Knights

[david53]

[

I am told they appear in competitions restricted to periods that don't have knights.

Maybe thats because they are allowed in that period I for one can't see the problum with Knights.

Now your entitled to your idea but so do the thousands of other people who have played FOG since it has been printed and the thousands of games in the Beta testing. In all that time not heard any load cries of death to Knights.

[david53]

I regularly submitted suggestions for changes to DBM and several of them were adopted.

That helps how on a FOG site

[RichardThompson]

I hope the new set boosts the weaker troop types and makes more armies viable for competitions. One way to do this is to restrict the power of knights, horse archers and the other currently fashionable types.

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Must disagree coming from a compition player not great but do enjoy them I would have to disagree with you about what you class as fashionable troops.

Knights don't think they are as fashionable as you think well not in the games and people I have played against. Now if i was Hammy I would have the results of the last five open british tournements to be able to show you the winning armies.

In the second I know your wrong about horse archers from a person who uses Horse Archer armies almost constantly me they are picked by very few people, last years Britcon had two LH Skythian armies mine's and Dave Ruddock. So no not a popular choice for people now if you were talking about Lancer armies now they are fashionable just look at how many Lancer armies were at Britcon this year.

Please explain how restricting those troops will allow other armies to be picked for compations.

I would be interested in seeing the data about which armies are winning tournaments.

My impressions of this are based on my own games, forum posts and a handful of conversations so I could well be mistaken.

Perhaps someone could start a topic on it to encourage debate?

[MatthewP]

I am told they appear in competitions restricted to periods that don't have knights.

Not exactly true. Simon hall won the BHGS Challenge this year (which is a completely open competition) with a parthian containing 18 bases of cataphracts.

I also think that the weight of opinion within the FOG community believes the knight/Cavalry/Cataphract interaction to be quite well modeled. Not perfect of course, but a reasonably effective simulation. Which is probably why you havent found much support for your suggestion on this forum. I have enjoyed reading the debate though.

[MatthewP]

I would be interested in seeing the data about which armies are winning tournaments.

This can be found at http://www.fieldofglory.com/ in the hall of fame page.

The top players tend to take armies that are highly manouverable, usually drilled armies and these generally dont include knights, the majority of whom are undrilled. Therefore you dont see many knight armies winning competitions.

[olivier]

I would be interested in seeing the data about which armies are winning tournaments.

Look at http://www.slithdata.net/files/fog/rankings.html

All data are compiled here, you can study successful armies, which played them against which other armies etc...
As a comp player, I played enough different armies to assure you that Kn aren't the super troops
I'm more annoyed with Roman auxiliaries en 4's (even if it's historical) or "speedy" LF.
Cat's are good in their period, as soon historically Kn reign began, they followed the dinosaurs in the void

If Knights only get one melee dice cataphracts might even start to appear in open competitions as well!

It's certainly not a point of importance for authors

I still don't know the answer!

Short answer : because from the top down view that works!
Muslin CV manoeuvres to avoid a frontal contact, Kn charge in the glory on thin line and they win or lose big!

[olivier]

The top players tend to take armies that are highly manouverable, usually drilled armies

"Move like a butterfly, sting like a bee" is always a good tactics in ancient

[david53]

Enjoyed the debate Richard even if we disagree.

[RichardThompson]

These are the armies ranked by ELO (a measure of effectiveness):

1 Christian Nubian
2 Middle Hungarian
2 Swiss
4 Early Hungarian
5 Hellenistic Greek
6 Aztec
7 Early Achaemenid Persian
8 Later Ottoman Turkish
8 Western Hunnic
10 Bedouin Dynasties
10 Later Anglo-Irish
10 Santa Hermandad Nueva Castilian
13 Ordonnance French
14 Taifa Andalusian
15 Bosporan
16 Warring States to Western Han Chinese
17 Koryo Korean
18 Medieval Castilian
18 Western Wei to Early Tang Chinese
20 Komnenan Byzantine

I don't have all my army lists with me and I can't remember what some of the lists include but some troops seem to crop up a lot on this list:

Knights
Superior Cavalry Bowmen
Pikes
Superior MF bowmen
Longbows
Drilled troops

And some less often:

Impact foot
Defensive spearmen
MF with Lt Spear
Poor troops

This list does seem to support the idea that some types are more equal than others.

[RichardThompson]

I would be interested in seeing the data about which armies are winning tournaments.

Look at http://www.slithdata.net/files/fog/rankings.html

All data are compiled here, you can study successful armies, which played them against which other armies etc...
As a comp player, I played enough different armies to assure you that Kn aren't the super troops
I'm more annoyed with Roman auxiliaries en 4's (even if it's historical) or "speedy" LF.
Cat's are good in their period, as soon historically Kn reign began, they followed the dinosaurs in the void

If Knights only get one melee dice cataphracts might even start to appear in open competitions as well!

It's certainly not a point of importance for authors

I still don't know the answer!

Short answer : because from the top down view that works!
Muslin CV manoeuvres to avoid a frontal contact, Kn charge in the glory on thin line and they win or lose big!

Thanks for the link which includes lots of interesting stuff.

I wish you luck in getting the things that annoy you fixed in the rules.

[RichardThompson]

Enjoyed the debate Richard even if we disagree.

I haven't got round to eating anything this evening so I must have enjoyed it to.

