Knights, cavalry and light horse

[j_e_bohn]

Last night we had our second game. It was Later Hungarians vs. Ottoman Turks. We wanted to test the behaviour of superior bow armed cavalry against elite knights.
The elite troops behaved very well and felt like real elite. I had a general with them and beeing able to even reroll 3s was very comfortable. Also no complaints about the cavalry. They shot the knights to disrupted and fragmented while evading the charges. Due to the lack of space in one situation a BG of cavalry was not able to avoid the impact of the knights and crumbled away.
Though this was what we expected another effect occured in this fight: Due to good luck in the melee the cavalry only lost with a hit difference of one dice. But in succession they had to make a CT and failed and they had their death throw and failed it also. The knights on the other hand didn't have to test and due to winning the melee they passed their death throw on the plus 2. Everything alright with the outcome but in the beginning it was only one hit difference and altogether it seems to be a lot of luck in this process.
Maybe a plus 1 for winning a melee would be sufficient for the death throw.
The next thing on this melee was: Why couldn't the faster cavalry make a break off move away from the threatening knights? It is only allowed to break off from steady foot.
I think it would be a good idea to allow faster mounted troops to make a break off move from slower mounted troops.
That is a good transition to the very fast moving mounted troops: For obvious reasons we had a lot of Light Horse on the table. My brave Szekelers which cost 13 points per base tried to threaten some of the Timariots of the Turks which are also at 13 per base. They met at 4 MU and the Szekeler were shot to pieces without a possibility of even hurting the Turks in any way. They could evade without any problems but every time they came near they dropped one cohesion level beacause of the cavalry shooting. On that score the Light Horse couldn't stop the cavalry.
But the point is: What do you do to avoid being shot at? You move fast in a dispersed formation! That is what light troops do. Running around in front of the enemy and incurring the fire without being hurt too much.
My suggestion on this would be a POA of minus 1 for shooting against light troops.

Greetings,

Juergen

[shall]

Thanks for the ideas Juergen,

Some thoughts below based on all the test games I ahve now seen/played. See what you think.

Last night we had our second game. It was Later Hungarians vs. Ottoman Turks. We wanted to test the behaviour of superior bow armed cavalry against elite knights.
The elite troops behaved very well and felt like real elite. I had a general with them and beeing able to even reroll 3s was very comfortable. Also no complaints about the cavalry. They shot the knights to disrupted and fragmented while evading the charges. Due to the lack of space in one situation a BG of cavalry was not able to avoid the impact of the knights and crumbled away.
Though this was what we expected another effect occured in this fight: Due to good luck in the melee the cavalry only lost with a hit difference of one dice. But in succession they had to make a CT and failed and they had their death throw and failed it also. The knights on the other hand didn't have to test and due to winning the melee they passed their death throw on the plus 2. Everything alright with the outcome but in the beginning it was only one hit difference and altogether it seems to be a lot of luck in this process.
Maybe a plus 1 for winning a melee would be sufficient for the death throw.

The rule mechanisms work very closely together to determine whether you win or lose and then test. Losing 1-0 is no different than 4-3. As the rules run off the odds of lowing a winner or loser the primary %ge we need to control is this one. So losing by 1 is a loss that forces a test. Moving to -1 on the Death Roll will result in lots of winning battlegroups getting destroyed in the fight due to being small in size - your 4 BG knights for isntance will often suffer 3+ hits while winning if in a melee with 8 dice each. We could do it but it would leave many of the winning BGs battered and therefore not much use. This might take the fun out of the game as finishing someone off is part of the challenge.

I think it would be a good idea to allow faster mounted troops to make a break off move from slower mounted troops.
That is a good transition to the very fast moving mounted troops: For obvious reasons we had a lot of Light Horse on the table. My brave Szekelers which cost 13 points per base tried to threaten some of the Timariots of the Turks which are also at 13 per base. They met at 4 MU and the Szekeler were shot to pieces without a possibility of even hurting the Turks in any way. They could evade without any problems but every time they came near they dropped one cohesion level beacause of the cavalry shooting. On that score the Light Horse couldn't stop the cavalry.
But the point is: What do you do to avoid being shot at? You move fast in a dispersed formation! That is what light troops do. Running around in front of the enemy and incurring the fire without being hurt too much.
My suggestion on this would be a POA of minus 1 for shooting against light troops.

