Deployment question.

[Robert241167]

Hi everyone

If you had an army of 50% skirmishers and 50% heavy drilled troops how would you deploy them at both 650 AP and 800 AP?

Some say drilled can go down early but if I deployed all my skirmishers in my first 2 batches it means hopefully I'll have something to aim my heavy drilled troops at straight away.

Cheers

Rob

[petedalby]

There is no one answer to your question - it really depends what you're using.

There is merit in putting some of the drilled BGs down early. It gives your opponent a clear signal where they'll be. He may wish to avoid them or line up against you. If he avoids - then you can aim your next batch at them. If lined up - you can reinforce. And of course being drilled you can always manoevre them to somewhere else, partciularly if you deply them in a single rank and give them a Commander.

The sames applies to the skirmishers. Local superiority in the skirmishing battle can pick you up a few bonus BGs. If you put them all down in the first 2 batches you've shown your oppnent all of your skirmishing cards.

Try some different variants aand see how you get on. The art of deployment is to conceal your true intent from your opponent.

Pete

[vercingetorix]

I would put the skirmishers down first because then it is a mystery to your opponent where all your shock troops are going to be.

[ethan]

One thing I like to keep in mind is the army and doctrine I will be using. It might seem tempting with a Hellenistic army to deploy the phalanx last, but the reality is that is the central core of hte army, the rest of the army will deploy with it in mind and around it. So deploying it late doesn't make much sense, when you have an 8 element wide hole in the middle of your deployment, you might as well have just had the phalanx out there in the first place. Then you can deploy that group of lancers, medium foot or whatever last to give you a little extra push somewhere or react to the opponent.

[recharge]

One thing I like to keep in mind is the army and doctrine I will be using. It might seem tempting with a Hellenistic army to deploy the phalanx last, but the reality is that is the central core of hte army, the rest of the army will deploy with it in mind and around it. So deploying it late doesn't make much sense, when you have an 8 element wide hole in the middle of your deployment, you might as well have just had the phalanx out there in the first place. Then you can deploy that group of lancers, medium foot or whatever last to give you a little extra push somewhere or react to the opponent.

Besides, if you have an army with a large block of Heavy Foot (pike, legionaires, etc) It's normally pretty obvious where it's goin to go, so make it your first and save the potential surprises for later.

John

[sergiomonteleone]

Hi everyone

If you had an army of 50% skirmishers and 50% heavy drilled troops how would you deploy them at both 650 AP and 800 AP?

Some say drilled can go down early but if I deployed all my skirmishers in my first 2 batches it means hopefully I'll have something to aim my heavy drilled troops at straight away.

Cheers

Rob

I consider 800 AP (i don't like 650 AP).

Obviously it depends on your army and also if you play in a tournament (books used).

Based on my experience, if you have for example at least 3 BG's of LF, normally I deploy 1 BG of LF in the third quarter in order to use against Elephants if you have KH's or to use against schock footmen.

Another adice is if you have strong LH's (for example Hungarian Szelkers), deploy them in the third quarter because they are very good against all other skirmishers.

Sergio

[spikemesq]

These are all interesting thoughts.

As to deploying Pk/Sp, at the IWF I fought a Seleucid army that did an excellent job with deployment against my fairly mobile Komenans. He had about a half-dozen or so BGs of 8xPikes that he spread across the board separated by 40mm channels.

In the first phase or so, he was able to use the single element shifts to close up the gaps to adjust his deployment as necessary.

Between the shift option and the larger number of BGs, he was able to spread the Pk across deployment quadrants to achieve much more flexibility than I would expect from a Successor army.

I suppose that this is pretty basic, but it was a refreshing change from DBM where the Pk would have had a devil of a time deploying against a mobile foe.

Spike

[Polkovnik]

He had about a half-dozen or so BGs of 8xPikes that he spread across the board separated by 40mm channels.

An alternative is to deploy them 2 or 3 deep rather than the usual 4 deep, so you can have the same effect but you can still move them as a battleline (and hence double move early on). You then contract to one side or the other instead of shifting.