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Thread: [TW Guide] RTW: SPQR: Battle Walkthrough - Brutii vs. Macedon

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    Default [TW Guide] RTW: SPQR: Battle Walkthrough - Brutii vs. Macedon



    Author: Tacticalwithdrawal
    Original Thread: Battle Walkthrough - Brutii vs. Macedon

    Battle Walkthrough - Brutii vs. Macedon

    Right, as promised here's another walkthrough, this one of a reasonably well balanced Brutii army against 3 macedonian armies.

    The combatants:

    Brutii - Amulius the Infantryman (10 stars), 2853 troops, General, 6 Hastati, 3 Principes, 1 Triarii, 2 Slinger, 1 Archer, 4 Velites, 2 Equites
    Mac 1 - Captain Apisaon, 1211 troops, 4 Sword hoplites, 1 Phalanx Pikeman
    Mac 2 - Captain Aischylos, 1211 troops, 3 Sword hoplites, 2 Phalanx Pikeman
    Mac 3 - Ariphon of Echirus (4 Star), 1727 troops, General, 5 Sword hoplites, 2 Phalanx Pikeman

    The purpose of this walkthrough is to (hopefully) show how shieldwalls can win a battle for you. If you read this and aren't playing SPQR, then the Hastati front line would have to be set to 4-5 ranks deep to make up for lack of shieldwall. Throughout the pictures I'll show the Hastati shieldwall units by a green line.

    Starting Formation
    Important things to note:
    All Hastati (green box) are in shieldwall (2 ranks deep), with fire at will and gaurd on. Centre four units are in a straight line, they will be expected to engage and hold the enemy. Far right and left units are bent back (ie. formation looks like /----\). They will be expected to advance forward and swing round the flanks. By having them started bent backwards the AI will not usually spread its front to engage them.
    Slingers are in the middle. The AI really hates slingers and will always send troops after them. Therefore, by putting them in the centre you increase the AI tendency to go for the general (also in the middle) and force it to attack the centre, which you want
    Velites & archers are behind the line, gaurd mode and fire at will on. Archers have fire arrows on as the Macedons are so heavily armoured arrows from the front don't kill many, but fire arrows do seem to damage morale.
    all other reserves are centralised as well, this also focuses the AI attention on the centre
    So plan is to draw the AI into the centre and then swing the flanks forward and round to encircle. To make this more likely (and also to make the battle more of a challenge) I'm not going to attack until all the AI armies are together.



    First engagement
    Ai has fallen for the bait and is attacking the centre with sword hoplites already engaging the shieldwall, Slingers are pulling back to safety. One phalanx unit has routed and the equites are pursuing it off to the left. Left flank is now moving into position to flank the entire Macedon battle line and a unit of Pricipes has moved with them to provide additional support, archers are moving to a better position.



    Things develop
    Unfortunately the Macedons sent 3 Sword Hoplite units out to the Roman left flank to cover the Equites. Left flank encirclement therefore has had to be called off. The equites withdraw behind the battle line and then across to the right flank. The hastati on the right flank advance to encircle, supported by the principes.

    In the centre the spare unit of Principes advance and form a shieldwall behind the two central hastati, and the General moves forward to add his morale bonus to the front line.

    On the left the supporting Principes change into shieldwall and move to prevent the hastati being flanked.

    Finaly the slingers now move to the flanks in the anticipation that they can get around behind the macedonian battle line



    I hate regrouping units!

    Things have progressed.

    On the left flank the slingers have got behind the Sword Hoplites and their fire from behind causes the hoplites to rout. The principes now charge the regrouping hoplites who are moving against the slingers. Meanwhile the slingers move behind the principes and then get behind the hoplites, again another rout ensues.

    With the left flank secure, the Hastati on the left and centre are ordered to attack, with the centre and right principes supporting them. Equites are pursuing routing units behind the Macedonian line. The result of this was a gap in the centre which my General galloped through, catching the macedonian general unawares and riding him down.

    Unfortunately this is where I made a mistake. I had forgotton to move my velites to the flank to pursue routing troops. The result of this was that the two Macedonian phalanx units routing on the Roman right weren't persued and reformed (just as the equites charged them ). They then attacked the right flank Principes from behind, and two units of sword hoplites attacked them from the front. Only 3 of the principes made it off the battlefield



    Closing out the Battle
    The battle has now split into three. Two groups of Macedonians are still hanging on in the centre, but are each surrounded on three sides with the fourth side deliberately left open both for them to rout towards (don't want any fighting to the death) and to allow my general to charge them from behind. This is what happens and the combination of the cavalry charges and the infantry attacks rout both these groups.

    The third set of macedonians are the ones routing round the map. They are being chased down by the Equites, Velites and slingers, with the equites galloping to the border of the map and working back. This tends to turn routing troops away from the safety of the map edge and towards my pursuing infantry. Velites being involved nowprevents routing units reforming.




    The finale and after battle thoughts
    The positives -
    Shieldwall held extremely well against everything thrown at it. At one point one Hastati was holding off two Sword Hoplites and a Phalanx
    Bending back the far right and left Hastati units worked extremely well, it'd have worked better if I hadn't sent my equites off to chase down the initial routing phalanx unit
    Battle plan went reasonably well, and the initial formation allowed me to switch the attack from left to right very easily
    [indent]pulling the entire macedonian into the centre also prevented it being able to escape in dribs and drabs. This made destroying routing troops much easier which in turn meant only 2 men escaped[indent]
    The negatives -
    The central principes unit never engaged in the battle, it would have been of far more use as part of the hammer on the right, with its 'holding' role being taken by the Triarii
    Forgetting to move my Velites to the flanks to act as pursuit troops once their javelins were spent cost me an entire unit of principes (which equated to 26% of my total casualties). I also lost a lot of equites for the same reason so about a third of my casualties were caused by this mistake.

    Anyhow, it was a heroic victory with kill ratio of around 7:1 (would have been around 9:1 if I had remembered the Velites).

    I hope it shows how useful shieldwalls are, and how good the formation with the bent back wings is (and also how important Velites are in a pursuit role ).

    Last edited by Saint Nicholas; October 14, 2010 at 05:43 AM. Reason: updated
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