Greek Mercenary Infantry are a type of spearmen unit available in Rome: Total War: Alexander.
Description[]
On ancient battlefields the hoplite reigned as king for centuries, and many armies of the time were built around a core of hoplite infantry. Greece, their country of origin, produced many such phalanx-trained troops willing to sell their services to the highest bidder, whoever he may be.
Hoplites were trained to close with the enemy and adopt the phalanx formation with each man's hoplon shield overlapping that of his neighbour for mutual defence, the foremost ranks presenting an impenetrable thicket of spears and the rear ranks angling their spears forwards to provide some protection from missiles. As such, they are a formidable proposition when approaching head on, but their close formation is slow to manoeuvre and is vulnerable to the flanks and rear. Cavalry stand little chance against them unless their angle of attack is calculated to exploit these weaknesses and a contest between similar hoplite units usually comes down to whichever has the greatest numbers to prevail in the resulting grim shoving match.
Trivia[]
- Greek mercenary infantry are the only mercenary infantry to feature in historical battles, being used in nearly every historical battle to feature the Persians.
- The stats of Greek Mercenary Infantry list them as having a '5' for shield, despite them not actually carrying any sort of shield.
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