Due to my experiences with skirmishers, my eyes were searching through the slingers and pelatists, and Lo behold, I found it! The unit my faith was resting happened to be the Heavy Pelatist of Greece. 5 Melee, 7 Missile, and 11 Armour. Hmm... Cost--350 Dinarii. Now we are talking! Just 20 dinarii more than Eastern Infantry or Thracian Mercs but way more useful. My mind was instantly filled with the potentials of them if used correctly.
First, I wanted to find out how many I can get in 10000 dinarii. Naturally I had 20 units of them plus 2000+ Denarii. Hmm, due to the bug, the pelatists use missile attack instead of melee so why not upgrade their attack? I suppose the attack upgrade is something like 10%=bronze, 20%= silver and 30%=gold. The attack upgrade was 40 Dinarii for a Heavy Pelatists so by the time I finished all 10000 Dinarii, I had 20 units of Heavy Pelatists with all Golden weapons. So the 9 missile attack became 12 since 7+30%=9.
Still, I needed to test the effectiveness of them since all I have done so far was theorizing. It wasn't hard to find someone to play against me in RTW. I told him to pick Romans since Romans> When the battle was joined, He had 3 Equites, 2 Preatorian Cavalry, 2 Archer auxilia, 1 Onager, 1 Ballista, 2 Triarii, 3 legionary cohorts, 1 first legionary cohort and 1 Urban and 1 Preatorian Cohort plus some Velites. Well, time to put my units to test. I arranged my troops like a crecent moon and spread them out wide so flanking is only possible with cavalry. He did exactly that. I wasn't gonna make a mistake such as chasing after cavalry with infantry so I kept my formation and advanced. Felt good advancing towards the enemy instead of just occuping a hill with phalanxes. He welcomed me with first, Onager rounds, then joined by Ballista bolts, and then some arrows. Naturally, they caused minimal damage. As I advanced further, the Roman legions greeted me. After exchanging javelins, the Roman heavy infantries chased after me with gladius brandished. I allowed them to chase me since they will be isolated from their support. I let most of my pelatists facing the legionary infantries perform on their own while microed the ones that were targeted by the Roman cavalry. On the left side, his Equites skirmished with mine at first, but seeing that it was a losing battle, they charged. After all, people never respects Pelatist melee capability. On the right side, his Velites and mine exchanged fire and commenced melee engagements. Wow, the Velites melted like butter. After so easily securing the right side, I sent 2 pelatists after the archers and collected the rest to focus on the center. By now, the enemy infantry penetrated deep into my half of the map and they were spread out. Due to my superior numbers I focused on one section of their units at a time and routinely destroyed the weak first and then the strong ones. Basically his Triarii were the first to go followed by his Legionaries, followed by his First Legionary cohort, then his Praetorian cohort and finally, his Urbies. Through out the battle, his infantry were battered by javelins, and whenever they exchange javelins, we get same amounts of casualties, which is good for me. Whenever he chases after one unit, I let others chuck spears from the sides. After I deem the enemy units is "ripe" for the plucking, I charge at it from two or three sides and quickly smash it before others can reinforce it. Never knew the Heavy Pelatists were so sweet at close combat. Also didn't expect them to stay and fight without routing. At the end of the battle, I won with 14 out of 20 units intact. I couldn't believe what I have just done so I tried it against a normal computer just to be sure, and well, the results were similar. I then ROFLMAOed until I can laugh no more. So there you go; my memorable ownage of the Romans using only Greek Heavy Pelatists. Try it, it is sweet, I assure ya. You will definitely raise an eyebrow or two with this strat. Just don't forget to micro the Pelatists who are facing cavalry. [This message has been edited by el_bandito (edited 02-03-2005 @ 09:12 PM).]