Late Roman frustration.....

[Trench_Raider]

I like Late Imperial Romans. It's an army I've painted up a number of time in two different scales. It's a force I used to do rather well with under other rules sets. (I took third place using LIR in the last Warrior tourny I played in) So it's natural that the "Dominate Roman" army was high on the list of armies I would paint up for FoG.

The problem is that I'm consistantly losing with it. Since finishing the army, I've played seven games with it and have won but one. To be fair, most of these losses have been very close fights and I have been "shut out" but one time. Most of the losses have been afairs like the game I just lost two hours ago against a Later Acha. Persian army: bad terrain rolls meant that I was on the side of the table with very little terrain and thus had pretty open flanks. The small size of my army meant that I had to try to hold off an army with twice the mounted stands with an archer unit on one flank and two light horse units on the other. While my infantry closed with and destroyed his, both of my flanks got turned as well as my camp being looted. The result a loss by one victory point.

Moreover, the one time I have won with these guys was against a Hun army who's owner made more than his fair share of mistakes during the game. So I'm begining to think my army compisition might be at least partly to blame. Here is the 600 point force I have have played the last few times. Most of my previous lists have been very similar to this in make up.

3x Troop Commanders
3 BGs Legionarii: 4 bases heavy foot, armoured, drilled, superior, impact foot, skilled swordsmen; 2 bases light foot, bow
2 BGs Auxillia: 4 bases medium foot, protected, drilled, average, light spear, swordsmen ; 2 bases light foot, bow
1BG Archers: 6 bases medium foot, protected, drilled, average, bow
1 BG Clibinarii: 4 bases cataphracts, heavy armour, drilled, superior, lancer, swordsman
1 BG Equites Ilyricani: 6 bases light horse, unprotected, drilled, average, light spear, javelin
1 BG Equites Sagitarii: 6 bases light horse unprotected, drilled, average, bow

BGs-9
Initiative-+1
March 1-LH, LH, HF
march 2-HF, HF
March 3-MF, MF
March 4-archers, cataphracts

With the exception of a games against a Hoplite army in which the spears simply refused to drop cohesion and thus denied them their swordsmen bonus, the legionarii have been the killers of the army. In most cases they have routed the enemy infantry to their front. However the rest of the army has been letting them down.

Here are my questions in no particular order:
-Is the overall list a bad one?
-Am I investing too many points in those legionarii? I could drop them to average (thus losing the "skilled swordsman" rating) and/or loose their armour but it would give me more points to play with.
-Are the cataphracts worth it? Their performance has been disapointing to date and I could almost afford two units of similar sized average equites for the same points.
-Is the bow unit a week link? It's only done well in one game. In most cases it's been contacted by enemy foot or horse and destroyed.
-Other thoughts, sugestions, flames?

Thanks for letting me vent!

TR

[spike]

I like Dominate Roman, its probably the best of the later lists- Played it a few times in playtesting at 800

What I don't like:
The 1 Bg of 4 Catafracts was not that useful - You need either all 8 in 2 BG's or none
I dont like 6 MF Archers too few shooting dice and weak as protected. Again all 8 or none
You have no seperate LF in the army.

Advice

Your Army is 583 pts

Dump Catefracts, & replace with another Eq Saj to protect the flanks (-80 and +32 pts )
Make the Auxillia Armoured not Protected (+16 pts I prefer them as HF but MF is OK)
Have your 1 Bg of LF as 4 slingers - There good value and skirmish in-front of the legionaries (+16 pts)
Fortify your camp or plan to stick it in going with another cheep BG to protect it (6x Laeti or 6x Auxillia Limitanei so +24 or +18/+22)
Lastly If you take Laeti expand the MF Bow to 8 (+14 pts) which makes the army 599pts or if other option consider exchange bow for another BG like 4x Superior LH Huns

Spike

[SirGarnet]

I like Late Imperial Romans. The problem is that I'm consistantly losing with it.

Declline and Fall?

Seriously though, it's a decent army at 800 points - would be nice to play it in book.

I don't see the archers as useful either, and the rear rank archers don't need to be fully used (they do raise the BG size, but it might be better to spend the points to add combat troops instead. All about finding things for the armoured foot to fight. Just stay away from Knights.

Mike

[daleivan]

I'm planning on building a Dominate Roman army in 15mm in the not too distant future once I finish my earlier Roman army. I agree that HF (either protected or armored) for the Auxilia is the way to go, along with dropping the single cataphract unit for a BG of Equites Sagittarri. It's definitely going to be a smaller army frontage wise. It would be tempting to pick up an LF javelin BG to help with the skirmishing, or another BG of LH if the points permit.

600 points is few points for this army with all it's choices.

[gingermart]

my army being produced now dominate 357AD is:-

C-in-C inspired commander
field commander
troop commander

2 Bgs legionaries,IF,armoured,superior,drilled,skilled swordsmen 6 bases each

1 bgs archers LF unprotected average drilled bow 4 bases

4 bgs field army auxilia protected average drilledlight spear sword 4 bases each

1 Bgs equites armoured superior drilled light spear sword 4 bases

1 Bgs illyricani equites unprotected average drilled javelins 4 bases

1 Bgs cataphractii average drilled 4 bases

unfortified camp

what do you think? My first go at wargaming for 20 years so be gentle

[nikgaukroger]

The FC is, IMO, pointless as you are never going to flank march with this army and so a TC will do whatever you need as you have an IC.

