Slitherine

I'm unconvinced about the "more hits required to cause a CMT" argument. Of course that is true, but the extra base of frontage may well lead to more hits being taken. And more chance of losing a base.

So far I've always taken pikes in 8s, although the thought of a 12 deployed 3 deep has entered my head on a couple of occasions.

ShrubMiK wrote:So far I've always taken pikes in 8s, although the thought of a 12 deployed 3 deep has entered my head on a couple of occasions.

So, your thought process on deploying pike 4 wide by 3 deep would be that that would only be an initial deployment, followed by a contraction to 3 wide by 4 deep, hopefully just before contact with your opponent?

Peter C

Maybe

Because it is easier to contract (and move) there might be some value in deploying wider than you mean to fight, to keep the opponent guessing. Or to allow other troops originally deployed to the rear to come through "unexpectedly" (although your opponent would be a bit foolish for assuming those nellies or cats are intended only for rear support )

But I was thinking more (as I believe was the other poster suggesting 3 deep deployment) in terms of gaining increased frontage in situations where depth is not so critical, and in fact may be overkill, e.g. against shooty horse armies. If nothing ever comes into contact, the 4th rank never really gets utilised. From 4 wide 3 deep you can get to 6 wide 2 deep in one step if you are feeling brave! e.g. only light troops in the immediate vicinity.

(And spookily...I did actually find myself wishing I had deployed my pike blocks wider in last night's game, ok it was DBMM, but for similar reasons. I was using them on a flank to contain the Roman LH and cav whilst winning in the middle with warband and cats.)

Thats an interesting thought, my pikes are always in the middle as the main force so I have never pondered such an idea, if you were up against just lights it might be worth it to try such a thing, now if the silly lights manage to charge you they will actually end up on even odds with the POA's, they would probably get none and neither will you.
IF they won that would be so embarrasing and be worth bragging rights to the lights player for years to come.

Twice as many dice, and in 99.9 of cases counting better armour if combat continues to melee.

The main risk as I see it is that in 2 ranks you are too vulnerable to shooting. Get yourself fragmented and the impact/melee equation changes drastically. Or that scarier opponents show up and catch you before you can increase depth. 3 deep might be a good compromise between risk and reward.

deadtorius wrote:Thats an interesting thought, my pikes are always in the middle as the main force so I have never pondered such an idea, if you were up against just lights it might be worth it to try such a thing, now if the silly lights manage to charge you they will actually end up on even odds with the POA's, they would probably get none and neither will you.
IF they won that would be so embarrasing and be worth bragging rights to the lights player for years to come.

I've done it in 25mm against Carthiginians.

http://web.onetel.com/~stenic/Wargmes/t ... w20093.htm

The pesky LH tried to flank my right so I put a BG 8 base pikes into 4by 2 and with cavalry support slowly pushed the LH back to the edge of the board. By the end of the game I was even considering putting the pikes into the open field to push him off table, but we ran out of time

Steve P

what would you do with an army like Later macedonian that counts on the pike to win the battle for them ? combos of 8's and 12's with the trick of setting up wider at first and contracting later ( by the way I now call this the feigned flight pike tactic) it draws an enemy out to try and take advantage of your shallow depth and and then you could trap him . I was using 12 BG's and fighting romans sucky part about that is I face 3 bg's of 4 romans and get overlaped with one of my large bg's and that hole is hard to fill when it goes .I though about alternating bg's of 8's and 12's to give me more manuver in case i break the enemy a smaller bg could turn a flank .Ps my cav is not the death blow in my army Pyrrhic I dont get enough to attack with so I just protect the phalanx and advance .I also mix a BG of 8 pike in with each cavalry wing to give it a SLOW punch but it helps against knights etc

marioslaz wrote: I use a similar tactic, with a Cav attack, but I'm still developing my way. My intention is to delay the clash to the centre, but I'm not satisfied with the way I performed since today, that consisted in leaving my pikes in their initial position, because they become too much isolated at a very early stage of the game. My idea is to use LF to delay opponent's heavy foot, principally stopping their second moves since I cannot rely on shooting effect. This week I should play a Carthaginian army against a Roman one and I would like to try this tactic (Carthaginian hasn't pikes, but this tactic fit well to this army). The idea is to obtain a good timing between Cav and foot, with Cav which starts melee first and, I hope, it wins when foot are closing the distance with their opponents, so Cav will be near to foot and ready to intervene.

Yeah I have been trying a hanging flank with a 650 point army. The problem has been that I have very little of Heavy and medium foot for the centre, and playing on 5x3 there is little room to lay back contact. I realize that I currently need less cav and a bit more heavy foot, but I am still not sure that it is a usable tactic. So I am looking towards maximizing the frontage with what I can get, and going from two 8BG's of pike to one 12BG is slightly cheaper and gives more versatility. The hope is that the infantry don't have to be in contact for too long if they are being stretched, but they can also be used as a punch through unit if the opponent has a smaller main force.