Slitherine

Hi there,

I'll make this short as I have not much time.

Very good game played thx to Lapdog666 who was willing to play "live" with me.

The set up was the one which is due for the incoming Siltherine tournament. Medium, pre-marius Romans vs Seleucids.

I deployed my Manipule on my far right so as to deny my opponent the hill on my left.

After some skirmishes, Lapdog proving to be very cautious, I threw my best units all left while only maintaining some units on the right. It took some time to make the conversion from one side to another.

Seeing the opportunity, Lapdog revealed his Elephants hidden on my right in the forst and started envelopping my right with noble lancers.

This pressed me to start my all out attack on the left, leaded by veterans and Triarii. While this thrust met some success, my right held firm for some time against Lapdog's cavalry.

After a few turns, most of the Seleucid phalange was routed, although their general rallied (he came from broken to disrupted in 2 turns !) and charged his pursuers, but eneded up pushed back.

Very GG.

@ Devs : It's really too bad I cannot watch the whole replay of this game, it would be lovely.

very fun battle, even tho I lost badly. at the beginning I had inflicted 2 times more casualties, but when the main battle started, it reversed quite quickly

heres a screenshot before the main fighting was about to start

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... 1172374521

lapdog666 wrote:heres a screenshot before the main fighting was about to start

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... 1172374521

Good one. You said you had a surprise for me :p

Did that giant envelopment annihilate those two doomed roman units? Those must be the thin line on the Roman right used to distract the Seleucids away from the massive Roman sweep around their left wing.
Lapdog's grand trap most probably didn't profit him as much as he had hoped.
How did that elephant end up destroyed? Did the Roman left wing assault eventually sweep through that area?

GiveWarAchance wrote:Did that giant envelopment annihilate those two doomed roman units? Those must be the thin line on the Roman right used to distract the Seleucids away from the massive Roman sweep around their left wing.
Lapdog's grand trap most probably didn't profit him as much as he had hoped.
How did that elephant end up destroyed? Did the Roman left wing assault eventually sweep through that area?

my flanking fragmented /weakened or routed some units, they were charged from behind while engaged to my infantry or skirmishers but it did not collapse his right flank. my right flank completely crumbled in 1-3 turns, even phalanx mostly lost frontal engagements and all my successes on his right and previously in skirmish was completely made irrelevant

after my right and center collapsed it was mop up and desperate attempts to prolong the slaughtering

lapdog, I'm sorry to hear your phalanx couldn't hold off the ruthless power of the legionnaires. I like phalanx.
At least you showed your tremendous heart in fighting on in a futile struggle and you chopped down 1600 romans.

Overall, I think lapdog almost knew what he was doing, setting a trap fo me. I did not know what I was doing, I only unbalanced my deployment and went all for the phalanges when I could. I must say, the Phalanges broke earlier than what I imagined, and once they did, the legions gained inertia and there was nothing to be done to stop them.

I suspect the Romans are basicly stronger than the Seleucids in the current version. You have to counter their high maneuvrability, and that's a big deal.

JC_von_Preussen wrote:Overall, I think lapdog almost knew what he was doing,

hehe you 'almost' complimented poor lapdog. I think he was very tactical in setting up that very elaborate ambush, but the defensive plan also give you the initiative by letting you choose where the main fight would take place.

Was it hard to defeat the powerful elephant?

I think if the game has the Roman army stronger in stats than the Seleucids (except for speed) that it is realistic. Those legionnaires were immensely powerful but slower and they didn't use archers & slingers as much as other armies. The Romans' big weakness was against horse archers, especially when they had the composite bow like the Huns used. If the Seleucids can somehow put the Romans under fire while keeping their distance from the Roman buzzsaws, then they could have an advantage. Is that possible?

GiveWarAchance wrote:

JC_von_Preussen wrote:Overall, I think lapdog almost knew what he was doing,

hehe you 'almost' complimented poor lapdog. I think he was very tactical in setting up that very elaborate ambush, but the defensive plan also give you the initiative by letting you choose where the main fight would take place.

Was it hard to defeat the powerful elephant?

I think if the game has the Roman army stronger in stats than the Seleucids (except for speed) that it is realistic. Those legionnaires were immensely powerful but slower and they didn't use archers & slingers as much as other armies. The Romans' big weakness was against horse archers, especially when they had the composite bow like the Huns used. If the Seleucids can somehow put the Romans under fire while keeping their distance from the Roman buzzsaws, then they could have an advantage. Is that possible?

About the Elephant : I only managed to kill one of them all, so it basicly crushed my right, then ran almost without purpous in the emptiness of my right flank. That's as far as I recall. They certainly underperformed.

About your suggestion. Well, It might not be a bad idea to adopt a tactict where you deploy very far from the center of the map with your infantry, while you let all your cav and skirmishers bore the Romans to death. Good luck playing such tctics on PBEM though... The Roman guy might very well leave, because, well, you're not actually facing him !

Just saw you've answered my message.

Ya most probably true. Players (me too) prefer a good honest slugfest instead of pecking away trying to wear down the enemy. The game also has ammo levels which will deplete as well.