Art De La Guerre

[Snowcat]

Your army has a few bases (say 4-6) of medium swordsmen in it. Some are even mediocre. They have no special qualities.

What do you do with them? Especially if the rest of your army is almost entirely heavy cavalry bow and light cavalry bow.

Is there a cunning plan that enables medium swordsmen to shine, beyond rolling excellent dice?

Cheers
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"When one goes, one must go with style."

[Commodore]

Many options:
1/ they cheaply boost the army moral (5 pts)
2/ they may be used as a second line behind shock troops (knights- heavy infantry) in order to fill the gaps
3/ they may cover the flank of non-manoeuvrable units like elephants or cataphracts (but keep them in second line up to the last moment)
4/ they may easily hold a defensive position (uphill in rough terrain or behind fortification)
5) they may constitue a cheap flank march or an ambush
6) in huge numbers, use them as a blob (but 4 to 6 are not enough)
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"Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead"
Cdr Farragut,Mobile 1864

[Peter Webb]

Few ideas as to how I've used them

Use them in terrain

Leave one or 2 mediocre to guard the camp

Or use as follow up/exploit team that you hold back a turn or two to then head in when lines get broken up.

Use as flank March

[Snowcat]

Good thoughts there.

What would constitute enough numbers for a blob? 8 bases? More?

And what would you do with said blob that might differ from the other suggestions?

Cheers
_________________
"When one goes, one must go with style."

[Peter Webb]

Remember it's really satisfying to hit a units flank when you've committed to their front with a mediocre non-light unit.

They drop a disorder and fight at zero - great when they've spent a load of points on a Uber great unit

[Snowcat]

Re the flank attack idea using mediocre non-lights to pin the uber enemy frontally...

That sounds good, and might work nicely on that particular flank, but wouldn't the uber unit munch the rest of your mediocres pretty quickly? Or does it take them too long vs the damage being done on their flank?

Cheers
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"When one goes, one must go with style."

[Ramses II]

On flank marches (and ambushes) don't forget that your army break point is the number of units actually on the table; so exclusive of these 'off-table' units.

I have been advised to use a guideline by experienced players that most armies need a minimum of ~20 units after these units are deducted to provide sufficient resilience to survive until these units can arrive.

[Snowcat]

Re the minimum of 20 units on-table while conducting a flank march, I wonder if this might depend somewhat on what those 20 units are.

Cheers
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"When one goes, one must go with style."

[Hazelbark]

It does depend on what you have on the table and probably more importantly what the opponent's army is capable of.

e.g
If you are an attacking Mounted army versus a foot army, then you have largely pinned back the enemy and they are going to spend 3-5 turns pushing you.

I think I took a Sassanid once against a Viking. My Cataphracts were moving down a flank. and the elephants and such were on the flank march. That was the flank the enemy was shoulder against. So I had masses of time for that FM to arrive and the foe had limited easy counters.