Turning 180 Degrees

[DavidT]

In a recent game which my son was playing (he was using Late Republican Roman against Seleucids), after my son had advanced his legions to approximately 4MU from the enemy pike blocks (4 BGs of pike), the pikes all turned 180 degrees and proceeded to march away from the legions who, as they moved at the same speed, could never catch the pikes who always kept 1MU away from them.

This allowed time for the Seleucid mounted to beat my son's flank supports and move in on the rear of the legions, at which point, the pikes all turned around again to fight.

This seemed to me to be rather implausible - I am not aware of any historical battles where this happened and, in a real battle, with the difficulties in command and control present in the ancient period, it would be an extremely risky manoeuvre.

I realise that with mounted troops who would attack and retire a number of times or who might use feigned flight, it could happen, but surely not with battle lines of infantry?

What are other people's thoughts and was it the author's intentions that this could happen, or is it just an unforseen consequence?

Regards
David

[aventine]

Didn't Hannibal give way in his centre until the flanks enveloped?

I agree that a body of troops once on the move to the rear would be difficult to turn about and fight in good order.

It was a good game anyway.

[mellis1644]

Even a screen of light troops in front of the legions have helped stop this. but it could have made the 'turning tail' and marching away from missile armed troops less palatable - although I doubt they would have caused enough hits for a cohesion level loss(and allow the LF to charge home).

It may have caused impromptu charges though from the Pike which would spoil this tactic.

[442679]

Hi there new to the site. Perhaps throwing a battle group of gauls or Italians up front will do the trick. 2 small groups of 4 medium troops are quicker and will pin the pike into place stopping them 180 degreeing (actually can light troops also do this ??). Superior Roman troops should be ok if they run.

Phil

[rogerg]

A small BG of spear armed cavalry should do nicely. If the pikes turn, the cavalry can always expand and evade in a single line. The Roman cavaly would probably be outmatched by their opponents on the flank, so keeping them in reserve would be best for them. If the Seleucid cavalry attack the Roman foot, the cavalry could also present a flank attack threat. It is a nice feature of FoG that reserves behind the main line can be useful. It is often a mistake to set up in a single long line.

[Polkovnik]

A similar situation happened to me last night. My 4 BGs (16 bases) of Roman auxilia were heading for a gully where the palmyrans had 8 bases of auxilia. They turned 180 and ran before I reached them. This didn't seem so implausible, as you might realistically expect them to do this when faced with overwhelming odds. Whether they could be expected to turn back again is another matter.

But I agree it seems unlikely that a whole block of pike would turn and run away in this manner. And saying that you should have cavalry ready to charge them if they do this unlikely action isn't particularly helpful - your cavalry are presumably busy elsewhere, not expecting to have to chase down retreating pike blocks.

Maybe all non-skirmisher foot should have to pass a CMT to turn 180. That would stop this kind of thing, without causing any knock-on problems that I can think of.

[lawrenceg]

It is implausible. I reality such a retreat would be likely to turn into a rout.

I would try stopping at 6 MU instead of 4 MU.
If the pikes turn round, stand still. If they move away to 9 MU then you have 4 turns to use your legions to help on the flanks before the pikes can interfere, possibly including a couple of double moves.

[mellis1644]

Maybe all non-skirmisher foot should have to pass a CMT to turn 180. That would stop this kind of thing, without causing any knock-on problems that I can think of.

Your basically making the 180 a complex move and in many cases for drilled troops a turn in pace should be a reasonable combat move.

IMO a better rule would be to require CMT's for turns if pined. This limits this to a large degree with very little impact and means that you really want to be facing opponents who are close. It allows LF to also be even more of a pain to the grand movement plans of drilled troops.

If further than 2 MU then I guess in theory one could argue the pikes have enough time to about face and get ready for impact. with more seperation they are drawing the other foot along. Not the bravest tactic in combat but I guess an option for delaying things.

[lawrenceg]

IMO a better rule would be to require CMT's for turns if pined. This limits this to a large degree with very little impact and means that you really want to be facing opponents who are close. It allows LF to also be even more of a pain to the grand movement plans of drilled troops.

Not really: battle troops ignore the pin zone of LF.

My suggestion would be to impose a CT on troops (except types that can evade) moving away from enemy battle troops (maybe only shock troops) that could charge their rear.

However, the real question is whether this tactic is enough of a problem to need a rule change.

[Fulgrim]

Another nail in the similation coffin im affraid

I think that perhaps troops facing a BGs rear should be able to add a VMD to their impact move - they can if persuing routers and charging evaders, why should they not if facing the rear of a retreating BG?

[Polkovnik]

Your basically making the 180 a complex move and in many cases for drilled troops a turn in pace should be a reasonable combat move.

Why should it ? Do we know of instances in battles where large blocks of heavy foot did an about turn, marched around the battlefield and then turned again ?

[Polkovnik]

IMO a better rule would be to require CMT's for turns if pined. This limits this to a large degree with very little impact and means that you really want to be facing opponents who are close.

This wouldn't make any difference here. If the Romans were close enough to pin the pikes they wouldn't turn, as they would then be hit in the rear. They turned when the Romans were over 3 MU away.

