Christian Nubian – the superior army?

[Mehrunes]

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.

Armour isn't a bad thing. So a quarter of the army was better than the average, protected barbarian then. That's the point. It's an army that can have a considerable amount of quality troops. So it has an edge over all the one-dimensional armies out there. Last but not least most armies perform better in period.
Take the slave revolt without roman equipment to an open comp and decide if they are still a good army.

So two opponents of the Libyans spent loads of points on things they didn't need. Actually good match-ups then. How a Mongol Conquest managed it to get routed by unproteced MF will be theirs and yours secret, I guess.
Anyway, you are a good player so I'm unsure what that says about the army itself. Unfortunately we lack enough data to really estimate the strenght of the Libyans.
But they are also an army who could field a good amount of superior troops and the army list even allows for the feared air'n'grit structure. I wouldn't rate them as very bad army.

[hazelbark]

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

Really? I am not saying it was better or worse than normandy, but Constantinople, North Africa, Damascus, Baghdad were probalby more sophisitcated on several counts,

Perhaps the comparison to the iberian pennisula would be interesting.

[hazelbark]

I
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.

We are talking a typical game. not necessarily a upper tier player. Saying person x can do it, only applies if x=idiot. Hammy is not equal to idiot. Therefore this case is an exception not the norm.

[Skullzgrinda]

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.

'Sea Peoples', Spanish, Gauls, Germans, Galatians, Dacians, Arab Conquest, First Crusade.

[Skullzgrinda]

Usually the best players use the better armies, and manage to get a good list out of it compared to the rest of us.

Concise.

Rational.

GET OUT, YOU!

[waldo]

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.

A bit like the Sudan/Nubia one might say?

[waldo]

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.

I have no doubt you could defeat a lot of other players using what are considered ‘bad’ armies and your opponents using ‘good’ armies. I don’t think anyone is saying you are not a good player. But you being good doesn't make those armies equal.

It seems it can be quite easily proved one way or another. Have the top players enter tournaments using an army such as Viking or Early Frank and see if they have the same success rate as they do currently.

Walter

[Skullzgrinda]

...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...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.

Well, based on some of your argument, figure availability, appalling and mesmerizing history, and probably some alcohol I don't remember, I actually spent money on the damned Chichimecs.

I shall be writing you for advice whenever I have painted enough of the wretches to play!

[philqw78]

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.

And the context was about the Germans conquering France.

[philqw78]

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.

A bit like the Americas then? Also take it in context. It was a comparison with the arabs of the conquest and English Dark age/Medieval armies. Not the Persians, but the ones that lived in the deserts by Medina and Mecca, who despite this conquered a huge area. The English being much richer, IMO, during the time of the longbow couldn't even conquer the remainder of Britain.

[nikgaukroger]

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

Really? I am not saying it was better or worse than normandy, but Constantinople, North Africa, Damascus, Baghdad were probalby more sophisitcated on several counts,

Certainly, however, in which case if comparing to them it wasn't just England that was a backwater but the majority of western Europe.

[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.

A bit like the Sudan/Nubia one might say?

Some similarities.

[hammy]

I have no doubt you could defeat a lot of other players using what are considered ‘bad’ armies and your opponents using ‘good’ armies. I don’t think anyone is saying you are not a good player. But you being good doesn't make those armies equal.

It seems it can be quite easily proved one way or another. Have the top players enter tournaments using an army such as Viking or Early Frank and see if they have the same success rate as they do currently.

It seems to me like this debate is not going to be possible to win. It is very unusual for a tournament to be won by a bad player, even average players don't win events that often. If a good player wins then it is seemingly a case of "Oh, well you are a good player so that is to be expected...." if they lose then it is definite'evidence' that the army they used is weak.

I will freely admit that when I used Early Visigoths at Derby in the doubles a couple of years ago I placed flat last. That was partly a fault of the general, partly a fault of the dice and partly a fault of the army. I used Early Visigoth because I had used them previously in the Usk beta tournament and finished 3rd or 4th with them in an open period, we even managed to beat the the army that won the comp.

Vikings are fine in period although it would seem by the extra restrictions being added in this thread any army that can have a reasonable number of superior or armoured or heaven forbid superior armoured troops does not count as an example of a bad army anyway.

[hammy]

So two opponents of the Libyans spent loads of points on things they didn't need. Actually good match-ups then. How a Mongol Conquest managed it to get routed by unproteced MF will be theirs and yours secret, I guess.
Anyway, you are a good player so I'm unsure what that says about the army itself. Unfortunately we lack enough data to really estimate the strenght of the Libyans.
But they are also an army who could field a good amount of superior troops and the army list even allows for the feared air'n'grit structure. I wouldn't rate them as very bad army.

Well the Samurai were armoured where they could have gotten away with protected but if they were protected they would have been considerably more vulnerable to the 68 bases of shooters in the Libyan army.

