Testudo Tactics

Despite how cool this looks, I have only found one (rare) situation in which the testudo is worth using. This is when I am defending a bridge and I surround my side with a U shape line of cohorts so as to surround the enemy as soon as they rush across. If the enemy has archers, I start with all my units in testudo, which allows them to weather the arrows pretty well without having to move from their position near the bridge.

All other situations I have tried the testudo in have been complete failures. Towers on walls seems to kill cohorts as if they didn't have any shields. I find I take less casualties by running my units straight through the area than by slogging through it in slow testudo formation.

Has anyone else had success with this tactic in any other situations?

Probably, the extra armor the engine factors in from testudo is just marginal to make any real difference against missile losses. I've noticed though that armored warlord cavalry men are very hard to kill by arrows and their armor rating is very high... I guess, we should mod the testudo formation armor rating up...

Well, I just checked the stats: warlord cavalry have armor of 6 whereas early legionnary cohort has armor of 7... beats me why cohorts can be killed by arrows easily whereas warlord cavalry can stand under arrow rain until archers run out of amo and nothing happens to them...

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Originally Posted by Slaists

Probably, the extra armor the engine factors in from testudo is just marginal to make any real difference against missile losses. I've noticed though that armored warlord cavalry men are very hard to kill by arrows and their armor rating is very high... I guess, we should mod the testudo formation armor rating up...

Well, I just checked the stats: warlord cavalry have armor of 6 whereas early legionnary cohort has armor of 7... beats me why cohorts can be killed by arrows easily whereas warlord cavalry can stand under arrow rain until archers run out of amo and nothing happens to them...

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shield and armor factor both go into effective armor vs. missiles.

at least that's the way it was in mtw.

warlords are harder to kill becasue they are more spread out, and have 2 hitpoints (the general will have many more) rather than 1.

Anyone else notice that your troops tire out very quickly when in testudo? You can put them in testudo and just let them sit still and they will tire out at what seems to be the same rate as if they were running full speed, very quickly.

This makes it even more worthless IMO.

Sure have. Lost an entire stack of cohorts due to this. I sapped a wall in a siege battle started to walk all my cohorts true the broken wall in testudo wall walked them safely out of distance from towers. Now what happened was that all of them were exhausted so when i finally arrived in town square i had one minute to remove the opponents. Which was impossible lost my entire force because of the battle timer.

testudo must be fixed big time... just trying to make formations with it is a joke.. and i do not believe how fast they get tired from holding thier sheilds up

When in testudo, the knees are bent, so it's like walking in a squat.
difficult to do.

Why would your knees be bent in testudo? To make up for height differences?

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Originally Posted by AngryGerbil

Anyone else notice that your troops tire out very quickly when in testudo? You can put them in testudo and just let them sit still and they will tire out at what seems to be the same rate as if they were running full speed, very quickly.

This makes it even more worthless IMO.

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It all makes some sense, The shields weight 22-25 pounds, holding that over your head for a while would start to tire your arms out...

The probably kneel so missile wont hit them in the legs and destroying the entire testudo.

They also do seem to kneel slightly, no doubt in my mind that it would be a tiring postions on your arms, legs, feet, and theighs.

To be honest I never use the formation. I don't see any reason to use it myself.

The only reason I can see it being useful is in an assault getitng close to the walls when under fire.

Once inside you can easily remove them from Testudo and order them to capture the towers.

Too add to the formation's problems, it takes FAR too long to get into.

This is Rome, remember? The people who trained endlessly!

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Originally Posted by The_Emperor

The only reason I can see it being useful is in an assault getitng close to the walls when under fire.

Once inside you can easily remove them from Testudo and order them to capture the towers.

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Sadly, I've found rushing to be much better. Testudo might net you fewer casualties before you get inside but your troops will be too exhausted to melee by the time they get inside.

The Testudo is good for defence against arrows, but very vulnerable to artillery. Hence why they tend to take heavy losses when approaching town walls.

Well, I found that testudo works wonderfully against field archers: my units would not take any casualties form arrows at all. The only problem, once my legionaires have closed the bow-range distance to the enemy lines, they are exhausted: thus, subject to being slaughtered by any decent melee opponent. Kind of defeats the purpose... I guess, the "getting tired from testudo" should be streched out a bit longer... Just a tiny tweak :) Anyway, maybe, historically it was meant to be used just on defensive? i.e., allow the enemy expend their arrows and then recover by standing up straight? Of course, the battle timer would kill you (if you still use one).

