Varangians - HvArm, Sup or Arm, El?

[ethan]

I think the late Thematics may be a bit better actually.

I like the pre-1042 Nikephorians better because they have the option of a second unit of cataphracts. I think you really need two of these units for punch and that a single two stand BG is insufficient.

I think zero of those are just fine actually. All the cavalry are lancers which is plenty of punch.

[iversonjm]

They came third at Britcon and the Skutatoi did very well aganst my Cav when I fought them. I do think they would give average armoured cavalry a proper going over. But if the enemy wants to invest 3 BG of super armd bow cav against them you should be able to win elsewhere. And we cannot, unfortunately, force people to play historically.

Good lord, 3 BG of sup bw/swd? 1 BG + some skirmishers are more than enough. Or that unit of armored defensive spear that every Arab army seems to come equipped with. I agree that average armored cav would have a rougher time (guess is its a toss up), but who brings average armored cav except . . . byzantines?

Note to self - need to learn how to do embedded text.

Message from Moderator: select text, click the "quote" button.

[david53]

The points costs I think are the same for heavily armoured, superior and armoured, elite.

The problum is getting someone to fight them?

[batesmotel]

They came third at Britcon and the Skutatoi did very well aganst my Cav when I fought them. I do think they would give average armoured cavalry a proper going over. But if the enemy wants to invest 3 BG of super armd bow cav against them you should be able to win elsewhere. And we cannot, unfortunately, force people to play historically.

Good lord, 3 BG of sup bw/swd? 1 BG + some skirmishers are more than enough. Or that unit of armored defensive spear that every Arab army seems to come equipped with. I agree that average armored cav would have a rougher time (guess is its a toss up), but who brings average armored cav except . . . byzantines?

Note to self - need to learn how to do embedded text.

The "quote" button above the post you are replying to is your friend .

So would you be happy with the Nikephorian Skutatoi if they could be armoured instead of just protected or do you think that more needs to change to properly represent their function? Do you prefer the Thematic skutaoi that are 3/4 HF protected defensive spearmen and 1/4 LF bow?

Chris

[iversonjm]

So would you be happy with the Nikephorian Skutatoi if they could be armoured instead of just protected or do you think that more needs to change to properly represent their function? Do you prefer the Thematic skutaoi that are 3/4 HF protected defensive spearmen and 1/4 LF bow?

Chris[/quote]

Matt can learn...

Having them be armored is certainly one way to go, and is probably the simplest solution. If I did a historical refight thats probably what I would do. It does make them much tougher to gun down or run over. I haven't been privy to the "did they wear armor/did they not wear armor" debate, but I think it misses the point. The argument for armor is the same as for the Companions - i.e., whether or not they actually wore "armor", the unit doesn't function right if its protected.

I'm not sure that captures how the unit fought though. There are a number of different ways to model it depending on how much bow fire you think the unit produced v. how much HtH resilience you want it to have.
Possibilities include:

-HF Def. Sp./bow*
-1/2 HF Def. Sp./bow*, 1/2 MF bow (you would have to have a list to specific rule that MF in the second rank get 1 die per base for shooting
-1/2 HF light spear/bow/sword, 1/2 MF bow/swd

Bottom line is you want a model that either allows the skutatoi to go toe to toe in a shooting match or stand up to a melee fight (although not necessarily do both). In the current arrangement, the skuts will lose both a shooting match and a fight in most cases, which makes one wonder why the byzantines bothered to bring them along.

[iversonjm]

Apparently Matt can't learn. :oops[/quote]

[iversonjm]

Bottom line is you want a model that either allows the skutatoi to go toe to toe in a shooting match or stand up to a melee fight (although not necessarily do both). In the current arrangement, the skuts will lose both a shooting match and a fight in most cases, which makes one wonder why the byzantines bothered to bring them along.

[iversonjm]

[bahdahbum]

The skutatoï were designed to be a defensive line . There is a problem in the interpretation of their armor . It seems tha tagmata infantry might have been mostly armored and the provincial units , protected . The historical writtings indicate the minimum equipment and it is taken as a max equipment . The sliong that every soldier should have is not taken into acount ( play balance ? ) .

