Slitherine

As an old Hellenistic enthusiast I would be interested to know if anyone has tried playing with Tarentine pikemen as Poor Quality as given in the list? If so, how effective were they? (The same goes for the native Egyptian pikemen of the Later Ptolemaic list).

I will let you know once I have tried it - I have a big batch of pikemen to base and I have just written a list with 36 bases of poor pikes, 8 of average and 8 hoplites - I reckon it will be a good army - just a lot to kill!

Adrian

I have never used any poor troops, they sound useless. Rerolling all 6's seems like a good way to lose every fight. They might be cheap but that doesn't help if they are all dead

Poor troop are only really that bad if they're hitting on 5+ in which case they are 11% worse than Average troops (22% instead of 33%). If they're hitting on 3+, and pikes get that often, then they are only worse by .6%. Surprising, huh? A big block of 12 poor pike w/ a TC general helping it fight seems not bad value for the points.

I've used 2 BGs of 12 poor pikes, with a BG of 6 poor imitation legionaries backing them up (Pontic I think)
They were very effective - especially with a general to fight in the front rank.

one of my friends and i played the pyrrhus starter army against the starter mid-republican army. the 12 stand poor tarantine phalanx actually did a pretty good job of combating the romans until hit in the flank.

My limited experience tells me they are useful if in a big BG.

I had a Pyrrhos vs Mid Rome game on Saturday.
We used the starter lists.
I lost the game, but the the 12 base BG of Poor pike (+commander) was winning it's own fight.
It had two more dice, fought like average, and cost the same 48pts. The general was stuck to it, but he was there for the rest of the battleline too (when manouvering, testing earlier etc).
Shooting could do nothing to it.

They would make difficult shooting targets, but remember you only count the first 3 ranks, so it counted as a 9 base BG needing 3 hits to test from shooting. Difficult but not impossible

In my first game. A Gaul vs Roman affair. I (the Gauls) fielded a massive force of 'Families' . You know the Poor, Mob etc... Well I have to tell you that umm Legionnaires kind of annihilated them... Mind you they pretty much did the same thing to the Medium Warriors standing next to them so I don't know what that tells you...lol

Cheers,
C-T-Nomad

In my first game. A Gaul vs Roman affair. I (the Gauls) fielded a massive force of 'Families' . You know the Poor, Mob etc... Well I have to tell you that umm Legionnaires kind of annihilated them... Mind you they pretty much did the same thing to the Medium Warriors standing next to them so I don't know what that tells you...lol

Cheers,
C-T-Nomad