Swarm armies

[VMadeira]

I understand that maneuvring will be made tougher for drilled foot, in order to (or at least partially to) make life more difficult for the drilled, armoured, Medium Foot swarm armies.

That is good, but is anything being thought in respect of mounted swarm armies ? Because if not, what will stop people to change their swarm MF armies, to swarm cavalry armies?

[hammy]

I understand that maneuvring will be made tougher for drilled foot, in order to (or at least partially to) make life more difficult for the drilled, armoured, Medium Foot swarm armies.

That is good, but is anything being thought in respect of mounted swarm armies ? Because if not, what will stop people to change their swarm MF armies, to swarm cavalry armies?

The points system makes it hard to build a cavlary swarm

[ethan]

I understand that maneuvring will be made tougher for drilled foot, in order to (or at least partially to) make life more difficult for the drilled, armoured, Medium Foot swarm armies.

That is good, but is anything being thought in respect of mounted swarm armies ? Because if not, what will stop people to change their swarm MF armies, to swarm cavalry armies?

The points system makes it hard to build a cavlary swarm

You would have to use protected cavalry to do it and they are actually vulnerable to enough things that it is problematic. The armoured MF is difficult as it is relatively resistant to shooting, the same is not true of mounted.

[philqw78]

The 'Best' (?) you could get with mounted is 17BG LH Bw Sw or 14 BG Super Prot Cav Lance Sw or 14 BG Super Unprot Bw sw. Mix and match for a Hun with allies. The Bedouin Dynasty can do about 18 BG of cav rubbish lancers IIRC. They all have major problems as mounted are prone to shooting casualties, so the lancer versions take a brave man. Koudos to KMS at Roll Call.

[VMadeira]

Ok, thanks for your answers.

[peterrjohnston]

The 'Best' (?) you could get with mounted is 17BG LH Bw Sw or 14 BG Super Prot Cav Lance Sw or 14 BG Super Unprot Bw sw. Mix and match for a Hun with allies. The Bedouin Dynasty can do about 18 BG of cav rubbish lancers IIRC. They all have major problems as mounted are prone to shooting casualties, so the lancer versions take a brave man. Koudos to KMS at Roll Call.

Abbasid and ENAD can also do 8 BGs of 4 poor armoured lancers. Poor might be pushing it though, even if armoured.

[peterrjohnston]

I understand that maneuvring will be made tougher for drilled foot, in order to (or at least partially to) make life more difficult for the drilled, armoured, Medium Foot swarm armies.

I assume the idea is to make it 8 on the CMT for all drilled, not just foot.

I'm not convinced it's a good idea though. It makes skirmishers even better, as drilled non-skirmishers will find it even harder to react to them.

Perhaps it would be worth thinking about skirmishers take a CMT to turn 90 degrees and move; I have less problem with the 180 degrees turn and move as it's a pseudo-evade. But the 90 degrees turn and move seems to me to be skirmishers' "get-out-of-jail free card".

[VMadeira]

Agree with you.

In the Later Pre Islamic Bedouin, we can have 19 BG's of Cavalry, protected, average, lancers sword, and still leave 116 points for generals etc...
They can also be unarmoured and wuld cost just 8 oints per base.
If these would be a competitive army is beyond my knowledge though

[david53]

Agree with you.

In the Later Pre Islamic Bedouin, we can have 19 BG's of Cavalry, protected, average, lancers sword, and still leave 116 points for generals etc...
They can also be unarmoured and wuld cost just 8 oints per base.
If these would be a competitive army is beyond my knowledge though

Your evens at impact but since you have so many BGs hard to have Generals in the fighting BGs so if you survived that your down in melee, Being unprotected you'd likely be shot to pieces before the combat 2's to hit IIRC never having met any.

[philqw78]

In the Later Pre Islamic Bedouin, we can have 19 BG's of Cavalry, protected, average, lancers sword, and still leave 116 points for generals etc...
They can also be unarmoured and wuld cost just 8 oints per base.
If these would be a competitive army is beyond my knowledge though

No it isn't unless you are a better than average player and IMO even if you were you would still be pushing your luck if you didn't take the armoured lancers.

[robertthebruce]

I've never played against any swarm army. Do they really exist?


I palyed aganist a guy with the famous Dominate Roman list of Graham, I played wit my Andalusians and I won 23-2 in less than 3 hours.


Is this a Swarm Army?

[philqw78]

Yes it is. But only good players are good with swarms. Average players tend not to lose with them

[david53]

Yes it is. But only good players are good with swarms. Average players tend not to lose with them

That being the problum as their is more average players and if you play one with a swarm 19 BG and your average it is almost impossible to win.

[azrael86]

I've never played against any swarm army. Do they really exist?


I palyed aganist a guy with the famous Dominate Roman list of Graham, I played wit my Andalusians and I won 23-2 in less than 3 hours.


Is this a Swarm Army?

Indeed. That you won that quickly suggests that either you were amazingly lucky or your opponent didn't really understand how to swarm. It does involve some non-intuitive tactics, especially against an opponent with dangerous troops. It's certainly not guaranteed to win, but against most armies it can get close just by trading bg's - if you have 14 bgs (to the DR 20) then it kills say 6 of yours, gets two frag'd but loses 5 of it's - result is 21-4....

Of course, if it is unlucky, say it kills 4 and loses 7, then the rest hides...then you have a 10-10. Partr of Phil's point is that implicitly, swarms usually are relatively poor troops - hence they need to charge flanks etc to get quick wins. Head on they are usually down against good troops. The better the player (or the bigger the difference in player ability) the more likely it is that this will be a factor.

[robertthebruce]

I´m not a great dice roller, believe me.

In this game, my oponent did not have any terrain in his side, my lancers supported by defensive spears had a good time.


The main problem of this kind of armies, is that is very hard to rout in 3 hours and half if you can´t brake their lines in a few bounds. But I don´t think that they are killer armies, in unfavorable terrain at least.