Overcoming the Phalanx

[Willowran]

Thers no doubt some other thread adressing this out there, but there are waaaaaaay too many to look through...

how do you defeat a phalanx head on?

say, in the field, if they make a complete ring, pikes out, how can you breach their line?

or, in a seige, if they hold streets with a phalanx how can you take 'em out?

seems to be an unbeatable strategy

[Sertorio]

You dont. Flank them with more agile and fast units. Assuming you are using roman legions, you can use a cohort to pin the phalanx and a second to flank. A bit of micromanagement is needed. You can also use cavalry on flanks or rear but watch out when the phalanx turns face and pull them out.

[Flemischwarlord]

a lot of archers and/or javelins and just throw them tho dead

[Genius of the Restoration]

say, in the field, if they make a complete ring, pikes out, how can you breach their line?

Concentrate on one area. If they've formed a box, swamp one of the corners. Otherwise, missiles work well depending on the unit you're facing. If they are pikes, chances are they don't have great armour and have small shields (with the two exceptions of the Macedonian Royals and Pontic Phalanx Pike units). If they're Sacred Band, you'll spend ten minutes shooting them with little results. You can also run through them with heavy infantry fairly well. If you can break their formation you'll massacre pike units.

or, in a seige, if they hold streets with a phalanx how can you take 'em out?

shoot them in the back with archers. Shoot with one unit so they come towards it and then have a second unit waiting for the enemy phalanx to show it's back and shoot it with the other while the original unit stops firing. The phalanx will turn to face the new threat, shoot it with the first unit again. Repeat this and abuse the poor AI until you win.

[Triarii]

A ring of spears on the field aka a "Noob Box" can easily be broken with concentrated missile fire.

Although a lot of hoplite phalanx units are heavily armoured and are thus almost immune to arrows from the front. If they are forming a box, then a lot of their units will be facing away from your archers. It is these units that you want to target. A mass barrage of arrows from the flanks will quickly thin out the ranks of even the most heavily armoured phalanxes.

After your archers have ran out of ammo, hit the weakened section with your strongest infantry. You should be able to breach the formation. After that encircling the rest of their units will be a piece of cake.

Attacking phalanxes in the city streets is a lot tougher though, as defending chokepoints is the phalanx's specialty.

If you can capture the walls and towers, send your archers up on the battlements to rain death from above.

If that is not an option, then you will need to use sidestreets to navigate around the phalanxes. Study the city layout carefully and send men up unguarded streets. Be prepared to sacrifice expendable units to hold the phalanxes from the front, whilst your flanking forces destroy them.

[Equilibrius]

If they are in a street, form your units into a reeally deep unit (very long) and order them to run to the other side of the phalanx, (issue the order repeteadly so they wont stop and engage, this is very important) you'll lose a deal, but they will push through a small gap, disorganize them, and then you send in the rest.

[Blatta Optima Maxima]

Phalanxes are often more trouble than good.

[Willowran]

"noob box"? never heard it referred to as that before

i thought of the archer/ranged theing... against ai it is wonderful, but against a person?

see, i like thinking of the ever illusive "unbeatable strategy", and then i need to think of a way to beat it if it is used against me...(and so i may come across as arguementative, and if so i apolagise in advance)

the "noob box" () corner attack is worthless if they're using more of a circular formation, no 90 degree corners or anything. and if i play against a human the shooting can easily be countered by having a second ring withing the first, and a couple reserve units within that

wall archers are useless (in the seige) if they group themselves blocking the roads leading to the town center (too far away for shooting over the heads of one unit into the backs of another). no flanking or side streets 'cause these are the only ways in, and shooting them in front will not kill enough. my suicidal cav charge is unlikely to break through if they've got 20 units gathered around 4 points...

i'll have to test the 'walking through' strategy.

oddly enough, i've found the most effective thing to bust through a wall of pikes to be a suicidal cavalry charge...as long as you break the wall you can cut them to mincemeat. but against the more powerful pikes even this will never succeed

[Genius of the Restoration]

"noob box"? never heard it referred to as that before

i thought of the archer/ranged theing... against ai it is wonderful, but against a person?

If the human has formed a box they'll be surrendering the battlefield to you. You should be left with the most archers and be able to reduce the number of spears that you have to break through.

the "noob box" () corner attack is worthless if they're using more of a circular formation, no 90 degree corners or anything. and if i play against a human the shooting can easily be countered by having a second ring withing the first, and a couple reserve units within that

It's really hard to make it rounded without spending a god-awful amount of money on it. The amount of money they'll spend on units to protect against archers is really cost-inefficient compared to a few units of archers with gold attack that cost only 250dn IIRC. You'll massacre them and make a mess of them in close combat.

wall archers are useless (in the seige) if they group themselves blocking the roads leading to the town center (too far away for shooting over the heads of one unit into the backs of another). no flanking or side streets 'cause these are the only ways in, and shooting them in front will not kill enough. my suicidal cav charge is unlikely to break through if they've got 20 units gathered around 4 points...

