Roman Manipular Formation

[Rhyfelwyr]

In my latest campaign as the Byzantines I've been trying to reconstruct the old Roman Empire, and its going well so far, I've conquered Turkey, the Holy Land, northern Egypt, and northern Italy.

I've just fought two battles against the Egyptians to allow me to besiege Cairo. I fought to armies with the same troops on my side, a General, and the rest Spear Militia and Archer Militia, with some Sudanese mercs. A crap army I know but I have four very strong stacks blocking river crossings now the Mongol horde has arrived.

In the first battle, I lined my archers up front, Spear Militia just behind, and Sudanese Tribesmen at the flanks. My archers made some early casualties, but the enemy Arab cavalry caught some while they retreated behind the Spear Militia, who themselves routed soon after the charge. The Sudanese barely had time to make an impact. It was a disaster.

In a second attempt having retrained the old army, I used a different setup. Since I've been roleplaying as having to rebuild the Roman Empire, I set up a manipular-style formation, so I would have a gap between each unit of Spear Militia at the front. In between these gaps on the front line my archers were placed. The Sudanese Tribesmen formed a second line, but only directly behind where the archer units were standing. Using this formation was extremely effective. The enemy Arab Cavalry and General charged at my front line. The archer militia got extra time for one last volley, and were able to retreat much more safely. Meanwhile, the Spear Militia took the weight of the charge, before the Sudanese Tribesmen charged through the gaps and cut up the cavalry once they were bogged down. It wasn't long before the enemy routed and my General mopped all their Saracen Infantry up...

So this has proved to be a very effective tactic, despite being a millenia old for the timeframe. Its particularly good against cavalry armies who look to harass your archers.

[Ramses II CP]

If you have stakes for your archers this works even better. I love to line up my archers and crossbowmen in a very narrow front behind a stake line, with spearmen to either side of the stakes backed by heavy infantry. The stakes ward off cavalry, scatter out infantry and cause it to be surrounded by the spearmen if it goes after the archers, and don't impede the archers or crossbowmen firing at all. If too much enemy infantry gets through the stakes, send in the second line from the edges and clear them away.

[Guru]

I'm playing a Byz campaign too, and it's great fun trying to imitate the old Roman tactics. Not that I know much about that but a little bit. Requires a little micromanagement, nice to play on 0.5 speed or so. I've modded Byz spearmen to be a bit more robust than militias, since that's what the unit card says. More expensive too, to avoid unbalancing. Infantry forms the base of Roman tactics and it would work pretty poorly without half-decent spearmen. I usually use dismounted lancers and byz spearmen to form the bulk of the army, some treb archers and then some field artillery and cavalry.
Gunpowder options are crap though, only bombards... Well, the romans didnt have cannons either did they? Gonna hire some gunpowder mercs later when they appear...

[Boyar Son]

Sorry to say but the Byzantines abondoned those tactics long ago during the fall of the the WRE and the dark ages. Then tactics changed some more.

My research on them is most generaly this:

-double line inf.

-left cav forces defensive,

-right cav forces are flanker (alexander tactics)

-if outnumbered do no lenghten lines, attack flanks (I tried, its -hard- but works)

-they used pikemen but spear units can be used to represent this.

-HA are almost exclusively mercenaries.

-HA ahead of army to skirmish

-archers behind inf.

-inf. had a part in the army, but in the mid-east its the CAV that does the talking so cav is like the most important part of the army.

-general never engages, so they wont die (I learned the hard way)

-most important, they were never warlike! at this period they avoided battle as much as possible, and used bibes and diplomated much.

[Guru]

Sorry to say but the Byzantines abondoned those tactics long ago

Well, the idea wasn't to reproduce medieval Byzantine tactics but to copy old Roman Empire tactics (Caesar etc). Sure they were abandoned long ago but still, in game they seem to work pretty well.

[ReiseReise]

I like the idea. It is always fun to put a method to the madness, even if it is not historically correct. It would be fun using Byz Inf to get the 'legion' feeling but of course you have to use what is available.

@ Boyar: Never using your general makes your life very difficult, especially if you have no other heavy cav. Generals are battle winning units for me. Just make sure he doesn't get bogged down in melee. I regulary use them in my 'regular games', but right now I'm playing HRE: Total Blitz () and it would be impossible without the generals. Units are hard to come by when you have to take 2-3 regions per turn and can't afford to wait a turn for the new recruits to catch up to the main armies. Elite heavy cav that automatically heal are indespensible.