Archers need help

[Scrumpy]

A plea from some Indo-Greek archers who suffered bady against Selucid Argyraspids yesterday afternoon.

My opponents superior Pk surged forward screened by some bow armed LF. Despite the LF getting 12 hits in two rounds of fire, they only fell to fragged, before a third round of shooting broke them, leaving the Pk just outside of charge range from the archers. Two rounds of archery failed to do enough damage to the Pk who duly hit home and chewed up the archers in time.

How can an army without enough LF to counter an opponents LF effectively drive off the enemy lights, without leaving themselves open to a Pk charge ?

Next week I am using the Mauryas Indians, and wondering if interspacing the bow with elephant blocks would do any better ?

Cheers

[babyshark]

Surely you cannot expect to do much better than that? Considering that the LF lost a cohesion level for each round of shooting I'd say you were doing all right.

Marc

[stecal]

Chasing off LF archers is the job of all those LF Jav/lt spear guys

[carlos]

So you were facing double the amount of enemy units, the pike being more expensive than your bowmen, and you're complaining you lost? Not hard to beat pike w/ bow - just don't fight them in the open! He can't force you to deploy where he wants.

[Scrumpy]

In the Indo-Greek army I only had 4 cretan archers, and next weeks Classical Indian gets 4-6 only too, hardly likely to scare an 8. The terrain as such fell mostly on the sides, with very little available to hide in.

If my LF charge his LF, don't I run the risk of being intercepted by the Pk ?

[hammy]

If you have LF that charge your opponents LF with heavy troops behind you cannot be intercepted by the heavies. Intercept charges happen before evades and cannot be made to where the enemy might go if someone else evades. Intercepts have to get into the path of the charge and with LF in the way they can't.

[Scrumpy]

The forest archers will go for death or glory then ! Although at 3 points each, I am guessing the former more than the latter lol.

[MarkSieber]

In the Indo-Greek list you can have up to 16 Mountain Indian archers, which can be LF or MF. I have them as MF from a previous rules set, but am changing to LF--since they aren't swordsmen. Both this list and the Classical Indian provide for plenty of Indian archers MF Bow Swordsmen--which should be able to deal with enemy skirmishers.

How did your Classical list play?

[Scrumpy]

Had 2 games with them, firstly against Selucid, and secondly against EA Persians.

In the both games I used 3 BG of 8 Bw with 2 BG of Elephants between them, the idea being that anything coming in would have to deal with the nellies too.

The Argyraspids predictably marched up behind their LF screen, and managed to punch a hole in the line when an Elephant died and the bw failed cmt for broken friends.

My opponent than failed to capitalize on this hole, allowing my other bg of elephants to hit some Thureo MF, which the duly beat up on, and I managed to get on the flank of the Pk with Bw, which proceeded to blow them apart.

One good sign was when Maurayas led his HCh into the rearof some Elite Companions and routed them off the board.

In the 2nd game I was up against better armoured Persian bowmen, and both lines slogged it out with bowfire till the Elephants charged home into the Perasian battle line. In my movement I moved the Bw into support them, theory being that I was sword v better armoured so it was a wash as to who won.
In impact I would have been down against their LS and 2nd rank bowfire.

The dice decided to be kind to the Persians who eventually broke my line, and with it won the game.

Overall, the Elephants are fragile, and need adaquete support, not convinced the Indain Bw is the best their is.

[Luddite]

A plea from some Indo-Greek archers who suffered bady against Selucid Argyraspids yesterday afternoon.

My opponents superior Pk surged forward screened by some bow armed LF. Despite the LF getting 12 hits in two rounds of fire, they only fell to fragged, before a third round of shooting broke them, leaving the Pk just outside of charge range from the archers. Two rounds of archery failed to do enough damage to the Pk who duly hit home and chewed up the archers in time.

How can an army without enough LF to counter an opponents LF effectively drive off the enemy lights, without leaving themselves open to a Pk charge ?

Next week I am using the Mauryas Indians, and wondering if interspacing the bow with elephant blocks would do any better ?

Cheers

You're letting the pikes win.

I play Alexandrian Macedonians so i see it from the other side.

Getting into the bows is hard so i screen the phalanx with LF to soak up the arrows, as your opponent did.

So the question you need to ask yourself is; what do the pikes want and how can i counter that.

At the risk of giving up my own tactics, the phlalnx wants a nice open battlefield with a static opponent lined up in front, ready to take the royal slapping that a phalanx will deal.

If you line your bows up in a straight, static line you're pretty much going to lose.

Break up your lines. Don't give the phalanx a solid target to hit. try deploying the archers in a 'zigzag' line for example. If the phalanx hits one of these it'll then expose a flank to another of your units as it conforms.

Mix elephants in with your bows...nasty for the phalanx.

Use skirmishers to delay and draw the phalanx out of formation.

Outflank the phalanx. You'll have numbers over them.

The phalanx can be smashed, but lining up in front of it and offering a juicy target of archers isn't the way to do it!