v2 Byzantine Armies

[shadowdragon]

Any thoughts about the effectiveness of Byzantine armies with the v2 changes? These are:

1) Any troop type that's 1/2 lance, swordsman and 1/2 bow, swordsman can now be lance, bow*, swordsman; and
2) Cavalry that's bow, swordsman can now be LH, bow, swordsman - with the same classification including armour, which would mean that "Other Roman Cavalry" for the Early Byzantines can now be average, armoured LH with bow, swordsman capabilities.

I'm sort of halfway through builing an Early Byzantine Army and would appreciate any thoughts - not that I play in tournaments, but it's still useful to know what people think about the "competetiveness" of an army. Cheers.

[philqw78]

Changing them all to Bw* will not allow them to skirmish as they are shock troops. Losing a base from the front rank means they have, to all intents and purposes, lost shooting capability completely, only 1 and a half dice left. They cost more. When your superior Lance/Bw* lose 2 bases they are still shock so will charge off to death, esp in V2. Half bow will normally have the 2 bases of Bow survive so they can skirmish and get away. So, IMO, they are worse off.

In the chariot book lists where you get cavalry Lt Sp/Bw* or half Lt Sp half Bw I always take the latter.

Protected Bow Sw cavalry would be nice though. Its taking the other rubbish with it thats the problem.

[batesmotel]

1) As Phil noted the lance, bow* cavalry are more expensive. The cost for mounted bow* was originally reduced in the V2 bet but seems not to have been included in the released V2. One advantage that the lance, bow* cavalry do have is that you still have lance capacity for all bases. Normally when deployed in two ranks, the first base lost from 1/2 lancer, 1/2 bow cavalry would be a front rank lancer so that the remaining 3 base BG is still shock cavalry but would now have one lancer and one bowman in the front rank for impact.

2) As Phil noted, protected or armoured bow, sword LH should be quite effective although protected is most likely more cost effective in most circumstances.

Chris

[shadowdragon]

Didn't think change (1) was all that much of a benefit but thought change and I'm only looking at meeting the minimum of 4 bases there but thought that change (2) had some small merit for the Early Byzantines as they could now field a mix of cavalry, bow / sw and LH bow / sw. The armoured LH is indeed an expensive option over the more usual protected, but protected isn't an option and they are only "average" and not "superior". At a disadvantage when shooting but if they can catch other LH they'll be at an advantage against most in close combat....I know it's not a game changer, but I'll take it.

I was thinking of still keeping with my v1 choice of only having the minimum of the lance, bow, swords types but that I'd complement the existing 12 bases of cavalry, bow, swords with at least another 8-12 bases (there's a max of 24 bases for the list) of LH types.

All the other stuff doesn't bother me since I'm more interested in scenario games which means armies aren't totally optimized (i.e., there's crud on the other side too).

[marty]

Part of the problem with the Byzantine lists is that many of them are forced to have average cav when the rules (and points) favour superior cav heavily. I know a lot of people own byzantine armies but I see very little of them in comp. V2 does very little to change this.

I've never really understood why virtually anyone who owns a horse defaults to superior in FOG. For some reason the Byzantines are the exception. Hopefully there will be points changes eventually and average cav will become a more reasonable choice.

Martin

[grahambriggs]

Part of the problem with the Byzantine lists is that many of them are forced to have average cav when the rules (and points) favour superior cav heavily. I know a lot of people own byzantine armies but I see very little of them in comp. V2 does very little to change this.
Martin

That plus there are plenty of other armies that have similar but better troop types. e.g. superior armoured cav bow, sword, or lance, sword. Plus they often have better supporting troops. The Byzantine armies that get Varangians are OK, but there aren't really enough Varangians.