v2 Army Lists

[waldo]

Incan Drilled MF Protected Sling, Light Spear, Swordsmen? Sounds accurate, looks broken, looks cheap and effective, looks a little too good. In BGs of 4? Now you're talking......and dreaming.

Where did you get the BG of 4 from? Also how do the look so good. As Marty posted earlier the sling is only as good as Bw*, and nobody is rushing to buy Bw* to conquer the world with.

I agree with the bit about Vikings. They should have the chance of a BG of 2 bases MF Elite Undrilled Unprotected Hvy Wpn or Impact foot skilled sword

If "Arthur's [mythical] companions" warrant 4 bases surely the berserks should get 4?

Walter

[nikgaukroger]

I agree with the bit about Vikings. They should have the chance of a BG of 2 bases MF Elite Undrilled Unprotected Hvy Wpn or Impact foot skilled sword

Treating them as Scythed Chariots - i.e. expendable - may get a better result and avoids a cheap BG adding to break point.

[grahambriggs]

Carried over from another thread. Might be a better modelling of Roman legions?

The Roman form a shield wall (that is a continuous line of shields touching each other a bit like a greek phalanx), of which they put themself totally behind. Think like they put the shield over there head in order to offer no weak point.

Once contact is made the Romans soldier will try to maintain the shield wall and strikes from under the shield so as to never expose their head.

The main conclusion I have from this report on roman tactics are the following :
_ Cohesion is an avantage against warband. The Legion would be put on equal footing only once the shield wall is broken. So corelatively, there should be a loss to the roman legion POA when they lose cohesion.
_ Roman Legion should be nearly imprevious to Pike as it is reported in most battle as the Pike won't pass the Shield wall (though they will be push back ultimatly with very to no losses as they cannot close to the phalanx either to push with their shield) Right now The phalanx have advantage in melee which I find somewhat wrong.
_ Roman Qualify as impact foot to represent their pilum use before closing in, so I guess they should remain Impact foot.


Big shield used in formation (like Greek Phalank or Roman legion or Early Frank) have a bigger impact on tactical combat than armour (even very heavy). That why I think that it should be an item by itself. Once disorganized, the Shield Wall lose its effect.

Greek phlanx would be : Spear, Shield Wall, When Disorganized they become spear.
Roman Legion would be : Swordmen, Shield Wall, when disorganized they will just fight as swordmen which they are (that would explin why they defeat Pike in rough terrain). To even thing out, I beleive the Roman superior and elite legion should not be made swordmen plus as the gladius is not a long weapons and therefore not that much good for duel.

I think that this "bonus" should not stack with Impact foot and should only play while receiving a charge (when charging the shild wall cannot really be maitain) if this bonus is used in Impact at all (I beleive it should be used in impact though).

It's a shame that the evidence that you have is an historian's interpretation of other sources rather than a quote from an ancient source. Historian interpretation of the past changes with time. Not sure if Nik can recall any sources that would support this? Certainly roman shield shapes changed over time and some (the big rectangular ones for example) would lend themselves to this style.

It sounds like the capability you are looking for in melee is "spears". If steady, these stop the enemy sword POA. Spears are not as good as Impact foot in the impact phase though - so they would be a POA down to Gauls. Not a bad reflection of that interaction IMHO (probably better than the current one).

However, it would mess up the legion vs Pike interaction. Spear are weak against Pike. It would also, IMHO, make legions too good vs cataphracts. So if we have to have one classification, the current one is better generally.

Of course, we could have a "legion" troop type. Counts as IF/Sw against all but enemy IF, in which case they count as Offentsive Spearmen. That would require a change to one or two army lists though.

[philqw78]

count as IF/Sw against all but enemy IF, in which case they count as Offentsive Spearmen. That would require a change to one or two army lists though.

Or take the view that is being proposed now. If drilled IF lose to undrilled it is an extra - for CT.

[erricolaw]

legionarius with his gladio was very effective in battle not as duelist, skill not requestend IMO

[zocco]

I'm wondering if for armies that consistently had a high number of dismounters whether they might include dismounters in their list. This would in many cases make it cheaper to use dismounted - thereby encouraging more historical tactics. At present dismounting is not often used by these armies as the mounted troop type is so expensive.

As an example I would give the Anglo-Norman list. Anglo-Normans dismounted large numbers of their knights at a number of battles including:

Tinchebray
Bremule
Northallerton
Lincoln

It seems from these battles that at least a portion of the knights would always be dismounted. I'd suggest therefore that the option be given to buy the knights as their dismounted type (in this case Offensive, Sp, Arm, Sup rather than as mounted knights). This would encourage their use and therefore historical tactics (similar to what has been done for the HYW English army's men-at-arms).

