Christian Nubian – the superior army?

[waldo]

Perhaps barbarian foot armies are pooh, and get what they deserve. Name a historically successful barbarian foot army. One that didn't get its success against other barbarian foot armies.

Maybe if they were more literate we would have read some more about the successes of the Early Germanic peoples. Perhaps they even won some battles when they conquered France?

Walter

I'm sure they won many. But what were they fighting?

Without their accounts it might be hard to say conclusively. Perhaps Romans.

Walter

[philqw78]

So we are back to the "unsuccessful armies in reality should be unsuccessful in the game" approach?

No. They are good against each other. Its just their troop mix is generally terrible. Put them in a hairy foot army only theme and I'm sure they would place. But probably not win as someone would find one with some cavalry.

Then we are also back to the start of this thread. Why exactly should Nubians be all superior again?

Because their contempoaries thought they were good.
Why aren't Spartans elite? because they would be too good for their contemporaries.

[philqw78]

Without their accounts it might be hard to say conclusively. Perhaps Romans.

Walter

Oh, at the end of the empire. That would be a Roman army made up of mainly barbarians then.

[Mehrunes]

So the solution is to do tournaments with only some 6-8 armies allowed so that every one has a reasonable chance to place? You know that is not practicable.
If an army has only good chances against its mirror image, then something is wrong.

[waldo]

Without their accounts it might be hard to say conclusively. Perhaps Romans.

Walter

Oh, at the end of the empire. That would be a Roman army made up of mainly barbarians then.

Is your theory that the Romans enlisted the barbarians before they ever fought them? There were no barbarian v Roman conflicts before that time where, perhaps, the barbarians were victorious? That seems curious. Hard to say what happened out on the frontier with only one side of the story.

You seem to be arguing that just because an army defeated another in history that should always be the result. To my mind if we had, hypothetically, records of army A with 10,000 men against army B with 50,000 men and always winning then there is little point making the rules point system to reflect 10,000 vs 50,000 battles. To add some challenge to the conflict, and after all, to conquer without risk is to triumph without glory, the odds should be tilted to make a more balanced battle, say the numbers of army B should be increased to what would represent 60,000 men or some other amount. Otherwise it is not a reasonable game.

Fair enough if you don’t want to use a plodding barbarian heavy foot army, but others I’m sure do. I am not suggesting that Viking, for example, be made all superior; leave that to the Christian Nubians. You would still be able to pirouette and dance with light horse, it might be just a bit tougher to win.

Walter

[philqw78]

So the solution is to do tournaments with only some 6-8 armies allowed so that every one has a reasonable chance to place? You know that is not practicable.
If an army has only good chances against its mirror image, then something is wrong.

No I was being sarcastic. It would be boring.
It would be nice if hairy barbarian foot stood a chance. But it will need rules changes. Or points changes. I personally think rule changes would be better as making this rubbish cheaper will just fill tables with rubbish. To make them competetive could be reasonably simple. Increase their move distance and make them more usable in terrain, make battle foot battle foot. Remove the difference between HF and MF. Make those foot that were rubbish in the open rubbish for a different reason. These things have all been discussed.

[philqw78]

Without their accounts it might be hard to say conclusively. Perhaps Romans.

Walter

Oh, at the end of the empire. That would be a Roman army made up of mainly barbarians then.

I'm confused here. When are you saying the Germans conquered France by fighting Romans?

[grahambriggs]

Whilst being an unpalatable fact to some, it must be taken into account that the same army used by different players might have very different results.

Ah, that hoary old chestnut: “all armies are equal, only the skill of the player matters”. It wasn’t true back when I started in WRG 5th edition nor has it been in 6th, 7th, DBM or Field of Glory.

I have to wonder if the players who advance this nonsense actually believe it themselves. Maybe there are some young children perusing the forum who might believe it, or some particularly credulous adults. It seems more a self-serving device for those players to justify their not using bad armies.

Of course the corollary of your argument is that players who lose with barbarian foot are poor players.

Walter

The skill of the player makes a significant difference to many armies. But I'm not sure that that is of relevance here.

Consider a theoretical competition of 100 players. An expert and an average player take a "tournament tiger" FoG army. The expert wins, the average player comes in position 41. They then go to another 100 player competition and take early Germans. The expert comes in 51st place, the average player comes in 91st place. The skill differential in both cases is 40 places. So player skill can make a difference, but it doesn't mean all armies are equal.

There are a few ways that an good player could improve the chances of a dark age army. Primarily these are around army selection and structure; terrain selection and deployment - i.e. everything before the first move. That can protect against the weaknesses of such armies - slow movement and unpredictable manouver. With my Franks, I've gone down the route of increasing the number of cavalry to give a faster moving strike arm that can help the warband get forward.

[philqw78]

Is your theory that the Romans enlisted the barbarians before they ever fought them? There were no barbarian v Roman conflicts before that time where, perhaps, the barbarians were victorious? That seems curious. Hard to say what happened out on the frontier with only one side of the story.

