Notes/Comments from Latest Game

[markm]

On Monday we played 25mm Thematic Byzantine vs Carthaginians at 650ppts. The following notes are after a thorough re-read of the rules (5.01). If some of these have been discussed before, apologies.

p17. General movement rules, last bullet point - uses the word 'general' but commander used elsewhere - suggest one or the other to be consistent.

p18. 1st bullet after chart - troops in column get +1MU in any terrain which would slow them .. Does this mean that they do NOT get +1 MU in the open? And should it mean that?

p.21 description of Advances in table starting 'If the BG ...' - could do with rewording to clarify
p21. last entry in table under 2nd moves - word 'unit' is used rather than BG - now I would prefer unit throughout but I assume that it should be BG?

p.23 Turning 180 degrees. Last sentence. A BG of 4 bases in 3 wide with the extra base as a second rank (from contracting to avoid friends), and facing my table edge after evading. If they reform or turn 180 degrees is the new front rank of 3 level with the rear of the single base, or do the 3 bases simply turn around on the spot and the 4th base 'nip' round the back. This latter effectively increasing the distance from the enemy?

p.24 Charging. Can you declare a charge against a unit which is not in LOS but within charge range? I can see nothing here to prevent it. Also noted on p25. bullet point 3.

p.28 Missile armed foot - bullet point. Should the list include sling?

p.34 last line ' .. and expand them on the side of the battle group.' I think the word 'other' may be missing here before 'side'?

p.36 4th bullet point. '.. must move immediately (in any phase or turn)' - should be bound for consistency?

p.40 second last para., last line. 'Everyone shoots at them at ++'. Except, Crossbow, firearm or artillery?

p.52 Supporting shooting, 3rd line. 'This is effect is ..' Suggest removing 'is effect'?
Last para same section. 'Roll dice for supporting shooters as the same time', should be 'at'.

p.56. Cohesion Levels, end of 2nd para. 'and also go back up through rallying by generals' - should this be bolstering?

p.58 first bullet point. 'If there are multiple routs or lost generals .. ' would an 'and/or' be better?

p.64 Appendix 1, last bullet point. 'Command Bases..' Can't see this used anywhere else - General's Bases?

p.73 terrain chart - uses 'Broken' but descriptions on p.75 use Uneven


p.79 Outflanking March Arrival Test. +2 if IC. P 78, 2nd bullet of outflanking marches says C-in-C cannot lead flank marches. Does this make the +2 bit redundant on p.79?


As you can see, there were actually very few game-play issues. Most of the above are simply typo's I suspect.

Having played about 8 games at both scales I can confidently say that 15mm plays the 'better' game. Partly because of the number of troops on the table feeling more like an army, partly beacuse there is simply more room to manouvere (even at 650 for 25mm) and finally beacuse the ranges and movement distances feel more 'natural' at the 15mm scale than at 25mm. Oh well, out with the wallet for some 15mm armies

[markm]

Whoops forgot one

The Thematic Cavalry have 2 representations. One as Lancer/Bow* (Tagmatic), and one as a mixed bg of Lancers and Bow (all the rest). Is this choice deliberate? From playing with them there are occasions when having the 2 troop types in one unit causes additional 'work' eg. different POA's on impact etc. Would it be better to use the former classification and just use bow*/lancer as the troop type?

[hammy]

Whoops forgot one

The Thematic Cavalry have 2 representations. One as Lancer/Bow* (Tagmatic), and one as a mixed bg of Lancers and Bow (all the rest). Is this choice deliberate? From playing with them there are occasions when having the 2 troop types in one unit causes additional 'work' eg. different POA's on impact etc. Would it be better to use the former classification and just use bow*/lancer as the troop type?

The idea here is that the Lance Bow* represent a thinner formation. The 1/2 and 1/2 is intended to have lancers in the front and archers in the second rank. If you note the shooting rules the first shooting rank fires at full effect so a formation of one rank of lancers and one of archers fires with one dice per file and fights as lancers at impact and as they are all similarly armoured swordsmen they fight the same in melee. If you run these troops in one rank then the Lance Bow * works better but the two rank formation while slightly less flexible is as effective and a touch cheaper in points.

