No Elites for Spartans?

shall · Post by **shall** » Wed Feb 20, 2008 9:45 am

To be honest as elites they will do just the same as the do as superiors, win.......

If anything massed superior is better than a small amount of elite.

Exactly. In overall feel mass superior is the characteristing of a tough army overall. Elites in feel are the charasteristics of small proportions of armies that act as a punch or end up making that to the death last stand when all about them has fallen apart!

Si

nikgaukroger · Post by **nikgaukroger** » Wed Feb 20, 2008 10:46 am

Always nice to see some impassioned special pleading for your troops though

spike · Post by **spike** » Wed Feb 20, 2008 1:22 pm

rbodleyscott wrote:
kermit wrote:Well Greg is right, I mean thebans get to be elite? girls the lot of them.
Yet spartans don't?

Ba humbug!
Thebans don't get to be "Elite" either, the sacred band are "Superior".

But guys, don't get hung up on a word. Everything is relative. "Superior" hoplites are the Elite of the hoplite world. The vast majority of hoplites are "Average", some are even "Poor".

Under FOG Spartans will beat seven kinds of sh*te out of any of their historical opponents.

If it is any consolation Teutonic knights, Templars and Hospitallers are only "Superior" too. (Cue new flame war).

Early Armoured Spartans beat seven bells out of almost anything- including Knights and Legionaries

kermit-matrix · Post by **kermit-matrix** » Thu Feb 21, 2008 2:44 am

nikgaukroger wrote:Always nice to see some impassioned special pleading for your troops though

Not from me! I don't own a one Greek of any description.

Whats the point of elite, if you have the best of the best who can't be?

hammy · Post by **hammy** » Thu Feb 21, 2008 10:06 am

Elite is used where some significant part of an army that is already superior needs to be better.

For example a non raw Roman legionary is superior drilled. All the legionaries in an army can be superior so in order to get the effect of an elite legion (i.e. one that is better than the other legions) it needs to be elite in the rules.

If for your games at home you want to use elite spartans then fine, but they really don't need to be elite to be as effective as they were historically.

ars_belli · Post by **ars_belli** » Thu Feb 21, 2008 10:47 pm

One also has to remember that the Spartiates were the "best of the best" - for that particular time and place. Whether Leonidas' 300 still would have been considered elite if they were somehow transported in time to face Alexander's Foot Companions or Marius' Mules is somewhat more problemmatic.

Cheers,
Scott

hammy · Post by **hammy** » Thu Feb 21, 2008 11:31 pm

ars_belli wrote:One also has to remember that the Spartiates were the "best of the best" - for that particular time and place. Whether Leonidas' 300 still would have been considered elite if they were somehow transported in time to face Alexander's Foot Companions or Marius' Mules is somewhat more problemmatic.

Cheers,
Scott

As superior armoured offensive spear the Spartans dont NEED to be elite. Plonk and inspired commander in the front rank and they will beat almost anything.

carlos · Post by **carlos** » Thu Feb 21, 2008 11:49 pm

Regarding Leonidas' 300, in DBM if you had a Sp(S) general with rear support and no risk of being flanked or overlapped, he was nearly indestructible. In FoG, if you have a Sup, Arm, Off Spear BG with an IC in it and no risk of being flanked and overlapped... that thing is nearly impossible to beat. No need for it to be Elite.

ars_belli · Post by **ars_belli** » Fri Feb 22, 2008 1:44 am

Duplicate comment removed by author.

ars_belli · Post by **ars_belli** » Fri Feb 22, 2008 1:45 am

carlos wrote:Regarding Leonidas' 300, in DBM if you had a Sp(S) general with rear support and no risk of being flanked or overlapped, he was nearly indestructible. In FoG, if you have a Sup, Arm, Off Spear BG with an IC in it and no risk of being flanked and overlapped... that thing is nearly impossible to beat. No need for it to be Elite.

Yep... sort of my point, actually.

Cheers,
Scott

scottyboy · Post by **scottyboy** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 12:27 am

Pah...all this talk of Spartans...... My Immortals shall soon show them how to fight....

rbodleyscott · Post by **rbodleyscott** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 8:34 am

scottyboy wrote:Pah...all this talk of Spartans...... My Immortals shall soon show them how to fight....

And they are Superior too, not Elite.

flameberge · Post by **flameberge** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 9:06 pm

When I read in the main rules the Spartans were going to be Superior rather than elite I knew many many people would have problems with this. The great thing about FOG though is that the main rulebook tells you exactly how they get the point values for the troops so if your adamant that Spartans be Elite its pretty easy to do as long as the people you are playing with are OK with it.

