Venite, omni qui legonium Romae scient!

[DrSkull]

They Spread Out

Romans would only use the tortoise when assaulting a city wall or other fortified site. In open field battle they'd be depolyed differently:

Each man would have at least 3 feet between himself and the next man. In game terms that means leave a "5 foot step" empty between each man in all directions. This was to allow greater mobility and freedom using weaponry, but has the extra advantage in D&D of making the unit less vulnerable to fireballs, each fireball hits about 16 Romans, instead of a possible 64 if they were close packed like Greeks.

They would each have 2 javelins and a shortsword. They throw the javelins before closing, and then stab away. I'd imagine in D&D they would pile those javelins at enemy spell casters (after testing to see if they had protection from arrows spells up first).

The major units would advance in a checkerboard (watch Spartacus). This would also help diffuse the risk of fireballs.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Defeat

I'm not sure how Roman you want this Republic to be, but it sounds like a pretty cool encounter and national player.

Unlike Shark, who's comments are pretty much dead on as far as I'm aware, I'm more of a student of the political aspects of the Roman military and I while I do recognize the Romans as a nation with a stellar military tradition I thought you might benefit from some ideas on how the Romans might be defeated or mess up in your scenario.

First, I think it is significant to note that the Republic lost an army in a previous battle. One of the few significant flaws in the Roman tradition is a fairly poor ability to deal with defeat. Unlike the Byzantines who, when they were organized enough to plan anything, could plan very effectively to regroup and retake the land or negotiate, the Romans generally only built strategies around winning so major defeats precipitated major policy crises.

The reaction to a defeat would vary with what stage of political development the "Romans" are in. But in all cases they are unlikely to try the same strategy twice and fairly likely to vary their tactics. In the imperial period they would be likely to abandon a strategey of military conquest all together.

My point being, that if the Republic is going to invade again, they are going to attempt to surprise the enemy not necessarily with different battlefield tactics but certainly with a different invasion strategy.

You would be likely to see them use a very prepared battlefield and to see them attack using at least three different forces and a reserve so that it would be harder to target them with area affect spells. I would also suspect the use of very unconventional tactics like flanking over difficult terrain, preparing a traitor in the PCs army, night attacks, lots of harrasment, manipulating the weather to increase their enemies comparative lack of discipline and confidence, false forces, feigned retreats, and heavy use of misinformation.

Also, the defeat would mean at once a major morale hit for the Republic, the Romans frequently romanticized their best opponents ala Hannibal, and at the same time a major motive for revenge against the enemy commander. They would be likely to consider giving up strategic advantage in order to humiliate the enemy commander or otherwise regain honor.

There would also be lots of ceremonies and an emphasis on Omens which enemy illusion magic could manipulate.

On Flaws:

Roman soldiers were extremely superstitious. This was a major problem for their commanders.

Roman formations were very vulnerable to mobile dispersed forces. They lost major battles to German light infantry and Parthian light cavalry in the late Republic and early Empire. Oddly, their enemies abandoned these tactics fairly quickly so the Roman legion didn't adjust their own tactics till much later in the Imperial period.

Despite their high degree of technology they were actually very conservative and the stirrup took them by close to complete surprise at Adrianople. I imagine that similar technological gaffaws could wipe out their spiritual brethren.

They often relied on allies to make up defeciencies in their own ranks. Sometimes these alliances could be manipulated. The Huns avoided total defeat at the hands of the late Romans when a Frankish King took ill and had to leave the Romans without crucial forces for a follow up to a major victory against Atilla.

Roman forces never really utilized long range missile fire. Despite their use of Ballista, they never had something like Crusader Crossbow lines or English Longbow formations. On the other hand neither did the Swiss and that didn't stop their troops from reigning supreme over European battlefields in missile friendly Renaissance Europe.

Effective Guerilla tactics did work well against the Romans set formations. Spain took the Romans 200 years to conquer completely and caused, according to some, the constitutional crisis of the Grachii cause the campaign was bleeding Rome slowly. In the end, Roman diplomacy was the decisive factor.

I'm fairly certain your PCs are doomed. Romans did understand siege tactics and machines. And had some idea of the possibilities of field artillery. If their opposing forces are demoralized, as you claim, and they come armed for bear and mean, as they will, they will win in a what ever pitched battle/burn the land style campaign they come to wage. It isn't good when a Roman style enemy has been humiliated beyond the point of mercy.

I think the PCs only hope is to try to split their efforts between fortifying a location and going Guerrilla until reinforcements with high morale show up. Undead are nice for both strategies.

 

[Emiricol]

Shark, excellent summary! I'm going to loot your ideas for my world

Semper Fi.

Greetings!

Ave, Caesar Tiberius!

Well, first off, one has to remember the enormous and absolute advantages that the Roman Legions--or their fantasy equivalents--have over their opponents.

<snip>

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

 

[SHARK]

Greetings!

Hey Emirikol! Thanks! How are you? Are you a Marine? You should E-Mail me!

Indeed, the Romans were the masters of warfare. They weren't superior to their enemies as individuals--for as individuals, many of the Germans, and many of the Celtic barbarians of Gaul and Britain were in fact, head and shoulders taller than the Romans, weighed more, and were stronger. For raw courage, they were superior as well. That was the heart of the barbarian peoples, from Britain, to Germania, to Dacia, to Spain, and to Africa. They were all individually strong, and fearless in battle.

