Achaemenid Persian - Royal Army

Why Use them

Who doesn't want to be able to turn the sky black with arrows and make your enemies fight in the shade?

Pros

• Pretty much everybody has a bow
  • ..and they know how to use it
• Guard (superior) Immortals are rock hard, and will upset pretty much anything on foot.
• Even average immortals can make life difficult for foot of a similar grade
• A good amount of bow/short spear cavalry, mostly relatively cheap formed average
• The guard cavalry is excellent, and the Royal guard is exceptional
• Some really cheap crap hoplites
• Crescent shield troops give you a lot of bowmen who can fight, and dont have to rely on a thin crust of combat troops to give them a chance.

Cons

• The pavise that give the Immortals a good impact factor does not mesh well with their drilled status - they can manoeuvre, but they can't actually go anywhere.
• all the decent foot is loose order, so is horribly vulnerable to mounted.
  • and the pavise does not help against them
• Instinctive generals can leave you a bit exposed when it comes to the pre battle phases, and then leave you hung out to dry when your formed cavalry has got a bit carried away
• Crap hoplites are crap
• Sparabara are unprotected, so the pavise brings them up to shooting equality with most other troops, rather than really giving an advantage.

Using them in MeG

1. Make sure you have decent terrain.
   • The Loose order foot will not stand up against cavalry in the open, and may need some support to deal with decent close order foot.
   • If you are up against close order foot broken ground is your friend
   • Against mounted rough going is a must
2. The Immortals are not going very far during the game, they need to wait for their prey to come to them, so make sure they are in a place where the enemy want to fight.
3. Do not get into a shooting match with your good cavalry, they are far too expensive to do a fair exchange of wounds.
4. Crap hoplites have their place - either studded in the immortal line to help resist cavalry or sitting on the flank.
   • the problem there is that the tribal or formed status removes the last remains of manoeuvrability of the pavise carrying immortals.