Greek firethrower tactic

[HigherGround]

I've just started to play Crusades with Byzantium (and actually to post to this forum ). My question how to use the greek firethrower effectively?

I've played a bit in custom battles to conceive a good tactic using them. They are darn deadly but pose threat to my own troops if inproperly used. I think they are not really useful in dealing with frontal attacks: they are easy to overrun especially as they are not firing simultaneously.

The enemy (turks) army consisted of 5 unit of dismounted hasham while mine had one greek firethrower and 4 militia spearmen. The turks were surely ovepowered but my purpose was to test the fireguys and not to win . (I use the cheap militia btw because I probably could not stand watching varangian guards dying.)

What I tried is to use the militia spearmen to hold the line and put the firethrowers to the right flank behind a spearmen unit.



_^___^___^___^
MS__MS__MS__MS
______________GF

MS:militia spearmen
GF: greek firethrower

When the lines snapped and melee starts I moved the firethrowers to the flank and fireing parallel with my front line. At the same time the militia spearmen were put forward in front of the firethrower to protect them. Something like this:

________________DH
________________^
________________MS
DH___DH__DH__<-GF
_^___^___^___
MS__MS__MS

DH: dismounted hasham

(The fifth DH unit were either standind behind their line or encountering in melee with one of my unlucky militia unit...)

As you can imagine the GF caused a terrible devastation with firing along enemy ranks (killing some own men of course) and made hashams rout. Then GF proceeded either along the fornt line and hunting down the next DH or relieving the MS guarding them. Since the militia is no match for the hasham (not to mention, they are outnumbered) they cannot hold the line too long so collapse is inevitable. Moreover, routing hasham units are rallying soon, coming back and finishing off my weakened militia. I guess by adding a single cavalyry unit (even a weak one) to my army can change the whole situation by harassing and hunting down routing units and not leting them rally, I have to try.

I think the same can be done in the middle of the line not only at flanks so that firethrower can easily fire to both direction


______MS
____<-GF->
MS_________MS____MS


Any comments or best practice?

[alpaca]

I'd imagine their main enemy would be cavalry and archers so you'll have to think of something to protect them against cav.

[Per Ole]

I've found that greek firethrowers are AWESOME in siege battles (either you're defending or attacking), but they are not that good in open battles (due to cavalry and archers).

In open battles I hold them behind the line, and if necesseary they shoot fire into places where my troops rout, so they're not chased (the guys you shoot at normally run)

[WhiskeyGhost]

______MS___VA___MS
__________<-GF->
MS__VA____AR_____VA___MS____________CAV____CAV

This would be my approx. usage of them, whenever i use them in an open field. Usually i keep 2 in front of them, 3 during larger fights, to prevent the enemy units from wrapping around and engaging them and will often mix the unit types as well (1 spear, 1 Varangian, so they hold up better against anti-spear units) and usually the front row is placed pretty deep (sometimes as deep as 7 men)

[TheLastPrivate]

In siege battles its no brainer.. but on the open field I put them in 2 rank deep formation and expose only the front row, looking like I almost merged the GFTs in my infantry. When the enemy comes near hopefully they'll launch a stream or two and pull back behind the lines.

Using them on flank will sometimes result in a huge friendly fire fest and you might see your already sub-par byzantine infantry in your flank rout on you, which isn't something you would want to see.

[antisocialmunky]

I only the Byzantines had pikemen, then that would be simply ridiculous.

[TheLastPrivate]

Thinking of the same thing munkey, if they had pikemen just pikemen/GFT/byz guard would just steamroll everything. That would be kinda like having old phalanx from rtw back, just stronger XD

[antisocialmunky]

Stronger and shoots flames.

[TheLastPrivate]

Well you remember RTW phalanxes - their frontal combat capability rivals that of liquid napalm.

[antisocialmunky]

I stopped playing vanilla and started palying EB, that's the only RTW I know now.

[TheLastPrivate]

Too bad none of the factions in the crusades campaign has pikes... GFTs can be recruited as mercs too. And Venice is not playable.

[Seabourch]

Pictures of them in action would be nice. Not sure about everyone but I like seeing a CGI man running around on fire and its top notch graphics make it so realistic.

[antisocialmunky]

It would be cool if they ran around, but they just kinda die and smolder.

[alpaca]

Guys, this is not Grand Theft Auto. I repeat: Not GTA!

[TheLastPrivate]

Men on fire with their arms flailing about and screaming at top of their lungs was introduced to the world of video games long before GTA..

[WhiskeyGhost]

when i hear "running around on fire" I always think of Postal to be honest. Nothing says amusing like 2 people on fire setting 15 more ablaze

[The_Baron]

I used Firethrower mercenaries something like this:


____________________
__DH_____DH____DH__
____________________
____^_________^_____
___GF________GF_____
____________________
___EG_________EG____


DH - Dismounted Hasham
GF - Greek Firethrowers
EG - Edessan Guard (can use any 2H heavy infantry unit with high charge attack as a substitute - but I love Edessan Guard!).

Position your Edessan Guard (who have a huge charge bonus of 9!) a decent distance behind your Greek Firethrowers. This gives them distance to charge. The Dismounted Hasham walk closer to your Firethrowers, and just before they are in range, CHARGE your Edessan Guard. The Firethrowers can get in two volleys, then retreat them just as the Guardsmen engauge the Dismounted Hasham.

____________________________
____________________________
__i>____DH____DH_____DH__<i_
_GF___\/__/\__\/__/\__\/___GF_
______i>__EG_____EG__<i_____
___________________________


i> / <i - Flanking attack.

As your Guardsmen are outnumbered, they will be surrounded. This works to your advantage. Allow your Firethrowers to flank and attack the Hasham. Your castaulties *should* be quite minimal, and the enemies' crippling.

This is just something I've been experimenting with in Custom Battle and I've used it a few times in the Grand campaign.


-Max

[HigherGround]

I played some campaign battles as Byzantine Empire and found that I cannot really micromanage GF during battles employing large armies, especially while I'm the attacker. I put the guys behind my lines and only used them once against wavering troops that maneuvered right in front of my solid line.

They may be useful at points where you have already suffered heavy causalities and the line is (almost) broken.

I think not having pikemen at this period is pretty historical. After the phalanx disappeared with the Roman expansion one had to wait for the late medieval era to have mighty spearwalls on the battlefield.

HG