I guess you need to accept you were just keeping them busy or stop them wth something more suitable. Sup Lancers are good at it in single rank. As for breaking off I didn't see where that came in really. I'll add it to the discussion list. Don't you just turn 180 and run away so you are out of range?

Si

[hammy]

Why couldn't the faster cavalry make a break off move away from the threatening knights? It is only allowed to break off from steady foot. I think it would be a good idea to allow faster mounted troops to make a break off move from slower mounted troops. That is a good transition to the very fast moving mounted troops

I felt the same initially but after a number of games I realised that the way that AoW works is very different to DBM. In DBM when bases are touching a lot of the time this is representing close range missile fire not actuall melee. If I was a light horseman in hand to hand combat with knights I wouldn't fancy my chances of turnig around and running away without being cut down.

One thing that was very noticable in the Usk competition was players using DBM processes to play AoW. Things like charging elephants with light foot and expecting to have a chance of winning. In AoW skirmishers really need to skirmish and use their missiles against nasty things like elephants. If you do that youy can beat them much like you can in DBM. It is just the on table interraction is more like the real one rather than being abstracted in DBM style.

My brave Szekelers which cost 13 points per base tried to threaten some of the Timariots of the Turks which are also at 13 per base. They met at 4 MU and the Szekeler were shot to pieces without a possibility of even hurting the Turks in any way. They could evade without any problems but every time they came near they dropped one cohesion level beacause of the cavalry shooting. On that score the Light Horse couldn't stop the cavalry.
But the point is: What do you do to avoid being shot at? You move fast in a dispersed formation! That is what light troops do. Running around in front of the enemy and incurring the fire without being hurt too much.
My suggestion on this would be a POA of minus 1 for shooting against light troops.

I am a bit confused here. Szeklers should be equal to Turk cavalry in a shooting contest. If the Turks draw up in two ranks they will get more dice but be more vulnerable to the Szekler fire. The Szeklers can draw up 2 deep and still not offer a POA to the Turks as the POA modifiers for shooting at cavalry are all for shooting at cavalry not mounted so light horse are only ever shot at at evens by bow and - by crossbow.

I think from what you are describing that either you had missread a part of the shooting rules, the Szekler were badly outnumbered, the Turks rolled very well or a combination of these.

Yours

Hammy

[rbodleyscott]

My suggestion on this would be a POA of minus 1 for shooting against light troops.

This is already factored into the POAs.

If the (Unprotected) light horse were Unprotected cavalry in 2 ranks the enemy would have ++ against them. Because they are light horse (skirmishers), this POA is reduced to 0 whatever formation they are in. One rank deep cavalry are also assumed to be skirmishing, so also reduce the enemy shooting POA to 0.

[j_e_bohn]

The rule mechanisms work very closely together to determine whether you win or lose and then test. Losing 1-0 is no different than 4-3. As the rules run off the odds of lowing a winner or loser the primary %ge we need to control is this one. So losing by 1 is a loss that forces a test. Moving to -1 on the Death Roll will result in lots of winning battlegroups getting destroyed in the fight due to being small in size - your 4 BG knights for isntance will often suffer 3+ hits while winning if in a melee with 8 dice each. We could do it but it would leave many of the winning BGs battered and therefore not much use. This might take the fun out of the game as finishing someone off is part of the challenge.

Yes, that is right. It is not easy to change anything in this process as in a fight between two groups of skirmishers two ranks deep there may be only two dice per BG. In this case one hit difference is a lot. But when you have two BG of equal quality and for example a strength of 8 bases the difference of one dice seems to be a bit few.

I guess you need to accept you were just keeping them busy or stop them wth something more suitable. Sup Lancers are good at it in single rank. As for breaking off I didn't see where that came in really. I'll add it to the discussion list. Don't you just turn 180 and run away so you are out of range?