At least one full unit of skutatoï ( 8 bases ) should be able to be armoured . Amusing, the anglo saxons may have more than 40 bases armoured, but the byzantine empoire cannot equip at least one unit of infantry . ( following FOG army lists )

Also wonder why no one in the conceptors really answers the question of the date of availability of the varangian guards . Historical evidences gave been presented, it is as good as any and a most reasonable doubt exist ..but reasonable doubt is not good enough when it concerns the byzantine army

Wonder if Slitherine really wants to support FOG .

FOG R seems to be the next project and it fully occupies the higher minds of slitherine .

No mistake . I do appreciate what they have done , but they could learn something by reading the impetus rule forum and how the creator of those rules discuss with people . Zlso I can understand the need for some stability of the FOG rules , but a general impression around me is that FOG suffers a kind of : no need to be discussed . if you are unhappy, so it is

[PaulByzan]

I'm up for that Chris. And you know which side I'll be on. BTW, my Komnenans didn't do an overwhelming job against your all mounted Achaemenids either. Though I put that down to not having enough LH Bow.

Paul

I know others have differing ideas about this, but the problem from my and a number of others' perspective is the skutatoi, which can't perform their intended role of forming a defensive bastion. They have two options:

1. deploy in two ranks, in which case they get out shot by cavalry (who if played correctly can concentrate 4-6 dice against the skuts while receiving no more than 2 dice per unit in return fire), and run over by decent foot and armored horsemen (who are up against them in melee and up two against them if they wait until the skuts get disordered); or

2. deploy in four ranks, in which case they effectively end up as a two-wide protected defensive spear unit that costs more than a pike block.

Given that you really have to buy at least 16 bases of skuts if you buy foot (if you get 12 they are 6s that must fight in 2 ranks and get run over) this is a fairly large problem. The net result is that you end up having to either forego foot entirely (which robs the army of a lot of its flavor and appeal) or play with an army that has over 1/8 of its points sunk into troops that are a liability.

If the skutatoi deploy in two ranks for a BG of 4+4, they are basically shooting even with 2 BG of LH bow for fewer points, e.g. the skutatoi take 4 dice of shooting against an 8 strength BG vs 2 x 2 dice for two BGs of 4. Cavalry can get denser shooting but is likely to be a good deal more points than the skutatoi are even for average skutatoi. Granted that the cavalry are at a plus POA in melee which could be bad for the skutatoi if it's even frontage. But if the skutatoi survive the one round of melee then the cavalry has to break off and take shooting again. The skutatoi aren't an irresistable force against mounted but I think they are reasonably effective. Given how expensive the mounted are for a Nikephorian army, I don't think I would want to buy more expensive armoured skutatoi even if they were available in the list.

Maybe we should try a game with me running your 15mm Nikephorians against your Syrian states list or something similar. I do admit I was somewhat surprised that your Nikephorians didn't do a number on my all mounted Late Achaemenid list.

Chris

[PaulByzan]

The four dice v. four dice is really the best case scenario for the skuts, as you usually don't have enough troops to form a wall, and therefore end up having units come in at angles and facing off against 5 or 6 dice or shooting back with only 2-3. Worse case is 6 dice rerolling 1s from a pair of bw/swd cav, who will promptly disorder them and run them down. Or you could just walk up a unit of average MF bows and outshoot them and if necessary outfight them... but I digress, as the possibilities for killing the useless fools are virtually endless. The bottom line is that you have to base your battle plan around keeping the skuts away from any real threat, which makes the whole army feel wrong. Its like the old WRG days (of which I had a little experience) when if you played the Macedonians you had to hide the unshielded Companions behind the phalanx to keep them from being shot to pieces. Did that mean that the Macs never won? No. But did it feel like you were playing Alexander's army? Again no. Same thing here. Can the Nikes win? Sure. Are they more likely to win if you use the skuts as they were intended? Nope.

