Here is the finale.

As you can imagine this is not going to end well.  I provide commentary thru out this last segment and walk thru what I saw.

Alex, executed flawlessly on his Right. Taking matters into his own hands he was aggressive and got himself into trouble on more than one occasion.

His center advanced rapidly, with the Hypasists , driving hard with the Elephants and Indian archers covering their flank.  Due to the aggressive attack, the Romans bled off forces from their left to stem the flank attack.

That was the beginning of the end. Rome could bring less force to bear, had trouble leveraging Hastati /Principies benefits and soon found themselves locked in a heavy Melee line.

Only one weaker Greek Allied Phalanx failed, and fled the field. When the Carthaginian and Numidian Cavalry attacked on the Left Wing they, eviscerated the Roman Cavalry, only lost 2 units to pursuit and then proceeded to attack the rear of the Triarii to add insult to injury.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOUU0Dn9QFg]

With Voice over comments

Suffice to say the Phalanx unless overwhelmed or flanked will withstand all the Legions can throw at it IF the following occur:

1. Phalanx’s have a Troop quality of 7 or better. Therefore experience and veteran units of Alexanders age and even later periods could stand up to the best Rome had to offer.

2. The Phalanx’s are not weakened by Velites prior to major Melee.

3. The Phalanx in general must get to first strike and then stay engaged.  In Simple Great Battles of History the Pila benefit is negated by Greek weapon system status, and not available whilst engaged. This generally leaves the battle DRM’s to TQ status, size and Cohesion hits. Rome better be thinking about staying stacked unless the PR units are up helping out.

4. The Flanks remain secure.  Now this holds true for any army in any situation in Ancient times.

What could Rome do differently?

a. Screen more aggressively with Velites. Velites have to get a shot in and cause some damage to even up the odds.

b. Get Hastati in early and put even 1 cohesion Hit and then the balance starts to even up.

c. Unstack Principies  units and slide them in adjacent to a double stack of Hastati. That gives : higher TQ (from the PR unit)+ 9  size  rather than six versus the 10 sized Phalanx, negating the size delta for the Greeks (which gives them a +2).

AtG had the benefit not only of war hardened Phalanx’s but the double whammy of Companion Cavalry AND Numdian’s.

In this battle Rome never stood a chance. I will play it again and see if we can work out how to eek out a Roman win here however.

This is one I would like to play against an opponent.

It also has me thinking we need to hit the second battle. I will post something on BGG to randomize the map selection described below.

What have been your experiences with Phalanx v Legions, Greek versus Roman tactics?