I used to be a Romani-only player. They were the only faction I wanted to play because I wasn’t interested in pikes or barbarians. That’s changed over time a little, I’m less intolerant of phalanxes (though I prefer hoplites), and I don’t mind barbarian auxiliaries/mercs alongside my factional units. Right now I’m having a lot of fun with Hellenic-and-other fusion armies. Pergamon with Thracian and Galatian regionals/mercs is the main one. I like the mixture of spear-armed heavy infantry and sometimes pikes with medium infantry with precursor javelins and mercenary skirmishers/skirmishing cavalry. It’s a versatile but not terribly expensive mix.

I was looking over the Karthadastim roster and realising they have a lot of Hellenic-like units. Libyan Spearmen are Thureophoroi (identical stats, no matter what the blurb about them says). Liby-Phoenician Infantry are Classical Hoplites (again identical stats). Peoni Citizen Militia are a poor man’s Levy Hoplite. Their FMs (who I tend to use as heavy cavalry, rather than recruiting any) are better than the Epirote ones I’m used to (better armour and a shield). They have access to a load of Iberian, African and Gallic regionals/mercs to fill all the other roles (cavalry, AP infantry, skirmishers, etc). The only favoured unit I can’t recruit are peltastai, but there’s always the merc variant available almost everywhere. Their expansion zone is as huge as that of the Romani.

It would seem a perfect fit for the sorts of armies I like to play, though I’d probably go a little less phalanx-heavy than might be standard (2-3 units max). My only concern is the AI Romani. It would be nice to face vaguely appropriate army compositions, but shy of spawning additional units in their stacks, I can’t see that happening. I’m worried I’ve be facing stacks of mixed Gaeroas and Pedites Extraordinarii, with the odd unit of Triarii thrown in. I’m also ambivalent on elephants; I’ll probably disband the starting ones and never recruit any after that.

What are other people’s experiences of playing the Karthadastim?