Thanks

[david53]

These are the armies ranked by ELO (a measure of effectiveness):

1 Christian Nubian
2 Middle Hungarian
2 Swiss
4 Early Hungarian
5 Hellenistic Greek
6 Aztec
7 Early Achaemenid Persian
8 Later Ottoman Turkish
8 Western Hunnic
10 Bedouin Dynasties
10 Later Anglo-Irish
10 Santa Hermandad Nueva Castilian
13 Ordonnance French
14 Taifa Andalusian
15 Bosporan
16 Warring States to Western Han Chinese
17 Koryo Korean
18 Medieval Castilian
18 Western Wei to Early Tang Chinese
20 Komnenan Byzantine

I don't have all my army lists with me and I can't remember what some of the lists include but some troops seem to crop up a lot on this list:

Knights
Superior Cavalry Bowmen
Pikes
Superior MF bowmen
Longbows
Drilled troops

And some less often:

Impact foot
Defensive spearmen
MF with Lt Spear
Poor troops

This list does seem to support the idea that some types are more equal than others.

5 knight armies out of 20
1 Superior Cavalry Bow Huns

Not totally the killer armies

[grahambriggs]

You began with a comparability between :
4 Undrilled, Superior, Armoured Knights, Lance (@20P) and
4 Undrilled, Superior, Armoured Cavalry, Lance (@16P)

I chose this comparison because this was the point in their evolution when mounted swordsmen suddenly became twice as effective in melee.

I was hoping to discover the rational behind knights having two dice and everything else having one.

I still don't know the answer!

I think the answer is that it gives a historical feel to the interaction. i.e. two dice per base is a game mechanic to give an effect. IMHO it gets heavily armoured knights the right feel. Undrilled ones have a lot of hitting power but are a bit clumsy and can be ground down. Drilled ones are more scary as they move well by are very expensive.

Armoured knights, however, are rarely seen. They are not that much cheaper than heavily armoured and the extra vulnerability to missiles and lack of PoA against armoured troops seems to tell quite heavily. Yes, they are more cost effective than armoured cavalry when fighting head to head with those, but cavalry learned historically that taking the knight on frontally was a bad idea.

[RichardThompson]

You began with a comparability between :
4 Undrilled, Superior, Armoured Knights, Lance (@20P) and
4 Undrilled, Superior, Armoured Cavalry, Lance (@16P)

I chose this comparison because this was the point in their evolution when mounted swordsmen suddenly became twice as effective in melee.

I was hoping to discover the rational behind knights having two dice and everything else having one.

I still don't know the answer!

I think the answer is that it gives a historical feel to the interaction. i.e. two dice per base is a game mechanic to give an effect. IMHO it gets heavily armoured knights the right feel. Undrilled ones have a lot of hitting power but are a bit clumsy and can be ground down. Drilled ones are more scary as they move well by are very expensive.

Armoured knights, however, are rarely seen. They are not that much cheaper than heavily armoured and the extra vulnerability to missiles and lack of PoA against armoured troops seems to tell quite heavily. Yes, they are more cost effective than armoured cavalry when fighting head to head with those, but cavalry learned historically that taking the knight on frontally was a bad idea.

You are probably right, but unless we know which interactions they were trying to correct it is difficult to take the discussion very much further.

If they needed to strengthen Knights I would rather they had given them a bigger advantage in the impact phase instead. This would also have encouraged them to fight one element deep.

I only play friendly games with armies that could have met historically so I probably see armoured knights more often then people who play competitions.

I used Armoured Knights in my comparison because they did fight Armoured Cavalry lancers. If I had tried to compare Heavily Armoured Knights with Cataphracts then there would not have been any historical interactions to consider.

[grahambriggs]

Good point re improving khights at impact. However, I think this is a general issue, not just knights. To my mind, impact in general is a bit underpowered in the rules when compared to melee. The impact POAs work in the same way as melee POAs, but only work one (putting break offs to one side for now). The melee POAs work in every melee phase. While the pain of losing impact can be greater (-1 vs IF, lance) that does not make up the difference. And troops disadvantaged at impact can always fight the impact in colum then expand out, or add generals and rear support to ride it out.

Consider two units of 8 bases of average heavy foot each fighting each other; average impact foot, protected vs armoured light spear. Each has rear support and a general. In the impact, a common (but by no means certain) result is that the armoured foot disrupt. They have less bases but a POA in the melee which will frequently result in nothing much happening until such time as the armoured chaps get bolstered back up to steadt. After that the protected guys will go downhill rapidly.

It doesn't always happen that way, of course, but it is a reasonable expectation. If this is what the authors think happened historically, then perhaps impact POAs are a little overpriced. Or perhaps the interaction needs to be tweaked a little to help out the impact troops.

[RichardThompson]

Good point re improving khights at impact. However, I think this is a general issue, not just knights. To my mind, impact in general is a bit underpowered in the rules when compared to melee. The impact POAs work in the same way as melee POAs, but only work one (putting break offs to one side for now). The melee POAs work in every melee phase. While the pain of losing impact can be greater (-1 vs IF, lance) that does not make up the difference. And troops disadvantaged at impact can always fight the impact in colum then expand out, or add generals and rear support to ride it out.

Consider two units of 8 bases of average heavy foot each fighting each other; average impact foot, protected vs armoured light spear. Each has rear support and a general. In the impact, a common (but by no means certain) result is that the armoured foot disrupt. They have less bases but a POA in the melee which will frequently result in nothing much happening until such time as the armoured chaps get bolstered back up to steadt. After that the protected guys will go downhill rapidly.

It doesn't always happen that way, of course, but it is a reasonable expectation. If this is what the authors think happened historically, then perhaps impact POAs are a little overpriced. Or perhaps the interaction needs to be tweaked a little to help out the impact troops.

I agree.

Perhaps there should be an extra '-1 if testing during impact phase' in the cohesion test?

[philqw78]

Double the number of dice thrown at impact.