There will be side streets eventually. You just have to lure them into following you. If you're fighting a human, you've got a harder fight and run throughs will be better. Archers, especially long-range archers, firing from other streets is also possible.

oddly enough, i've found the most effective thing to bust through a wall of pikes to be a suicidal cavalry charge...as long as you break the wall you can cut them to mincemeat. but against the more powerful pikes even this will never succeed

If you've got a large General's Bodyguard you can do this quite easily. Just make sure you rally call before hitting the enemy so the General doesn't impale himself. Cataphracts are also brutally effective at it with their maces and can charge the front without fear.

[CHIPS]

Use Wardogs to eat them alive. No infantry has a chance against Wardogs. They never even routs.

If they got tons of Phalanxes, focus fire you Wardogs to break open one side only. Once that is done you can find an opening and attack their backs.

[Communist Bacon]

Cataphracts work wonders against phalanx units. Even though conventional logic says that charging cavalry into the front of a phalanx results in 'cavalry-ka-bobs,' Cataphracts are so heavily armoured that they can charge straight into the teeth of the spears and survive. And once that happens, the front ranks of the phalanx are disorganized and fighting with their swords not their spears so at that point, they've lost their frontal potency. That's when you pour additional reinforcements into the weakened phalanx and break through. I know this works because I've used this against Spartans and even they break, or rather become kill-able. Obviously your cataphracts will take moderate losses in doing this but then again, at least they don't get decimated and rout without having done anything.

On a separate note, I remember doing a quick 1 vs 1 unit test on grass flatlands. I controlled a unit of Cataphracts and had them do a frontal charge on an AI unit of Armored Hoplites, (which I view as one of the better phalanx units in RTW) and they routed them. The piles of armor combined with those lethal maces can do so much work.

There you have it, Cataphracts a.k.a. phalanx killers. Just never play as a faction that doesn't have them.

P.S. Roman pilla can also really hurt phalanxes, especially the less armored ones.

[Space Wolves]

Rear and flanks are your friend. And if you find yourself dealing with a noob box, remember to exploit a faltering line within the square when you're soon running out of arrows. Once that line is broken the noob box becomes a death trap for its men. Slingers and Archers followed by Javs are in the order of preference to be used for flanking and rear attacks in terms of effectiveness. Its been awhile since i've played Vanilla Rome so it could be different but that order of use for missile troops usually cuts the Macedonian Phalanx especially to pieces.

[Chris Death]

I always thought the noob box thingy has already been discussed to death a long time ago



~S~ CD

[dude21862004]

The way I liked to do it when I was Carthage is I would take about 6-8 cavalry units with each army. Then I'd make 2 groups of 3-4 a piece. First I'd destroy their cavalry, then their missile units if I can. Finally I split what's left into 4 groups, using one group to bait a single phalanx unit and a second group to charge into the back of said unit. Causes an almost immediate route in which you decimate which ever unit you routed. Rinse and repeat until you're done.

[Willowran]

The way I liked to do it when I was Carthage is I would take about 6-8 cavalry units with each army. Then I'd make 2 groups of 3-4 a piece. First I'd destroy their cavalry, then their missile units if I can. Finally I split what's left into 4 groups, using one group to bait a single phalanx unit and a second group to charge into the back of said unit. Causes an almost immediate route in which you decimate which ever unit you routed. Rinse and repeat until you're done.

yeah... i do this a lot. i did several me v ai customs, 32 470 per team (cost of a full spartan stack w fully boosted general), in the hopes of finding an army build that could take out the spartans every time. ended up going about half my army cavalry, the rest infantry with great moral. used the strategy you mentioned above, with minor modifications. only thing that was semi reliable.

@genius: there have been times when i've tried breaking through a unit of pikes head on, even with a general, but against some (spartans, royals, sacreds) the charge tends to stop like water against a rock wall... (especially v spartans). i must've underestimated the archer approach. i usually dont bother with archers as i find they rarely made a large enough impact to a battle, must be an oversight of mine.
@chips: dogs are useful in a campaign, as you can 'retrain' the beasts for free inbetween battles, but in a custom match dogs are more likely to die then they are to kill enemies. dogs cannot break through pikes
@ chris: o likely...but there are kinda a lot of posts out there...waaaaaay too many for me to go searching.

it seems i've underestimated archers. i'll need to broaden my testing-most of my tests have been "best pike units" vs "best whatever i hope will kill pike units", which usually means spartans v me, and archers dont tend to faze spartans much.

hrmmmm. thanks for the ideas.