Free Javelins

[DrQuahog]

Hijacked the thread?
The question was why American armies get to have a missle capability, rather than counting the javelins as a close combat support factor.
The answer was atlatls. How is the direct answer to the question not relevant?
To the question 'Why does one unit get a missle, when another unit with the same equipment does not?', the answer, 'Because they had different equipment' seems appropriate.

(Yes, there are play balance issues. Such as when you have no mounted and no armour to be viable its useful to have something to keep a couple of units of enemy light horse from tying up half your army. But this was NOT brought up here as its not a good argument for giving them the capablility.)

[grahambriggs]

I was referring to the OP's line of argument, based partly on what i read in one or more other threads. "I want A to have capability X". "It's not appropriate for A because <some mixture of historical/game balance arguments>" "Yes but B gets it".

Wack wack oops. Unrelated. Maybe B is justifiable, maybe it is not, but that's a different argument.

That. Was. My. Point.

And if I want to be picky, the continuing debate about American lists and atlatls has hijacked the thread.

Yes good point though I read the OP being about the costing of javelins as much as some get it and some don't (though perhaps if they weren't free there wouldn't be the concern). Of course, a way to do it would be to discount the base troop type a bit (say average unprotected foot with no weapons would be 3.5 AP) and add a small cost for javelins (maybe 0.25 AP?) and same for light spear. Probably the other impact (and melee?) weapons would need to be increased by 0.25 AP to keep things balanced.

In terms of who gets what capabilities, the list writer's problem (at least on the book I helped with) seems to be too many opportunities. The general guidance given to list writers was to get the right overall effect. I recall one suggestion for one of the American lists was that one main troop type would be armoured, drilled, impact foot, heavy weapon, bow! I, for one, was acutely aware that people interested in a subject have a tendency to "big up" the armies they are interested in so was very cautious in making the American armies too effective, particularly against the invading Europeans.

[ShrubMiK]

Well DrQuahog, no you haven't hijacked the thread, if you assume that what the OP asked is actually what he really really wanted to know. I was kind of suggesting that that is not quite what he actually wanted. At least originally.

He originally asked (and this is from several months old memory, so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) why his peltasts couldn't chuck javelins, they used to be able to under older WRG rulesets, so why shouldn't they be able to now, etc.

He was told that MF don't get to chuck javelins in FoG, that's the philosophy, the javelin-chucking style of "peltasts" still exist in Fog but they are protected LF euzonoi, but for MF and HF the effect of javelin chucking is assumed to be accounted for in impact factors.

That then led on to "yes but certain American armies do...".

And then (and this bit I do agree with) that led on to an additional complaint that not only are they getting an extra capability, but they are getting it for free.

I guess at the end of the day it doesn't matter, it's a valid discussion to be having after all. I was just commenting on the process of how the OP got to this point, and questioning (slightly) the motivation. To repeat: my supposition was that the OP was actually, in a roundabout way, in effect saying if it is okay for the American troops, can I have it for my peltasts please. Of course I may be wrong!

And then today I got annoyed because you quoted me and seemed to be arguing against something I didn't say, and didn't intend to imply. Which is quite ironic perhaps considering what came later in the thread!

[KiwiWarlord]

And then (and this bit I do agree with) that led on to an additional complaint that not only are they getting an extra capability, but they are getting it for free.

I guess at the end of the day it doesn't matter, it's a valid discussion to be having after all. I was just commenting on the process of how the OP got to this point, and questioning (slightly) the motivation. To repeat: my supposition was that the OP was actually, in a roundabout way, in effect saying if it is okay for the American troops, can I have it for my peltasts please. Of course I may be wrong!

Yes you have it in a nut shell ShrubMik. Why do some American MF get to throw Javelins and for Free !!
The Greeks had a throwing strap which would have given a similar force behind their javelins as the American throwing stick.

[batesmotel]

Javelins are free for any foot using them so that is not a special exception for the American MF. They shoot with javelins with the same effectivenss as LF javelins with 1 per two bases.

Historical Spanish accounts indicate the effectiveness of the atlatl fire from the American MF. The B&G list authors chose to use this mechanism (MF with javelins) as a top down way to represent the effectiveness of the atlatl.

This seems reasonable to me.

Chris

[grahambriggs]

But Greek peltasts do get javelins. LF, average, light spear, javelins. So I guess what you mean is when the peltasts become MF?

I suspect the authors of the Greek/Hellenistic lists went down the route of there being a change of role for such troops from being skirmishers to being line of battle troops. i.e. they've decided that there wasn't a combination of spear and javelins, or that there isn't enough evidence that these 'line of battle' peltasts used javelins.

I know there's been a lot of discussion in recent years over whether the wargames concept of an intermediate troop type between line of battle troops and skirmisher actually existed or not. Perhaps they decided there wasn't one.