longbows so weak

[peterrjohnston]

Well, 100YW Continental is rated 1527 (starting from 1600) from 281 games, and is 191st out of 226. Judging on the basis of the rankings, that sounds mediocre by any standards.

The really bad stat is the army routs in 30% of games. Your Ottomans, Seljuks, Dominates and the like are around 15-20% routs.

[shall]

All interesting stuff if I knew how to interpret it properly ...

Can someone explain the ELO calc please. Is it a rolling glicko concept?
Also can anyone filter the data for armies that have pplayed at least 50 games as this is when it gets reasonably stable?
Quite interested to take some views from this into our thinking.

Tx

Si[quote][/quote]

[shall]

Q: Is an ELO-ranking for armylists actually making sense?

A: It depends, the ELO system is intended to rate the skill of a player rating the quality of the player. since an army will be used by many different players this causes an obvious problem. Still using the ELO system to evaluate how different players are doing with one army can give some pointers as how adaptable that army is and how easy to use different players find it. For a meaningful result the number of games and players using it certainly needs to be notably higher then with a players ELO-score. If analysed in conjunction with the skill (i.e. the ELO-score) of the players that used a given army it is probably possible to draw certain conclusions how well an army works in the tournament environment.

Above from the ranking FAQ. Can someone calculate the ELO of the armies/ ave ELO of the players who used them? Then do a list for the those with at least 50 games. Would be pretty useful to me. E-mail me on sahwargames@aol.com perhaps. Tx

Si

[azrael86]

The number of longbow armies used at competitions seems to have declined in the last 12 months or so? Or have I just missed them?

A change in fashion I think, rather than any reflection on the power of their shooting. They were successful, then people worked out how to beat them more regularly and so players moved on from them looking for a "next big thing" - the usual competition cycle

As for the original question about whether longbows are not good enough, I would answer that they are about right - comparison with other rule sets is not necessarily a good thing as many previous sets have given the longbow much too great an effect - the myth of the English longbow I fear - in FoG massed longbows are quite capable enough IMO.

Longbows aren't superior and they have to face the consequences if their shooting doesn't yield the desired result. Very many cavalry armies have large numbers of superior bow that can skirmish, in the mongol fashion, when all the evidence suggests that the mongols were an exception, not the rule. I think you will find that the two army types who have replaced LB are HF and Superior Cav. Superior Cav will of course triumph because HF cannot catch them, wheras a HF unit that fails a test will be butchered.

[peterrjohnston]

Si, you need to speak to Karsten Loh or Martin Wirt for the rankings stuff. Emailed you with their email addresses.

[peterrjohnston]

Longbows aren't superior and they have to face the consequences if their shooting doesn't yield the desired result. Very many cavalry armies have large numbers of superior bow that can skirmish, in the mongol fashion, when all the evidence suggests that the mongols were an exception, not the rule. I think you will find that the two army types who have replaced LB are HF and Superior Cav. Superior Cav will of course triumph because HF cannot catch them, wheras a HF unit that fails a test will be butchered.

I wonder if the distribution on foot bow quality is the problem. There's a lot of superior bow cavalry around, but very little in the way of superior foot bow ,and a lot of rubbish.

And as Nik pointed out, given the choice between undrilled MF average bow and undrilled LF average bow, taking the LF is almost a no-brainer - in fact I'd prefer poor LF bow over undrilled MF average bow!

[hammy]

If you want to see how effective armies with longbow can be then check out Ordonance French.

Most of the better players who used 100YW armies have moved to Ordonance French and it has a somewhat better rating.

Every Ordonance French army I have seen has had the maximum number of allowed longbow.

As for average MF bow being bad troops tell that to my Libyans or my Classical Indians. MF bow are fine as long as you have plenty of them and support them correctly.

MF longbow are better than MF bow but thank the lord they are not the uber death dealing slaughter devices they are in some other rulesets.

[Ghaznavid]

Above from the ranking FAQ. Can someone calculate the ELO of the armies/ ave ELO of the players who used them? Then do a list for the those with at least 50 games. Would be pretty useful to me. E-mail me on sahwargames@aol.com perhaps. Tx

Should be possible, give us a few days, weekend is already booked.

[dave_r]

I suspect Simon isn't the only one who is interested in those results - could you post them somewhere public?

[madaxeman]

Might be worth opening a forum on Longbow tactics as I am sure the regular protagonists will be very ahppy to share some tips to making them very effective in FOG.
Si

They seem to have collected more than their fair share of user input and suggestions on my wiki pages

[rbodleyscott]

A change in fashion I think, rather than any reflection on the power of their shooting. They were successful, then people worked out how to beat them more regularly and so players moved on from them looking for a "next big thing" - the usual competition cycle

The rankings site would suggest, for what's it's worth, that the English armies are certainly don't have "killer army" status. In fact the rankings are pretty mediocre.