On another note, testudo does not work attacking walls... I suspect, they have implemented something similar to MTW where towers were actually using armor piercing longbows... If that's the case, the extra armor testudo gives might not be enough to counter the armor piercing nature of tower arrows.

P.S. the fact that foresters can out-range my wall towers suggests the tower weapon, at least, does not have a longer range than the normal bow... at least, it does not match the range of the "better-quality-RTW-bows" used also by archer auxilia after the reforms take place.

Yes, I found that very true at the end of my Julii campaign. It's essentially what I said about the bridge battle without the bridge. When the enemy decides to bombard you with many volleys of arrows before attacking, the testudo makes a HUGE difference. I put all my cohorts into testudo when I saw the archers moving to the front and sat there until the enemy was done. Once their main lines started moving again I resumed normal position. This worked very well.

Against regular archers, it's fine.

Used it a few times to protect myself from archers on walls. Now I simply move my infantry back a bit further or use cheap skirmisers to absorb the arrows...

They chould support the shields on top of their helmets. They should be able to stand still in testudo literally forever :p And walking under it should not be nearly so tiring.

Well I have heard of cases where men get the shields pinned to there arm and feet pinned to the ground by arrows. So I guess since tower walls are shooting down the arrow is only gaining speed making it that much more deadly and thus the testudo ineffective on an assault.

I could have sworn that was what the romans used it for seiges. I dunno i could be wrong but i remeber ready that.

I actually DO use it. First of all, its great against normal arrows/pila. Secondly, when you approach one of your seige towers anchored on a wall, the TESTUDO is what actually separates you from getting up that tower and running away from the field with only 3-4 men left. It actually takes a while for the men to get into the towers and start climbing up...

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Originally Posted by cegman

I could have sworn that was what the romans used it for seiges. I dunno i could be wrong but i remeber ready that.

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They did, but they still took alot of casualties. It's probably a morale thing. I'd feel safer in the middle of one of those, and if I saw one coming at me, I'd be scared.

I think it's effective when getting shot at but ultimately almost useless because the soldiers get so exhausted just standing there.


During my civil war as the Julii I attacked Rome with tons of Legion guys. I mistakenly put them all in testudo during the deployment phase. By the time my sappers knocked down one wall section every single one of my soldiers was exhausted just from standing there. It's kind of ridiculous.


While it may have been extremely tiring to hold a shield above your head I don't think its MORE tiring than charging and fighting and swinging that sword and shield around. Currently it seems testudo guys get exhausted only a few minutes after getting in formation.

Now I'm in nowhere close to the state of physical fitness that the average Urban Cohor guy was but I figure I could hold a shield above my head for 4 minutes without collapsing of exhaustion.

i used it when im getting throuh a gate.my battering ram infront and the 200 men using the tustedo behind the battering ram.so when the men are waiting for the gate to open the protected in the testedo when the gate is open the men rush in side. :medievalcheers: :medievalcheers: :duel: :charge: ~:cheers:

Woah... bumped old thread! I saw I'd posted here and thought "wtf, I don't remember posting here". Then I saw the date ~D

I suppose I did use Testudo the other day, in a siege. Guess I had run out of the skirmisers I mentioned earlier. ~;)

Generals have 2 HP

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Now I'm in nowhere close to the state of physical fitness that the average Urban Cohor guy was but I figure I could hold a shield above my head for 4 minutes without collapsing of exhaustion.

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Lift your hand so that it points straight out to your side horizontally, fist it, and stay still for your 4 minutes without moving your hand even a bit.

It WILL get tired.