Those qualities though, were in some ways what beat them. The Romans won their wars because they were organized, well-equipped, fiercely disciplined, and led by excellent commanders that approached warfare from a professional viewpoint. The Romans fought in wars all the time, and they trained and trained and trained. The enemies that faced them just did not approach warfare the same way, and they paid the price for it. Even the Persians, though numerous and well-equipped, and while occasionally delivering a defeat to the Romans, were usually defeated by the Romans' superior discipline and leadership. What really kept the Persians independent had far more to do with the size of the land involved, the sheer distances, and the difficulty of the Romans in supplying a large enough army to march through it all, and remain supplied long enough, to conquer it all. These kinds of geographical features and realities combined with the efforts of the Persians to frustrate the Romans from completely conquering them. The same could be said for Scotland, Hibernia, and Germania alike.

Still, these factors that I mentioned must be aggressively used by the DM to make them have any kind of application, otherwise then warfare is just a matter of who has the more bodies to throw into the meatgrinder, and who gets the fireball off first. Well, that isn't the prime consideration in warfare, and even in a magical environment, the virtues and skills that the Romans mastered would be critical to their domination of the fantasy battlefield as well. The Romans would be quite prepared to integrate the use of magic into their arsenal of war, and would do so in far more organized and effective ways than their enemies, who often see Wizards and such as being "isolated in their towers" or some other nonsense. For some reference, see some of my articles about my Thandor Campaign with the Vallorean Empire. I think there is stuff in "How would you defend a Mountain Fortress" volume I and volume II. Volume I is in the archive section, and volume II is floating around here somewhere.

Good stuff!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

 

[sword-dancer]

Re: They Spread Out

The major units would advance in a checkerboard (watch Spartacus). This would also help diffuse the risk of fireballs.

If i understand you right?
You mean they would fight wtih holes in thier battle line.
Who needs fireballs then?
go in the holes and take them in parts down, and use the fireballs there.

Each man would have at least 3 feet between himself and the next man. In game terms that means leave a "5 foot step" empty between each man in all directions

No on Professor Junkelmanns Legionen des Augustus you are wrong.
In an Archaeolgical Test(he marched with a contubernium in recrafted roman equipment over the Alpen(Translation from German unknown) and testet it in combat tests.
Every roman legionair in closed formatin had about 90 cm = 3 feet room, not between every man al ine so open would be easily overrun by pikemen or sarrissarrii, who by a test of Delbrück needs about 60 cm = 2 feet for each man.

They would each have 2 javelins and a shortsword. They throw the javelins before closing, and then stab away.

No every legionair had one pilum, javelins i would think are the light throwing spears of the skirmishers.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

The Romans would march in checkerboard and then fight in a line.

In a maniple(?) formation the back half of the forward squares moves to the right and forward to close the line, but will move back into formation to allow the back line forward.

Or at least that's the best theory I've heard.

Romans did have trouble with Macedonian phalanxes. When fighting in Greece they fought in much deeper formations than they were used to. In general, however, they found the flexibility of a legion compensated for the traditional disadvantages of a phalanx.

Alexander dealt with the phalanx's immobility and command problems by developing good cavalry and light troops. The Romans didn't have that option.

 

[Emiricol]

Shark - yes indeed! I sent an email to your board-listed addy.

 

[Tiberius]

You've given me some great ideas, thanks everyone! After reading this, I hope my PCs have enough sense to try to negotiate before commiting their troops to the slaughter.

As I understand it, the chain of command for a legion goes Legate -> Tribunis laticlavius -> Praefectus castrorum -> Primus pilus -> other centurions. Is this, in fact, the case? Knowing my PCs, they will try to target the upper ranks first in order to sow discord, so it would be nice to know who takes over after whom.

-Tiberius

 

[mmu1]

One problem I have with the idea of massed armies in D&D (assuming that you're staying even remotely close to the DMG in terms of the numbers of PC classes present in the population, and their levels) is that, even with counterspellers present, any such army will still get massacred by the "artillery" type of spells.

For a successful counterspell, you generally have to have a readied action, and you always need to be able to make a Spellcraft check to identify the spell being cast. In case of a series of Fireballs cast from a long distance away in cover, or an invisble flying caster, this is not going to be an option, because while it's easy enough to boost Spellcraft, no caster will have the Listen and Spot checks high enough to pull it off - and once the little pellet is racing towards the massed troops, it's too late.

Regardless of that, even if you make your troops tough enough to survive this, unless it's a very strange world, you're not likely going to be able to do the same for the hundreds of draft animals and wagon drivers needed to supply the army, making the cutting of supply lines laughably easy, unless you have the manpower to provide them with heavy troop escort and multiple spellcasters.

As a result, even with a large amount of spellcasters present, I would think D&D warfare would see a very quick switch from massed formations to smaller groups of skirmishers (veterans often being the ones with both good CON and Reflex saves), living off the land, and hit-and-run tactics.

Which reminds me, anyone here read Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos books, specifically the ones in which he mentions the evolution of warfare in his world? I always thought it was a very good take on one way things might turn out in a very high magic world...