I have no idea what you are talking about here.

You seem to be arguing that just because an army defeated another in history that should always be the result. To my mind if we had, hypothetically, records of army A with 10,000 men against army B with 50,000 men and always winning then there is little point making the rules point system to reflect 10,000 vs 50,000 battles. To add some challenge to the conflict, and after all, to conquer without risk is to triumph without glory, the odds should be tilted to make a more balanced battle, say the numbers of army B should be increased to what would represent 60,000 men or some other amount. Otherwise it is not a reasonable game.

This is what the point system tries to do. Unfortunately hairy foot armies are hamstrung by their troop choices (Mind you ancient british does quite well, but seemingly only if it uses lots of chariots). To make the hairy foot viable mounted move distances would need to be reduced, as would their manouverability because they have no answer to them.

Fair enough if you don’t want to use a plodding barbarian heavy foot army, but others I’m sure do. I am not suggesting that Viking, for example, be made all superior; leave that to the Christian Nubians. You would still be able to pirouette and dance with light horse, it might be just a bit tougher to win.
Walter

But as you said to conquer without risk has no glory so leave the risks with the plodders.

[waldo]

So the solution is to do tournaments with only some 6-8 armies allowed so that every one has a reasonable chance to place? You know that is not practicable.
If an army has only good chances against its mirror image, then something is wrong.

No I was being sarcastic. It would be boring.
It would be nice if hairy barbarian foot stood a chance. But it will need rules changes. Or points changes. I personally think rule changes would be better as making this rubbish cheaper will just fill tables with rubbish. To make them competetive could be reasonably simple. Increase their move distance and make them more usable in terrain, make battle foot battle foot. Remove the difference between HF and MF. Make those foot that were rubbish in the open rubbish for a different reason. These things have all been discussed.

Well, I've lived through at least 4 other rule changes. I look forward to seeing what happens here. If I wait long enough berserkers might even come back in a wedge formation and get to fight with two weapons. - or does Warrior still exist?

Walter

[philqw78]

It is impossible to make every army competetive in every situation. You could say that a dominate Roman should get extra points against a lancer cavalry army with steppe terrain. But not against a lancer cavalry army without steppe terrain. That would make the fight a bit fairer, but only if the Dom Roms were restricted to 15 BG. If they had more the Lancers should get more points. Anglo danish should get more points against Pechenegs so they can fill the table, but Russ don't need the extra points as they can fill the table. But Russ should get extra points against anglo danish. ad infinitum.
Try and give a better answer Walter.

[waldo]

It is impossible to make every army competetive in every situation. You could say that a dominate Roman should get extra points against a lancer cavalry army with steppe terrain. But not against a lancer cavalry army without steppe terrain. That would make the fight a bit fairer, but only if the Dom Roms were restricted to 15 BG. If they had more the Lancers should get more points. Anglo danish should get more points against Pechenegs so they can fill the table, but Russ don't need the extra points as they can fill the table. But Russ should get extra points against anglo danish. ad infinitum.
Try and give a better answer Walter.

I don't want to rehash what you say has already been discussed. I find the search function fairly primitive, which makes it hard for those new to the forum to see what others have discussed on similar topics, but I'll soldier on with it.

Walter

[hazelbark]

Once the English had the technology to overcome their Geo political situation

You mean being one of the richest lands of the Dark ages wasn't enough. They had to invent mass produced effective firearms to shoot spear toting johnny foriegner with first.

England? Rich? Dark Ages? I don't think the elizabethan age is the dark age. in the 7-9th century, england was a backwater by just about every definiation.

[hazelbark]

As for the better players, better armies arguments there are a lot of factors.

I do believe the various britons, germans, celts, early franks etc are tough to take in equal point games unless you have a cuning plan, plan to have fun, etc.

There are variations that give the armies some intriguing tactics, Ancient Britons, Dacians etc. But the armies don't seem to punch at the same weight as so others.

I think the wrinkle of time limits impacts that undrilled Oath armies of HF. But in 25mm the Anglo Danes have move advantages than they do in 15mm ironically.

[nikgaukroger]

Once the English had the technology to overcome their Geo political situation

You mean being one of the richest lands of the Dark ages wasn't enough. They had to invent mass produced effective firearms to shoot spear toting johnny foriegner with first.

England? Rich? Dark Ages? I don't think the elizabethan age is the dark age. in the 7-9th century, england was a backwater by just about every definiation.

I believe that is rather an old fashioned view these days. As I understand it, the current view is that for most of the "Dark Ages" England was, in fact, a relatively wealthy country, and more highly monetarised than nearly all of continental Europe

[hammy]

I am turning up rather late in this thread and have really only skimmed through it.

It looks to me like there is a premise being proposed that the game is biassed against undrilled foot armies with only average troops. Personally I am not convinced of this but here are a couple of points that may be relevant.

