Quote Originally Posted by Poor Bloody Infantry View Post
Never been a big fan of "human wave" tactics myself; makes me feel a little too much like a tyrant to drive masses of untrained conscripts to their deaths. I generally only use the cannon-fodder militia units for garrison duty.

The only two situations I can think of where such units are useful are for manning rams and for drawing missile fire. For manning rams I tend to use mercenaries; I feel less bad about throwing their lives away, and if they are half-decent they will probably come through more or less intact.

For drawing arrow fire (not javelins or guns) I quite often use my general's bodyguard, especially in BC; the bodyguard are such a small target and so heavily armoured that they almost never take casualties against non-armour-piercing missiles.

With me, "human wave" tactics are entirely dependant on the enemy. You'll never see me specifically plan to wind up doing it...but if it's called for, it's called for.

I remember back about 2 summers ago I had a really complex EB (rtw mod) campaign going for months (which I eventually won). As the Romans, I wound up overextended to the north...while I tried to deal with threats to the south and east. Battle after battle I found myself outnumbered 2-1 and 3-1 by barbarians in the germanic regions. Clearly, I had the tech..I just couldn't translate it into a high tech army where I needed it ...and when I needed it.

So I started to spam low tech auxillia/levies/peasants in the north...and giving them as much armor/exp as I could before composing armies with them. What followed was a long, tedious guerilla war taking place largely in the woods. Quickly, I was able to turn the tide...even though the quality of my units was a bit less than my enemy in this theater, human wave tactics w/ battlefield micromanagement proved to win the war. (instead of simply throwing these units away, I just would pack as many of them into the "war zone" as possible...hoping to outlast my enemy in a trading of blows. Once on the field of battle, I would be as careful with every unit as possible...until the enemy threw their main attack at me- then onto the "human wave" to simply outnumber/surround them and close it out).

In each battle, after an initial skirmish, the enemy typically just unleashed a wave of barbs toward my romans. And I would meet them with a wave of my own troops...with a 2-1 advantage, and 80 percent of my best troops still tending to operations in other theaters.

It just depends on the situation and the current necessity your faction faces as a whole in the campaign. But spammage of cheap units , with some nasty surprises, will sometimes allow you to wage a 2 front war where you might not have otherwise been able to. At the very least, you will grind down and weaken your 2nd enemy while you finish up your first one. The key is to remain on the offensive with your large, weaker armies. You don't want these guys defending home cities and provinces obviously...and this would also negate their entire purpose in this situation.