Tactics: Mid-Republican Roman Starter Army

Mascius · Post by **Mascius** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 1:51 am

Greetings,

Looking for advice from the Triarri among you.

I've read through the rules and played one game of a Roman starter army versus a slighly modified Gaul starter army. Having no idea of the tactics involved in FoG, I deployed my battlegroups. 2 battlegroups of Hastati/Principes in a single rank with the Triarii as a second rank and a commander, Velites a couple inches in front. An identical battleline was several inches away so that velites could evade through. I put my cavalry and Italian foot on the same flank.

I learned that his cavalry is better than my cavalry. Light chariots aren't all that bad. Shooting from 4 stands of Velites isn't going to do anything against a 8 stand battlegroup. My was wrong because he was rolling 8 dice for his battlegroups against my 4. Even with all my advantages he was able to roll enough hits to beat me enough times and start grinding away at my battlegroups eventually destroying the battlegroup my general was in.

So, I did everything wrong... what is the right way to deploy the Mid-Republican Roman Starter Army against a Gaul army that is heavy on troops with a nice side of cavalry and chariots?

pcelella · Post by **pcelella** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 10:32 am

I'd love to hear some basic tactical advice on using this army myself. I played it at Cold Wars, and finished in dead last! I'm sure that had something to do with my still getting familiar with the rules, some bad blunders on my part, and some bad dice, but I think it is a difficult army to get right. My short term solution has been to switch over to a Late Republican Roman list, something that seems to have more flexibility, and which I have had more success using, at least in games locally.

Peter

rbodleyscott · Post by **rbodleyscott** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 10:33 am

Deploy the hastati/principes BGs in a solid line with each BG 2 bases deep.

Deploy each triarii BG behind the join between 2 BGs of hastati/principes so that they can give rear support to both, and won't get routed through by them if they break.

Don't try to deploy all across the table. Keep your whole army in one compact mass, with your cavalry held back relative to the the front line of legionaries and tight in to their flanks.

Don't deploy this mass right in the middle of the table, deploy it offset to left or right so that you don't get outflanked on both sides.

Steamroller into one end of the Gallic army and slaughter them like the dogs they are, before they can roll up your exposed flank.

shall · Post by **shall** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 12:08 pm

Oh and to add ........... your 4 base BGs of skirmishers still have uses even if they can't force a CT

1) use them to buy time in other areas of the battle. If you can get your legionaries in with some time to spare you will punch a hole before any flanks go down. Then being drilled turn and spread out and take the envelopment in your stride. Be willing to risk losing the skimrishers if necessary to buy the necessary time for the legionaries.

2) use them to tease and annoy the gauls and you may force them to charge creating isolated BGs you can pick on an pulversise. See CMTs to not charge for shock troops

The most important thing to realise is that the battles are won by getting the legionareis thumping into the gauls in a nice solid formation with rear support. If you get pulled apart you will get overwhelmed by numbers.

But as diamond tipped drilling machine on a tight frontage the legion is hard to better!!

Si

miffedofreading · Post by **miffedofreading** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 1:11 pm

I have played 4 whole games of FoG! (I must be an expert now). Last nights using a mid republican army was possibly the most fun ancients game I have ever played. (yes I actually won

). I was playing against Seleucids, but have played my other 3 games against carthaginians which have a lot of gauls and are not too dissimilar armies.

I agree with the experts that Roman legionaries can handle almost anything, find a large target, charge and destroy it. Keep everything else back to support your flanks, you should only be looking for kills with your legionaries.

Try building your own army rather than the starter army, the starter army is 100% veteran legions, I think that is a bit much myself.

I suspect opinions differ but I prefer 8 base legion units, 8 base velite units and 4 base triarii units. Outflanking is not that easy in this game so the bigger units should be ok. They also take punishment much better. They can ignore shooting casualties most of the time.

