# Pikes are unfairly good



## Catachan man (Dec 12, 2007)

no one actually takes dogs of war in their armies, which is a shame because my experiance playing with a pure dogs of war force has shown me what a nasty surprise pikes are to people, fight in four ranks, strike first in initial round of combat (even if charged) and +1 strength when charged by cavelry, chariots or monsters, these guys are perfect heavy cavelry killers and the bane to tomb kings


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## torealis (Dec 27, 2006)

i charged a unit of 20 with my main bret KotR unit and lost none, theyre not that good.

10 hit, 6 wound, lose 1 statistically.

meaning i get 8 attacks back with knights, 5 hit, 3-4 dead, and 7 horses, 3 hit 1 dies.

i win.


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## The Son of Horus (Dec 30, 2006)

They're decent for their points though. Heavy cavalry will run through them all the same, but they should jack up infantry pretty well. Funny how the rules make them good in instances they really shouldn't be.


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## Lord Sinkoran (Dec 23, 2006)

theay sound good on paper but aren't in practiced. I proxyed a unit and they got rings ran around them.


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## Sei 'fir (Mar 23, 2007)

Face t what you need against heavy cavalry is really a hell of alot of cannons ha charge me now


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## daemonhammer (Feb 20, 2008)

illegible rubbish.

rewrite.


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## Hespithe (Dec 26, 2006)

Pikemen are awesome with the right supporting cast, but they still die in droves to magic, shooting, and flank attacks. Kinda just like any other large, yet cheap, block unit. Just don't play the pike's game and the pikemen are a pushover.


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## Jacobite (Jan 26, 2007)

Thats a pity. I've always wanted to do a Alexander the Great themed Dogs Of War Army. Pikes for the Phalanx, Heavy Cavalry for the Companions etc.


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## swntzu (Dec 25, 2007)

Tor's post sums it up. S4 against heavy cavalry (most of which will have 2+ saves) just doesn't cut it. Even with 20 attacks you'll be hard pressed to get a kill.

This doesn't mean that you can't use them to make forwards and deter most enemy infantry from charging you from the front though.


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## neilbatte (Jan 2, 2008)

Pikes were never meant to take a cavalry charge it was origionally fought troop against troop in the phalanx and alexanders and philips successess were mainly by deploying the cavalry to hit the flanks of an engaged phalanx. the pikemen work better against low armoured stuff like skaven, orcs and gobbos and ogres and really upset fragile elf players that are daft enough to charge and many players don't know what the pikes can do so are more likely to make mistakes


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## Pandawithissues... (Dec 2, 2007)

> Pikes were never meant to take a cavalry charge it was origionally fought troop against troop in the phalanx


Actually, pikes were used for both anti infantry and anti cavalry work at different times in history:



> Although very long spears had been used since the dawn of organized warfare, the earliest recorded use of a pike-like weapon in the tactical method described above involved the Macedonian sarissa, used by the troops of Alexander the Great's father, Philip II of Macedon, and successive Hellenistic dynasties, which dominated warfare for several centuries in many countries. The formidable wall of spearpoints gave pause even to the legionaries of Rome, but after several fierce contests the legionary style of warfare overthrew the Macedonian phalanx, and the pike faded from use in European warfare until its reintroduction in the late Roman and especially Byzantine army.
> 
> In the Middle Ages, the first use of the pike was by urban militia troops such as the Flemings or the peasant array of the lowland Scots, formed in large masses to defeat the cavalry superiority of their royal foes. For example, the Scots used a spear formation called a schiltron in mostly defensive fashion to defeat English knights at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, and the Flemings used their geldon long spear to absorb the attack of French knights at the Battle of the Golden Spurs in 1302, before other troops in the Flemish formation counterattacked the stalled knights with plancons. Both battles were seen by contemporaries as stunning victories of commoners over superbly equipped, mounted, military professionals, where victory was owed to the usage of the pike and bravery.
> 
> These largely defensive formations were essentially immune to knightly attack as long as the knights obligingly threw themselves on the spear wall, but the passive nature of pike formations when used by such troops with little armour and rudimentary training made them very vulnerable to enemy archers and crossbowmen, who could shoot them down with impunity. Many defeats, such as at Roosebeke and Halidon Hill, were suffered by the militia pike armies when faced by cunning foes who employed their archers and crossbowmen to thin the ranks of the pike blocks before charging in with the knights.


Seriously guys, the internet is a valuable resource, if you're going to make a sweeping statement like pikes wern't used against cavalry, at LEAST check wikipedia first. Its a click away...


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## Purge (Mar 24, 2008)

Damn, you beat me to it.... lol


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## neilbatte (Jan 2, 2008)

but as i said pikes were origionaly used against infantry although i'll concede that they were later adapted for cavalry warfare. the main reason for this was the number of cavalry used at once was usually smaller and was heavily armoured thus slower than its hellenic counterpart and less able to outmanouver the pike blocks


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