Agree with you on that Matt. I do remember those days and had a lot of experience in WRG. Hide the Companions and under all circumstances keep them away from elephants.

Part of the problem is having to take the Skuts as mandatory, if you take any foot. I'd be curious what the justification for this is. If so then perhaps other armies should have this restriction (Sassanids?) Anyway, when Basil II was fighting against the rebellion of Skleros, practically his only foot were the Varangian and Russ he had gotten from the Kievan ruler Vladimir. Most of the Thematic Skuts, at least of the Asiatic Themes were fighting for Skleros. Certainly the victorious attacks that broke the back of the rebellion were carried out by the Varangians and Russ. We'll have better info on this when John Skylitzes history which covers this period is published in English later this year. I've already pre-ordered my copy.

Paul G

[PaulByzan]

I think the late Thematics may be a bit better actually.

I like the pre-1042 Nikephorians better because they have the option of a second unit of cataphracts. I think you really need two of these units for punch and that a single two stand BG is insufficient.

I think zero of those are just fine actually. All the cavalry are lancers which is plenty of punch.

Agree Ethan, Superior Arm B* Lancers are better all round. Haven't taken the Kataphracts for quite a while.

Paul G.

[PaulByzan]

So would you be happy with the Nikephorian Skutatoi if they could be armoured instead of just protected or do you think that more needs to change to properly represent their function? Do you prefer the Thematic skutaoi that are 3/4 HF protected defensive spearmen and 1/4 LF bow?

Chris

Matt can learn...

Having them be armored is certainly one way to go, and is probably the simplest solution. If I did a historical refight thats probably what I would do. It does make them much tougher to gun down or run over. I haven't been privy to the "did they wear armor/did they not wear armor" debate, but I think it misses the point. The argument for armor is the same as for the Companions - i.e., whether or not they actually wore "armor", the unit doesn't function right if its protected.

I'm not sure that captures how the unit fought though. There are a number of different ways to model it depending on how much bow fire you think the unit produced v. how much HtH resilience you want it to have.
Possibilities include:

-HF Def. Sp./bow*
-1/2 HF Def. Sp./bow*, 1/2 MF bow (you would have to have a list to specific rule that MF in the second rank get 1 die per base for shooting
-1/2 HF light spear/bow/sword, 1/2 MF bow/swd

Bottom line is you want a model that either allows the skutatoi to go toe to toe in a shooting match or stand up to a melee fight (although not necessarily do both). In the current arrangement, the skuts will lose both a shooting match and a fight in most cases, which makes one wonder why the byzantines bothered to bring them along.

I would opt for the HF Def. Sp/bow*. This would allow them to fulfull their historical roll of putting out firepower, fight as normal spears and act as a defensive base for the cavalry. BTW, Nik confirmed in response to a question I asked that the Def Sp/B* option was considered but not adopted as according to the rules that would make the Skuts all MF. Agree with you that a special rule could be adopted. I don't think the light spear works for HF, but all Byzantine foot up through the Nikephorians should be able to employ the MF light spear option that the Maurikian Skuts have. Thematics and Nikephoreans had to have infantry to chase Slavs and Bulgar foot up hills and in woods too.

Also given the way the manual describes how the cavalry moved through gaps in the Skuts to charge and retire, Nikephorean Byzantine cavalry should be able to interpenetrate the Skuts without penalty, but that's another story.

Paul G

Edited by moderator as it isn't just Matt that neads to learn how to quote

[PaulByzan]

The skutatoï were designed to be a defensive line . There is a problem in the interpretation of their armor . It seems tha tagmata infantry might have been mostly armored and the provincial units , protected . The historical writtings indicate the minimum equipment and it is taken as a max equipment . The sliong that every soldier should have is not taken into acount ( play balance ? ) .

