Deeper Deployment

[philqw78]

Kevin Donovan originally posted this in the V2 thread. I thought it deserved its own. The general idea was to get slow moving armies to grips with each other faster. But I tought why not add a little bit of a gamble and allow some sort of deeper deployment for all. Anyway here are the 2 original posts next:-

[philqw78]

When there are light horse and cavalry armies present the deployment distances work well and give the armies the space required for mobile battles to develop. However it seems to me that the deployment distances are too far apart when both forces are infantry, knight or combined arms armies leading to the main clash being delay unnecessarily. I would like to see all players allowed to deploy 5 MUs further in (except for ambushes) when neither force has more than 24 bases of non-general light horse, cavalry, light chariots or camelry. A player would not be required to deploy in the extra depth and I could see one of them opting to hang back a bit while the other deployed forward to try and achieve an earlier result. Such a change would allow infantry, combined arms and medieval armies to get to grips with each other about 1-3 turns quicker allowing for fewer draws in time limited games. I think it is even historically justifiable in that light horse and cavalry armies tended to retire quite a long way from the enemy at night to avoid being surprised by a night attack (foraging horses are very vulnerable to this). But the main benefit is game-related: a deployment scheme based on army composition would yield more decisive games in most cases while not disadvantaging the horse armies that need the room to maneuver and skirmish-delay. (Whether 24 is the optimal number of LH/Cv/LCH/Cam bases to split the armies I leave as an exercise of the reader - I just picked it as it is the number used in the deployment rules.)

[philqw78]

Why not allow all troops the opportunity to force march. If they do so they may deploy 6 MU further forwards, but take a CT at deployment. BG that force march must be deployed before any others in the army, but still in normal order of march.

A bit of risk and excitement. A bit further forwards. No rear support or generals to add to the CT. Not too risky if you are a huge block of foot. But a single BG of skirmishers could find itself disrupted at deployment, shot to fragmented in the first turn then routed in the next.

Here you could also get the gamble of who would be first to bottle out of forced marching can you afford to not do it if your enemy does. Will you have the bottle to carry out your plan if one of them goes disrupted.

[marty]

probably not worth it for 6" further in. Now if you could go to the 1/2 way line it would be worth considering. It would add to the excitement to (less chance to bolster). I still think on balance I favour just making HF move 4" though.

Martin

[philqw78]

Perhaps to 20MU in. To the half way line would cause problems with ambush visibility.

[MatthewP]

I would be more in favour of narrower tables i.e 3' deep rather than 4'deep and not changing the rules.

[Strategos69]

I would be more in favour of narrower tables i.e 3' deep rather than 4'deep and not changing the rules.

Yes, I have always played in one meter by one and a half and I have never felt some of the problems reported here (true that I have never played against cavalry skirmishers). There should be a table chart to advice players in which surface to play depending on the size of the battle.

In the other hand, rules for forced marches can be fun. I would limit them to the quality of the CiC to make them count more. For example, IC 4, FC 2, TC none. The more options, the better, in my opinion.

[rpayne]

I think the forced march idea is neat, but is it historically accurate?

What are our battles supposed to actually represent? Are the armies camped out the night before and fighting each other in the morning, or are they meeting in the middle after a long days march? Would forced marching occur before or after the initiative roll? Would they perhaps be part of the initiative roll? Would the entire army be forced marching or just part of it?


Personally, I feel like a much larger percentage of what decided ancients battles occured in the few days before the actual fighting, and that's something the current rules do not portray (for obvious reasons, we want to move our figs around), so I am generally in favor of anything that makes the pre-battle sequence more complex and thought intensive.

I'm not sure I have a solution, but I do think Kevin's proposal is legitimate. I recall a game I watched at the US Team Tournament where a certain Chicago player kept his Nubians just over 6" on the board and didn't move the entire game while a Lydian hoplite line took the first half of the round just to trudge over to him.

[philqw78]

This is how I would write the rule.

P146; left hand column; final paragraph

Other than when deployed in ambush

add or forced marched

, skirmishers can be....

Right hand column just after

...in which they have no movement allowance.

New paragraph

BG that force marched may be deployed up to 20MU from their own sides base edge subject to the following rules

1. When deployed no friendly BG is closer to their rear table edge than they are
2. They immediately take a cohesion test once placed on table.
and back to normal

The deployment sequence is as follows..

Pretty simple. But basically troops must force march in order of march, as they would arriving on the battlefield. If your first BG does not Force March none can. After one doesn't no more can. Unless behind a line of skirmishers (but this would only allow upto 15MU forwards) when no other none force marched battle troops have yet been deployed.
Big gamlbles and big rewards. Lots to think about.

I think theproblem with Kevins idea is if one person does not want to play he will not play. He will still sit in the corner

[rpayne]

I wonder if people would start using this rule with Heavy Artillery to start 20 MU on and begin the game shooting 3 MU's away from the enemies deployment zone. Perhaps Artillery should be exempt.

