman command than tactical issues.

Certainly true that there were more victories than defeats and they usually won the last battle of any campaign. But that's probably what you would expect in their period of expansion.

The Cimbric wars are a good example though, and I think support the v2 changes. I think you mean Arausio rather than Aquae Sextae? Half the army attacked the Cimbrii camp and were wiped out, and the Cimbrii then wiped out the other half. The Romans also lost the earlier battles of Noreia and Burdigala as well as a third battle. It is difficult to see a straight up fight of legion vs warband in v1 ending with the Romans losing because of the ++ in melee. What these battles demonstrate is surely that the combat was not a foregone conclusion and that the Romans had to fight sensibly to avoid defeat.

Later in the war Marius, on the other hand, fought very sensibly. Manging to fight uphill while ambushing the enemy in the rear at AS, and ,later using a cavlary advantage to dominate the field at Vercellae. The problem with recreating this is that, under v1, the Romans don't need all this cleverness to beat the germans. Just go ploughing in and the ++ will sort it out. Marius didn't realise that the extra plus for uphill gave him no melee advantage. Reducing the Roman advantage to a + in melee gives you a good reason to act like Marius and not the weaker generals who lost.

It's odd how many barbarian victories are put down to the Romans being ambushed - though that certainly happened at Teutonberger Wald. The first two battles of the Dacian Wars - defeats for the Roman generals Sabinus and Fuscus are suggested to be ambushes. The Dacian wars are not dissimilar to the Cimbric wars - early Roman defeats (including also Adamclisi where a Roman legion was wiped out). Trajan's campaign later had tough but successful battles at Adamclisi and Tapae before taking the Dacian capital.

All of this suggests to me that the warbands weren't the v1 walkover. v2 gives them a little more chance but I'd still prefer to be the Romans.

[MatteoPasi]

It's odd how many barbarian victories are put down to the Romans being ambushed - though that certainly happened at Teutonberger Wald. The first two battles of the Dacian Wars - defeats for the Roman generals Sabinus and Fuscus are suggested to be ambushes.

Indeed, and not only barbarian: just remember Hannibal's ambush at Transimeno

[MatteoPasi]

Dacians, 7 points for superior unprotected HW

Yes the ones that are double POA'd by lancer cavalry and single POA'd by the light spear roman types.
They are down a POA to Roman legion at impact.
They will take the -1 for losing to HF in melee.
There are 24 of them.
They also will get shot up by archers and other LF/LH

I agree they become a good buy and we can now see Dacians on the board. They aren't going to be the world conquerors I suspect.

Better in oper competition

[ValentinianVictor]

The Late Romans suffered a number of defeats, Constantius II suffered several against the Sasanids, most were during sieges although one, Singara, Constantius II initially chased Sharpur II and the Sasanids off the battle field and forced their way into the Sasanid camp before the Sasanids counter-attacked the camp whilst the Romans were searching it for water and forced the Romans to flee back to their own camp. Several of Constantius II's senior Generals suffered defeats at the hands of the Allemanni and other barbarian tribes. During Valen's reign the Roman's suffered several defeats including the greatest defeat of all, Adrianopolis, where Valens was killed along with two thirds of his army. That was not an ambush as Valen's army was fully arrayed before the Gothic wagons when the Gothic cavalry unexpectedly returned and attacked the right flank of the Roman army, causing all the Roman cavalry on that flank to flee the battlefield.

[Eques]

The defeat at Aquae Sextae was more down to disunity within the Roman command than tactical issues.

Certainly true that there were more victories than defeats and they usually won the last battle of any campaign. But that's probably what you would expect in their period of expansion.

The Cimbric wars are a good example though, and I think support the v2 changes. I think you mean Arausio rather than Aquae Sextae? Half the army attacked the Cimbrii camp and were wiped out, and the Cimbrii then wiped out the other half. The Romans also lost the earlier battles of Noreia and Burdigala as well as a third battle. It is difficult to see a straight up fight of legion vs warband in v1 ending with the Romans losing because of the ++ in melee. What these battles demonstrate is surely that the combat was not a foregone conclusion and that the Romans had to fight sensibly to avoid defeat.

Later in the war Marius, on the other hand, fought very sensibly. Manging to fight uphill while ambushing the enemy in the rear at AS, and ,later using a cavlary advantage to dominate the field at Vercellae. The problem with recreating this is that, under v1, the Romans don't need all this cleverness to beat the germans. Just go ploughing in and the ++ will sort it out. Marius didn't realise that the extra plus for uphill gave him no melee advantage. Reducing the Roman advantage to a + in melee gives you a good reason to act like Marius and not the weaker generals who lost.

