Should battle troops be able to break from shooting alone?

[lawrenceg]

can i suggest that non skirmisher battle groups can only be reduced to fragmented by missile fire. they cannot be broken purely by missile fire. this would reduce the current fashion for armies with large numbers of skirmishers and/or evading bow armed troops. heavy infantry units running off the table through skirmisher bowfire seems a touch extreme, they could still not approach closer to the enemy. this would make those skirmisher heavy armies then take more heavier troops to finish off an enemy unit. or at least have to attack them in melee as well.

and/or introduce an extra level of cohesion drop which is purely one for bowfire. an initial "shot by missiles" cohesion drop, making cohesion reduction effectively 4 levels for bowfire. but still 3 levels for contact combats.

and make all competition armies 900pts. it worked well in the decline and fall period at Derby. this might also increase the number of undrilled armies. give an army which consists of 600pts+ undrilled non-skirmishers an extra 50 army points. 950 instead of 900.

900pts doesn't slow the game down in the least and gives non-shooting non-skirmisher armies a better chance.

I think you have a good point there, but some stupid situations can happen so some additional changes might be needed. For example, longbows getting knights to fragmented and then being forced to check CMT to finish the job as it is not possible to do it other way; light foot getting heavy foot fragmented and just sitting in front of them until someone ends the job as they can't charge and the fragmented troops can't charge either. Therefore, missile armed troops and skirmishers should be allowed to charge fragmented troops anywhere.

They can still finish the job by inflicting base losses. It just takes a little longer (which IMO is probably historically correct). One could change the death roll modifier versus shooting from +2 to +1 or zero if the target is already fragmented, if it was felt necessary to speed it up.

It also gives more reason to take MF bow instead of the LF that is currently preferred.

[david53]

Yes they must be allowed to shoot them down or your slanting history how would longbows that only have longbows ask the french did they run before the arrows.

Romans against the Parthians who also had LH bow as the main weapon, sorry the Cats did'nt charge in the main battle.

Russians/poles/Hungarians against the Mongols

Of course when your shot to Frag I'd be suprised if you were'nt charged even by LH as they still get dice(mind this all might change if someone comes up with the idea of taking away their dice)

Sorry your going against history by not allowing the troops to be broken its hard enough to hit armoured foot what you suggest is to make hard troops just a lot harder.

[grahambriggs]

While I have some sympathy with this from a historical point of view (e.g. Persians destroying spartans through base losses at Thermopylae) I think it would break the balance of the game mechanisms. One of the problems with destroying something by base losses is that as BGs lose bases they become a smaller target - e.g. a line of 4 Kn approaching longbow will start off taking 6 dice of shooting. If they lose two bases they only take 3 dice. Very difficult to get that final base.

Plus, I'm not sure what problem it's fixing. Dropping to fragged is a pretty dire situation anyway - the only thing that isn't likely to charge anything fragged is LF.

[lawrenceg]

While I have some sympathy with this from a historical point of view (e.g. Persians destroying spartans through base losses at Thermopylae) I think it would break the balance of the game mechanisms. One of the problems with destroying something by base losses is that as BGs lose bases they become a smaller target - e.g. a line of 4 Kn approaching longbow will start off taking 6 dice of shooting. If they lose two bases they only take 3 dice. Very difficult to get that final base.

Shooting arc is one base to the side, so you should be able to get at least 4 dice against them, if you don't want to charge.

Plus, I'm not sure what problem it's fixing. Dropping to fragged is a pretty dire situation anyway - the only thing that isn't likely to charge anything fragged is LF.

And LF are currently too good (allegedly). But I like the idea mainly from the historical point of view.

There is a bit of a flaw in the idea in that if they can't drop from fragmented then they can always be bolstered. You might need an extra rule that if they would have dropped then they can't be bolstered, but that is probably more complexity than is justified.

[shall]

Yes but not easily if armoured.

Happened quite a bit in the east, even if not that common in the west. More bows adn less armour over there at times.

S

[Strategos69]

They can still finish the job by inflicting base losses. It just takes a little longer (which IMO is probably historically correct). One could change the death roll modifier versus shooting from +2 to +1 or zero if the target is already fragmented, if it was felt necessary to speed it up.
It also gives more reason to take MF bow instead of the LF that is currently preferred.

I think you have a good point there (basically I was arguing that some rebalance was needed). If the troops are fragmented and you inflict a couple of hits there is a certain chance that bases are lost. With the current system if the oponents are armoured you can be shooting all day long until you get something.

Note: By the way, a PoA for shooting to an enemy's rear would be nice. Receiving shots without your shiled covering you is not that nice!

[davesaunders23]

didn't know my initial post had created interest..!!

i think the idea of this post was to say that non-skirmishers should have to be reduced by death rolls and not by cohesion test step reduction.

so the victory points for skirmishers shooting are reduced.

this also reflects skirmishers being forced to evade off table for 1/2 victory points.