I'm making my way through the stock Roman Campaign again, for the umpteenth time, trying to work up a small, tight force to take another stab at CoM. I will finish it one day!
Anyhow, I got to Vercellae with-
1x Legate
3x Auxilia (20, 22, 23)
2x Legion (17, 16)
1x Praetorian (16)
2x Aux Cav (20, 20)
2x Aux Archer (19, 19)
And I was having some trouble at first. The L17 fanatics come at you right at the start, with a pair of L10 warriors covering their flanks.
My first idea was to stash my Auxilia in the woods on my side, Archers behind them, and 1 Cavalry unit out wide on each flank with a Charge order.
That worked fine, in and of itself. The Fanatics got royally quilled by my Archers on their way in, then chopped into catfood in the woods by my friendly Auxilia. And my Cavalry looped around and caught the Warriors in the flank just before they reached the woods, which quickly led to the inevitable result of that encounter.
Meanwhile my Heavy Infantry just leaned on their pila and watched the fun.
Then I sent everybody in together and sorted out the remaining badboys. Sure, all well and good, except I ran out of time. Twice.
I tried a third time with more aggressive leadership and just got my Legate killed for his trouble.
Finally I decided I was just being too ******* academic about it, and needed to take a more direct approach.
So I lined everybody up with the Heavy Infantry in the middle, Auxilia outside of that, and cavalry on the wings. This was sort of counter-intuitive since it had my Heavy Infantry starting in the woods, but they'd be meeting the Fanatics in the open, between the two patches of woods.
This worked. I started everybody except my leader with a Charge order, manually targetted the Archers on the Fanatics for 3 volleys, then switched one to each Warriors unit. All three of my Legionnaire/Praetorian units went against the Fanatics in melee. My best Auxilia and one Cavalry charged the left Warrior unit, and the other two Auxilia and the remaining Cavalry meleed the Warrior unit on the right.
This not only routed the first three enemy units quickly, it left me halfway across the map when they fled, rather than back at my start line.
The tricky part was it left me with my infantry in the wrong positions; for the next step I needed my Auxilia in the center to go dance the hurly-burly with the enemy in their woods, and my Heavy Infantry on the flanks. Ahh, the joys of commanding a force in which every unit has Expert Drill!
The stentors bellowed, the couriers galloped about madly, and soon my Auxilia was advancing in the middle as my Legionnaires and half the Cavalry swept around the left flank, while the Praetorians and the other Cavalry did the same on my right.
The Archers slammed 3 fast volleys each into the Light Infantry in the woods, then switched to the Heavy Infantry on the flanks behind just before my Cavalry arrived. My Cavalry unit on the left broke and routed after about 25 seconds of contact, but the Praetorians arrived just after they did, and by this time the Auxilia were coming up to help as the Archers kept pouring in the arrows.
I had about 50 seconds left on the timer when the scenario ended, more than enough time.
So, when time is short, you need to make an aggressive plan, but you still have to watch the matchups carefully.
Good fun battle. Legion Arena still rocks
