Slitherine

Ok Iam looking into the game finally and have read a lot of AAR's and also have friends playing in a city close by and it sounds ,looks, reads .that the vanilla early macedonians lists (pyrrhus early successors ) dont have a chance anainst ceasar and the mighty armoured legions .I know it depends on army choice /players etc but what has been your experience ? Can I fight ceasar with Pyrrhus and have a good chance at winning or should I choose a later hellenistic army ? from my reading and research the legions just chew through the pike and the CAT's and heavy cav charge can be less effective than expected. how do you combat the legions when they pull a pharselas (sorry spelling?) on you . Let me know what you guys think I would love to here that pyrrhic's are a viable army to take . Thanks for your time . Patrick

pyrrhus wrote:Ok Iam looking into the game finally and have read a lot of AAR's and also have friends playing in a city close by and it sounds ,looks, reads .that the vanilla early macedonians lists (pyrrhus early successors ) dont have a chance anainst ceasar and the mighty armoured legions .I know it depends on army choice /players etc but what has been your experience ? Can I fight ceasar with Pyrrhus and have a good chance at winning or should I choose a later hellenistic army ? from my reading and research the legions just chew through the pike and the CAT's and heavy cav charge can be less effective than expected. how do you combat the legions when they pull a pharselas (sorry spelling?) on you . Let me know what you guys think I would love to here that pyrrhic's are a viable army to take . Thanks for your time . Patrick

Pike in numbers are tough-- the problem is once a phalanx is disrupted the Late Republican Romans get to count their POA for sword and that gives the legionaries an equal POA to the phalanx. If the phalanx has lost any bases, files with less than four ranks are limited to a single POA. I call this the pike death spiral--I've seen it happen several times now.

Disordering terrain hurts pike more IMHO then legionaries since it costs the pikes their steady status.

FWIW I'm going to running Late Republican Romans against Later Ptolemaic in a week--I think that the pikes will be hard to beat frontally, but if any phalanx goes disrupted the Romans will be favored. My friend was going to run Pyrrhic but decided on Later Ptolemaic since it's an historical opponent of the LRR (though he'll be using the pre-55 BC version of the Later Ptolemaic list to get more pikes.)

Having said that, I think that Pyrrhic, Later Macedonian and Later Ptolemaic could all be seriously challenging for a Roman army. The more pike the better.

Cheers,

Dale

From all my games the pike have a slight advantage over the Romans. points to remember:

- Need to protect the flanks of those pikes
- Your cav is usually better than the romans
- My best victories are where the pikes remain in place and your superior cav crushes one or both flanks of the romans
- Roman infantry is tough and will usually beat up your cav
- elephants are your friend, use them on the flanks of the pikes.

The two Alex Macedonian armies did okay at Britcon this weekend (10th and 13th respectively out of 62 players). I was using one of the Macedonians and felt fairly comfortable with the army. Shooty / skirmishing armies are far more of a problem to Macedonians than (most) Romans.

I was the other,like Neil I think shooty armies are more trouble ,to that end I brought the Indian bowmen along to help out,as it is I only played one to a draw.
I only played one Roman as well and as it was Grahams swarm it dosn't count,I lost the only BGs gained were sacrifices to draw my troops off.
As to playing the legions the trick is to keep the pike steady,your supports will always be better Cataphracts,lancers,good MF etc so they won't be flanking you easier,so basically the pike hold and you kill the rest
David

I have used Early Successor (Seleucid) with some success, against Romans and in Open competitions. The trick is to decide which part of your army has the advantage, the mounted or the foot, and press with that part. Against Romans, my experience is that the Successor's advantage lies with their mounted, while the pike v. legion fight is essentially a crapshoot. The winning strategy is the skirmish the Roman foot while beating their mounted. Don't engage with your pike until your lancers are ready to fall on the Romans flank/rear. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Of course, the Romans know this too . . . .

Marc

People who know better than me say Thracians with HW in anything not flat as a billard table, Pike in BG of 10, 5 ranks deep, side by side, or with El in the middle on the flat stuff AND MOVE AS A BLOCK. Even numbers Pk vs Romans is not a fair fight so DON'T DO IT (unless you are playing my Romans, of course), hit the MF in the Roman Army with your horse and hit the Legions from 2 sides, Pike and Horse.

Thanks for the advice guys I can see the tactics you advise .As the pyrrhic army has such a limited choice of mounted I wonder if I have enough mounted to fight a late republic list .Yes my ennemy will use his thracians and I have nothing of comparable quality for ruff terrain troops I think the Oscans are worse off here (dont know rusty at best on the rules )he also uses legionary's on the flanks aswell I just dont think I have enough mounted to punch through that combo . I have been toying with the idea of really massive pike blocks but I think that just slow's him down probably better of with lights . any Pyrrhic generals out there with army composition advice ? what do you think ?

pyrrhus wrote:Thanks for the advice guys I can see the tactics you advise .As the pyrrhic army has such a limited choice of mounted I wonder if I have enough mounted to fight a late republic list .Yes my ennemy will use his thracians and I have nothing of comparable quality for ruff terrain troops I think the Oscans are worse off here (dont know rusty at best on the rules )he also uses legionary's on the flanks aswell I just dont think I have enough mounted to punch through that combo . I have been toying with the idea of really massive pike blocks but I think that just slow's him down probably better of with lights . any Pyrrhic generals out there with army composition advice ? what do you think ?

The Pyrrhic list does have 4-6 bases of Xystophoroi cavalry-- the Late Republicans don't have lance armed cavalry to match-- unless they haul along some Armenian allies to provide cataphracts The Xystophoroi can either go after the Roman light spear armed cavalry, ride down Roman 'auxilia' (Spanish for instance if the LRR bring any to the party), or go after a flank.

Your Oscan allies are drilled MF with light spear and sword. They won't match the Romans in the open but may fare better in uneven or rough ground. I'd use them against the legions' flanks, to cover terrain your pike is up against, or for rear suppor in column at the join between two pike phalanxes.

Cheers,

Dale

It is worth noting as well that Drilled Average Pikemen are not all that expensive per frontage (24AP a file) in comparison to other high quality combat troops.

Going from memory...

Longbows with stakes 21AP
Superior Roman legions 28AP
Average armoured billmen 20AP
Superior armoured billmen 28AP
Armoured offensive spear 20AP

My Antigonus Gonatas 278BC army is my favourite. This is early Macedonian successor, you have tone of choise over different troop types.