If you had 2 X 4 base legions against say a pike phalanx and a weedy support unit you might find one legion gets killed by the pikes and the other kills the weedy support..... BUT if you had one 8 base legion in the same situation the weedy support still gets killed but the number of casualties you inflict there offsets the losses you take from the pike so you can hold on there long enough to destroy the weedy troops.

This is basically how it worked out last night, my large legionary units had enough flexability to bounce back from the odd bad roll and enough oomph to smash many of the selucid opponents (even killed 2 out of 3 pike phalanxes).

The Roman army can be a bit boring, it is a one horse trick, LEGIONS! but I would not call it a rubbish army at all, I find it to be a very tough opponent and surprisingly flexible.

So pick your own army, use bigger units and stay focussed on killing things with your legions.

All above advice is only my humble opinion after an enormouse game count of 4

neilhammond · Post by **neilhammond** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 1:41 pm

See also some comments in the Army Design section viewtopic.php?t=5707. It's comments on a Late Republican Roman army, but some of the general points apply to Mid Republic.

Neil

cwchmc · Post by **cwchmc** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 7:19 pm

rbodleyscott wrote:Deploy the hastati/principes BGs in a solid line with each BG 2 bases deep.

Deploy each triarii BG behind the join between 2 BGs of hastati/principes so that they can give rear support to both, and won't get routed through by them if they break.

Just to clarify how rear support works. Lets assume that the Hastati/Principes are 4 base BG's with 2 base Triarii BG's behind. Do the Triarii have to be deployed in 2 ranks to be able to give rear support to both H/P BG's? Or will it work is they are deployed side by side? I think it will be the former. If I am reading the requirements for Rear Support correctly, a 4 base BG must have at least 2 bases of a supporting BG directly to its rear to gain rear support. It cannot have 1 base of a 2 base BG directly to its rear. Correct?

Chuck

shall · Post by **shall** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 7:40 pm

Correct put them 1 wide 2 deep behind the junction of 2 4 base BGs and it gives rer support to both.

The supported BGs must have half their bases to their rear - but partially is enough. So 1 rear support BG can usually support 2 front line ones.

Si

Mascius · Post by **Mascius** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 7:58 pm

What would be a good distance away for the supporting triarii? Touching, 1", 2", etc.

Would they help to the front if a BG crumbles or could they do something about a flank attack?

Blathergut · Post by **Blathergut** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 8:15 pm

The distance behind for supporting BGs seems to depend upon scale. With 25mm, I'm finding that with the dreaded 25mm MU, a 6 base support BG of MF has to basically be up against the you-know-whats of the dudes in the front BGs in order for the 6th base of the support column to be within 8MU!!!!!

shall · Post by **shall** » Fri Mar 21, 2008 10:49 am

Yep its quite tight with long columns of troops if you need 6 to support - but often you will only need 4 of those bases if supporting 8s. What are you behind? 12s of Pikes perhaps?.

Si

Blathergut · Post by **Blathergut** » Fri Mar 21, 2008 3:13 pm

10s of spanish hairies

...so ya, the first 5 really...i like how it bunches everything up...good feel to it instead of the spaces everywhere

..tho rearranging the BG formation helps....instead of two ranks of 4 plus one on each end of the third rank, move the 3rd rank ones to the middle of the back line, this way the rear support dudes can move up another base width if needed

matt0341 · Post by **matt0341** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 4:04 am

matt0341 · Post by **matt0341** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 4:05 am

I've been toying with Roman Has/Prin battle groups deployed in depth, that is a 4 stand Bg 1wide by 4 deep, battle line 4 wide by four deep. This formation works pretty well when holding a narrow front between limiting terrain unless the enemy matches your deployment. A deep formation limits their exposure to enemy bgs deployed two deep by causing less dice to be rolled against each Roman BG. This also allows the Romans to focus their power largely against one enemy battle group at a time.

This formation relies on secure flanks more so, in my opinion, than the normal two deep deployment. Its a risky deployment for sure since the Romans need to break enemy BGs fairly quickly or risk being enveloped.