Art De La Guerre

[Ramses II]

Unfortunately, taking an ally does not give you anything from that list except the troops, so you don’t get access to either the extra initiative nor the strategist. 

The LI have several roles:

• Their most important role is to act as a screen, protecting the Impetuous HI from shooting, while possibly inflicting hits on their opponents. The HI are your main weapon and need to fight at full strength, preferably against weakened enemy. 
  
• LI javelin fight well in difficult terrain. Their secondary role is protecting the flanks of the HI. (You should go for as much difficult terrain as possible!)
  
• LI javelin also help against elephants. 
  
• Finally they are a cheap boost to the break point of the army. 

As for the Medium Cavalry, it is tempting to use them as a corps, but MC have no protection, which makes them very vulnerable to shooting. As a result they don’t make good frontline units and usually die quickly when used aggressively.

But much depends on your own style of play, and the armies that you expect to face. Taking the Gauls for their MI instead of a small MC corps can work. However, they fight in ways that are different from the HI (or MC), which changes your strategy and therefore the terrain (type, size and amount) that you want to use. 

[MathomHouser]

Ugh, thank you! Downgraded the allied strategist to brilliant; bought a sixth LI.

Still an improved initiative of 3. Should help me get the woods on the table, and have some MI to take advantage of them.

[Ramses II]

Still unsure why you are prevented from taking the Strategist - seems an 'unusual' restriction. However, taking a Brilliant general (or two competent ones) along with at least two LC will give your army an initiative of +2 (it becomes +3 with the Strategist). Check the army initiative rules p22

Since the Germans only have forests, this gives your opponent a problem if he wins the roll-off; he may attack you in forests (which you want), or let you attack him in his own territory (which limits his options slightly).

However, you should anticipate being forced to attack in plains or steppes (which provide open terrain), where you should choose three pieces of terrain including a coast / river against which you anchor one flank of the army (four if you have the strategist), which gives you a single option to move the piece that is most in your way.

[warlordNZ1]

Question regarding the 'All Heavy or all Medium'
The German list is made up of of many Tribes yet none can be Allies ?
Surely a Batavian tribe (Medium Swordsmen ) could be an Ally with Teutons ( Heavy Swordsmen ) ?
A Command of rough going Warriors would be a good mix me thinks.

[muz177]

v4 question - the various tribes are noted, and you need to choose a tribe for the CinC. It notes German Allies with a different tribe than the CinC, so I imagine you could have the CinC say, Batavia, then have Chatti as an Ally. But do the Chatti have to be an Ally, or can they be included as regular troops. I am wondering also how the Tencteri light cavalry can be tken, unless they are in a command all by themselves.

[daveallen]

Units of any tribe other than the CinC's can only be taken if they are allies. So Chatti in a Batavian army must be allies, and v-v.

The Tencteri are the only tribe that can have LC. They can also have any of the other troop types which aren't exclusive to a named tribe - MC, HSwd* & LI.

* Compulsory, from the HSwd listed as "Other Germanic tribes"

Dave
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[muz177]

So still trying to figure out a 200 point list - if I want to use the Roman elements in the Batavian revolt, I would imagine I should choose Batavian as the main tribe for the CinC. This Corps would include the Batavian troops (medium sword impetuous) and potentially the Romans.

You can usually only have one Allied Corp (say Chatti) - this would be heavy sword impetuous, with some LI.

For the 3rd Corps, is this allowed to have 'Other Germanic tribes' heavy sword impetuous, or would that be counted as a 2nd Ally, and not allowed. In which case, it could only have other Batavians?

[KevinD]

[fdunadan]

He could not.
the ex-legionnaries are listed under " Batave revolt" and so can only be taken if you use a Batave CiC( so MI impetuous) with maybe an ally of Chatte (HI impetuous max 4 elite), Usipi or Mattiaci( HI impetuous too but only 2 elite max)
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