"Typical Army" Restrictions

[Sarmaticus]

When it comes to relating percentages of an army's manpower to percentages of it's FOGR equivalents bases, it might be worth bearing in mind that, base for base, fewer horsemen than foot would be deployed on that frontage.

[martinvantol]

Alasdair may like this as I came across the Battle of Sinsheim, 1674 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Sinzheim

French 6000 mounted, 1500 foot
Imperials 7000 mounted, 2000 foot

Clearly not a common thing as far as I can see, but these are meaningful armies.

I'd be quite happy if we billed competitions from time to time as representing small contingents, rearguard actions or whatever, specifying no restrictions (or in fact a big minimum for mounted). If this meant we saw lots of cavalry + dragoon actions, it could make for an interestingly different weekend.

But these weren't particularly big forces, and neither would we get one of these types of forces coming up against a big mixed arms army (which is what I assume most of us want to recreate most of the time).

Martin

[IamJacksUsername]

"Allowing" people to take their armies only in certain comps would be disasterous. Who decides what is a typical army for this era? Also a cavalry force fighting a proper mixed arms army, wouldn't happen true, but then again neither would Jacobite Scots fight Samurai or Swiss kiels take on Thirty Years War Swedes. This isn't a good arguement for changing the rules.

I should preface my statements by saying I play ECW and thoroughly enjoy taking my mounted raiding forces but the difference is I have more restrictions. No heavy or medium guns.

I have followed this thread and the others with interest and the artillery seems to be the recurring problem. Madaxeman's(Tim?) recent battle report shows this perfectly. How different would the game have been if his mounted opponent could not take the heavy guns and was forced to attack on the pirates terms, not the other way around? As to how to limit this I leave that up to far better rules lawyers and judges than myself. Rules can be a bit like Jenga, change one block and the whole thing falls. The more you change the more likely it is to fall.

I will say that forcing people to take certain styles of armies simply because that's the perception of the era won't do anything to promote the game. Minimal simple changes would be my suggestion.

Martin

[petedalby]

which is what I assume most of us want to recreate most of the time).

That is a huge assumption Martin and I suspect it is also very wide of the mark.

For me part of the interest in a competition is what armies can be used? What are you likely to face? How can I beat those? If everyone else is bringing paper I want to bring the scissors, not rock and certainly not more paper.

Rules can be a bit like Jenga, change one block and the whole thing falls. The more you change the more likely it is to fall.

I will say that forcing people to take certain styles of armies simply because that's the perception of the era won't do anything to promote the game. Minimal simple changes would be my suggestion.

Good point - well made.

[Maniakes]

which is what I assume most of us want to recreate most of the time).

That is a huge assumption Martin and I suspect it is also very wide of the mark.

I agree that is not true. For example some lists only cover small forces - Buccaneers and Border Reivers are two examples and I'm sure there are more. We don't think about it most of the time but we are constantly juggling with scale to get games between forces that would be totally mismatched if they were represented at the same scale.

[madaxeman]

which is what I assume most of us want to recreate most of the time).

That is a huge assumption Martin and I suspect it is also very wide of the mark.
For me part of the interest in a competition is what armies can be used? What are you likely to face? How can I beat those? If everyone else is bringing paper I want to bring the scissors, not rock and certainly not more paper.

Fully agree - we are gaming to do a bit of "what if?", and the paper-scissors-stone aspect is a (the?) key part of that. FWIW my army choice and design at Warfare (which is on my wiki) was significantly affected by the lessons learnt from my game against Alastair at Oxford - and also from previous games at Warfare and more recently Farnborough (against Pete!). Some of the things I did worked, and I ended up with my best result at Warfare in FoGR - and even though I didn't manage to face any all-mounted armies I woudl like to think that my army design would have done better than some of my previous efforts have managed.

The key point for me is that I did however also want to try and create and use my army in what I felt was a reasonably historical way - which meant 5 foote, 3 Horse, 2 Dragoons, 2 Gunnes and 2 Commanded shotte (who almost always operated with the mounted). My only issue with the massed mounted armies (is that for me, the is that the combo of heavy artillery, massed horse and dragoons and almost no foote stretches the "reasonably" in "reasonably historical" just a little too far...and encourages tactics which risk spoiling the enjoyment of the game for a number of opponents as well.

Mandating a couple of foote units for each gunne unit is IMO almost certainly enough to fix all of that for me - it gives armies with more foote a target to aim their charge at, reduces the number of mounted units as a consequence, and reduces the ability to redeploy as well.

To be honest I'm not even sure if I mind too much about all-foote D&G armies at all - they don't seem unbeatable to me, and you do at least get to have a got at them ..

But lets not force every army to be 6 infantry units in the middle and 3 sub-par mounted on each wing.....or we will all be playing only with the armies with regimental guns.

