Tactics against Comitatenses First Cohort?

[caspian]

I'm playing as WRE and after being driven off mainland Europe by both the Western Rebels and Eastern Empire, I'm rebuilt my finances and military in Africa and took on the Western Rebels in Spain.

As I entered the fray in Gaul, I noticed that most of the Roman armies I'm up against contain a lot of First Cohorts. My stacks of standard Comitatenses and Sarmatian horse can't even dent these monster armies. Most of the barbarians are wiped out and the only remaining powers are Roman.

I've tried engaging the front lines with Comitatenses and attacking the rear with Sarmatians but the First Cohors still held. They were exhausted, my men were fresh but they still wiped me out.

Any advice on how to deal with stacks half filled with First Cohorts?

[Mithras]

weight of numbers and wear them down, they're pricy and hard to replace when one campaghn (5th level barracks) your comms are cheap and easily repleted.

-pour arrows onto them
-hit them in the flanks with calvalry
-swamp them with weight of numbers.
-make sure that you're coms are battle hardened (mithras shrines are good for this)
-use your own First Cohorts to support the line

on the big map try to take the settlements they're produced from, they are very hard to obtain of you can re-take italy

[Uesugi Kenshin]

Also if you can ever get the infrastructure Plumbatari (sp ) should do a bit better because of their more numerous (I think) and more deadly missiles. Other than that not a clue, in my WRE campaign I have only faced two so far and my General's Bodyguards did a number on them in the melee and my towers killed many of the rest.

[caspian]

Right now I'm replacing my armies with First Cohort and see if in the field it will be a toe-to-toe match and flanking maneuvers will be ineffective.
I had Goth's All Factions Mod installed which removes peasants and lowers upkeep unit cost for better AI army composition and more stacks on the map.
Still you reap what you sow...

[The Spartan (Returns)]

bombard them with two heavy infantry units and flank them with cavalry as fast as you can.

[Avicenna]

I guess you're play VH battle difficulty? That's always crazy, since the Ist Cohort, which is already very powerful, gets +7 (?) bonuses for everything, or something like that. Playing medium battles is always a solution, completely fair to both sides.

Anyway, you could always wait for them to approach you, and attempt to rout their weakest unit with pila volleys. Then, get your cavalry to kill the enemy general, further weakening their morale. The rest was explained above, swamping and flanking. They should eventually break. If not, just play another campaign with MEDIUM BATTLE DIFFICULTY!

[Celt Centurion]

I agree with this fellow as well as the one who said use archers. Fill them with arrows, engage them with heavy infantry, and slam into their backsides with heavy cavalry.

Rather than your cavalry hitting them from their 6 o'clock, hit the end from their 7 or 8 o'clock at the end of the line. That will get the one on the end routing, then slam into the one beside them, and then on down the line. As Centurion Marcus says, "A trickle becomes a flood."

Strength and Honor,

Celt Centurion

bombard them with two heavy infantry units and flank them with cavalry as fast as you can.

[Ludens]

BlueRobin posted this suggestion in the Entrance Hall:

No one has suggested the following.

The barbarians use different tactics to standard romano-greek pin and flank, namely horse-archers.

A 50:50 spilt fighting rebellious Romans with heavy infantry and horse archer should have the following effects

1. Skirmishing will tire the enemy
2. Ditto reduce numbers
3. Their lines will break

At which point (3) bring up (what will be a narrrower line of) infantry to deal with their broken lines. When engaged, your horse archers can come out of skirmish mode and be the best back-stabbers in the world.

However if the enemy has superior cavalry and know how to use it, namely agasint your horse archers, you could be shafted...

If unsure about tactics, try it out in the "sim", i.e. a custom battle.