4 base BGs of Protected infantry are weak IMO - better as 6 as a minimum for these. The Armoured, Superior legionarii can be 4s though.

Wouldn't bother with catafracts in this army, I'd possibly swap them for LH Bow or more infantry.

Also looks small, what points value is it?

[babyshark]

my army being produced now dominate 357AD is:-

C-in-C inspired commander
field commander
troop commander

2 Bgs legionaries,IF,armoured,superior,drilled,skilled swordsmen 6 bases each

1 bgs archers LF unprotected average drilled bow 4 bases

4 bgs field army auxilia protected average drilledlight spear sword 4 bases each

1 Bgs equites armoured superior drilled light spear sword 4 bases

1 Bgs illyricani equites unprotected average drilled javelins 4 bases

1 Bgs cataphractii average drilled 4 bases

unfortified camp

what do you think? My first go at wargaming for 20 years so be gentle

I doubt you need both the IC and the FC, unless you are a devote of the flank march. Trade one of them in on another TC and get another BG, a fortified camp, or upgrade one of your average BGs to superior.

Marc

[gingermart]

649 points for this army

[nikgaukroger]

I'd be tempted to suggest you base your army on the Dominate Roman starter army. At the date you have set your army you'd not get the Huns but you could consider some upgrades and there is another 50+ points to get to 650 which I assume is what you are aiming at.

[SirGarnet]

ICs are more valuable for undrilled armies than drilled due to the CMT bonus and range, and for those spread out formations. With Avg-Sup drilled Romans 3 TCs will work fine.

You can have some BG with the rear rank LF and some without - push those with them where the knights threaten or the shooting is hottest and use the others where less exposed. Points saved can go for more front ranks or upgrades.

Having at least one of those Aux BG be 6 or more Armoured Sup, maybe with the rear rank LF for better shooting and hit resistance, would be quite handy. I would probably have that and another more average Aux BG and put points saved into the legionaries. Bigger Superior BGs can help meet Avg/Poor % requirement.

Cataphracts: Cats are too expensive not to fight with actively, but you don't want them to fight isolated - I'm ambivalent about having one BG. But I'm less a fan of actually using the Equites except to try to gain a flank somewhere, which is always hard when you have a short battle line.

[paulburton]

I would drop the rear rank bowmen. They are expensive and have little effect (1 extra die in impact needing 5 if you are lucky). I also don't rate the MF bowmen.

Catafracts are expensive and don't seem to cut the mustard - Armoured Lancers are better due to their manoeverability. In 15 mm I would get all the Horse Archers you can find (consider Allies). I have not figured out how to use Equites. They are never in better than a fair fight and there are too few to use manoevre against a larger enemy army.

I use Principate in 15 mm and Feoderate in 25 mm which are sufficiently similar (though no superior-skilled sword Legions in the Feoderate. Catafracts have done little when I tried them out. I have played around with the Julian period army but haven't come up with something I would be interested in playing.

[Ghaznavid]

I notice you said nothing about the table size or scale you are using. Assuming that you are playing 15mm on a standard 1,80 x 1,20 m table it's no surprise you find it difficult to come to grips with more mobile armies like L. Achameninds. 1,8 x 1,2 m is IMHO simply a bit to big for 15mm - 600 point armies and thus favours more mobile armies. On step to level the playing field a bit would be to narrow the table to 1,40 or 1,50 m.

[ValentinianVictor]

It all boils down to whether or not your a history buff, interested in representing your units 'historically' on the table i.e. having your Late Roman legiones represented as three deep bases with the third base light archers, or your just interested in playing a 'game' where history is not really uppermost in your mind.

In the former case your probably not going to be too worried about losing games as you just enjoy seeing your army on the table, in the latter your probably more competition minded and therefore winning is your primary consideration.

I fall in the historical player camp, which probably explains a lot competition wise...

[DaiSho]

The FC is, IMO, pointless as you are never going to flank march with this army and so a TC will do whatever you need as you have an IC.

4 base BGs of Protected infantry are weak IMO - better as 6 as a minimum for these. The Armoured, Superior legionarii can be 4s though.

Agreed with both the above points.

In my Palmyran army I ran 4 Roman BG's of 4. 2 of them were Armoured 2 were Protected, and all were Average. It was a risky gamble, but it paid off. They will (and did) die quickly however, especially if Average. Additionally didn't use the Romans as my main force. It was the Light Horse and Cataphracts that did the bulk of my fighting, and the legion was used as the 'can't ignore' factor of the game. This can't really be done as easily by a purely Roman army, so you're going to expect your Legion to fight. If you're going to go in BG's of 4, you're going to want to fight at an advantage, thus limiting the number of hits you're at risk of taking. Troops like 'Hairy Barbarians' can go in at evens, but Romans in BG's of 4 can't. Armour up, or get bigger BG's.

Ian

[marioslaz]

Armoured or protected for me is the key of Roman army. I'm planning to play against a friend with a Pyrrhic army and so I will go with armoured, because I get a +POA in melee. I will not get veteran legion (I will play with a MRR, but there are some points in common) because it's a waste to have skilled swordsmen against pike. Armoured are good against pike/spear or bow, skilled swordsman against Celt armies.