Cost of Undrilled troop

[hcaille]

Hi,

I have a reflexion about the cost/efficiency ratio of undrilled troops. It seems to me that if you have the choice between drilled and undrilled troop, it is evident that you take the drilled one !

For example, in the early byzantine list you have the choice between Herul or Vandal cavalry. The two are cavalry, armoured, superior, lancer, sword and it cost 16 pts for Herul (undrilled) and 17 for Vandal (drilled).

I think the main advantage of having drilled troop is that they pass cohesion test on a 7+ whereas it is 8+ for the undrilled. In term of percentage, it is 58% versus 42%. If you have for example a BG of 6 cavalry it is very valuable to spend 6 points for having 16% more chance of passing a cohesion test.

So i think that the difference of value between drilled and undrilled if fine to represent the lowest manoeuvrability of the undrilled troops but if you take in account the fact that you have 16% less chance of passing the cohesion test with undrilled troop, you must choose the drilled option (if possible). The undrilled troop seems to be very brittle.

What do you think about it ?

[carlos]

You got that one wrong. Drilled troops have no bonus for cohesion tests, only for complex move tests. Thus, they manoeuver slightly better, but are only as brave or fearful as the undrilled troops. The only way to make your troops braver is to buy them in a better quality to use the re-rolls.

[babyshark]

From the context of hcaille's post I think he intended to write "CMT" and wrote "cohesion test" instead. Fair enough.

As for the main point of the post, I think the answer is that it all depends on what the role of the BGs will be in your army. If you are buying just a couple of them, with the plan to operate them independantly, then maneuverability is probably of greater importance, and you will want to pay extra for drilled troops. However, if one is buying a lot of BGs of Cav with the notion of forming a battleline and having them fight together then it might be a better idea to save the points and buy an extra BG of light foot to pad out your army.

Or something like that.

Marc

[carlos]

I don't know babyshark. He did talk about undrilled troops being very brittle, and that's a Cohesion thing.

I do, however, agree with you that the 1 pt extra for drilled doesn't seem too little or too much for the slight advantage you get in manoeuver.

[hammy]

Drilled infantry are MUCH better than undrilled. The Medieval Danish army I used in Manchester started out with undrilled foot for my practice games but they were rapidly replaced with drilled and while the army shrank from 16 to 12 BG's it became far more effective because of the drilled foot.

The difference is a lot more than easier CMT's, there are a lot of things that drilled can do automatically without a test and things drilled troops can do with a test that are impossible for undrilled.

[carlos]

Even so, I don't think the 1 point increase for most infantry is too little. What do you think, hammy?

[hcaille]

I have a mistake

I want to talk about "Complex Move Test" and not cohesion test !
I think that being drilled is a big avantage to manoeuver on the battle field.

Apologize
Hervé

[hammy]

Even so, I don't think the 1 point increase for most infantry is too little. What do you think, hammy?

It's difficult and it varies by BG type. It also varies by army.

If you have an army where there are lots and lots of troops (say Later Medeival Scots (Scots Common in DBM)) then drilled foot is a waste of points. If you have a small group of foot you want them in the right place so they need to be drilled.

There is a case for drilled costing more than one point for armoured but I am not sure it is worth two. Within the limitations of the way the point system works I think that one point for drilled armoured foot is right but perhaps for superior armoured drilled should be 2?

So far I have not seen drilled foot dominating the table but perhaps as players get more experience they will move that way. Perhaps not.