Hope that helps

Hammy

[markm]

Hammy,

cheers for that, but what I was trying to ask was, is it worth having both options?

[hammy]

Hammy,

cheers for that, but what I was trying to ask was, is it worth having both options?

Well historically the Tagmata were all armed with Lance and bow and could fight in a shallow formation but the remaning Thematic cavalry did not all carry lances and fought in a deeper formation. So while it might not be worth it in game terms, historically it is I believe how things were.

Hammy

[rbodleyscott]

Hammy,

cheers for that, but what I was trying to ask was, is it worth having both options?

Well historically the Tagmata were all armed with Lance and bow and could fight in a shallow formation but the remaning Thematic cavalry did not all carry lances and fought in a deeper formation. So while it might not be worth it in game terms, historically it is I believe how things were.

Hammy

Almost correct. The Tagmata, like the thematic cavalry had some ranks with lance and some with bow. However, the thematics usually fought in deep formations and the Tagmata were capable of fighting effectively in shallower formations.

To reflect this, without resorting to DBM-style double basing, we represent the Thematic cavalry by 1 rank of lancers and one rank of bows, which makes their most effective formation 2 bases deep. They are not forced to adopt it.

Under the rules the Tagmata may also benefit from fighting 2 bases deep, but are certainly better than the Thematics at fighting 1 rank deep.

It is a subtle difference. One could argue that it is not worth the extra complexity, but as the two types of organisation are also required for representing troops in some other armies, it does not add any additional complexity to the rules.

[shall]

Having played about 8 games at both scales I can confidently say that 15mm plays the 'better' game. Partly because of the number of troops on the table feeling more like an army, partly beacuse there is simply more room to manouvere (even at 650 for 25mm) and finally beacuse the ranges and movement distances feel more 'natural' at the 15mm scale than at 25mm. Oh well, out with the wallet for some 15mm armies

What would it take to mak the 25mm game as good in your view?

Si

[gerryb]

Having played all the 25mm games with Mark the only thing to make game play similar for 25mm is to use bigger tables, with space a t a premium at tourneys thats pretty unlikely..........

With around 650pts at 25mm you tend to have less BG's on the table whcih makes the chance of reaching the attrition level easier.

As Mark said the distances feel more natural at 15mm but that could be becuase we both come from playing WAB rather than DBM. ( Also 15mm armies painted are almost the cost of an unpainted 25mm )

[dave_r]

What would it take to mak the 25mm game as good in your view?

I have watched several games betwen Mark and Gerry and having discussed it, the main problems seem to be with the points values. Because of the increase in base widths, the blindingly obvious statement is that at 800 points you have too many troops on the table.

They have experiemented with different points and tried 650 on Monday, however for this number of points, then the generals substantially eat into the allocation which doesn't leave as many points for rank and file.

I think they both had about 10 BG's on Monday, so there was no room for reserves which did not give the feeling of a battle which can be accomplished in 15mm - i.e. battle lines, reserves, rabble at the back cheering, etc.

There are potentially a couple of solutions - reduce the cost of generals for 25mm games and recommend smaller point games or use a bigger table! There are obvious problems with the latter!

[markm]

Si,

I think the problem is probably intractable.

As Dave & Gerry say, number of BG's/troops is a big issue and I can see only 2 solutions. 1) Play on 9' tables at 800 pts; 2) Use the same basing (width) as the 15mm game.

I don't think either is particularly palatable. I've run enough events to know that anything other than the norm, ie. 6'x 4' is probably a no-no. The second is more interesting with Cav & H/MF being 2 to a base and skirmishers 1, it could work. But that runs into the re-basing issue. This would work, and would even allow differing scales to play each other - which is good, even if it did look a little odd.

I know that there were similar problems with DBM 25mm so maybe it's not something that can be overcome. You have to compromise somewhere, basing, table size, or as now, a different feel to the game.

Not an easy call IMO

[lawrenceg]

What would it take to mak the 25mm game as good in your view?