Further, this rule would allow LH to be placed 20 MU's on, and with the first turn immediately move 1 MU away from the enemies deployment zone. They would barely start outside charge distance of enemy force marched LH.

This all seems rather complicated, when the true solution may just be for players to not be douchebags and unnecessarily slow down games.

[gozerius]

I think theproblem with Kevins idea is if one person does not want to play he will not play. He will still sit in the corner

That's called passive-aggressive.
You are thinking tournament mentality. "If something hinders a quick and decisive outcome it is bad." This is an artificial constuct. One could easily say that a person that refuses to advance to contact against a defensive deployment is not interested in playing.

[philqw78]

This all seems rather complicated, when the true solution may just be for players to not be douchebags and unnecessarily slow down games.

But as we all know some players are. Also if its HF against LH they can't go much faster. And yes LH would only be 1MU outside charge reach of enemy forced marchers. We play 650pts on 3 foot tables. They start within charge reach then for no detriment to the game.

And three word plus three lines is hardly complex amongst 200'ish pages.

[zocco]

After reading this thread I'm not sure what solution I'd plump for although to be quite honest I was going to post asking for HF to have an increased move to 4MU in open terrain.

Having said that I think one thing we can all agree on is that something does definitely need to be done to give slower armies (HF in particular) a chance to get at the enemy quicker than is now the case.

But can anyone out there get the attention of RBS

[petedalby]

Having said that I think one thing we can all agree on is that something does definitely need to be done to give slower armies (HF in particular) a chance to get at the enemy quicker than is now the case.

No reason why this can't happen now - just play on smaller table - 4' by 3' would make for a significantly different game.

25MM players typically use 650 AP on a 6' x 4' table and there's always plenty of HF in evidence.

[MatthewP]

and there's always plenty of HF in evidence.

Even at these events HF is still scarce.

[petedalby]

Even at these events HF is still scarce.

A quick look back at the 25MM armies taken to The Challenge, Britcon & Roll Call would suggest a good showing of HF armies?

[MatthewP]

A quick look back at the 25MM armies taken to The Challenge, Britcon & Roll Call would suggest a good showing of HF armies?

Oops yes. Didnt see the 25mm bit. i was thinking of 15mm on a 5' by 3'.

[rpayne]

This all seems rather complicated, when the true solution may just be for players to not be douchebags and unnecessarily slow down games.

But as we all know some players are. Also if its HF against LH they can't go much faster. And yes LH would only be 1MU outside charge reach of enemy forced marchers. We play 650pts on 3 foot tables. They start within charge reach then for no detriment to the game.

And three word plus three lines is hardly complex amongst 200'ish pages.

How about something like this. Feels simpler to me, may not be. I'm not sure I like the 20 MU's idea, but lets run with it since it is just a number:

An army may forced march up to 3 battlegroups.

BGs that are Forced Marched are placed up to 20 MU's on the board at the same time as BGs in Ambush.

The remaining BGs are adjusted into quarters in the same way they were previously.

Forced Marched BGs take a cohesion test at the start of the game.



Effects:
Now not only are the BGs taking CTs for doing this, they are also placed with ambushers, thereby adjusting your quarters and screwing up your ability to outdeploy the enemy. The end result of this may be that people would not do this unless they feel they must in order to force a result.

No complicated "is this BG behind that BG etc" stuff like in Phil's proposal.

It's worth noting that for both ideas it would be easier to forced march with an FC or an IC, since the generals can still only be placed 15", thereby meaning it is very easy for an IC to cover all the forced marchers with his +2 for their cohesion test, but very hard to cover 3 forced marching BGs with one general.

Still not sure I like the idea. But it is interesting.

[ethan]

You could have a dynamic table size actually.

Do set-up (inc terrain) as it is now. Then something like the following:

- if total LH+Cv (both armies) is > 32 play on a 4x6 table
- if total is 16 to 32 play on a 3.5x5.5 simply count the 3" in from each back edge and 3" in from each side edge as unplayble
- if total is 4 to 15 play on a 3.5x5 table
- if total less than 4 play on a 3x5

obviously all numbers can be adjusted and other troop types considered in the calculation. If you want to make the system a bit more blind just give a generic "scouting points" type number for each army that is totaled. I would probably pair this with some reduction in the ability of costs/rivers to narrow the table further.

Other possibilities would be to give some advantage back to the "cavalry" player in this system by letting them pick the "window" on the table that you actually play on. So if you have a 3.5x5.5 table the more mobile side could pick any 3.5x5.5 "window" on the table to fight the actual game in.

[Polkovnik]

A quick look back at the 25MM armies taken to The Challenge, Britcon & Roll Call would suggest a good showing of HF armies?

Oops yes. Didnt see the 25mm bit. i was thinking of 15mm on a 5' by 3'.

The problem with the 5' by 3' format used at some tournaments is there can be significantly more terrain than on the normal 6' by 4' set up, so even though the armies start closer together it still doesn't encourage HF armies. If large pieces could not be taken as cumpulsory (and each player has 2-3 choices) this would bring the maximum amount of terrain each player could put down in line with the format in the rulebook.