Well, of course, all armies should be mediocre in the rankings if the points system works correctly. So English being mediocre does not mean that the rules under-rate them.

[azrael86]

I wonder if the distribution on foot bow quality is the problem. There's a lot of superior bow cavalry around, but very little in the way of superior foot bow ,and a lot of rubbish.

I'm not sure that you have this the right way round. The fact that every Tom, Dick and Abdul is superior just because he has a horse between his legs is probably the issue.

Strangely it seems to work in reverse, in that armies like Mongol, who arguably are that good, tend to end up so small that they have lower quality cav to bolster numbers. Lesser armies where foot is available use BG's of that instead.

The difference between being Superior and, to pick a term at random 'B class' is considerable. B class are better at fighting, better at taking tests, and better at shooting at least averagely, but Superior troops are also better at shooting even when they have shot above averagely, due to the mechanism.

You could also consider that a number of troop and weapon classification changes have worked against foot bow (not that any aren't justifiaible individually, just that the effect cumulatievly has been to make some foot bow armies weaker):

for instance

how many more classical indians would be used if the foot was HF, Prot/Unp, Hw, LB?
Samurai if the Yumi was still a LB?
Fewer Germans, Hungarians etc if their Knights were mostly Average

It also has to be relevant that of the few armies allowed a lot of superior foot bow, two are very common, Christian Nubian and Ottomann Turk. This suggests to me that the cost of a superior shooter is too low, particularly for foot (most superior mounted are already expensive, although charging extra for being superior but less for being armoured might be a balance here).

[expendablecinc]

I wonder if the distribution on foot bow quality is the problem. There's a lot of superior bow cavalry around, but very little in the way of superior foot bow ,and a lot of rubbish.

And as Nik pointed out, given the choice between undrilled MF average bow and undrilled LF average bow, taking the LF is almost a no-brainer - in fact I'd prefer poor LF bow over undrilled MF average bow!

Some of the later army list books permit a couple of BGs to be the superior veterans and the remainder to remain as average. In retrospect this may have been done for the one trick drilled longbow armies as well.

[rbodleyscott]

I wonder if the distribution on foot bow quality is the problem. There's a lot of superior bow cavalry around, but very little in the way of superior foot bow ,and a lot of rubbish.

And as Nik pointed out, given the choice between undrilled MF average bow and undrilled LF average bow, taking the LF is almost a no-brainer - in fact I'd prefer poor LF bow over undrilled MF average bow!

Some of the later army list books permit a couple of BGs to be the superior veterans and the remainder to remain as average. In retrospect this may have been done for the one trick drilled longbow armies as well.

Err nope. Not even in retrospect. It would not fit Medieval organisation and tactics to use "veteran longbowmen" in the way that this would lead them to be used on the tabletop.

(And there are no one-trick longbow armies, they all have other useful troops).

[nikgaukroger]

I wonder if the distribution on foot bow quality is the problem. There's a lot of superior bow cavalry around, but very little in the way of superior foot bow ,and a lot of rubbish.

And as Nik pointed out, given the choice between undrilled MF average bow and undrilled LF average bow, taking the LF is almost a no-brainer - in fact I'd prefer poor LF bow over undrilled MF average bow!

Some of the later army list books permit a couple of BGs to be the superior veterans and the remainder to remain as average. In retrospect this may have been done for the one trick drilled longbow armies as well.

Err nope. Not even in retrospect. It would not fit Medieval organisation and tactics to use "veteran longbowmen" in the way that this would lead them to be used on the tabletop.

(And there are no one-trick longbow armies, they all have other useful troops).

Indeed - this was discussed and rejected at the list writing stage, and I've seen nothing since that would suggest to me we got it wrong (and I think I can safely say I have plenty of experience using, and facing, longbowmen ).

[azrael86]

(And there are no one-trick longbow armies, they all have other useful troops).

Not even South Welsh?

[nikgaukroger]

(And there are no one-trick longbow armies, they all have other useful troops).

Not even South Welsh?

They have other useful troops.

[Mehrunes]

Some of the later army list books permit a couple of BGs to be the superior veterans and the remainder to remain as average. In retrospect this may have been done for the one trick drilled longbow armies as well.

This should be done for some of the first lists, for example Early Germans.

[nikgaukroger]

Some of the later army list books permit a couple of BGs to be the superior veterans and the remainder to remain as average. In retrospect this may have been done for the one trick drilled longbow armies as well.

This should be done for some of the first lists, for example Early Germans.

That is certainly true - but hardly news

[peterrjohnston]

Some of the later army list books permit a couple of BGs to be the superior veterans and the remainder to remain as average. In retrospect this may have been done for the one trick drilled longbow armies as well.

This should be done for some of the first lists, for example Early Germans.

That is certainly true - but hardly news

Like it'll make a difference. They could be elite and armoured skilled swordsmen will still beat the crap out of them.