As an aside I'd also ask if for Anglo-Normans if perhaps the option for BG's of 1/2 dimountd knights and 1/2 Bow would be considered. At Northallerton the knights and archers intermingled - to bolster the morale of the archers. In FOG this isn't possible by alternating kn/bow BG's.

Alternately if 1/2 & 1/2 is too radical a solution may I propose allowing bow to be deployed in BG's of 4 so that the alternate deployment of kn/bow BG's will be more balanced (at moment bow need to be a minimum of 6 ie a frontage of 3 bases which would leave the alternate kn/bow deployment a bit weak.

[philqw78]

I'm wondering if for armies that consistently had a high number of dismounters whether they might include dismounters in their list.

Tibetans should really be allowed this. It would decrease the cost of my mobile impassable terrain dramatically.

[irondog068]

Please pick the late Samurai list.
It hurts my head. in the later period a spear (Yari) should be option. As well as making some of those mandatory MF guys should have the option of Superior/Arm/Bw*/HW and the others Avg/Prot/Bw*/HW.

On the fence on the whole drilled/undrilled thing

[BlackPrince]

I would like some changes to the Later Crusader list to better reflect the individual Crusades the second, Third etc. The Later Crusader list works fine for the battles which were mostly Crusader only such as Hattin. Though it lacks the Character most notable for the Third, Fifth and Seventh Crusades though other Crusades can be included. From my points I made with in the player designed forum The Crusader army should be mostly European listed based rather Later Crusader. For example The Third would most be English/ French their armies were not all just defensive spearmen, crossbows and Knights it is even more obvious with Andrew I on the Fifth Crusade it was mostly Hungarian. Andrew's well-mounted army defeated sultan Al-Adil I at Bethsaida. This monarchs brought with then a lot of household and royal troops. What I would like is to add special campaigns to the later Crusader list to allow use its points to buy troops from specific European lists in the same way that in FoG-R the Imperial -Spanish army works for Nordlingen.
The third Crusade could up to 50% Early Plantagenet English and 40% Feudal French.
The Fifth Crusade could up 60% Early Hungarian.
The Seventh Crusade would be 60% Feudal French.

[spikemesq]

Small list detail of note.

The later Samurai list (Late Heian?) requires 24 bases of Bushi and Followers and allows additional detached Bushi and detached Followers as optional troops, requiring one BG of Followers for each BG of Bushi .

Currently, the detached troops do not interact with the minimums. This makes the list pretty inflexible. It seems to me that at least some of the detached Bushi /Followers should apply towards the min/max of core troops. Something like "Each stand of Detached Bushi and Detached Followers replace and satisfy the required number of Bushi and Followers stands." If the history does not support a completely detached force, the list could restrict them to "up to half the stands of Bushi/Followers may be replaced with detached Bushi and detached Followers" or could limit it in terms of BGs such that the army must include at least one BG of Bushi /Followers for each pair of detached troops.

[bahdahbum]

for byzantine NIKES

viewtopic.php?t=9647

[windpeoples]

Small list detail of note.

The later Samurai list (Late Heian?) requires 24 bases of Bushi and Followers and allows additional detached Bushi and detached Followers as optional troops, requiring one BG of Followers for each BG of Bushi .

Currently, the detached troops do not interact with the minimums. This makes the list pretty inflexible. It seems to me that at least some of the detached Bushi /Followers should apply towards the min/max of core troops. Something like "Each stand of Detached Bushi and Detached Followers replace and satisfy the required number of Bushi and Followers stands." If the history does not support a completely detached force, the list could restrict them to "up to half the stands of Bushi/Followers may be replaced with detached Bushi and detached Followers" or could limit it in terms of BGs such that the army must include at least one BG of Bushi /Followers for each pair of detached troops.

First of all, greetings.

The first time I read this, I kind of agreed. I believe the Late Heian-> Muromachi list needs a couple of tweaks. The problem with what you propose is that you already can have 4 BGs of 4x Cav Sup detached bushi in an 800-pt list, which is the maximum anyway. It makes for a low BG count, but it is doable with 24x bushi and followers stands and 24x yari-armed detached followers (plus 4x TCs and a 6x Mob conscript unit you have exactly 800 points). So, the question would be: What could you add to the army if the 24x bushi and followers stands requirement was lowered? As far as I can see, the one benefit (and it is not that small a benefit for this list) would be to increase the size of the detached followers BGs. For your proposal to have a larger impact, the total number of detached bushi stands would have to be increased from its current 16 stands.

One thing that comes to mind if the goal is to make this list a bit more resilient, would be to remove bow* from the detached followers and allow the possibility of average grading (not removing bow* would keep them exactly as the bushi and followers core troops). After all, what you are simulating is the removal of bow-armed bushi from the units, leaving the naginata and no-dachi armed followers, no?

