Clash of Empires

[DanielS]

Once the Swedish cavalry started wearing armour and learned to stand up to the charge the combat reports change. At Dirschau 1627 even eyewitnesses on the Polish side like Chemnitz reported how badly the lances did against armour and at Treiden in Livonia Fieldmarshal Horn noted with pride how a Finnish squadron overran Lithuanian husars even though these broke every lance as they charged home.

I don't know what your view is on this but I had understood that the Swedes beat the husars when they started attaching commanded shot to the Swedish horse. That would be reflected in FOG:R where commanded shot will give the Swedes the edge (Timmy1 might like to make a note this!)

Commanded shot certainly played a part in some successfull engagements but others were won without them. The Swedes certainly would have liked to fight with supporting musketry most of the time but for various reasons that was not possible. Improving the performance vs the husars was due to a number of factors, improved armour, better training and morale, new fighting techniques (Gustavus may have borrowed a page from Basta and had his men focus on killing the horse rather than the armoured husar) and improved tactics (commanded shot, multiple supporting lines and so on). This of course took time and Swedish improvement was by no means an instant thing, did the Swedes achive anything like a absolute superiority. What you ended up with was two battle hardend armies with both strong and weak points, with oustanding commanders in chief. Victory went to the side which made the fewest mistakes and had the favour of fickel Fortune.

[DanielS]

Though I can't see why the hussars should be at a POA disadvantage vs pistols in melee.

If drawing pistols, according to Daniels post, put the user at a distadvantage in melee, why would they get higher POA's in FOGR?

Because the pistolier unit fights in a diffrent manner from the lancer unit. In a company of lancers the same men are trying to use several diffrent weapons almost at the same time, you have a few ranks who first charge home with the lance, and then have to discard both broken and unbroken lances to use swords or pistols. In a pistol armed unit you have a large number of ranks who perform diffrent tasks, the front rank and possibly the second rank fire the "impact" shots to create a breach in the enemy formation. The rear ranks (4 or more) exploit these gaps as the unit crashes into enemy with pistols held ready for that purpose before they switch to swords as well.
In a melee the pistol was a very dangerous weapon because it not only penetrated armour far better than any sword but the wounds it made were often worse, on the other hand just about all plate armour was sword proof, it is when armour was increasingly discarded that the sword came into it's full right as a cavalry weapon.

[VictorJ]

Though I can't see why the hussars should be at a POA disadvantage vs pistols in melee.

If drawing pistols, according to Daniels post, put the user at a distadvantage in melee, why would they get higher POA's in FOGR?

Because the pistolier unit fights in a diffrent manner from the lancer unit. In a company of lancers the same men are trying to use several diffrent weapons almost at the same time, you have a few ranks who first charge home with the lance, and then have to discard both broken and unbroken lances to use swords or pistols. In a pistol armed unit you have a large number of ranks who perform diffrent tasks, the front rank and possibly the second rank fire the "impact" shots to create a breach in the enemy formation. The rear ranks (4 or more) exploit these gaps as the unit crashes into enemy with pistols held ready for that purpose before they switch to swords as well.
In a melee the pistol was a very dangerous weapon because it not only penetrated armour far better than any sword but the wounds it made were often worse, on the other hand just about all plate armour was sword proof, it is when armour was increasingly discarded that the sword came into it's full right as a cavalry weapon.

Though this behaviour of deeper ranked horse vs shallow ranked horse is currently outside the scope of the rules, as in FOGR there would usually be 4 base BGS, 2 bases wide and deep facing each other.

With armour piercing, this may be one reason why hussars did carry pistols (though not allowed to use them in FOGR). I also thought that many cavalry did carry longer and heavier swords, that were more effective against armour aswell. However, in FOGR both these seem to be outside the scope as currently, in the melee POAs, armour is still proof against pistols, and the definition of heavy weapon does not extend into certain cavalry swords.

I also note that there are some cavalry types allowed the use of a lance type weapon in impact phase and pistol in melee, such as Transylvanian Boyars, so there seems to be some inconsistency if hussars are not allowed to use them aswell.

Anyway, I haven't received my copy of Clash of Empires as yet, so I don't know how they really perform in the game.

[timmy1]

Victor, I don't have CoE either (yet) but from what I have seen so far I think Polish Hussar battlefield behaviour is being modelled differently to that of Transylvanian Boyars. Given the top down approach and modelling for effect seen do far in the FoG series), the predominant weapon type in each phase is what is represented. If the Hussars are modelled the same as in the final Beta test competition I played in at Britcon 2010, they will be better at impact than Transylvanian Boyars but the melee could go either way as who is up depends (in part) upon who is disrupted and who is not. Having a pistol but being troops who mainly used sword is likely to see them modelled as swordsmen (in my opinion correctly).

[rbodleyscott]

Don't get too hung up on weaponry. FOGR is a top-down set of rules and models the overall effect, not the weaponry. Especially as it is possible for troops equipped exactly the same to be modelled with different capabilities depending on their tactical doctrines and actual historical battlefield behaviour/effect.

In short, the overall effect is what we are aiming for, not the nuts and bolts.

So don't judge until you have seen the overall effect in practice.

Moreover, it is not true that the depth of the formation is beyond the scope of FOGR - in fact it is explicitly modelled by the rules. Polish Hussars (being graded as "Determined Horse") only fight with their front rank bases, so that although there is nothing to stop you deploying them 2 bases deep, they actually only need to be 1 base deep, because they only fight 1 base deep, counting 2 dice per front rank base in Impact and Melee. "Horse", by contrast, need to be 2 bases deep because (in melee) they only get 1 dice per base in the first 2 ranks.

(If Determined Horse are deployed 2 bases deep, the rear rank bases should be regarded as reserve squadrons, some distance to the rear, whereas 2 base deep Horse really do represent deep formations, and need to be in that formation to get their full combat dice).

[VictorJ]

Fair enough, I'm looking forward to some FOGR gaming!

[timmy1]

Hurrah - Amazon UK has today confirmed my copy of CoE is on the way. You can now all look forwards to next week being regally entertained by my nickpicking of those lists as well. :)

[Maniakes]

Hurrah - Amazon UK has today confirmed my copy of CoE is on the way. You can now all look forwards to next week being regally entertained by my nickpicking of those lists as well.

That should be nitpicking

[Blathergut]

I think he meant nickpicking!!!!

[rbodleyscott]

I think he meant nickpicking!!!!

In which case, it should be nikpicking.

See, we can all do it.

Except that Timmy does it so much

.... more.

[timmy1]

I stick my hand up. Mia Culpa.

[bertalucci]

I stick my hand up. Mia Culpa.

I hope Mia dosent mind!

[Blathergut]

I stick my hand up. Mia Culpa.

I hope Mia dosent mind!

I bet she's thankful for punctuation.

[nikgaukroger]

I stick my hand up. Mia Culpa.

I hope Mia dosent mind!

I bet she's thankful for punctuation.

Or not ...