Your opinions please

I was just wondering what the Fanatici's opinions were regarding heavy foot armies with the best anti-mounted troop options? Meaning, an army focused around blade or spear with a good anti-cavalry punch.

I'm not sure what type of army you're trying to describe -- a foot army (that much is clear) with bow? With pike? With... psiloi-supported spear? What? Each of them has their own advantages and disadvantages. Also, what environment encases this question? Open tournaments? Theme tournaments? Tight themes (only against historical enemies)? Goofing around with a small group of people, all of whom own only Marian Romans or Gauls? Each situation will change the answer. Also, the answer changes slightly if you are playing on 24" boards (where foot Rule) or 30" boards (where foot still Rule, but it is much more even).

If you ask "what do you think about II/31(e) Spartans in an open tournament on 24" boards" I can tell you that it is an excellent combined-arms army in the Diadachoii mold; complex to play but very powerful if you can master the intricacies of fighting with half your army being spear.

Or perhaps if you ask "what about II/49 Marian Roman in a "Caesar Goes East" tightly themed 50 BC tournament on 30" boards," I can tell you that the Marians are easy to learn, methodical, and slow, and that you are going to have trouble against Sarmatians, and you better pray you win the aggression roll against an opponent who brings Parthians and knows how to use his mobility.

Please forgive my ignorance! I guess I didn't have any particular list in mind, but I would narrow my inquiry by asking: "If you were going to play in an open tourney on 24" boards and wanted to use a heavy foot army, which one would you pick that has a chance of defending well against mounted armies/mounted shock troops?"

Ah! Cool.

How long a list would you like?

Any army with lots of Bow, Pike, or Psiloi-supported spear will do well. Just naming a few of my own favorite armies for that sort of situation:

• NKE (bow/bd mix)
• LPIA (psiloi-supported bd with Camels)
• Warring States Chinese (Ch'u is my fav, but they'd all do well)
• Classical Indian (if you like Elephants)
• Later Hoplite Greek (most of them)
• Almost Anything Diadachoii (Big Al, Al Impy, Anti Gonads, Seleucids, Ptolemies, Pyrrhic...)
• Graeco-Bactrian or Graeco-Indian
• Han Chinese
• Tamil Indian
• Spartacus!
• Marian Roman
• Polybian Roman (a good army, but dull)
• Ancient Brit (OK, not truly a heavy foot army, but glorious!)
• EIR
• ....

The underlying truth is this: any heavy foot army that isn't Vikings (i.e., all blade) or Early Saxons (or any similar with too many Warband) will have the tools to fight mounted opponents. Especially on a 24" map.

Thanks, that's what I was looking for.

You have to be comfortable with your army choice. If you have not played many heavy foot armies, stick to a simple army. Pike can be difficult to use, and combined arms armies with pikers can be really difficult to coordinate.
While dull, the Polybian Romans do make an excellent heavy foot army. I won a themed tourney last week with my Meroitc Ku****e, with 3 Bow, 1 Psloi, 1 Cav general, 2 Blade and 5 Spear. Dull maybe, but hard to kill!

I got my start in Early Hoplite Greek armies (way back in WGR 5th) and I still like these armies and time periods. None of these are 'killer' armies, but they will work well for a patient player (you have to be patient, these armies go nowhere in a hurry!). Some of my favorites:

1/53 Saitic Egyptian (Cav general)
1/56a Kyrenean Greek (with extra cool Lch that dismount as Spear!)
1/52f EHG Athenian (just because)
1/52c EHG Thessalian (LH general for cheesy QK potentail against SP)
NOT 1/52b!!!
1/58 Meroitic Ku****e (Cav general)
1/61a Early Carthage
any of the LHG 2/5a-i (be careful with 2/5f, using Art is an Art!)
1/50 Lydian
2/8b Campanian
2/10 Camillan Roman
2/33 Polybian Roman

Armies such as these are tough, but not as complicated to run as the later Alexandrian, Hellenisitic and Successor armies. I don't do the book 3&4 armies at all, so I would not give advice there.

Book 1 has some very interesting heavy foot armies
1/14d Early Northern Barbs
1/26a&b Later Mycenean
1/29b Philistine
1/35c&d Cypriot and Phoenician

Most of these armies are SP with PS support - I like using this combo, and while a big blade wall will eventually push back a big spear wall, in a open tourney the Knight armies will chew up a Blade wall.

Watch your flanks, if you set out terrian be sparing of bad stuff where you want to deploy a shield wall - keep a mobile reserve to plug gaps. In many of these armies, the ONLY mobile element is the General.

Originally Posted by athanasius

I was just wondering what the Fanatici's opinions were regarding heavy foot armies with the best anti-mounted troop options? Meaning, an army focused around blade or spear with a good anti-cavalry punch.

Here is one that is hard to go wrong with, no matter who you face.

