Warriors

marty · Post by **marty** » Wed Dec 22, 2010 11:26 pm

I've been musing upon warrior foot in FOG R. They seem quite attractive in some ways (the shortage of foot with combat POA's means they probably stand a reasonable chance in fights with other foot, there will certainly be a lot of them and the 4" move is a bonus). They do seem to have plummeted in terms of manouvering ability once 1500 came around though. All that american drilled MF (from FOG A) is suddenly very clunky. I'm also having trouble getting my head around deploying with only LF allowed on the outer 12" of the table. After all if these guys dont know about horses how are they supposed to know they shouldn't deploy out there?

Have any of the play testers tried Aztec or Inca or anything similiar? How did they find it? From a list design point of view now that skilled swordsman has gone and the technological bar has been lifted somewhat are many American types likely to still be rated as swordsman?

Just curious,

Martin

navigator · Post by **navigator** » Thu Dec 23, 2010 7:30 pm

hi
well i have had 3 games of scots royalists using highland warriors. Obvious really but it seems to be that being average they are suseptible to cohesion tests when forced to take them. I ran the units in 8s so that shooting didnt hurt them numbers wise. If they can into combat they seem to do ok especially if they disrupt the opposition . If they dont disrupt the opponent then its pot luck... and of course against superior and elites they struggle on the dice.

The morale of the story seems to be that against cavalry they are rubbish but get them in position against foot, weather the shooting storm and they have a good chance of winning. But get shot and lose cohesion tests and they go down... also of course they are good in rough terrain so you can use the terrain to block the table, funnel the enemy, hide from horses and also jump out against foot

they are worth a try but certainly need getting used to

marshalney2000 · Post by **marshalney2000** » Thu Dec 23, 2010 10:13 pm

Amazingly enough your description in my mind pretty much matches how they would perform historically particularly in terms of their weakness against mounted etc.
John

marty · Post by **marty** » Thu Dec 23, 2010 11:57 pm

I'm just a little concerned about trying to deploy 100 (or more) stands of MF on a 30 element front. Especially given there is pretty much no hope of redeployment. I also didn't think their weakness against mounted (which the combat system captures nicely) resulted from an inability to deploy in front of them!

The initial impression I get is that warriors with bow look like a good bet. They only cost 1 point more than an unarmed warrior (or one with LS which amounts to much the same thing). They fight pretty much the same and are actually impressive in a shootout (they should beat a standard 6 element pike/shot unit in a firefight almost every time and will give any 4 element cav unit pause for thought).

I'm also a little puzzled by some of the POA's for spearman. Why do impact pistol work against spear but not pike or bayonet? I understand spearman are an outdated combat style by this time but surely a pikes ability to keep the cav a metre or so further away doesn't make you that much safer from his point blank pistol fire. The bayonet is even harder to understand (unless the combat effect is factoring in some shooting, quite hard to manage with a plug bayonet though). Still at least spearmen is a free weapon category.

looking forward to giving some low tech armies a run

Martin

timmy1 · Post by **timmy1** » Fri Dec 24, 2010 8:41 am

Martin

I suspect that Impact Pistol againt Spear is a deliberate design decision to prevent an outdated weapon (spear) having an effect greater than it did in the period. I don't know enough about warfare in North Africa to be sure but I can't recall any major (or even medium sized) battle where troops that FoG:R would classify as spear fought against Impact Pistol.

puster · Post by **puster** » Fri Dec 24, 2010 9:06 am

timmy1 wrote:I suspect that Impact Pistol againt Spear is a deliberate design decision to prevent an outdated weapon (spear) having an effect greater than it did in the period.

This.
Just imagine that it reflects that units still fighting with spears are far less used to a battle environment using handguns or pistols, and so this models the psychological effect that impact pistols have on this kind of troops.

rbodleyscott · Post by **rbodleyscott** » Fri Dec 24, 2010 9:49 am

marty wrote:I'm just a little concerned about trying to deploy 100 (or more) stands of MF on a 30 element front. Especially given there is pretty much no hope of redeployment. I also didn't think their weakness against mounted (which the combat system captures nicely) resulted from an inability to deploy in front of them!

And yet it is a fairly safe bet that, historically, mounted would be able to outflank them. However wide the foot deployed, the cavalry would always be able to move out wider, provided that terrain did not protect the flank. The table edge is not terrain and should not be able to protect the flank of infantry from cavalry.

The deployment rules deliberately stop massive foot armies from deploying table edge to table edge, so that they only way to outflank them is to send an off-table flank march - which is quite likely not to arrive in time.

marty · Post by **marty** » Sat Dec 25, 2010 9:01 am

mmmm..

All true I suppose but I have always preferred "encouragement" within the rules to behave historically (ie make it ineffective to operate with foot on the flanks) rather than it been mandated.

In the FOG R context with Pike/Shot so effective against even the best mounted I can understand this been a more necessary step. Bit tough on the armies that have little hope of stopping mounted frontally though!

I hope this is not a change been considered for FOG A version 2, but that is a discussion for another forum.

Martin

mbsparta · Post by **mbsparta** » Sat Dec 25, 2010 6:13 pm

MY concern with warriors have been how effective they have been as missile troops, not really the role I think we want highlanders to have. Unless we are doing something wrong, they seem too good at shooting. Our Scots Royalist player tends to use them in that role rather than as shock troops.

Mike b

timmy1 · Post by **timmy1** » Sat Dec 25, 2010 6:15 pm

Mike

My reading is that during the period they often WERE bowmen. IIRC Reid quotes them being used as such. I will see if I can find a reference in his book on Montrose.

marshalney2000 · Post by **marshalney2000** » Sat Dec 25, 2010 9:58 pm

I must admit I do not find them too effective at shooting. The highlanders were a bit of mixed bag being a combination of the chief, his relatives and his tacks men in the front rank with the humbles filling out the ranks behind. The front ranks from medieval times would have had bow but this would gradually be replaced by muskets, pistols etc. The humblies would be less well armed even to the extent of just a dirk or agricultural weapon. It is for this reason that the choice of bow or musket exists with this being a star due to the fact that not everyone would have a missile weapon. This would run through as far as the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745/1746. Hopefully this explains the classifications I agreed with Nik for the Scots armies from Flodden right through to the 1689 list which has still to be published.
Hope this helps.
John