Trying Out A 4 General Polybian Roman Army

Polybians Take Down Queen Zenobia

Despite grave misgivings about using my Polybian Romans ever since their disastrous result at Roll Call in 2012 and my running over two versions at the Challenge 2015 with my Samanids I decided to try them out again. Peter K is due to play in the DBM Club Tournament Final against Richard G's Middle Imperial Romans on Sunday 20th December so asked me to run out some Romans so he could get in some more practice as it had been a few months since he had used them in anger. We used DBM v3.2 400 AP.

Peters army consisted of four commands including the usual 7 element  Arab Nomad Ally.

His army was organised as follows:

C1 CinC 20 E/18.5 EE/6.5 D [25%=5 EE]

C2 Sub 16 E/15 EE/5 D [25%=4 EE]

C3 Sub 15 E/14 EE/5 D [25%=3.5 EE]

C4 Ally 7 E/7 EE/3 D [25%=2 EE]

Army 58 E/54.5 EE/27.5 B

I struggled and struggled to get some sort of viable command structure and decided that I would try out the Pergamene Ally contingent option [P] in the MM version list that allows you use use them as if they were a 4th Reg sub-general.

Polybian Roman 275 BC - 105 BC DBMM Army List Greece 198 BC to 190 BC [v3.2 AP] Warm. Ag 3. S, L, Rv, DH, SH, GH, O, V, M, RF, F, PRd, Rd, BUAf. [WW, Rv, H[S], H[G], O, V, M, Rgo, Rd, BUA] 1 x CinC - Titus Quinctius Flamininus Reg Cv O 28 AP 1 x Sub-general - Publius Sulpicius Reg Cv O 28 AP 1 x Sub-general - Publius Villius Reg Cv O 28 AP 1 x Pergamene sub-general [P] - Eumenes Reg Cv O 28 AP

2 x Roman cavalry Reg Cv O 16 AP 1 x Pergamene cavalry [P] Reg Cv O 8 AP 1 x Galatian cavalry [P] Irr Cv O 7 AP 2 x Tarantines Reg LH O 10 AP 16 x Roman Legion/Italian Alae Hastati/Principes Reg Bd O 96 AP 4 x Triarii Reg Sp S 28 AP 4 x Italian Extraordinarii Reg Ax S 18 AP 4 x Mercenary Peltasts [P] Reg Ps S 12 AP 2 x Cretans [P] Reg Ps O 4 AP 2 x Cretans Reg Ps O 4 AP 6 x Baggage [fortified] Irr Bg O 0 AP 7 x Ditch and Paliasade for camp TF 7 AP Only from 211 BC: 5 x Upgrade Italian allied cavalry to: Reg Cv O 40 AP 8 x Upgrade leves to Velites [can support any Cv] Reg Ps S 24 AP Only in Greece or Asia from 198 BC: Aitolian allies- List: Hellenistic Greek [Bk 2/31] or Pergamene allies - List: [Bk/2/34] Only in Greece or Asia from 198 BC to 190 BC, Spain from 134 BC to 133 BC, or Gaul in 121 BC: 1 x Elephants Irr El I 14 AP

My army was organised as follows:

C1 CinC
1 x CinC - Titus Quinctius Flamininus Reg Cv O
1 x Tarantines Reg LH O
8 x Roman Legion/Italian Alae Hastati/Principes Reg Bd O
2 x Triarii Reg Sp S
2 x Italian Extraordinarii Reg Ax S
4 x Upgrade leves to Velites [can support any Cv] Reg Ps S
18 E/16 EE/5.5 D [25%=4 EE]

C2 Sub
1 x Sub-general - Publius Sulpicius Reg Cv O
1 x Tarantines Reg LH O
8 x Roman Legion/Italian Alae Hastati/Principes Reg Bd O
2 x Triarii Reg Sp S
2 x Italian Extraordinarii Reg Ax S
4 x Upgrade leves to Velites [can support any Cv] Reg Ps S
18 E/16 EE/5.5 D [25%=4 EE]

C3 Sub
1 x Sub-general - Publius Villius Reg Cv O
1 x Elephants Irr El I
2 E/2 EE/1 D [25%=0.5 EE]

C4 Sub
1 x Pergamene sub-general [P] - Eumenes Reg Cv O
2 x Roman cavalry Reg Cv O

1 x Pergamene cavalry [P] Reg Cv O 1 x Galatian cavalry [P] Irr Cv O 4 x Mercenary Peltasts [P] Reg Ps S 2 x Cretans [P] Reg Ps O 2 x Cretans Reg Ps O 5 x Upgrade Italian allied cavalry to: Reg Cv O

18 E/14 EE/5 D [25%=3.5 EE]

Army 56 E/48 EE/24 B

The four regular dice in theory game me plenty of PIP's to use with at least one command but I still had one bound where I rolled three 2's and a 1! I was PIP starved on a few bounds despite rolling four dice which allowed Peter to redeploy his Nomad ally right across the table width whilst I slowly pushed forward along my entire front line.

The army list has given me a potential building block basis to create a 500 AP list version. If used with v3.3 AP changes, the Irr El I costs 15 AP and the Reg Sp S cost 18 AP giving a net saving of 3 AP. I would then use this to purchase an additional Mercenary Peltast [P] Ref Ps S to go into command 4 and move one of the generic Cretan Archers Reg Ps O into command 3 to maintain the three 18 element command structure. This increases the army Break Point by 0.5 EE and the command 3 Dem level slightly. I would use the additional Ps in command 3 to sit at the back in some RGo near to the camp out of harm's way.

Peter and I played at a leisurely pace which of course means that this army took ages to get a result. I pushed through my elephant over to my far right flank which generated a Mexican standoff and Peter started to fall back as my elephants approached his cataphracts.

My Triarii were the most effective infantry on the day which allows me to knock open a gap in the enemy CinC's line and after my legionaries managed to resist Peters central Cataphract charge when I killed one at the second attempt the mounting losses meant his CinC's command broke and ran. I was slowly chipping off odd elements elsewhere which meant I was only three elements from breaking his army when I spotted that Peter had pushed his Nomad ally generals LH element a bit too far forward which allowed me to get two of my Italian allied cavalry into contact and of course Peter was unlucky and rolled a one meaning his ally general died. In his turn he rolled a 1 meaning his ally broke and with it his entire army.

I won 10-0 which works out as 30-2 using the BHGS scoring system as I lost 6 EE which was 12.5% of my army.

Here are some pictures of todays game.