Reduce the minimum elements per BG if using 25 mm on a 6 x 4 table?

In general the minimum becomes 2/3 x normal, rounded to nearest even number but no lower than 2.

2 becomes 2
4 becomes 2
6 becomes 4
8 becomes 6
10 becomes 6
12 becomes 8

Possibly reduce the maximum as well.

Probably should allow a 4 to become a 3 for troops that fight only one rank in melee (knights and chariots) or that are "2/3 one troop type plus 1/3 another".

[markm]

Lawrence,


a valid option but it changes too many other dynamics. Average troops in a BG of 3 will autobreak on 1 loss etc. It would be a different game to the 15mm version. Admittedly, that is what we have now

I think that the only 'no difference' solution is to use 15mm basing with fewer models on.

[malekithau]

Warrior games are routinely played with less points in a 25/28mm game then 15 and usually on the same table. That would eb the easiest option.

John O

[gerryb]

Warrior games are routinely played with less points in a 25/28mm game then 15 and usually on the same table. That would eb the easiest option.

John O

John

we have already games of 650pt ( 18% less ) and there is not enough " real " table space......how low do you suggest we go ?

[dave_r]

we have already games of 650pt ( 18% less ) and there is not enough " real " table space......how low do you suggest we go ?

Well, if we consider that the frontage per element for 15mm is 40mm and that for 25mm is 60mm, then to get the same proportionate frontage we would have to reduce points by 33% - which is 560 points.

However, from games that I have seen, the norm is 1 IC and 3 TCs generals which equates to 185 points. For 15mm that leaves in 15mm 615 points for rank and file. With the average points costs per figure being in the region of 10 then that basically means 61 elements. For 25mm at the same proportionate scale that would leave 375 points or 37 extra elements - which is likely to be around six battle groups.

Clearly this would be a very different game to 15mm, since one BG of knights costs around 100 points.

Don't think there is an easy answer to this one, possibly just have to accept that it is a different game!

[malekithau]

John

we have already games of 650pt ( 18% less ) and there is not enough " real " table space......how low do you suggest we go ?

Fair enough. The 25/28mm games probably should be aimed at a larger table space but as 6 x 4 has become almost a "default" for rules (if you can't play a game on this size then your rules may struggle). I also think that keeping the MUs the same for all scales is a mistake. 25/28mm games with archery out to maybe 6 inches is a little short IMHO. When you then factor in increased movement scales 6 x 4 is then a much smaller space.

I haven't played with 25/28mm and I really think it needs to be looked at in more detail. I suspect that what you will see in AOW (or whatever it's going to be called ) is similar to the issues in Warrior at 25/28mm. One of those is that armies are quite different in the the larger scale. Infantry armies do better while cav armies tend to work better in 15mm. This is generalistion but it tends to hold true.

Hmm to be honest I've been wondering about AOW ((or whatever it's going to be called ) in 25/28mm ever since I read that MUs were the same irregardless of scale.

Maybe the designers have more insight?
John O

[lawrenceg]

Lawrence,


a valid option but it changes too many other dynamics. Average troops in a BG of 3 will autobreak on 1 loss etc. It would be a different game to the 15mm version. Admittedly, that is what we have now

I think that the only 'no difference' solution is to use 15mm basing with fewer models on.

Average troops autobreak on 40% loss.
Losing 1 from 3 is only 33%.

Admittedly, a poor BG of 3 autobreaks on 1 loss, but if any poor troops are in a position where they can take losses, they are in trouble anyway. A poor BG of 4 autobreaks on 2 losses, the same as an average BG of 4, but it costs less points. So a size 3 actually restores the theoretical performance differential.

Pretty much all arguments applying to a size 3 BG also apply when scaled up to a size 6.

Can you think of any changes to "other dynamics" that are correct and adverse?

[markm]

Lawrence,

yes you are right, my mistake.

Initially I thought 1HP3B would be an issue, but with corresponding smaller BG's opposite, maybe not? I'd be willing to try this if the authors think it worthwhile?

Maybe the only adverse effect is not in-game, but in the army list creation?