Slitherine

I have been playing FOG for about a month so far and have gravitated to my favorite army...the Spartans. I just completed a DAG battle against a Guptra (spelling?) Indian army composed mainly of archers. I ended up winning but noticed my coveted spartan hoplites had a very difficult time going head on with the indian archers with my men in ordered phalanx formations! I had really expected them to melt away when they tried to take me head on. Admittedly my formations had lost men from arrow fire as I approached their lines but my initial charges almost always ended up with my men taking very heavy losses. As I said, I ended up winning with almost 2:1 odds against me but only after 70% of my army was destroyed or routed. so, after all of this, my question is...is there a trick to increasing my attack odds when approaching enemy lines with my phalanx' or should I expect to take such heavy losses when making initial contact?

One possibility is to use LF skirmishers to screen your advance until you can charge the Indian archers. This will at least cut downon your loses prior to entering combat. If you aren't using the earlier Spartan list with armoured instead of Spartan hoplites, you could try that since they are generally less vulnerable to shooting including the extra support shooting attacks that the archers get in impact if when the hoplites charge them.

Chris

batesmotel wrote:One possibility is to use LF skirmishers to screen your advance until you can charge the Indian archers. This will at least cut downon your loses prior to entering combat. If you aren't using the earlier Spartan list with armoured instead of Spartan hoplites, you could try that since they are generally less vulnerable to shooting including the extra support shooting attacks that the archers get in impact if when the hoplites charge them.

Chris

That makes sense. I had skirmishers but not many. They took such heavy losses as they approached the Indian fireline that they had to fall back. So based on the quote above, the archers do get a fire bonus on the initial charge? If so, I did not know that but it would make sense. It would also make sense to possibly include some Helots in my army to hold them while my Phalanx approaches. I will have to test that. Thanks much!

Those MF bows get two extra dice at impact, giving them six to your four -- not pretty. If possible, you will want to attack non-bows adjacent to the bowmen
so you do suffer from the extra dice. In subsequent combats, you will be in melee with the bowmen and they will only get four dice.

Deeter

deeter wrote:Those MF bows get two extra dice at impact, giving them six to your four -- not pretty. If possible, you will want to attack non-bows adjacent to the bowmen
so you do suffer from the extra dice. In subsequent combats, you will be in melee with the bowmen and they will only get four dice.

Deeter

Actually now is the time to fight bow armies, appears the latest patch has introduced a bug...

No support dice are being given for any type of bow unit, whether pure medium, mixed light or medium... ( i tested using all combos of bows with the editor and the log isnt showing any of these dice being used)

hopefully this can be fixed before the league games start

No wonder those Byzantine thugs blew through my Crusader bowmen without flinching...

Deeter

TheGrayMouser wrote:

deeter wrote:Those MF bows get two extra dice at impact, giving them six to your four -- not pretty. If possible, you will want to attack non-bows adjacent to the bowmen
so you do suffer from the extra dice. In subsequent combats, you will be in melee with the bowmen and they will only get four dice.

Deeter

Actually now is the time to fight bow armies, appears the latest patch has introduced a bug...

No support dice are being given for any type of bow unit, whether pure medium, mixed light or medium... ( i tested using all combos of bows with the editor and the log isnt showing any of these dice being used)

hopefully this can be fixed before the league games start

In that case I was very lucky then. It seems bow armies are very difficult to fight. IN addition to their extra dice, they also seem to move faster than my heavy hoplites. The only way I won is that I eventually pushed them into a corner and they had no where to go. I am just glad he only committed two of his elephants out of his 7 (the rest ran away from the majority of my superior hoplites). I approached with an oblique line (leading with my weaker troops) and ended up with the majority of my elite troops intact.

Wait till you fight a longbow army that has stakes deployed!

On a tactical side note , units dont get the support dice when impacted to the flank or rear , nor in melee. (or when there is a bug )