Slitherine

Sabratha wrote: 26th has some greek armoured spearmen. Other than that is all protected light spears or defensive spearmen, plus some archers, javelinmen and chariot archers.

16 spearmen in the Egyptian army and 16 more with the Kyrenian ally. Enough to have as core element to build around, I would say.
I know that I never used more than the minimum required(6) of LS or def spears. For the 500pts army in LOEG I took all 16 Greek spearmen, around 20 bowmen and some cav and chariots(IIRC).

Well, my enemies can attest that I did fight (and ocassionally win) with an egyptian army devoid of any greek offensive spears (kyrenean or mercs). Defensive spearmen have their uses, but obviously cannot stand up to pikemen or roman legions.

A lot depends on what kind of army are you facing. One of my opponents recently (random DAG game, neither of usknew what army the other picked) faced my sucessor phalanx army with what I believe was an army of pmostly armoured steppe lancers.

Obviously he was unable to prevail (despite having both a sound strategy and not unfavourable dice) because of the sheer troop types involved. I dn't think armoured lancer armies are inherently bad, just that they are inherently bad against phalanx armies.


In the same style - whoever tried to figth a classic Achemenid vs Alexander battle knows how outclassed and underpowered persian armies are.

Having just got the SAS module i thought i've got to roll a Crusader army just to get started.So rolled Later Crusader(Richard I)
Got to be a great army with the Lionheart himself at the helm,right.So we find ourselves up against Yuknooms Picts.Okay we're outnumbered but we're armoured spears with crossbows and we have Knights.We'll hold.

So the Picts hit and hit hard,we'll be fine and hold the line.Four turns later we've held but a second wave hits and before you know it my guys are on a boat back to 'blighty',those that are still alive that is.I won't be touching these guys again.They were that bad i couldn't even blame the dice.Expensive,few in number and totally useless.Even some of the weaker Byzantine armies are better than these guys.

The problem with the Richard I version of the Crusdaers is the mixed spear/crpssbow BGs. Since they represent only one rank of spears, they never count the spear POA. They still negate enemy POAs for things like swords and lances but thatisn't any help against the Picts. You should try using the non-Richard I Late Crusaders and should have better luck with those. (The mixed spear and crossbow BGs are fairly good against mounted but virtually useless against foot.)

Many of the Byzantine lists have infantry that are mixed spear/bow and have similar problems although the bow support is better against foot that is protected or unprotected than the crossbows are. Also the Byzantine foot is generally cheaper than the armoured Crusaders.

Chris

Thanks Chris,yeah i'll check them out.

batesmotel wrote:The problem with the Richard I version of the Crusdaers is the mixed spear/crpssbow BGs. Since they represent only one rank of spears, they never count the spear POA. They still negate enemy POAs for things like swords and lances but thatisn't any help against the Picts. You should try using the non-Richard I Late Crusaders and should have better luck with those. (The mixed spear and crossbow BGs are fairly good against mounted but virtually useless against foot.

Chris

Thanks for the explanation Chris. I also was wondering why unprotected Medium Picts smashed through the better armored heavy Crusader spear.
Given that the crossbow is a pretty lousy weapon across the board, and shooting is not particularly effective in digital, certainly compared to tt -(its a bit ridiculous that a wall of totally unprotected guys can move in on a solid line of missile troops and just not care.) I think Brindlebane makes a good point that this is a candidate for really bad army. -Y

Shooting is different in FoG PC than in the TT but I'm not sure it's less effective overall. It is harder to get cohesion effects like you can on the TT due to having to get two hits from one BG rather than overall on the target. On the other hand, the lack of target prioritiies and the ability to concentrate fire on a single enemy BG along with the cumulative casualties tracked by the computer version tend to mean that more BGs can be outright killed by missile fire than in the TT version.

Chris

Chartagian. I do not know how to play it.

Personally, I find armies with a lot of bow-armed cavalry, or mixed elements don't work for me. I find the watering down of both missile and melee makes them less useful and generally not as fun to play with.

Also, does anyone use mobs or poor troops for anything other than filling out numbers? I find I tend to avoid them as much as possible.

Later Moors

I'm obsessed with Cav/Shooty armies and thought i'd give these a try against Boggit.Basically they are a pain in the arse to play as and to play against.Okay let's choose our army,how about some Light Horse then some LF,oh we don't get too many of these.Now lets see what else we can buy.Nice,some LH and how about some LH and just to mix it up a bit.Okay how about something to get behind his lines and annoy him,LH will do nicely.Oh and i've still some BPs to spend,lets see,might as well get some LH.Oops i forgot about a couple of Generals,okay sorted, we now have two LH Generals.What a nightmare.Headless Chickens Forward March!

CaptainHuge wrote:Also, does anyone use mobs or poor troops for anything other than filling out numbers? I find I tend to avoid them as much as possible.

You can use them as second rank troops, particularly useful behind foot knights in the medieval period - or you can use them on a flank sometimes (with terrain) to prevent the enemy getting to your rear quickly while you attack on the other flank, say, with your cavalry. It can be high risk though.

Whatever army I seem to be playing at the time it would seem............