The Middle Plantagenate only 'wasted' points on the heavy armour for their knights and on longbows over bows and even then the heavy armour made the knights less vulnerable to missiles.

Yes Libyans can be fielded as an air and grit army but to be honest when the grit is unprotected MF impact foot swordsmen it is pretty fine grit. I wanted to see how my old DBM version of the army worked in FoG and to be honest it worked far better than I expected. It may not cut the mustard at 800 points but at 650 it was a very respectable force.

[grahambriggs]

I have no doubt you could defeat a lot of other players using what are considered ‘bad’ armies and your opponents using ‘good’ armies. I don’t think anyone is saying you are not a good player. But you being good doesn't make those armies equal.

It seems it can be quite easily proved one way or another. Have the top players enter tournaments using an army such as Viking or Early Frank and see if they have the same success rate as they do currently.

Walter

I'm fairly convinced that armies aren't equal. The points system is reasonably good, in that a greater proportion of armies are at least competitive under FoG than in many other rule sets. However it is far from perfect/ And part of the skill that the best players have is to work out what army will do best in competition play and use that.

It's not impossible that a top player could win a reasonably open major competition with Early Franks or Vikings, but I'd say it is highly unlikely. Let's say someone took the Franks to the 'pre 1040' period at Britcon. That's a big field of players - 40+ over 6 games. There will be relatively few novice players. If the Franks won their first two games they'd be playing good players with effective armies from then on. Unfortunately, that will be pikes or proper Romans crashing through the Franks at one point. Or horse archers or Roman Auxilia flooding an open flank, problems with terrain etc.

So yes, I agree, some of these armies will do poorly in an open competition. I think most people would agree that some armies are better than others. Undrilled heavy foot kind of get it in the neck at both ends of the skill scale. Novices who use them struggle with the fact that they are slow, need a CMT of 8 to do almost anything. That tends to mean novice mistakes are heavily punished. Top players, however, will find them too slow (opponents are often happy with a draw) and unsuited to a game of intricate manouver.

Part of the reason these armies do badly is that they all need to fight in at least 2 ranks to be effective. That tends to mean at 'normal' points level the army can fill two thirds of the table in 15mm and people run round their flanks. Probably a bit better in 25mm I should think.

[philqw78]

If the Franks won their first two games they'd be playing good players with effective armies from then on. Unfortunately, that will be pikes or proper Romans crashing through the Franks at one point. Or horse archers or Roman Auxilia flooding an open flank, problems with terrain etc.

I must have put the wrong list in. Mine has lancers. Perhaps I have too high an opinion of myself.

[Mehrunes]

Vikings are fine in period although it would seem by the extra restrictions being added in this thread any army that can have a reasonable number of superior or armoured or heaven forbid superior armoured troops does not count as an example of a bad army anyway.

It seems you WANT to misunderstand me. I think it's a difference if I can spend 320 points on such troops (that's around 50 percent of the army when you subtract the commanders) and build a good amount of my line with them or if I have only 1-2 small battlegroups of them somewhere. And then there are armies who don't get these guys at all. Go look at the Early Germans list for example. Or some armies from LT or OoF.
Slave Revolt definitely isn't the best example for one of these armies we are talking about. And even they won't be that good out of period.

[philqw78]

Vikings are fine in period although it would seem by the extra restrictions being added in this thread any army that can have a reasonable number of superior or armoured or heaven forbid superior armoured troops does not count as an example of a bad army anyway.

It seems you WANT to misunderstand me. I think it's a difference if I can spend 320 points on such troops (that's around 50 percent of the army when you subtract the commanders) and build a good amount of my line with them or if I have only 1-2 small battlegroups of them somewhere. And then there are armies who don't get these guys at all. Go look at the Early Germans list for example. Or some armies from LT or OoF.
Slave Revolt definitely isn't the best example for one of these armies we are talking about. And even they won't be that good out of period.

But it seems the only answer to your conundrum is to have troops cost different points depending which army they are in, or even which army they are facing. Or make all armies exactly the same.

[Mehrunes]

Why not giving discounts to one-dimensional armies? Or maybe better for huge BGs. This way you exclude one-dimensional but highly mobile armies, which perform good at the moment and aim for the armies which need it, mainly consisting of rather cheap, but not cheap enough masses of average foot.

The solution is another thing to discuss, I'm happy that at least we got to an point where people start to accept that there IS a problem.

[philqw78]

Why not giving discounts to one-dimensional armies? Or maybe better for huge BGs. This way you exclude one-dimensional but highly mobile armies, which perform good at the moment and aim for the armies which need it, mainly consisting of rather cheap, but not cheap enough masses of average foot.

The solution is another thing to discuss, I'm happy that at least we got to an point where people start to accept that there IS a problem.

Ah Ha. No nott the scandinavian pop singers but an exclamation of back to where we started, or at least I did a couple of years ago. A points cost per BG in your army. Making bigger BG effectively cheaper. And highly mobile armies more costly. Brilliant idea.