Just a thought, and I am no expert on Samurai military history. Perhaps I should do some heavy reading.

[zocco]

I'd ask that consideration be given for Auxila archers in the Dominate and Foederate lists to be deployed as separate LF. That is, that auxilia protected or unprotected MF archers can have the option of being LF unprotected archers.

There's probably not a lot of direct evidence for this but I think the following needs to be considered.

1. Many contemporary lists (a few given below) have the option of allowing archers to deploy as either MF or LF eg;

Dacian
Early Lombard
Alammani
Palmyran
Sassanid

I doubt if there is much definitive evidence of how archers in many of these armies were deployed. Therefore contemporary Roman lists should be treated in the same manner and an LF option given.

This is an important point. Within reason similar standards of proof should apply for all armies.

2. Given references to light armed troops and of bowmen supporting javelin skirmishers in the Strategikon and LF archers being present in the Byzantine lists combined with the conservatism of Roman doctrinal development (see Rance's article of the Fulcum as an example) we have a very good case that these Byzantine practices also occurred in the preceding Dominate and Foederate periods.

3. Roman regulars being long term soldiers it is not a difficult task for them to be deployed in a range of different ways. One only has to look at modern armies to see this occur or Ammianus' contemporary account of lightly equipping auxilia for a night raid.

To put this another way if a Roman commander wished to have LF skirmishers and didn't have access to one of the few supposedly specialist LF units would he go without. Mostly likely not - he would order some Auxilia archers to be lightly equipped and do the job for him. Considering this is is an option that many other armies with lesser training have it could hardly have been a difficult task.

Putting all of the above together it seems that allowing Auxilia archers to deploy as LF is the more reasonable historical option than not.

Finally I might add that this would not result in major list changes – the Dominate list would only get 8 bases (enough for 2 small units at most) and the Foderate list up to 6 bases (ie only 1 unit).

[grahambriggs]

Incan Drilled MF Protected Sling, Light Spear, Swordsmen? Sounds accurate, looks broken, looks cheap and effective, looks a little too good. In BGs of 4? Now you're talking......and dreaming.

Where did you get the BG of 4 from? Also how do the look so good. As Marty posted earlier the sling is only as good as Bw*, and nobody is rushing to buy Bw* to conquer the world with.

I agree with the bit about Vikings. They should have the chance of a BG of 2 bases MF Elite Undrilled Unprotected Hvy Wpn or Impact foot skilled sword

If "Arthur's [mythical] companions" warrant 4 bases surely the berserks should get 4?

Walter

I had thought that the thinking re baresark/ulfendar types was that they did not form in specific beserk units but were individuals who would come out from otherwise normal units and get stuck in to the enemy, whereas the "companions" did at least act as a body (though probably too small to be a BG and maybe no different to the rest of the mounted really).

So perhaps it's a reason to make viking units in general a bit tougher.

That said, beserkers are local colour and people like that. So a BG that appeals to romantics could be good: 4 MF, undrilled unprotected, superior, impact foot sword sounds silly enough. Of course this could lead to giving Gallic elephants to reflect Obelix....

[elysiumsolutions@fsmail.n]

For Early Achaemenid Persian I have been carrying out research on the army composition (watching 300) and noticed
that the list is missing a number of troop types.

Rhinos probably best treated as scythed chariots.
elephants
naptha throwers

Also the immortals (ninjas) are probably best classified as impact foot.

[LambertSimnel]

For Early Achaemenid Persian I have been carrying out research on the army composition (watching 300) and noticed
that the list is missing a number of troop types.

Rhinos probably best treated as scythed chariots.
elephants
naptha throwers

Also the immortals (ninjas) are probably best classified as impact foot.

Also, the Early Germans had artillery that used Roman priests as ammunition. It was called a flamenwerfer.

[Lycanthropic]

Ho Ho Ho, and when Superman goes to bed he puts on pyjamas with a picture of a Ghengis Khan on the front.

[hazelbark]

Don't forget the fields of fire that spring up in ambush in the medieval Scottish Braveheart army. Probably with a compulsory MG Commandger. Mel G Commanders are worth 100 points and allow you to invent rules and yell expletives.

[Basileus]

Back in topic, would be great if the later macedonian list could deploy the same cuality cavalry that those of the other helenistic kingdoms, I mean lancer cavalry for their nobility

viewtopic.php?t=10333

[ShrubMiK]

"It would be great" from what perspective? Historical accuracy? Or because some wargamers with later Macedonian armies prefer to use lancers rather than adapt their style of play to suit the tools they have available?