Hah hah, my father was a drill instructor. You think you could hold a 22# shield over your head for 4 minutes without getting tired do you? Hee hee, I'll take that bet! He would routinely punish recruits by making them hold their 7 to 8 pound rifles over their heads, and boy they didn't last long. Everything seems easy when SOMEONE ELSE is doing it. ~:)

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Originally Posted by Old Celt

Hah hah, my father was a drill instructor. You think you could hold a 22# shield over your head for 4 minutes without getting tired do you? Hee hee, I'll take that bet! He would routinely punish recruits by making them hold their 7 to 8 pound rifles over their heads, and boy they didn't last long. Everything seems easy when SOMEONE ELSE is doing it. ~:)

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Yes, but I think he was following the other post that said something about the shield resting on the helmet (which makes very good sense as the upper shield is close to the upper edge of the front shields). And resting 22 lbs on your head with something in between and a hand that supports it, well it isn't that hard. With training it should be possible to do for extended periods. Just look at those tribal women that carry much heavier loads on their heads, even without the support of their hands. I can't believe they are stronger than fit and trained men, but they might have a better balance (which I think evens out the supporting hand).

Did shields really weigh 22 lbs., anyway? I really kinda doubt they did, but I may be wrong. They were only made out of wood, weren't they? This page, at least, says that North American wood varies from 17.5-64.9 lbs./cu. ft.—or, in more conventional terms, 0.28-1.03 g/cm^3. This page lists the dimensions of a typical scutum as being around 37-42" × 24-33" × .25-.38", for a volume of 222-526 cu. in. Taking the average values for density and volume, we end up with 485 cu. in. = 7948 cm^3 × 0.66 g/cm^3 = ~5.2 kg, or 11 pounds. Which means, in other words, that I spent all that time to establish that, giving myself a healthy margin of error, 22# may or may not be correct. Hooray.

Maybe it would have been better to just look at the Legio XX page, which (now that it occurred to me to do it) says that the Fayum shield (from the 1st century BCE) weighed 22 lbs., and the Dura Europas shield (from about 250 CE) weighed about 12. Hmm. That was . . . stupid of me. I guess we have our answer, though, which is that the shields probably did weigh in the vicinity of 22 pounds at the time of RTW's later legionaries. Now I just need to find something that weighs 22 lbs. and see how long I can keep it balanced on my head before I fall over.

-Simetrical

The wood used was fairly heavy and hard (the middle layer was softer) making for a quite resilient shield. Also the shields were often given a metal rim and metal strengtheners in the shapes of 'L's near the corners. Add to this the hide covering, the glue (to keep the layered wood together) and the central spine (of wood), I think that should add up quite nicely.

It is interesting to note that the aspis of the hoplite was not even as heavy, being a few lbs lighter... Those legionaries must have been quite strong and fit (but then again they were normally farmers or later pros).

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Originally Posted by Kraxis

...resting 22 lbs on your head with something in between and a hand that supports it, well it isn't that hard. With training it should be possible to do for extended periods.

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http://www.after-birth.com/misc/testudo-leg-ix2.jpg
and

http://www.esg.ndirect.co.uk/Archive...o%2012_JPG.jpg

I think that the way they distribute the weight of the shield would have allowed them to last a little longer than say, four minutes. As well as taking into consideration the physical training they would have received...

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Originally Posted by The_Mark

Lift your hand so that it points straight out to your side horizontally, fist it, and stay still for your 4 minutes without moving your hand even a bit.

It WILL get tired.

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Yep, if you ever do weights you will find that the three most tiring exercises (of the more basic ones) are raises and overhead presses.

Liftign a shield above your head would tire you very quickly.

I`ve done a little test of the missile defence of the testudo. I put an Urban Cohort on flat grassland in the fire of two units Pharao´s Bowmen. Unit size was large, difficulty medium. In standard formation the Cohort was routed after it lost about 60 men. In testudo the Cohort lost 2 men untill the Bowmen ran out of ammo.

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Originally Posted by dgb

Liftign a shield above your head would tire you very quickly.

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Yeah, but you aren't. You're resting the shield on your head. This wouldn't tire you the slightest bit (although it might give you a headache if you weren't wearing a helmet, which the legionaries were). The force is basically transferred straight to the ground via your skeleton—you only get tired when you use your muscles, and the only function muscles would serve here is to balance you. Balancing with a shield on your head is, if anything, less taxing than balancing with one on your arm. If you were holding something in the air, on the other hand, your muscles would have to exert themselves constantly so that your arm wouldn't fall.

Testudo should have no effect on stamina—standing still is testudo should actually refresh you, as standing still normally does.