OldenTired · Post by **OldenTired** » Sun Mar 30, 2008 2:11 am

shall wrote:
To be honest as elites they will do just the same as the do as superiors, win.......

If anything massed superior is better than a small amount of elite.
Exactly. In overall feel mass superior is the characteristing of a tough army overall. Elites in feel are the charasteristics of small proportions of armies that act as a punch or end up making that to the death last stand when all about them has fallen apart!

Si

so, and the obvious question... why do the late imperial romans get *18* elements of elite?

more than the total number of elites in all lists in storm of arrows?

nikgaukroger · Post by **nikgaukroger** » Sun Mar 30, 2008 8:32 am

For those troops that are seen as being noticably better that the troops rated as Superior - Caesar's best legiones at the end of his Gallic wars and into the civil wars would be good candidates, for example.

BTW on the issue of Spartan effectiveness I noticed that Phil Sabin in "Lost Battles" makes the comment that the Roman militia legiones performed in a manner that in Grecce would only have been achieved by the Spartans.

verybizzyb · Post by **verybizzyb** » Sun Mar 30, 2008 8:59 am

"so, and the obvious question... why do the late imperial romans get *18* elements of elite? "

I think the choice of 18 may be meant to reflect a particular veteran legion. From the ground scale offered in appendix 1 (1 base = approximately 250 men) the 18 bases would represent around 4500, ie 1 legion. I assume this number would then vary to reflect the particular figure scale we wanted to use for a particular battle, eg if you were using a BG of 4 - 6 bases to represent a full Legion then it may not be appropriate to include all 18 bases of Elite legionaries.

vamrat · Post by **vamrat** » Tue Mar 10, 2009 3:36 am

I think the superior rating works well for the Lakedaimonoi. As for the Hippeis - they are included in FoG. Just take one of you commanders and call him King. The other little holites glued onto his base are the Hippeis.

bahdahbum · Post by **bahdahbum** » Tue Mar 10, 2009 6:44 am

Concerning the famous "300" , people often forget that they were not alone . They were about 4-5.000 other greeks with them even if only average and undrilled

ethan · Post by **ethan** » Tue Mar 10, 2009 3:23 pm

hammy wrote:Elite is used where some significant part of an army that is already superior needs to be better.

For example a non raw Roman legionary is superior drilled. All the legionaries in an army can be superior so in order to get the effect of an elite legion (i.e. one that is better than the other legions) it needs to be elite in the rules.

This is partly where I think it feels wrong. IIRC the romans in question get 0-18 bases as elite, which can encompas the entirety of all legions in any particular army. Now, I don't think that buying all elites is a good idea, indeed I often think elites are not woth the price, but I have a problem with it from a "look and feel" perspective.

Perhaps the Roman lists in question needed a "no more than half the legions can be graded as elite" or something which would keep them more in line with the other elites available. That said, I agree with a couple of other posters that allowing for small numbers of elites wouldn't have been a bad thing. Equally, completely eliminating the category wouldn't be so bad either...

DaiSho · Post by **DaiSho** » Tue Mar 10, 2009 6:35 pm

stevoid wrote:
nikgaukroger wrote:No they won't get any.

Rationale - they don't need to be to get the historical results, both their wins and their losses. It also has the useful effect that where you want them to have elite performance you have to stick a general with them which accords with history whilst, on occasion, both Makedonian and Roman troops did so without generals leading them directly.
Mmmm, one might argue that you need to be elite and have an inspired general to explain Thermopylae

Err, no, I disagree.

Consider this:

>> and <<impass>>++++++<<
>>ImImIm<<
>>++++++<<
>>SpSpSp<<
>>++++++<<
>>SpSpSp<<

Now, looking at that you're only EVER going to get 1 file of Immortals (best shooters in the list) vs 1 file of Spartans (in 3 ranks).

Assuming you get a hit on every single base sometimes, you're only JUST going to get enough to cause a test.

So, the Spartans have to roll for a test. They get +1 for General +1 for Inspired +1 for rear support and re-roll 1's.

If they roll 2's, =4 +3 = 7 (pass)
Any other result = a re-roll or a pass. IF they fail (snake eyes twice) they then have to fail a SECOND time (in a row) to not be able to bolster back up to 'steady'. They could basically do it all day (for 3 days).

Ian