army for beginners

[benos]

ok having seen all the arguements on how to beat the light horse and the 4 base bg problems i have come up with the idea that some armies are better for advanced players while others better for beginners. And some only work for the expert.
Does this seem a fair distiction? Where would you put the various army types?
Personally i'm finding lots of superior foot to be a good start for the less adept general.

Ben

[hammy]

ok having seen all the arguements on how to beat the light horse and the 4 base bg problems i have come up with the idea that some armies are better for advanced players while others better for beginners. And some only work for the expert.
Does this seem a fair distiction? Where would you put the various army types?
Personally i'm finding lots of superior foot to be a good start for the less adept general.

The best army for any beginner is one that you can love when it loses. If you are a new player and play more experienced players you can expect to end up losing far more games than you win and if you blame the army which you were told relliably is a really good one to do X or Y then you will probably end up looking to sell it or change it etc.

For a first army I would always recommend one with a reasonable mix of troop types. Armies with lots of one troop type can be effective but are not a good way to learn.

Armies with plenty of superior troops are more forgiving and also smaller which for a first army is not really a bad thing.

Is there any particular period of history that interests you. If you are interested in the chariot era then suggesting a Santa Hermandad army is not really going to be a good plan.

[benos]

i was thinking more on a tactics idea.
The old army you love when it loses is well remembered. But i'm more looking at advise for freinds (i already have 5 armies painted and a couple more on the way !)

in the way that if i want to introduce someone else to a game what makes an army that is easy for a wargamer to get thre nuances of so they can get to grip with the rules and have a reasonable game without needed very advanced skills to play.

As an example one of my usual opponents has nomads and principiate romans. He plays a reasonable game with the romans but really struggles with mongols.

I was wondering about others views on this

Ben

[hammy]

Different players tend to need different armies. Everyone has their own 'style' of play even when they are starting the game. That is why I would suggest a ballanced army for a new player rather than one that is all light horse or all spearmen.

There is no army that is perfect for everyone to use, if there was then a lot of people would be using it or versions of it.

I would suggest that new players avoid using armies where the majority of the combat power is in heavy foot. This is because it can be very frustrating using such armies against an enemy that doesn't want to fight. If your opponent lines up his foot in the open and lets you charge your swiss pikes into him then you will get action. If they realise that beating Swiss pike is not exactly the easiest thing to do then they will look to not stand in the way and the owner of the pike will be working hard to get into combat.

As a ballance I would say you need 2-3 BGs of heavy mounted (armoured cavalry or better) some sensible foot (try to avoid pike when you start), possibly a couple of BGs of medium foot and skirmishers.

[grahambriggs]

I'd suggest using an army where the foot is drilled at least. Beginners will get their troops in the wrong place and drilled will help recover from this. With undrilled foot you get punished much more for deployment errors. Hence they'd perhaps learn that flank attacks are bad news, but not much more than that in a game.

A lot of beginners know what they want to do: "I want to get this lot oevr there facing them" but are unsure of the mechanics. It can just frustrate them if the answer is "you can't because you're undrilled".

For similar reasoning I might also suggest armies with ICs as beginners will need quite a few CMTs

[rbodleyscott]

Also avoid armies with Average heavy cavalry.

For example, if a beginner picks Early Imperial Romans (an obvious first army choice) he will find his Average cavalry being picked off by the enemy while his Superior Legionaries trudge around looking for someone willing to fight them. An experienced player would know to keep his cavalry tight into his legionaries but beginners never seem to do that.

So, if picking a Roman army, go for Later Republican Romans so that you can have Superior Armoured cavalry. (It doesn't matter if cavalry are undrilled, they manoeuvre almost as well as drilled).

[ethan]

Medieval Spanish are probably a good choice if looking for a knight army

[Irmin]

Also avoid armies with Average heavy cavalry.

For example, if a beginner picks Early Imperial Romans (an obvious first army choice) he will find his Average cavalry being picked off by the enemy while his Superior Legionaries trudge around looking for someone willing to fight them. An experienced player would know to keep his cavalry tight into his legionaries but beginners never seem to do that.

So, if picking a Roman army, go for Later Republican Romans so that you can have Superior Armoured cavalry. (It doesn't matter if cavalry are undrilled, they manoeuvre almost as well as drilled).

I've been looking at LRRs as an army choice. Drilled MF, supporting LF, a little LH, ddrilled Bw/Swd cav and the hairy barbarian undr L/Swd cav, from what I see of it a nicely rounded army.