It's odd how many barbarian victories are put down to the Romans being ambushed - though that certainly happened at Teutonberger Wald. The first two battles of the Dacian Wars - defeats for the Roman generals Sabinus and Fuscus are suggested to be ambushes. The Dacian wars are not dissimilar to the Cimbric wars - early Roman defeats (including also Adamclisi where a Roman legion was wiped out). Trajan's campaign later had tough but successful battles at Adamclisi and Tapae before taking the Dacian capital.

All of this suggests to me that the warbands weren't the v1 walkover. v2 gives them a little more chance but I'd still prefer to be the Romans.

You make some good points, but the Roman period of expansion did last 500+ years, and it was the victories that caused the expansion, not the other way round.

I'm not sure they would get away with claiming battles were ambushes when they were not (and Wikipedia tells me Burdigala was also one!)

Still, I see what your saying to an extent, I am just wary of the producers bowing to pressure from people who say "these troops are too good" or "these troops aren't good enough". Surely the diversity of troop types is a large part of the appeal of ancient wargaming. We're not playing chess here. I like having to make do with units in my army that aren't very good cos that's what ancient commanders would have to do. If I am fighting against a Roman army I would want to feel that I have a tough ordeal ahead of me. I would feel cheated if I was fighting Gauls against Romans and it was just a coin toss as to who won the melee. Again, that is what the army list points are for.

As a final point I would say that, having just drawn up a 750 pt LRR army list under version 1, if you give yourself more than 3 or 4 legions you start to run out of points for the other core troops and certainly for any optionals you might have your eye on so to that extent the producers have already built in certain difficulties for a Roman army.

PS I did mean Arausio - got Aquae Sextae from the OP I was replying to.

[ethan]

As a final point I would just say that, having just drawn up a 750 pt LRR army list under version 1,

I find the game much more interesting at 900AP

[grahambriggs]

As a final point I would say that, having just drawn up a 750 pt LRR army list under version 1, if you give yourself more than 3 or 4 legions you start to run out of points for the other core troops and certainly for any optionals you might have your eye on so to that extent the producers have already built in certain difficulties for a Roman army.

I know you probably mean "core troops" in the list, but i would think a proper Roman approach is that the legions are the ONLY core troops!

ps. I recall there is an Italian army in 'Lost Scrolls' that could fit 33 BGs into 800 points, with the great majority of those being drilled heavy foot types. Of course, each one isn't very good...

[MatteoPasi]

Etruscan League maybe

[Eques]

As a final point I would say that, having just drawn up a 750 pt LRR army list under version 1, if you give yourself more than 3 or 4 legions you start to run out of points for the other core troops and certainly for any optionals you might have your eye on so to that extent the producers have already built in certain difficulties for a Roman army.

I know you probably mean "core troops" in the list, but i would think a proper Roman approach is that the legions are the ONLY core troops!

Ya I did mean core troops in the list and to be fair most LRR Commanders did make sure they hired in plenty of cavalry and skirmishers. I would guess in the game that if you did have an army consisting entirely of legionaries it would be easier for barbarians to beat as they could ride round it with their superior cavalry and chariots, while raking it with missiles from the front.

[MikeHorah]

You say they are average, he says they are superior. A great case for the army list re-write to reflect this by allowing players to choose. If you have a Dacian army, field them as average, you've paid the points. I believe the points are excellent, if you want to field heavily armoured heavy foot elite drilled impact foot skilled swordsmen - go for it.

If you are saying that every single unit in the game should be whatever players want it to be within the points available that is an interesting variation but one that would, if officially adopted, totally destroy the historical recreation element of the game (which is what a lot of players who complain about units that are too good or too bad are effectively doing anyway).

There is a section in the appendices that explain how the points are determined so I suppose if you wanted to try that out at home or in special tournaments it would be feasible.

I wourld say that in any wargames rules a " good big'un" should beat a "good little'un" most of the time (so write your tables accordingly), other things being equal. But Generalship is partly, if not mainly, about making sure that those other things are unequal and in your favour. Ancients and Medievals has always been dogged by this problem of weapon and armour (" scissors paper stone") and their interactions being seen as the the key but which I have always felt was an ovesimplification founded in 20th century technological cultural ideas.

