Early Romans vs. Getai

I made my own thread to avoid thread-jacking the Macedonian one.

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Originally Posted by Teleklos Archelaou

Also - I always use archers to take out the unshielded drapanai before I get anywhere near them. :grin:

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You need to make sure your archers can outrange their Komatai javelinmen though, as the Romans I've had trouble keeping my leves in range of the drapanai, but out of range of the hordes of aggressive Getic skirmishers.

The matter is further complicated by the lack of Roman light cavalry to sweep away all the komatai, although I am probably bringing this on myself by refusing to have more than two units of equites in my stacks (and I think that's already pretty generous!). I've been recruiting mercenary Hippeis from my Illyrian and Dalmatian territories but these tend to do badly in any scuffle with Getic cavalry (especially the Komatai Hippeis)

Finally, pre-Marian Romans suffer from a serious case of "imperial overstretch" if they start marching into Getic lands - the inability of the Romans to regroup their armies outside of central Italy is a major hindrance (although its fun to work around) and I find myself wishing for Marius' reforms. This tends to forestall any attempts to march in and occupy their lands - and I am worried that if I just temporarily capture their lands then they will simply revolt back to them, giving them free troops (probably more bloody komatai!).

I have decided that I will try to finish the mainland Koinon Hellenon areas off, then exterminate the Makedonians and try and maintains some small forts in the mountains to slow the Getai down a bit so that one field force can hold the area while the others travel back to Italy to regroup. Anyone got tactical or strategic advice for dealing with the Getai as the (early) Romans?

Playing the Getai - VH/M, 252 BC now, streching from the Noricum to Kappadocia, from the Baltic Sea to the Adria - I can understand your problem.

Getai has truly an excellent unit rooster, fitting my style. Infact it lacks just an recruitable heavy cavalry unit and an armor piercing longrange unit like the Greek sphendonetai. Other than that I'm pretty happy, especially since the regional Gaul units are great medium infantry and spearmen.

What advise can I give you? There is no real hard conter. I guess that a strong reliance on Taxeis Hoplitai, which should be trainable in Greek - at least they are in the Helllenized parts of Asia Minor I conquered.

Intermixed with hastati and principes or Peletasts they should be able to stop the Drapanai very well and the Komatai don't cause havoc on spread out units with large shields.

Hold your cavalry well back until you can concentrate on on spot and start to mop up the light infantry one by one.

Gelai

Use as much triarii as you can first, then slowly replenish depleted triarii with hoplitai as you go along. You don't really have an answer to their toxotai, so just send your accensi and leves to do as much damage as they can, tying down as many light troops as possible while you lead your cavalry round the back in a concentrated fist. Don't let them spread out. Oblique approach in battles works best, with about 3-4 units of melee infantry in the leading wing, and your cavalry poised to swing around that to take the enemy in the rear. The centre of triarii. Leves can play around among the triarii phalanx. They are expendable since they can readily be replaced by akontistai from the greek settlements.

EDIT: So far I have destroyed numerous fullstacks of the Getai made up of nothing but Komatai Hippeis and Mala Gaeroas. Drapanai were of some concern, but they cracked up under pressure from behind... The komatai were major annoyances, until my cavalry caught up with them, but sometimes they simply just charged into combat without firing off their javelins. Weird.

I use three Rorarii,Principes,Hastati,and Triarii and two Equites plus two pike units.Also gaul auxilia(mercenaries behind the pikemem).The getai attack me with alot of falcmen(forgot the name)and I have never lost to them.The worst they do to me is own some of my hastati but I usually start hitting the flanks after the mercenarries use their throwing spears and then the equite attacks=rout

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The Samnite spearmen you can recruit in southern Italy are great javelin fodder I've found since their armor seems to do a good job protecting them long enough to attack, unlike a principe or triarii. In fact before I started facing huge gallic and germanic stacks they played a very large role in all of my armies as the rebels that constantly spawned were all javelin users. Problably the sole problem with them is that they don't have that 'fight to the death' instinct a good roman has, and often will rout if their fighting alone.