[SirGarnet]

Sensible Spearmen, particularly armoured drilled ones, are all-purpose heavy foot that can be put in front of anything.

The medieval Spanish lists, just for example, tend to offer them along with some of those knights, lights, and medium foot for terrain. They provide tactical flexibility and reward good painting. If you lose you can be reasonably certain that the troops are not to blame.

[Skullzgrinda]

I find masses of LH to be very forgiving.

Otherwise, the hoplite or similar suggestion is good. Something with built in surviveablility - whether through evasion or toughness.

[madmike111]

I second the idea of armoured spearmen, can't really go to far wrong as long as you keep them in a line and stay in clear terrain.

Hoplites are nice, also you get a lot of reuse out of the hoplites in mercenary troops in many other army lists.

Keep away from lancers, too easy to get wrong. Romans can be tricky, good against most infantry armies but suffer against horse.

[michaelguth]

Why not a light horse army? March your light horse BG's against one half of the enemy, line up and start shooting. Sooner or later you get a couple of hits, and backing them up with some cavalry or knights gives you an opportunity for a kill.

One or two BG's of light horse can hold up heavy foot for what seems like an eternity. Take some medium foot to contest rough terrain and you have an easy plan.

Of course wins with this combination might be by small point margins, and will make your opponent loathe you since his wins are likewise going to be small in point margins. That's what makes them so evil and fun.....

[SirGarnet]

For purposes of this thread, however, shooty skirmish armies are doubtful since have a learning curve that is not easy for beginners, especially without coaching. They can be very frustrating.

Always evading combat is also not particularly good training in the broad range of rules mechanics - for that we want troops that can smash into things rather than dance. Having some lights and shooty horse on the side can help the learning process.

[Probert]

I had no idea either. When I built my first army (which I just got to 1000 points) I simply took the Rise of Rome table of contents and rolled some dice until I got a truly random result in the form of a number. I then found out which army in the book corresponded to that number and I started a Late Achaemenid Persian Army, which caused me to learn a ton about the era, army.

I always choose my next army in a totally random fashion.

Makes for more fun.

[philqw78]

I always choose my next army in a totally random fashion.

Makes for more fun.

Well, picking the army maybe. I think there are some pages you may want to tear out before you roll though.

[Irmin]

I had no idea either. When I built my first army (which I just got to 1000 points) I simply took the Rise of Rome table of contents and rolled some dice until I got a truly random result in the form of a number. I then found out which army in the book corresponded to that number and I started a Late Achaemenid Persian Army, which caused me to learn a ton about the era, army.

I always choose my next army in a totally random fashion.

Makes for more fun.

I've been humming and harring about which army to do as my first and never able to decide, so just tried your method randomly picking book and page number (excel random number function), so the big question is, just how good are Sassanids?

[hammy]

I had no idea either. When I built my first army (which I just got to 1000 points) I simply took the Rise of Rome table of contents and rolled some dice until I got a truly random result in the form of a number. I then found out which army in the book corresponded to that number and I started a Late Achaemenid Persian Army, which caused me to learn a ton about the era, army.

I always choose my next army in a totally random fashion.

Makes for more fun.

I've been humming and harring about which army to do as my first and never able to decide, so just tried your method randomly picking book and page number (excel random number function), so the big question is, just how good are Sassanids?

There's nowt wrong wi Sassanids. Certainly a viable army albeit one that does not easily morph into anything else.

[hammy]

I had no idea either. When I built my first army (which I just got to 1000 points) I simply took the Rise of Rome table of contents and rolled some dice until I got a truly random result in the form of a number. I then found out which army in the book corresponded to that number and I started a Late Achaemenid Persian Army, which caused me to learn a ton about the era, army.

I always choose my next army in a totally random fashion.

Makes for more fun.

I have on occassion rolled randomly to select an army to use for a game then found suitable figures from my extensive collection to proxy it as best I could.

The first time I did this was under 6th Edition and I ended up with a Pontic army. Not a bad random choice.

[philqw78]

nowt wrong wi Sassanids. Certainly a viable army albeit one that does not easily morph into anything else.

Later Parthians and Skythians. Any Steppe nomads around the time.

[hammy]

nowt wrong wi Sassanids. Certainly a viable army albeit one that does not easily morph into anything else.

Later Parthians and Skythians. Any Steppe nomads around the time.

OK, early Sassanids can morph but then Early Sassanid is just a morph of Later Parthan anway.

All those armoured bow sword cavalry are hardly Parthian are they