Pyrrhus and the phalanx question asked again - and again!

 On the day following my battle with Pyrrhus' phalanx against Roman and allied forces, my son refought the battle, taking on a new opponent, Ken, from the Hong Kong Society of Wargamers.  It was his first game with the Three Ages of Rome rules so he was given the Roman and Allied army, leaving it to my son to see if he could answer the question of how a pike phalanx with its shorter frontage and limited support could cope with a more extended and flexible enemy.

I do not have a photograph of the starting positions.  The picture above shows the position just before the forces clash.  Ken had placed his allied troops on his left, but using the marsh at the end of the left hand stream as the flank of his position, not extending his line along the stream as had been the case in the first game.  Most of the skirmish units on the Roman side were placed in advance of the Allied troops.  The Roman legion was deployed very much as in the first game, with two units of Principes closest to the allies, the raw Hastati out on the right with the Equites behind them and the Triarii in the centre.  Almost the whole of the legion extended beyond the end of the Epirote line while the Epirote line in turn extended some way beyond the Allied line.

The Epirote deployment differed from the first game.  All of the phalanx units were grouped as a single command, with smaller supporting commands on each flank, that on the right having the heavy cavalry.  Skirmish infantry were again in front of the phalanx.  My son had taken care to position the phalanx so that it had a clear run at the allies and would not have to manoeuvre.  The two raw units were again on the left but the veteran unit had been moved alongside them in the centre.

How did Pyrrhus fare this time around?

The first clash came on the right, where Pyrrhus led his lancers to charge on the allied light cavalry.  They pushed them back but were then blocked by allied massed infantry and fell back.  The heavy cavalry could not enter the marsh without disordering themselves and found themselves unable to get onto the flank of the allied infantry line.

The main lines then crashed together, or at least they did on the left where there was no light infantry in-between the lines to complicate matters.  What this meant was that the left most phalanx block found itself fighting two units of principes, one of which was attacking its flank.  The rest of the pike blocks found themselves in melée with light infantry.

The result of the first round of melée was that the leftmost pike block was forced to recoil in disorder.  The next was disrupted by the light infantry it was facing.  The veterans cleared the light infantry they faced and avoided the follow on pursuit but the next in line did make a follow on pursuit with consequential disruption.

The final stage of the battle saw both raw pike blocks routed.  At the other end of the line the pikes managed to push back one unit of allied infantry and on the left the unit of Tarentine light cavalry forced the Roman Triarii to recoil in disorder, but a halt was called as there was nothing the Epirotes could now do to prevent their whole phalanx command being rolled up.

So, better alignment and full concentration of the phalanx did nothing to change the outcome from the previous battle.  Indeed, the disjointed attack in the previous game had given Pyrrhus a little better result against the allied wing as they had a bit longer to have a go at them before the Romans started rolling up the other end of the line.  

Even more so than in the first game, light infantry had disrupted the phalanx, not so much from missile fire as from not evading and so forcing a melée with them before the phalanx could get at the main line.   And, light cavalry with their javelins had sent spear armed Triarii back in disorder, an improbable outcome as far as my understanding of ancient warfare goes but not that improbable under the melée system.

Knowing that it is madness to do the same thing and expect a different result, I decided to re-run the main part of the second battle but changing some of the set up to see if the changes had any effect on the outcome.  The first change was to switch the positions of the units of the phalanx, putting the veterans and the other armoured unit at the left end where they would meet the Romans, and moving the raw units to the right side, facing the allies, with the Epirote massed armoured infantry in an outflanking position to their right to balance out the Roman's outflanking at the other end.  The second change was to require all the light units to test to evade rather than try to fight melées with the massed infantry.

Re-running the main fight.  Light units of both sides are between the main infantry lines.  All the light units have failed to hit with their missiles - or had hits saved - so none of the main line units have been disrupted.  This is before running tests for evasion for each of the five allied and three Epirote light units.

After testing for evasion by light units.  Two Epirote and two allied units have evaded, moving behind the main lines, but four remain.  This is about what one might expect from the probabilities of success on the evasion tests.  The effect has been to give the Romans a clear run in against the Phalanx while the Epirotes are not able to close with the main allied units.

In the first round of melée at the Roman end of the line, the veteran pike block facing only one unit of Principes has an opportunity, rolling three hit with its three dice!  The Romans save all three!!!  

The Principes then roll 2 dice, getting one hit that the phalanx fails to save.  The Romans have won the melée, forcing the veteran phalanx unit to recoil with disruption.  Fighting against a raw allied unit next to the Principes, the trained armoured phalanx unit has only managed a draw.

At the other end of the line, both the raw phalanx unit and the armoured infantry on the flank win their melées against the light infantry they are in contact with, but then fail their pursuit tests, hitting the allied massed infantry on the end of the line in a state of disorder. 

In the centre, neither the phalanx nor the allied massed infantry could do more than draw their fights with the enemy light units, leaving them out of melée contact with each other for at least another round of melée.  I stopped the refight at that point as, barring some extremely good rolls by the Epirotes they stood little chance of recovering once the second unit of Roman Principes came into action on the flank.

Where do we go from here?  I do not think that the light infantry should have such a profound effect on the combat between the main infantry masses.  Even requiring an evasion test does not remove the problem.  If I re-run the fight again, I will allow the light units to use their missiles and then force them to fall back through the main lines as they advance into contact - the same requirement as in my ARES rules.  Also, I think it worth trying a deliberate echelon attack - in place of the inadvertent attack in the first game - to give the phalanx a turn or two more to make an impact on the allies before the Romans close in on the flank.  Since the raw quality of a large chunk of the phalanx has proved a major handicap, I will also see if changing them to trained will make a difference, but I remain doubtful as to whether the balance of the system will give much of a chance to the phalanx.