Considering how a given weapon type was used is a better way and FOG(AM) in doing that goes some way to row back but not all the way and perhaps not as far as I would prefer. For me it's more the men than their weapons. Look how poorly " imitation legionaries" usually did. Give a difficult weapon to a recruit ( or a two handed axe to one of the Fyrd) and he will hardly know which end to use.

Thinking strategically it's not the weapon system and the man so much as the whole system. Rome's success - notwithstanding its many disasters over the centuries - was as much about organisation,gradual professionalisation - from around 100BC - logistics and engineering - as about the kit.

But we are generally modelling smaller battles .When you try to model the really big ones then these scissors paper stone nuances should become a little less critical in my view. And big numbers were a handicap to barbarian armies as they were hard to co-ordinate and coud et in the way. And we in our hot air ballons flaoting several thousand feet above the battle field are not able to be fooled by the way the more professional ancient armies' generals could hide bodies of men behind one another in plain sight on largely flat battle fields with restricted lines of sight -and so surpise their opponents . One could cite many Roman battles where that happened. Surprise and other stratagems were very important to the ancients.

Not sure if there are any good solutions for miniatures games to these - the Total War series of PC games manages to give you some of that.

[ShrubMiK]

>Still, I see what your saying to an extent, I am just wary of the producers bowing to pressure from people who say "these troops are too good" or "these troops aren't good enough".

Which, ironically, is sort of what you're doing

Look, bottom line: agreed, as far as I am concerned is: Roman legionaries should be significantly better that the typical "Barbarian" warband types. And even without skilled swordsmen, guess what: they are.

Armour + Superior = 1.5 POAs, instead of a rather ridiculous 2.5 POAs previously. (What happens if the Barbarians throw away their shields and helmets and everything else they are wearing, and replace their swords/hand axes/clubs with sticks of floppy asparagus? Still 2.5 POAs difference.)

And that's without considering the benefits of drilled status for mobility and avoiding stupid charges.

So all the argument you are making that Romans "should be much better" is a bit missing the point IMO. You need to prove that they were so far better that they only need to look at the enemy and they collapse instantly into a pile of bones.

I agree that legionaries being essentially much better warband is lacking in what I consider to be the right period flavour. But changing them from being essentially better warband to much much much better warband doesn't seem to solve that complaint.

[rbodleyscott]

Still, I see what your saying to an extent, I am just wary of the producers bowing to pressure from people who say "these troops are too good" or "these troops aren't good enough".

Which, ironically, is sort of what you're doing

Look, bottom line: agreed, as far as I am concerned is: Roman legionaries should be significantly better that the typical "Barbarian" warband types. And even without skilled swordsmen, guess what: they are.

Armour + Superior = 1.5 POAs, instead of a rather ridiculous 2.5 POAs previously. (What happens if the Barbarians throw away their shields and helmets and everything else they are wearing, and replace their swords/hand axes/clubs with sticks of floppy asparagus? Still 2.5 POAs difference.)

And that's without considering the benefits of drilled status for mobility and avoiding stupid charges.

So all the argument you are making that Romans "should be much better" is a bit missing the point IMO. You need to prove that they were so far better that they only need to look at the enemy and they collapse instantly into a pile of bones.

+rep

[madaxeman]

What happens if the Barbarians throw away their shields and helmets and everything else they are wearing, and replace their swords/hand axes/clubs with sticks of floppy asparagus? Still 2.5 POAs difference.

I think this just being silly. Broccoli would be a much more appropriate metaphor - asparagus is still kinda pointy, and might therefore be a little dangerous.

In fact, it's probably better still to add in some real-world equivalents and ask if it is reasonable and fair to argue that the following two interactions are equivalent:

"Superior grade fully armed skilled-in-swordsmanship battle trained Roman Legionary vs strapping Gallic warrior raised from birth in a martial culture using a huge sword and shield" (Superior Skilled Swordsman Armoured Legionary vs Average Protected Swordsman)

with

"Average trained fully armed Roman Legionary vs overweight modern wargamer armed with a head of broccolli and wearing a generic heavy metal t-shirt" (Average Armoured Swordsman vs Poor unarmoured infantry with no melee weapon)

yeah, right....


and say that the legionary would enjoy a similar advantage in both matchups

[philqw78]

You forget the now outlawed chemical and biological weapons employed by your average wargamer on the sunday morning of a competition Tim. I would however agree with you for the normal Tuesday club night.