The game uses a points system which seems reasonable starting point. There is a problem though....... If my army is entirely made up of protected swordsmen and yours entirely of armoured skilled swordsmen while neither army has any missile troops then my army is badly dissadvantaged because I have paid points for protected and for swordsman neither of which will ever give me any benefit. If on the other hand my army are unprotected superiors then I will have a numerical advantage over the protected swordsmen and fight better against armoured swordsmen into the bargain.

One of the more nasty opponents for a Dominate Roman army is actually a Pictish one. The Romans are armoured light spear swordsmen. The Picts are unprotected spearmen. If the Picts can stay steady they are never worse than even in impact or melee and cost considerably fewer points.

Having won tournaments with armies of mainly undrilled average foot (Slave Revolt and Libyan) I can I would have hoped claim that there are at least some such armies that work reasonably well.

[Mehrunes]

Having won tournaments with armies of mainly undrilled average foot (Slave Revolt and Libyan) I can I would have hoped claim that there are at least some such armies that work reasonably well.

Yeah, some. Most not. Slave Revolt isn't actually a bad army with a ranking of 56 out of 227 (even though most of the successful games from in-period tournaments....)
How much of the armoured and/or superior guys did they had? And did they had considerable impact on their games? I guess "a good amount" and "yes".

The Libyans had how much superior chariots? And in how many games the match-up against an armoured opponent favoured you being unprotected and saving loads of points?

These examples show: It's often a matter of the match-up, too. And these are some of the armies which can at least have some troops with better quality and armour. We are referring to the really one-dimensional armies out there. They are basically crap. That is why you find them all in the lower half of the rankings.

[puster]

Oh, at the end of the empire. That would be a Roman army made up of mainly barbarians then.

When Rome decided it was not worth conquering and controlling the Germanic areas east of the Rhine (some 450 years BEFORE the end of the empire), it was not because of the nasty weather.

Anyway...

No point based system is perfect.

1. Some units already offer better value for points as stand alone units. While different strength and weaknesses of the unit in specific roles should level out, some are plainly better. Imho FOG made a good but not perfect job in trying to account for this.

2. In the context of an army these discrepancies can only worsen when the point values remain the same. This is imho the main problem here. Armies with heavy concentration on one unit type often lack units to fullfill other roles, and thus these units are more important here. If they cannot be bought at all, the army does indeed suffer. A total lack of fast cavalry cannot be made up by more units of medium foot.

Lets assume that the goal was to offer competetively equal army lists for each army. This would mean that units need individual costs in the context of their army. While finding a system for that may work with a computer based army list, doing this in a comprehensive way for paper design is not easy, if next to impossible. Considering all options and counter-options available with all armies is a tough, if not impossible job. Tournaments, often the hunting ground of competetive gamers rather then historical recreators, can be used to judge which armies players consider to be "undercosted" and thus overperforming. If the same armies show up successfully again and again, its a good indication that they are indeed undercosted. Armies that show not up or that perform bad need a boost. Changes can be done by recalculation the base cost of a unit or by offering mass dis- or upcounts. Alternately one could put a handicap on specific armies at tournaments.

Question: Will we see such updates? Unlikely. Handicaps may happen, though, if tournament results get a systematical analysis. I do not expect that one, too, however, and will thus vanish again into historical recreational games.

[hammy]

Yeah, some. Most not. Slave Revolt isn't actually a bad army with a ranking of 56 out of 227 (even though most of the successful games from in-period tournaments....)
How much of the armoured and/or superior guys did they had? And did they had considerable impact on their games? I guess "a good amount" and "yes".

The tournament I won was an in period 1000 point doubles comp. There were a total of 8 bases of superior and the maximum 24 bases of armoured out of a total army of over 120 bases. I don't think that 8 bases of superiors makes the army..... And if we are now saying that armoured is also a bad thing then I am not sure what you can actually use.

The Libyans had how much superior chariots? And in how many games the match-up against an armoured opponent favoured you being unprotected and saving loads of points?

The tournament I won with Libyans was a 650 point open one. I had 4 bases of chariots, 30 of light foot javelin and 52 of medium foot.

These examples show: It's often a matter of the match-up, too. And these are some of the armies which can at least have some troops with better quality and armour. We are referring to the really one-dimensional armies out there. They are basically crap. That is why you find them all in the lower half of the rankings.

Opponent wise the Libyans faced Samurai (armoured heavy weapons) Middle Plantagenate English (knights and protected bow sword longbowmen) and Mongol Conquest.

[nikgaukroger]

When Rome decided it was not worth conquering and controlling the Germanic areas east of the Rhine (some 450 years BEFORE the end of the empire), it was not because of the nasty weather.

Neither was it because of military defeat - Varus not withstanding, although that was a reality check - as they crossed the Rhine regularly to give the Germans a good kicking well into the C4th. Germany east of the Rhine was just too big and sparsely populated to make it worth the effort.