I56 Etruscan League

4 Sp, 4 Bd, 2 Ps, 2 Cv (g)

If you really want something to reach out an touch your mounted enemy find one with a mix of a little bow (2-4 elements) also.

Originally Posted by athanasius

I was just wondering what the Fanatici's opinions were regarding heavy foot armies with the best anti-mounted troop options?

I was asking myself much the same question as I pondered which of my armies to run at a DBA Open tourney here this past weekend. I didn't know what armies others would choose, but surmised (correctly, it turns out) that some of the best-skilled players in the tourney would choose Knight-heavy armies. So, I decided to run the I/60b Early Achaemenid Persian army because...

• its Bows and SCH are useful against Knights
• it fits my own DBA abilities fairly well
• it's kinda quirky.

So, while I thought I had an army that might serve me well in the finals, I exhibited hubris in thinking I would get to the finals.

I was all set to face klanker, knight armies, but faced two well-handled, spear-heavy armies, II/5a LHG-Spartans and III/72b Communal Italians in the initial rounds instead. Ack! I hadn't expected or prepared for that. I didn't play well against them and they ate me for lunch. Silly me.

Quickly 0-2 in the first two rounds, it wasn't until "Big Al" appeared on my dance-card, that I eeked out a win for Cyrus' Persians. So, my advice would be, as you prepare to face one type of army, expect the likelihood of facing something entirely different.

Oh, and the tourney winner? Spokane's Own, Terry Griner, with II/37 Parthians, bested Richard Shagrin and his II/74a Palmyrans in the finals.

Good insight Paul, thank you. Thanks to everyone else too!

My Second Place Palmyrans had the Roman contingent (1 Cav, 1 Blade, 1 Aux), and 4 bow and 1 Ps, in addition to the mandatory 2 knights, knight general and light horse. I had a hard time with Terry's Sarmations, 5 knights including general and 7 light horse. I did win the terrain roll all 5 games I played, and used a square setup, two bad going patches and two steep hills, one in each quadrant, with space between each pair, no matter which edge was home for 3 stands of knights (general in the middle) and two bow on each side in bad going. The blade backed by psilloi and the Aux usually started on the side I expected the enemy to put whatever light infantry he had. After seeing the enemy dispositions, I could move one or both bows to go 3 to 1 or all 4 bow on the same side, usually to where ever I expected the enemy light horse to go. I like shooting light horse at 4 to 2 or 4 to 1, sometimes 4 to zero. Good things happen if you get enough of those shots.

I didn't much mind if the light horse take my camp, as long as I can shoot them out before they kill two of my stands to win. Camps don't help mounted, and enemy camp doesn't give a defensive to bonus to anyone. If the enemy wants to spend a lot of pips to run one or more light horse to attack my camp followers at 2 to 3, usually I have something better to do with my army Especally as I usually keep a bow in bad going "near" my camp to shoot out the raiders, and reoccupy as needed. I see more over-reaction to camp threats than the reality often warrents. Your mileage may varry, but I would like to see some of the enemy's most annoying/threatening forces take themselves out of the battle, and then force themselves to hold in a position where, if they retreat, they die. And at 4 to 2 odds. Timing can break down, if you lose two stands and then your camp, this is a losing strategy, but mostly I see the lunge for the camp before the main battle is joined.

One odd occurence was the next to last round, Where Terry and I who went 2 and 1 in the primary tournament, played the undefeated at 3 and 0 armies. And we each won our semi-final games 1 G to 0. The probability of that seems very low to me, but I do not lie.

A non Tournament game later in the evening it was a Roman/Enenies of Rome event, a Numdian civil war resulting from random pairing. I nearly got a light horse turned into bad going when hit on the flank by another Numdian light horse. Would have been a zero to minus one basic odds contest due to an overlap on my light horse. If we had both rolled ones, is one to zero a two to one elimination? Taking the situation to unlikely extremes, I can envision a situration where the odds for two fighting light horse in bad going are minus two to minus three. (Three overlaps gives minus three and two overlaps gives minus two. One or more of the overlaps would have to be from the rear, probably) If each general rolls a one, the final result could be miums two to minus one. That is a two to one ratio and the lower number wins! Yes, consult your local mathematician, but minus two divided by minus one is a positive two. I havent worked out the geometry how one side could have two overlaps and the other side 3, but even minus two to minus to could result on weird outcomes like minus 1 to zero, or zero to 1, 2, 3, etc. Dividing by zero gives an undefined ratio, although very large. Would the best solution for this be a rule that if you get a negative total you die, and if both sides get a negative total, they both die. Like Scythed Chariots tying, the failure to win leads to intense embarrasment and both sides go home.

Inqiring minds want to know, has anyone ever asked about negative numbers in combat before? In the old days, when bows in bad going lost two from their combat factor, a battle between a force of three bows on each side handled as one combat with two supports could have been a minus two to minus two initial odds.