[Eques]

I am just wary of the producers bowing to pressure from people who say "these troops are too good" or "these troops aren't good enough".

Which, ironically, is sort of what you're doing

Its not what I'm doing.

I was referring to the people who seem to think that their own armies should not suffer any disadvantages or have any weaknesses. Who are forever saying "its just not fair my army is crap in melee/lacking in missiles/catching evaders/evading" and in the process kind of miss the point that the game is about managing your weaknesses and playing to your strengths. And Roman players are guilty of this as well, always saying "its just not fair, I can't catch my opponents' light horse!"

That is not my line of argument. I don't hold any brief for the Romans. I just want to see a game with a wide diversity of troop types in which some are extremely good and others are really pants and all points in between. And that is the great thing about the points system.

So all the argument you are making that Romans "should be much better" is a bit missing the point IMO. You need to prove that they were so far better that they only need to look at the enemy and they collapse instantly into a pile of bones.

Well yes that is pretty much what happened in head-on clashes between legions and barbarians. The answer if your playing as barbarians is surely to avoid head on clashes and use your cavalry. And I am not saying Romans should be better, just that they should stay as good as they are.

Armour + Superior = 1.5 POAs

Where does that leave raw/average legions? (Who were still pretty effective historically)

And that's without considering the benefits of drilled status for mobility and avoiding stupid charges

Which again is being diluted in V2 in response to players saying "its just not fair, my troops should be able to do this, this and this!"

[Eques]

But we are generally modelling smaller battles .When you try to model the really big ones then these scissors paper stone nuances should become a little less critical in my view. And big numbers were a handicap to barbarian armies as they were hard to co-ordinate and coud et in the way. And we in our hot air ballons flaoting several thousand feet above the battle field are not able to be fooled by the way the more professional ancient armies' generals could hide bodies of men behind one another in plain sight on largely flat battle fields with restricted lines of sight -and so surpise their opponents . One could cite many Roman battles where that happened. Surprise and other stratagems were very important to the ancients.

Not sure if there are any good solutions for miniatures games to these - the Total War series of PC games manages to give you some of that.

Well "fog of war" mechanisms (excuse the pun) were highly prized innovations in the 70s and 80s. Look at this from the introduction to WRG's 7th edition:

"The unanimous conclusion of the users is that 7th is far more realistic than other sets and greatly widens the gap between good and poor tacticians. They applaud the end of the 'fire work display' with units whizzing off in all directions without getting in each others' way"

[hazelbark]

Well "fog of war" mechanisms (excuse the pun) were highly prized innovations in the 70s and 80s. Look at this from the introduction to WRG's 7th edition:

"The unanimous conclusion of the users is that 7th is far more realistic than other sets and greatly widens the gap between good and poor tacticians. They applaud the end of the 'fire work display' with units whizzing off in all directions without getting in each others' way"

Which is pretty funny for the author to decide this prior to publication.
And having witnessed plenty of 7th...he was wrong as well.

[Eques]

Which is pretty funny for the author to decide this prior to publication.
And having witnessed plenty of 7th...he was wrong as well.

Well yes I am sure there was a lot wrong with 7th edition. The almost unreadable prose for a start

But I was just using that extract to show that fog of war mechanics were once seen as highly desirable in tabletop and boardgames, and those who first started to introduce them were applauded for breaking new ground.

That is a contrast to these days, where players just seem to want to slide their pieces all over the place like chessmen.

[grahambriggs]

So all the argument you are making that Romans "should be much better" is a bit missing the point IMO. You need to prove that they were so far better that they only need to look at the enemy and they collapse instantly into a pile of bones.

Well yes that is pretty much what happened in head-on clashes between legions and barbarians. The answer if your playing as barbarians is surely to avoid head on clashes and use your cavalry. And I am not saying Romans should be better, just that they should stay as good as they are.

Armour + Superior = 1.5 POAs

Where does that leave raw/average legions? (Who were still pretty effective historically)

But the barbarian foot didn't collapse instantly. They were usually only beaten after a hard fight. where is your evidence for instant collapse being the norm?

Average legions will still be better than barbarian foot, since they'll have a +POA due to armour. A +POA is still a very significant advantage. Poor legions risk being swept away by the barbarian charge - seems historical.

You seem to assume that there is evidence that the Romans should go through barbarian foot quickly. It seems to me that it was a longer fight than a ++ POA would suggest.