What could be more suitable to hold them away then my top-notch skirmishers? I didn't want to charge them I only wanted to borrow time to win at another place on the battlefield.

This is already factored into the POAs.

If the (Unprotected) light horse were Unprotected cavalry in 2 ranks the enemy would have ++ against them. Because they are light horse (skirmishers), this POA is reduced to 0 whatever formation they are in. One rank deep cavalry are also assumed to be skirmishing, so also reduce the enemy shooting POA to 0.

Hm,maybe I'm wrong but a BG of 4 Turks against a BG of 4 Szekelers cost the same and lined up the Turks shoot with double dice?

Greetings,

Juergen

[hammy]

Yes, that is right. It is not easy to change anything in this process as in a fight between two groups of skirmishers two ranks deep there may be only two dice per BG. In this case one hit difference is a lot. But when you have two BG of equal quality and for example a strength of 8 bases the difference of one dice seems to be a bit few.

Skirmishers fighting other skirmishers do not get half dice. Four bases of light horse in a 2 by 2 formation would get 4 dice at impact against skirmishers and 4 in melee. If they are fighting non skirmishers then they will only get 2 dice.

I guess you need to accept you were just keeping them busy or stop them wth something more suitable. Sup Lancers are good at it in single rank. As for breaking off I didn't see where that came in really. I'll add it to the discussion list. Don't you just turn 180 and run away so you are out of range?

What could be more suitable to hold them away then my top-notch skirmishers? I didn't want to charge them I only wanted to borrow time to win at another place on the battlefield.

Yes but your skirmishers should engage with missiles and evade if charged. Even a flank charge by a BG of skirmishers on a BG of knights is a risky proposition unless the knights are being engaged frontally by non skirmishers or the missile fire of the skirmishers has disrupted or better still fragmented the knights.

This is already factored into the POAs.

If the (Unprotected) light horse were Unprotected cavalry in 2 ranks the enemy would have ++ against them. Because they are light horse (skirmishers), this POA is reduced to 0 whatever formation they are in. One rank deep cavalry are also assumed to be skirmishing, so also reduce the enemy shooting POA to 0.

Hm,maybe I'm wrong but a BG of 4 Turks against a BG of 4 Szekelers cost the same and lined up the Turks shoot with double dice?

If the Szeklers allow the Turks to fight in single rank and get all of their bases shooting then yes the Szeklers will be dissadvantaged. If you are on the same frontage (i.e. the Turks are 2 deep) then the turks would have 3 dice needing 4's and the Szeklers 2 dice needing 2's.

If the Turks are in a longer single rank then you need to pick on one end to restrict their fire or to support your Szeklers with some other troops to either absorb some of the missiles or better still add to the shooting on the Turks.

In order to get the advantage of shooting at 1 die per base the Turks loose the ability to fall back before advancing enemy which can be a real problem.

Hammy

[hammy]

It has also just struck me that if you want your Szeklers to fight and shoot like Turks you can always choose to field them as Cavalry when you select your army (granted this will require rebasing) and then you are exactly the same complete with the inability to move as fast as light horse or to make the more fancy maneuvers.

Swings and roundabouts IMO

[j_e_bohn]

It has also just struck me that if you want your Szeklers to fight and shoot like Turks you can always choose to field them as Cavalry when you select your army (granted this will require rebasing) and then you are exactly the same complete with the inability to move as fast as light horse or to make the more fancy maneuvers.

Swings and roundabouts IMO

Oh, I already made up a new armylist for my Later Hungarians and guess what the Szekelers are!

I think they will be very useful for this army as cavalry. And when I need a BG for a little shooting and evading I will take some hungarian light horse with me. They are a lot cheaper!

Anyway as I omitted it in my last post: A big "well done" to all who worked on version 5.01. It is a great step forward!