[daleivan]

There would certainly be risks in having the pikes march away from the enemy. The LRRs could have faced to the flank to have the legions take on the Seleucid mounted (depending on terrain, distance etc.) And having a BG of MF (Spanish for instance) or Gallic cavalry able to pursue the retreating pike would have made turning away a very bad idea.

Granted any mounted the LRR had were likely on a flank trying to protect the legions from the Selecuid mounted force--in that case, the legions would be better off either standing or pulling back on their own so as not to allow the enemy cavalry a chance to get behind them.

Dale

[david53]

A really stupid question but why did the pikes turn.

Its evens at impact both being ++ should the pikes stay steady they are + in melee, keeping rear support for Pikes also adds to there survival chances.

[aventine]

The roman line was 50% elite and he felt that in the end they would beat his pike. He delayed the contact until he had engineered a flanking situation. When it did happen the elites were hit from the front in one move and then the flank in the next.

The roman line collapsed giving the victory to the Seleucid player.

[spikemesq]

Why bother chasing them?

The Pikes must have been more than 4MU away when they turned about, since they cannot (can they?) 180 and move forward in one move.

In the turn that they reversed, those legions could have piled onto another target, leaving the Pikes to burn another phase to about-face again.

If the legions were only a hair out of charge range when the Pikes 180ed, they should have moved just to charge range, forcing the Pikes to commit to the retreat or turn back for the fight.

If they were even further away and/or if the Pikes scampered away, the Legions would then be free to add to other parts of the fight. A few Roman skirmishers would cinch this by screening any attempt by the Pikes to double back into the battle.

Spike

[aventine]

The Roman player was going to lose as he had lost the flanks. He had a bit of terrain on his flank that prevented him going after the other unit.

Yes why chase them, he was young and didn't realise the importance of having your flanks secured.

He was at one point 1 50-50 combat away from winning. He had a light cav. unit Jav -v- a bow armed Lh and if he had won that one he would have the camp as well. In the end the seleucid player managed to get the cats around the rear of his line and that was it.

[DavidT]

Thanks for the comments so far.

The game was very close run thing. By withdrawing his pike, Robert gave time for his flank attack to suceed which clinched the game. If the legions had contacted the pike earlier then it could easily have swung the other way.

I realise that there are tactics which could be used to counter the pikes turning (e.g. by having MF in the battle line with the legions - but this doesn't appear to have been a deployment favoured by Caeser) and when you are only 10, getting your legions forward and into contact is the big thing.

However, this still doesn't address the problem of what appears to be a very strange manoeuvre which in real life would have been extremely risky. The problem is not really one of a single BG turning through 180 degrees, but of a whole line turning together. In WW2, when communications were much more advanced, the cases of companies getting left behind when the rest of their battalion withdrew are very common. For a battle line of a number of BGs to turn in unison like this would require a huge amount of training and excellent communications which I don't believe were available to most armies of the time. Mention has been made of Hannibal's army in one battle, however, if it is Cannae, then the arc of Gauls did not turn around and withdraw in the face of the legions, rather they fought and were slowly pushed back, drawing the legions on. Hannibal's army was also one of the best trained armies of the period. I would expect that if turning a battle line 180 degrees was attempted in real life, some of the BGs would not turn, or would turn late, disrupting the line, with disasterous consequences.

Having thought about it a bit myself, a simple fix would be to require drilled troops to make a CMT to turn 180 degrees. However, to differentiate them from undrilled troops, they could get a +1 (or even a +2) on their die roll for this. Therefore a single BG has a 72% chance (or 83% with a +2) of turning assuming no other factors. However, with four BGs attempting to turn, there is a 73% chance (52% chance with a +2) that at least one will fail. This would introduce a high degree of risk in carrying out this manoeuvre, particularly if the enemy are close. The more BGs, the higher the probability that one will fail.

I realise that no rule set will ever be perfect (although I am really impressed by FoG, particularly as my 10 year old son is able to happily play a game without much difficulty and really enjoys it as well). Turning a battleline 180 degrees in the face of the enemy however, appears to be one element which doesn't really reflect what happened on the battlefield.

Regards
David

[spikemesq]

The Roman player was going to lose as he had lost the flanks. He had a bit of terrain on his flank that prevented him going after the other unit.

Yes why chase them, he was young and didn't realise the importance of having your flanks secured.

He was at one point 1 50-50 combat away from winning. He had a light cav. unit Jav -v- a bow armed Lh and if he had won that one he would have the camp as well. In the end the seleucid player managed to get the cats around the rear of his line and that was it.

My point is not to disparage the play decisions of a 10-year-old. I am not that evil.

OTOH, absent an eager and young opponent to chase them, turning a line of Pikes around is an enormously dangerous move under the current rules. The enemy can generally ignore them in favor of more attractive targets.

Thus, why would we need to change the rules to further disfavor an already treacherous maneuver?

Spike

(who might actually be that evil, but w/e)

[kal5056]

You beat up on a 10 year old?
We have a player in the US (JM) that scores most of his tourney and campaign wins against a 9 year old when no one is looking.
We should hook them up for the FOG jr circuit next year.

Gino
SMAC