-Simetrical

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Originally Posted by Simetrical

Yeah, but you aren't. You're resting the shield on your head. This wouldn't tire you the slightest bit (although it might give you a headache if you weren't wearing a helmet, which the legionaries were). The force is basically transferred straight to the ground via your skeleton—you only get tired when you use your muscles, and the only function muscles would serve here is to balance you. Balancing with a shield on your head is, if anything, less taxing than balancing with one on your arm. If you were holding something in the air, on the other hand, your muscles would have to exert themselves constantly so that your arm wouldn't fall.

Testudo should have no effect on stamina—standing still is testudo should actually refresh you, as standing still normally does.

-Simetrical

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You still have to stabilise it though, see the above pictures, how they have their arms up? Try standing like that for five minutes, not holding anything... Your arms will get tired. Now imagine having to constantly adjust the shield and you can see why it would tire you.

I know tustedo wont protected your men from catupult fire but does it protected your men from ballista?

I'm imagine it would actually increase the damage done. The shield wont give any protection against such a large bolt. And in a testudo the men are very tightly packed together, so you're even more likely to get a "man-kebab" effect.

The truth is that the testudo was maked just to protect your self while aproching an enemy's walls and when you know that you will be heavely fired by arrows on an open field. I didn't notice them to tire so quickly, you have to use them correctly. The fact is that you have to put them standing and don't move them at all, unless you want to approach to a wall, then moved them in standard an when you see that you are on the fire line change them to testudo and keep walking, they usually will get warmed up or at least winded, not much more, and i proved it. The only think i don't like about it's implementation is that you can't use it while holding ladders or siege towers or even rams, wich in fact would be the most useful approach to this formation. I repeat if you stand still it will tire but is not that quick, and it's realistic, and as far as i can tell it worked fine for me, when the enemy is out of ammo just get back to the normal formation and wait idle until you recover your breath.

Sorry to continue an old arguement, but couldn't you balance it with one hand so you can periodically rest the other? Or both, it is curved and resting on two people's heads.

That said, is there anyone who has tried a testudo with a bunch of reinactors?

Reinactors or riot police if you really think about it. The closest thing oyu can get to seeing an actual Roman battle is to watch American or Canadian riot police disperse crowds. They do use some of the same tactics and similiar equipment and they're the only people who are professional formation fighters anymore. You can find images of riot police using a varient of the testudo formation to advance while deflecting bottles, rocks, and molotovs.

No, it's useless mainly because of the fact that if the unit loses one man while walking in testudo formation, the entire formation has to stop, and it takes half a minute for them to reshape a testudo so they can move on. Usually they take more casualties during that minute and therefore they usually end up not being able to walk in testudo.

I also get less casualties and less fatigue by running through missiles than from walking with testudo. Only place I think testudo could be could is if you form testudo with ONE unit and move it ahead of your line to attract missile fire. If the enemy attack, you send the rest of your line forward. Usually a skilled opponent would however make sure to do hit-and-run attacks against the testudo legionary, and force your cavalry into the missile rain, or tire your troops by making them move forward to engage the raiders, only to have to move back again to avoid the missiles they were kept back from by the testudo unit. So in conclusion, the testudo seems useless in all situations I can think of, unless you're fighting AI in a wooden castle assault where the enemy have more missiles. It's a good way of making them waste all missiles by shooting at one cohort in testudo, then you move in with your own missiles, rams, cavalry and everything else you have...

If the walls have archers on them, I usually place a few "spare" cohorts in Testudeo near the wall. This way the archers and towers automatically target those cohorts while the others are pushing their ladders or towers to the walls. I hardly ever need to send another cohort up the wall unless needed which in this case would be gladiators or something.

For other purposes I dunno, it would be better though if we had more formations to work with the romans, I remember reading an Asterix comic about it, yes I know it's a comic but the writer noted something about showing you some other roman tactics. They had more than just one formation, the Testudeo.

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Originally Posted by iisomaii

http://www.after-birth.com/misc/testudo-leg-ix2.jpg

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Alright, who ate beans last night!?!?!!!??? ~:eek:

I have found that testudo is useless against towers. Haven't really tried it against archers, I just move my men out of range.

We need a gravedigger smiley.

-Simetrical

Soulforged, could you please practice your necromancy on other subjects that aren't threads in this forum?

ive NEVER used testudo seriously in any battle. Ive only ever used it to see what it looks like maybe twice. hmmm, maybe i'll find a use for it yet. i'll try.