Hi all,
am a relative noobie to the world of FOG and have my first serious couple of games for tomorrow. Am using a newly painted army - Later Republican Army - and understand that i will probably face parthian and also macedonian / selucid armies. I was just wondering if anyone could give me a few hints or tips on how to play against these foes, as I see that fight head to head with pike my legionaries will loose their advantages and against a light horse army will be shot to ribbons and find it very difficult to pin anything down.
I look forward to hearing from you guys soon
cheers
john
Using Later Republican Romans
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babyshark
- Field of Glory Moderator
- Posts: 1336
- Joined: Fri Feb 02, 2007 6:59 pm
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My advice, FWIW, is as follows: remember that your legionaries are your game winners, and that the rest of your BGs are there to support them. Don't fiddle-faddle around with your Cv and Lf BGs. Use them to prepare and deliver a decisive attack by the legionaries.
If that sounds an awful lot like "have a plan and execute it," well . . . .
Marc
If that sounds an awful lot like "have a plan and execute it," well . . . .
Marc
Some quick notes:
As babyshark said, you win with the legions. How you do with your other troops is important in enabling the legions to get to their target without being pinned down and having their flanking BGs picked off.
With better mounted forces they are likely to try to slow you down in the center and work your flanks, so look for terrain flank cover and you can have a small BG of legionaries in rear support of the end of the line, which can also work with your cavalry to fend off flanking moves (if you can get one secure flank, that would be better). In most cases, put the legionary BG in to block and tie up their cavalry and keep yours to intercept any charges against its flanks. You are playing for time on the flanks since your battle line will decide the issue.
Parthians' strategy will probably be to take out any of your own exposed skirmishers, envelop the ends of your line to converge shooting, screen your front with LH, and then strike at weak spots with the Cataphracts, most likely a BG at the end of your line that is already disrupted or fragmented by shooting, or somewhere in the middle where a gap has opened, allowing an overlap or even an open flank.
Anchoring on your back edge near your camp and trying to wheel across the table to end up fighting facing the side edge is one way to shorten the area you have to cover against an enemy like the Parthians. A flank march behind you will be annoying but they will still have a lot of table to cover to hit anything and LF can be sent to stop their double moves.
Pikes are somewhat tougher but have a narrower frontage than your legions so you will want to focus on beating their immediate flanking supports so you get overlaps on the phalanx.
Use your LF early on to slow the enemy's flank advances by putting them 15MU in and moving them up to prevent second moves as early as possible in order to allow time for your heavies to get into action (they may be slowing you in the center at the same time). Remember that flank and rear attacks by skirmishers don't put a cohesion hit on your battle troops, but having non-skirmishers in position to flank or rear charge you is very bad.
As babyshark said, you win with the legions. How you do with your other troops is important in enabling the legions to get to their target without being pinned down and having their flanking BGs picked off.
With better mounted forces they are likely to try to slow you down in the center and work your flanks, so look for terrain flank cover and you can have a small BG of legionaries in rear support of the end of the line, which can also work with your cavalry to fend off flanking moves (if you can get one secure flank, that would be better). In most cases, put the legionary BG in to block and tie up their cavalry and keep yours to intercept any charges against its flanks. You are playing for time on the flanks since your battle line will decide the issue.
Parthians' strategy will probably be to take out any of your own exposed skirmishers, envelop the ends of your line to converge shooting, screen your front with LH, and then strike at weak spots with the Cataphracts, most likely a BG at the end of your line that is already disrupted or fragmented by shooting, or somewhere in the middle where a gap has opened, allowing an overlap or even an open flank.
Anchoring on your back edge near your camp and trying to wheel across the table to end up fighting facing the side edge is one way to shorten the area you have to cover against an enemy like the Parthians. A flank march behind you will be annoying but they will still have a lot of table to cover to hit anything and LF can be sent to stop their double moves.
Pikes are somewhat tougher but have a narrower frontage than your legions so you will want to focus on beating their immediate flanking supports so you get overlaps on the phalanx.
Use your LF early on to slow the enemy's flank advances by putting them 15MU in and moving them up to prevent second moves as early as possible in order to allow time for your heavies to get into action (they may be slowing you in the center at the same time). Remember that flank and rear attacks by skirmishers don't put a cohesion hit on your battle troops, but having non-skirmishers in position to flank or rear charge you is very bad.