At least one full unit of skutatoï ( 8 bases ) should be able to be armoured . Amusing, the anglo saxons may have more than 40 bases armoured, but the byzantine empoire cannot equip at least one unit of infantry . ( following FOG army lists )

Also wonder why no one in the conceptors really answers the question of the date of availability of the varangian guards . Historical evidences gave been presented, it is as good as any and a most reasonable doubt exist ..but reasonable doubt is not good enough when it concerns the byzantine army

As far as the Varangians go, I would allow only 0-6 HF avg/off sp prior to 988AD. From 988 AD when they were Basil II's personal lifeguard, at least 0-6 should be allowed to be Sup and armored, if all. I'd restrict the elite status to only one 0-6 post 1042, but allow the total 0-12 to remain for the period 988 AD to the end of the list to represent the Varangians of the City and the Field army Varangians, such as those that fought in the Sicilian campaign that was prior to 1042AD.

Paul G

[bahdahbum]

Good enough for me

[Maniakes]

I do think you have to be careful about re-classifying the Byzantine foot (eg as armoured) - just in terms of top-down representation of the army. At the moment in FoG when I'm tryng to design a Nik list I start with the cavalry and quality troops (like the Varangians) with the rest as mere supports and my impression is that this is how the sources describe the army. I remember that in DBM the most effective army design was to max out on the infantry (which were Bow(X) then) and fight with them and hide the cavalry behind. This always irritated me because it felt so unhistorical. If the mixed spear/bow units were armoured they could potentially both outshoot and outfight a lot of infantry and become the main force in the army again.

Bottom line is you want a model that either allows the skutatoi to go toe to toe in a shooting match or stand up to a melee fight (although not necessarily do both). In the current arrangement, the skuts will lose both a shooting match and a fight in most cases, which makes one wonder why the byzantines bothered to bring them along.

I'm not convinced that they did either against infantry - are there any accounts of them in shooting matches or melees with infantry? I also think the idea that they put out great firepower is a bit of a wargamers myth - I see the presence of bow in the basically spear units as designed to counter skirmishing horse who were one of their contemporary opponents - so that they couldn't close in and fire without reply.

Wasn't their main battlefield function as a ralllying point for the cavalry? It's a while since I read the Strategikon (and I know it is a bit early for this period) but doesn't that say the infantry should be about a mile behind the cavalry? That means in FoG terms they are there to help rally routers not to be constantly interchanging positions with the cavalry on the front line.

[ethan]

The points costs I think are the same for heavily armoured, superior and armoured, elite.
I'm leaning toward the former, but I'm interested in other views.

Back to the original question. I have been thinking about this in terms of Komnenans rather than Nikephorians, but the issue is similar. I had been favoring Heavy Armor/Superior but now wonder if if Armoured/Elite aren't better. Here is the reasoning:

- A PoA and a grading advantage are worth about the same amount in a combat (A PoA is a few percent better, but they are roughly similar).
- An armor advantage does nothing for you in impact.
- Armoured foot are pretty resistant to shooting already so taking more armor to guard against shooting may be a over-doing it.

Therefore, perahps elite armoured are the better choice at that AP level. You get elite in impact and melee (and there are not many elite troops around so as either elite or elite+general you are pretty likely to get a quality advantage) giving you a better chance of winning (or at least not losing) impact. As superior you are more likely to face a lottery in impact and only have an advantage in melee (although a slightly bigger advantage).

[spikemesq]

The points costs I think are the same for heavily armoured, superior and armoured, elite.
I'm leaning toward the former, but I'm interested in other views.

Back to the original question. I have been thinking about this in terms of Komnenans rather than Nikephorians, but the issue is similar. I had been favoring Heavy Armor/Superior but now wonder if if Armoured/Elite aren't better. Here is the reasoning:

- A PoA and a grading advantage are worth about the same amount in a combat (A PoA is a few percent better, but they are roughly similar).
- An armor advantage does nothing for you in impact.
- Armoured foot are pretty resistant to shooting already so taking more armor to guard against shooting may be a over-doing it.

