Why are Auxilia immune to Warband quick kill?

Hi kugener,

welcome to fanaticus!

As a kind of welcome gift here you'll find one of the best DBA player aids I know of (by emperor super stevie).

Cheers,

Brian

As stevie just said - it's the battlefield behaviour that is to be simulated in DBx games. I personally don't see "Quick Kill" as a superpower of some troop types, but rather as the only combat outcome that could be seen on the battlefield in certain match-ups. In the case of Warband vs Blade (following the logic of Phil Barker (ble... oh, come on )the "standard" combat result of e.g. Warband slowly (!) pushing back Blades would make no sense. Spear vs Blade, yes, Pike vs Blade etc., yes, but not against Warband whose battle doctrin would have been literally to "run over" the enemy. And that either worked, breaking and routing steady enemies (Blade/Spear/Pike) or "bouncing of". You simply cannot push someone back slowly while running into him.

Now considering Warband vs Auxilia - Imagine: The Auxila when attacked by Warband might throw javelins against the rushing warband, stopping the attack and forcing the enemy back to regroup (push back), or they might not, and then evade, just like skirmishers. Staying just out of reach of the warband until these are exausted. The auxilia would then regroup and go on the offence, again throwing javelins, maybe forcing the warband back, or provoking another rush, etc. In that case the warband would never break the lines of the auxilia, because they would never even touch their shields. Until the evade started off too late, the warband catched the Auxilia and broke them (-> doubling). This is one possible scenario. Of course, only if you believe in the concept of "Auxilia", and in different "dressing order" of troops (close order, open order etc.) in the first place - but that is a different story.

And to your point "4Aux are declared the perfect counter to Wb" - well, I am not an expert player, but I wouldn't know.... I'd rather have a couple of Knights on my side facing Warbands. I see it the other way round - 4Ax are not especially good against Warband, they rather s*ck against everyone else, so you should be happy when fielding lots of 4Ax to fight an army of Warband instead of... well... anything else.

Just my two cents

Thanks Elviro for your hypothesis that looks to me the most probable. As in Bibracte the pila volley stopped the charge from the Helvetii, in the opposite way the fast charge of Belgae at the Sabis river, was so fast that roman could not throw their pila and had difficulties to contain the Nervii on their right flank. In the same way we can hypothethize that the javelins are playing a similar role than pila on the shield and their loose formation allow them to recoil.

I will take time to read and digest the rest of your links. Thanks all for your very informative comment. It is a pleasure and intellectually stimulating to learn several point of views.

Bd didn’t also have to follow up to their doom. They could also break off and make Wb move forward 1 BW. I felt it made WB more realistic against Bd because if they didn’t QK on their initial charge they would tend to lose the advantage.