Skirmishers

[KiwiWarlord]

I find skirmishers way too powerful in this game, the performance of light infantry skirmishers especially seems to be totally 'un-historic' with countless 'heroic deeds' performed in the games that I have played.
Question to other, wiser, players: How do you deal with these masses of 'super troops' ?

[SnuggleBunnies]

To lazily quote my reply to a similar thread:

There are quite a few options for dealing with enemy light troops when they outnumber your own.

1) Exhaust their ammunition with your own light troops. Missile troops only have 5 rounds of full strength shooting. After this, they are scrounging the field and the dead for ammunition, and shoot at greatly reduced effect. So, if you sacrifice your own lights but absorb the enemy's ammunition, your line troops can basically ignore the enemy's fire for the duration of the battle. This is particularly true if your men are well armored, as Roman troops generally are.

2) Charge them with cavalry. If your cavalry starts the turn in the square next to the enemy, the auto evade behavior will decide that there is too strong a chance of getting caught in the rear, and the lights will stand their ground. Note that this applies only to light infantry; light cavalry still have the movement points to successfully flee.

3) Force the enemy to evade so that they end up with their flanks exposed. Units can only evade once a turn, so you can use two charges, one to move the enemy, the other to hit them in the flank/rear and slaughter them. You do have to set up the charges correctly so that the enemy isn't just fleeing to their own rear. Both the pursuer and evader move between +1 and -1 of their standard move range, so you may catch them in the rear which is an automatic cohesion drop.

4) Engage in melee with your own lights. If you keep your heavies close to your lights, you can lock the enemy's lights in melee with your own lights, and then charge in with heavies to finish the job. Note that if your heavies are already in charge range to the enemy lights, they may choose to evade, so you want your heavies close but not too close.

5) Finally, you can simply ignore the enemy's light troops, depending on the terrain/army comps. Since missile troops cannot shoot into melee, closing in rapidly to destroy the center, while delaying on the flanks is a viable strategy.

[jomni]

^ #3 is really useful.

[Gwaylare]

Thanks SnuggleBunnies that is really helpfull.

So I am struggleing with light troops as well, but I do not think they are overpowered. I feel some players are really excellent with light troops and others are not. So I try to follow SnuggleBunnies #5, because when you fight against massive light troups, you should be able to outnumber the main infantry if you concentrate on on them.

[KiwiWarlord]

Here is an earlier post of mine re Light ( Super ) Troops.
Sort of explains why I am rather peeved about them

Re: Proper use of light troops in skirmish role?

Post by KiwiWarlord » 04 Dec 2017 23:28
I am new to FoG 2 and never played FoG 1, I have found Light Infantry to be the 'Super Troop' of the game.
They seem much more powerful than I would have thought from my knowledge of history and 40 years playing tabletop wargames.
Here is a good example from a recent game, 200 Sarmatian Light Foot with Jav/LtSpear v 900 Macedonian Pikemen and 450 Macedonian Cavalry which included a General.
Using Macedonians I charged a unit of 200 Sarmatian Light Foot, Jav/Lt Spear, in the open with Superior Cavalry lead by a General, the Light Foot held.
I then charged the Light Foot with 900 Pikemen getting full factors for the pikemen, the Light Foot held again.
Getting quite peeved about this I then charged another unit of Cavalry downhill into the Light Foot, they held again....

I suggested to my opponent that he rush out and buy a Lotto ticket.

KiwiWarlord
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[SnuggleBunnies]

I think skirmishers are well balanced. I sometimes regret spending valuable points on them that would have better been spent on heavies.

Anecdotes aside, those sorts of outlandish results are very rare.

[jomni]

I think skirmishers are well balanced. I sometimes regret spending valuable points on them that would have better been spent on heavies.

Anecdotes aside, those sorts of outlandish results are very rare.

Unless you engage them in woods or rough ground. But that is actually reasonable (guerilla warfare). So don't melee with lights in that terrain unless you are also light or have a flanking unit ready.

[KiwiWarlord]

The first thing I do when picking my force is to pick the maximum number of skirmishers, as does every one else I imagine.

[SnuggleBunnies]

There is a balance, and definitely times not to max skirmishers. Too few line troops, and your battle line will just get flanked and crushed during the main clash, even if you inflict more damage during the skirmish phase. It is certainly not a good idea to always max them; depends on who you are fighting and the terrain.

[Ludendorf]

Some counter units. If you're facing these units, it might be worth considering taking less skirmishers than normal, unless you're on mountainous or a lot of rough terrain.

I tend to find that skirmishers are pretty ineffective against phalanxes and warbands. Less so warbands; I have seen skirmisher swarms disrupt them. As long as the phalanx isn't left to wither under turn after turn of skirmisher fire, it can generally push through and get on with whatever it was supposed to be doing. The trouble starts if the phalanx is pulled out of formation while pushing through the skirmishers; this can leave individual phalanxes out on a limb and vulnerable to flank attacks.

Cataphracts are the cavalry equivalent in that they are heavily armoured and don't disrupt easily, and mediums can catch them. Medium horse archers can also do terrible damage to a skirmisher force when supported by their own skirmishers.

Massed archers can annihilate them as well, but watch out for the enemy using their skirmishers as shields to screen their main force. Incidentally, this is something you may want to consider for your own skirmishers, especially against the Indians who don't get many skirmishers of their own. (The Persians may out-skirmish you.)

[vakarr]

You can get hero units anywhere - I recently saw an irregular foot unit be charged in the flank and rear by two pike phalanxes and it just became disrupted and held. I've seen heavy cavalry units holding off several other units for turn after turn. Pike phalanxes do it all the time, it takes five non-heavy foot units to bring down a pike phalanx in square. I had a thureophoroi unit charge a light foot unit, which evaded, causing the thureophoroi to charge into an identical enemy thureophoroi unit - result, my unit became fragmented and bounced off. That enemy thureophoroi unit then won every encounter for several turns no matter what hit it.

Occasionally you do get a hero skirmisher unit, but it is rare and I have learnt not to take too many skirmishers as after the first five or so turns they become useless and run around the enemy rear doing nothing while the rest of my army gets destroyed because it doesn't have enough weight (you need troops that can charge their opponents heavy troops in the flank in the open and cause disruption to win). Most of the time there is a big empty space in the centre of the battlefield and there is nowhere for skirmishers to hide. I think that if anything skirmishers are not powerful enough and it is ridiculous that they can move right up to the rear of an enemy unit and not be allowed to charge them or even shoot at them (if they are in combat). It seems that skirmishers are too fond of a cup of tea, and that's all they can think about when they see the rear of an enemy unit in the open. "h'mm that's the rear of an enemy unit, must be time for a cup of tea!"

The answer to skirmishers has always been: use a balanced army that includes medium infantry, skirmishers, and cavalry - and stop moaning about your Romans being destroyed by people like Crassus or Hannibal. The answer for tournament play is to allow players to write their own army lists as tournaments have nothing to do with history - and every player has a different idea of what is the perfect army list.

"The Parthians began to shoot from all sides. They did not pick any particular target since the Romans were so close together that they could hardly miss...If they kept their ranks they were wounded. If they tried to charge the enemy, the enemy did not suffer more and they did not suffer less, because the Parthians could shoot even as they fled...When Publius urged them to charge the enemy's mail-clad horsemen, they showed him that their hands were riveted to their shields and their feet nailed through and through to the ground, so that they were helpless either for flight or for self-defence."
Plutarch on the Battle of Carrhae