Therefore, perahps elite armoured are the better choice at that AP level. You get elite in impact and melee (and there are not many elite troops around so as either elite or elite+general you are pretty likely to get a quality advantage) giving you a better chance of winning (or at least not losing) impact. As superior you are more likely to face a lottery in impact and only have an advantage in melee (although a slightly bigger advantage).

As always, Ethan makes good points.

In my Komnenans, I pimped the Varangians (El/HvyArm). I suppose the armor question hinges on what you expect to see. If you anticipate loads of proper knights and protected foot, then Armored makes the most sense. You'll get the melee POA against other foot and your armor won't help you against the Kn (because the HW knocks out their armor).

OTOH, if you expect to see a lot of armored troops (e.g., lancers and shooty cv), then the Hvy Arm makes more sense to gain a melee POA.

Spike

[iversonjm]

I do think you have to be careful about re-classifying the Byzantine foot (eg as armoured) - just in terms of top-down representation of the army. At the moment in FoG when I'm tryng to design a Nik list I start with the cavalry and quality troops (like the Varangians) with the rest as mere supports and my impression is that this is how the sources describe the army. I remember that in DBM the most effective army design was to max out on the infantry (which were Bow(X) then) and fight with them and hide the cavalry behind. This always irritated me because it felt so unhistorical. If the mixed spear/bow units were armoured they could potentially both outshoot and outfight a lot of infantry and become the main force in the army again.


[

I'm not convinced that they did either against infantry - are there any accounts of them in shooting matches or melees with infantry? I also think the idea that they put out great firepower is a bit of a wargamers myth - I see the presence of bow in the basically spear units as designed to counter skirmishing horse who were one of their contemporary opponents - so that they couldn't close in and fire without reply.

Wasn't their main battlefield function as a ralllying point for the cavalry? It's a while since I read the Strategikon (and I know it is a bit early for this period) but doesn't that say the infantry should be about a mile behind the cavalry? That means in FoG terms they are there to help rally routers not to be constantly interchanging positions with the cavalry on the front line.

Lets see if I finally got this quoting thing right.

Armoring the skuts would really just convert them into less effective versions of the armored Assyrian foot (less effective because they don't get the bonus for the second rank of spears), who are useful but hardly uber troops. They would fight even against protected spears, armored cavalry, and armored swordsmen, and fight down against pikes, armored spears (whom all the arabs seem to have), and knights. And once they lost a fronk rank base they'd start to be in big trouble. Seems about right to me. They could double rank to get their spear bonus, but they would lose their shooting and probably be overlapped.

On the shooting side they would still only be putting out only 1 die per stand of frontage, so no more than 2 dice at an average unit. So they would be hard to hurt, but would have trouble hurting their opponents. Again, seems about right as a bulwark for cavalry.

On the historicity, I will defer to others with superior knowledge of the period, but my understanding is that the Strategikon is from an earlier period to the Nikes, and that the manuals contemporary with the Nikes depict the infantry out front with cavalry charging out from it and then retiring behind it.

(BTW Paul, I think this is best depicted by the foot contracting to create charge lanes. Cavalry interpenetrating HF is a bit much for me.)

As for infantry v. infantry battles, my understanding is that they took place both in the civil war with Basil and in campaigns against the Rus. Again I will defer to others on specifics.

[Maniakes]

As for infantry v. infantry battles, my understanding is that they took place both in the civil war with Basil and in campaigns against the Rus. Again I will defer to others on specifics.

Basil had the Varangians with him at the civil war battles of Scutari and Abydos (both in 989) - but was there any other infantry there- let alone any getting into hand to hand combat? The battle against the Rus that I found was Silistria (972) in which the Byzantines fought by making 12 successive cavalry charges on the Rus infantry! So that answers a question on another thread - cavalry repeatedly breaking off and charging again into foot is historical!

I think we are possibly missing the top down point here. Byzantine warfare relied on mounted troops as the decisive arm with the foot in a much more minor supporting role on the battlefield. I think the current classifications encourage the player to use his troops this way - and for me that is an improvement on previous rule sets and I feel care should be taken not to upset it.