Very Powerful Peltasts

[AMCG]

I have just started to play EB and am enjoying it very much. I have previously played RTR a lot and although EB is in many ways better, there is one thing I am struggling with. Peltasts are stronger than Hastati or Principes! Can this be right or have I got a bug in my system? The EB developers certainly seem to know their Roman history but surely peltasts were mostly unarmoured and carried just a pelte and javelins. They were light skirmishers. How can they be as strong as proper light infantry? Does anyone have an explanation?

[Ludens]

I have just started to play EB and am enjoying it very much. I have previously played RTR a lot and although EB is in many ways better, there is one thing I am struggling with. Peltasts are stronger than Hastati or Principes! Can this be right or have I got a bug in my system? The EB developers certainly seem to know their Roman history but surely peltasts were mostly unarmoured and carried just a pelte and javelins. They were light skirmishers. How can they be as strong as proper light infantry? Does anyone have an explanation?

Actually, I have two:

1) The term peltast meant different things over the centuries. At the time of the Peleponesian war peltasts essentialy were poor slobs with a few javelins and a wicker shield whose job was to keep the enemy occupied until the hoplites could decide the battle. However, by the time-frame of EB Hellenic armies had become more varied, and the term peltast now applied to hoplites or phalangilites who were equiped as skirmishers (and well-equiped skirmishers at that). The levied, poorly-equiped javelineers still existed, but are covered by the term Akontistai in EB.

2) A mistake in the stat-file gives peltasts (normal and mercenary versions) two more points of armour than was intended. They should be able to fight in a melee, but they will take more casualties.

Welcome to the Org, BTW .

[Dayve]

Yeah what Ludens said basically. By the late 1st century BC the Greeks were slowly realising that some form of light infantry was needed, and seeing as how the rest of the world had light infantry that always carried javelins for use before charging into melee, that's what most Greek light infantry does but they are named peltasts, whereas the peltasts we know and remember from vanilla RTW are called Akontistai...

...If only the Greek generals had figured out how light infantry and cavalry should be used with an army of slow moving, in-flexible phalanx troops.

But i have to keep pointing this out to make sure the EB team don't forget to fix it... Akontistai and other poor light skirmishing units are way too powerful with their javelins! They knock off a tenth of your unit with each volley and by the time they're done throwing your army is as thin as the leaves on a tree in winter.

[NightStar]

But i have to keep pointing this out to make sure the EB team don't forget to fix it... Akontistai and other poor light skirmishing units are way too powerful with their javelins! They knock off a tenth of your unit with each volley and by the time they're done throwing your army is as thin as the leaves on a tree in winter.

I think it depends on what kind of units they are throwing their spears at. Every unit that has armor rating of 10+ and a shield is almost invulnerable to peltast from the front. Lightly armored troops are a another story altogether.....

But then again there are instances of Peltasts dominating the hoplite/phalangite, which is why the hoplite became more lightly armored so they could catch the peltasts, ironically at the same time the peltast started to use heavier armor

[Dayve]

Well, i haven't played EB for months, i love it and everything but i couldn't stand playing something half finished, so i'm waiting for the next build, but when i did play i always played as Rome and although archers and missle cavalry were not a big threat, it got to a point where i was actually dreading fighting an army with 3 or more units of peltasts... My front line was usually hastati with some unit on their flank, samnite spearmen or Mala Geroas (i think) which i could recruit from northern Italy... And peltasts would absolutely annihalate my first line ALWAYS... 3 or more units would kill off 8/10 of each unit... This isn't historically accurate...

Although early hastati are unarmoured apart from their helmet and greive, they have a huge shield, and when they are stood face to face with some peltasts 10 meters away with their shield raised, peltasts should do very little damage to a unit of hastati... Obviously some will fall, but their shield should stop most javelins... The Roman pila was designed to penetrate shields and go all the way through and penetrate the man stood behind it too, but the javelin of a poor homeless sap from Athens who's been drafted into the akontistai would not have anything but a simple javelin and from what i've read javelineers of the day were for harrassment purposes and to try and draw the enemy into the first charge.

[Slider6977]

Although early hastati are unarmoured apart from their helmet and greive, they have a huge shield, and when they are stood face to face with some peltasts 10 meters away with their shield raised, peltasts should do very little damage to a unit of hastati... Obviously some will fall, but their shield should stop most javelins... The Roman pila was designed to penetrate shields and go all the way through and penetrate the man stood behind it too, but the javelin of a poor homeless sap from Athens who's been drafted into the akontistai would not have anything but a simple javelin and from what i've read javelineers of the day were for harrassment purposes and to try and draw the enemy into the first charge.

Which is why Roman units have armor piercing trait, and normal skirmishers do not. You get the last laugh, especially with akontistai.

[tk-421]

1) The term peltast meant different things over the centuries. At the time of the Peleponesian war peltasts essentialy were poor slobs with a few javelins and a wicker shield whose job was to keep the enemy occupied until the hoplites could decide the battle.

I've been reading Thucydides and The Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan simultaneously and I have been getting the impression hoplites were not as important in the Peloponnesian War as they had been in the past or they would be in later wars. It seems to me that, outside of Delium and Mantinea, that hoplites decided the outcome of very few important battles. Peltasts, cavalry, and ships, to me, seemed to have been much more important in the war. In Aetolia light armed troops dominated the hoplites, the second Sicilian Expedition seems to have been decided more by the Syracusans' superior cavarly rather than the Athenians' better hoplites, and the major battles of the latter half of the war were mostly naval. Perhaps I am making the wrong assumptions about hoplites in what I read or am reading the wrong books (although I don't think I could go wrong with Thucydides).

[O'ETAIPOS]

I've been reading Thucydides and The Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan simultaneously and I have been getting the impression hoplites were not as important in the Peloponnesian War as they had been in the past or they would be in later wars. It seems to me that, outside of Delium and Mantinea, that hoplites decided the outcome of very few important battles. Peltasts, cavalry, and ships, to me, seemed to have been much more important in the war. In Aetolia light armed troops dominated the hoplites, the second Sicilian Expedition seems to have been decided more by the Syracusans' superior cavarly rather than the Athenians' better hoplites, and the major battles of the latter half of the war were mostly naval. Perhaps I am making the wrong assumptions about hoplites in what I read or am reading the wrong books (although I don't think I could go wrong with Thucydides).

Peltasts, as mercenaries were more expendable than hoplites (mostly citizens at this time still), so they were more commonly used, especially in "small warfare", that was esential during Peloponesian war. Hoplites were fighting big battles that gave prestige and peltasts small fights that give loses.

[Ludens]

I've been reading Thucydides and The Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan simultaneously and I have been getting the impression hoplites were not as important in the Peloponnesian War as they had been in the past or they would be in later wars. It seems to me that, outside of Delium and Mantinea, that hoplites decided the outcome of very few important battles. Peltasts, cavalry, and ships, to me, seemed to have been much more important in the war. In Aetolia light armed troops dominated the hoplites, the second Sicilian Expedition seems to have been decided more by the Syracusans' superior cavarly rather than the Athenians' better hoplites, and the major battles of the latter half of the war were mostly naval. Perhaps I am making the wrong assumptions about hoplites in what I read or am reading the wrong books (although I don't think I could go wrong with Thucydides).

You are right. I should have written Persian wars instead of Peloponnesian war. Still, I think the Peloponnesian war was a period of transition, where the Greeks moved from hoplite-dominated armies to something approaching a combined-arms force. This the reason why the hoplite performed less credibly during the conflict: armies had to adapt to their new-found weaknesses. But I admit I haven't read much about the military history of this period, so I am not sure about it either.