Greetings,

Juergen

[rbodleyscott]

I think they will be very useful for this army as cavalry. And when I need a BG for a little shooting and evading I will take some hungarian light horse with me. They are a lot cheaper

That was my thought. While Superior Szeklers might make Rolls-Royce skirmishers they are a bit too expensive to be generally cost-effective in this role. Better to use them as Protected cavalry - although they are then Bow* so will still be outshot by Turks, they have Light Spear to give them an advantage against the Turks in the Impact phase.

[hammy]

I think they will be very useful for this army as cavalry. And when I need a BG for a little shooting and evading I will take some hungarian light horse with me. They are a lot cheaper

That was my thought. While Superior Szeklers might make Rolls-Royce skirmishers they are a bit too expensive to be generally cost-effective in this role. Better to use them as Protected cavalry - although they are then Bow* so will still be outshot by Turks, they have Light Spear to give them an advantage against the Turks in the Impact phase.

I am not so sure, Szeklers are absolutely lethal to enemy skirmishers, they will have one or more POA's against almost any other skirmishers. If you want to deal death to enemy light foot or horse archers these are your boys. As cavalry they are OK but I think that not having them as light horse is possibly missing a trick.

Hammy

[rbodleyscott]

I think they will be very useful for this army as cavalry. And when I need a BG for a little shooting and evading I will take some hungarian light horse with me. They are a lot cheaper

That was my thought. While Superior Szeklers might make Rolls-Royce skirmishers they are a bit too expensive to be generally cost-effective in this role. Better to use them as Protected cavalry - although they are then Bow* so will still be outshot by Turks, they have Light Spear to give them an advantage against the Turks in the Impact phase.

I am not so sure, Szeklers are absolutely lethal to enemy skirmishers, they will have one or more POA's against almost any other skirmishers. If you want to deal death to enemy light foot or horse archers these are your boys. As cavalry they are OK but I think that not having them as light horse is possibly missing a trick.

Hammy

Excellent, so the jury remains out. Plenty of options, plenty of decisions to be made, no obvious best buys. That is how we like it.

[jre]

A tactical comment as well. Projectile Cavalry is powerful because it is the hardest troop to stop with skirmishers, as they are its natural prey. So putting light horse against its natural enemy is quite dangerous because in a one on one fight they will outshoot you and unless underequipped will outfight you as well.

Think historically (or check the tables). Use combined light foot and heavy foot (so the LF can evade behind the HF). Or massed foot missiles. Or melee cavalry. But each of them will also be vulnerable to something else.

Jos?©

[j_e_bohn]

Better to use them as Protected cavalry - although they are then Bow* so will still be outshot by Turks, they have Light Spear to give them an advantage against the Turks in the Impact phase.

Maybe I have an old version of the army list (Version 1.09) but in my copy they are rated as Bow.

Juergen

[rbodleyscott]

Better to use them as Protected cavalry - although they are then Bow* so will still be outshot by Turks, they have Light Spear to give them an advantage against the Turks in the Impact phase.

Maybe I have an old version of the army list (Version 1.09) but in my copy they are rated as Bow.

Juergen

You are right. Correct classification was uncertain so we allowed for more than one interpretation.

As cavalry, they can be Bow, Swordsmen or Bow*,Light Spear,Swordsmen, depending on your chosen interpretation of their primary role.

(We don't ever allow Bow, Lancers, Swordsmen or Bow,Light Spear, Swordsmen)

[jre]

Those heady times (early versions) when Sarmatian cavalry were the real Hell's Angels...

Jos?©

[bddbrown]

Better to use them as Protected cavalry - although they are then Bow* so will still be outshot by Turks, they have Light Spear to give them an advantage against the Turks in the Impact phase.

Maybe I have an old version of the army list (Version 1.09) but in my copy they are rated as Bow.

Juergen

You are right. Correct classification was uncertain so we allowed for more than one interpretation.

As cavalry, they can be Bow, Swordsmen or Bow*,Light Spear,Swordsmen, depending on your chosen interpretation of their primary role.

(We don't ever allow Bow, Lancers, Swordsmen or Bow,Light Spear, Swordsmen)

Grumble, grumble.