[nikgaukroger]

which is what I assume most of us want to recreate most of the time).

That is a huge assumption Martin and I suspect it is also very wide of the mark.

I agree that is not true. For example some lists only cover small forces - Buccaneers and Border Reivers are two examples and I'm sure there are more. We don't think about it most of the time but we are constantly juggling with scale to get games between forces that would be totally mismatched if they were represented at the same scale.

My impression is that most players primarily want a good game that reflects what they perceive as the look and feel of the period and allow a nice variety of armies to be played (and are, on the whole, quite happy to allow some fudging on which armies may face each other compared to history) and are not that fussed about the size of battle their game may be representing - but they do want those armies to have a plausible resemblance to the historical ones but not be too straight-jacketed. So they are generally quite happy to have, say, a Royalist Raiding force facing off against a TYW German army based on Wallenstein's at Lutzen (both scaled for points equality of course usually <g>). Obviously a real YMMV situation and whilst I think that applies to the majority there are those who will want more or less constraints.

[gibby]

Yes, of course we all want a good game.

I'm not against all mounted....I've used the raiding force and maxed out on horse before.

I think probably it's about ratio of Artillery/Dragoons to the Maxed Mounted option.

For me that's the only changes needed and removing the ability of Artillery to shoot through its own LF.

cheers
Jim

[nikgaukroger]

Mandating a couple of foote units for each gunne unit is IMO almost certainly enough to fix all of that for me - it gives armies with more foote a target to aim their charge at, reduces the number of mounted units as a consequence, and reduces the ability to redeploy as well.

I'd suggest that this is pretty much a consensus now and that we could usefully implement:

For every 2 bases of Medium or Heavy Artillery there must be at least 12 bases of Determined Foot/ Heavy Foot/Medium Foot/Warriors or a combination of those, or half the maximum number of those types of infantry that their army list allows if this is less.

and carry on considering other possible tweaks whilst we see how that goes. I think the only questions maybe whether Commanded Shot are included in the infantry making up the 12 bases, and, maybe, whether it should apply to the Qing or not.

[Maniakes]

Despite using a Ming army I'm not that hot on their historical composition (...shamefully!) but my impression from what I have read of both Ming and Qing is of an awful lot of smaller guns - which would be represented by regimental guns and light artillery. So I don't think a historically leaning list would be inconvenienced. Unlike the Ottomans I don't think they followed the strategy of "collect some f**k-off big artillery and hide behind a fortification and let everyone come to you".

[nikgaukroger]

Despite using a Ming army I'm not that hot on their historical composition (...shamefully!) but my impression from what I have read of both Ming and Qing is of an awful lot of smaller guns - which would be represented by regimental guns and light artillery. So I don't think a historically leaning list would be inconvenienced. Unlike the Ottomans I don't think they followed the strategy of "collect some f**k-off big artillery and hide behind a fortification and let everyone come to you".

When I drew up the list the info I used suggested that on occasion they had some heavy/medium artillery in otherwise all mounted armies - hauled all the way into the steppe Hence you can currently take the non-Regimental Gun artillery without taking any of the "proper" infantry BGs.

I think they are a unique case.

[Maniakes]

I think probably it's about ratio of Artillery/Dragoons to the Maxed Mounted option.

cheers
Jim

Exactly -the idea shouldn't be to introduce an anti-cavalry bias(let alone an anti-Alasdair bias!). Its just a problem with some lists and I think we want to make the smallest alteration that will fix it.

The three components of the strategy are:-

1. Lots of Dragoons (I've seen people take allies just to get extra dragoons)
2. Lots of Heavy Artillery (difficult to avoid and hitting from the first turn. Can be deployed a little back to be safe while still hitting ... all advantages over Medium Art)
3. The rest of the army can then run away/run in circles until ready to hit a weakened spot (see 1 & 2). In one game I had enemy Elite Heavily Armoured cuirrassiers running away from me until my opponent felt ready to jump me

You could target any component and affect this strategy - but it strikes me that Artillery - and particularly masses of Heavy Artillery are the least historical part of this witches brew.

[Jhykronos]

I'd suggest that this is pretty much a consensus now and that we could usefully implement:

For every 2 bases of Medium or Heavy Artillery there must be at least 12 bases of Determined Foot/ Heavy Foot/Medium Foot/Warriors or a combination of those, or half the maximum number of those types of infantry that their army list allows if this is less.

and carry on considering other possible tweaks whilst we see how that goes. I think the only questions maybe whether Commanded Shot are included in the infantry making up the 12 bases, and, maybe, whether it should apply to the Qing or not.

Umm... wouldn't it be more effective phrasing to say 6 stands of foot per medium/heavy artillery stand... quite a few armies are allowed to take their guns in 3's, even if very few people do so.

[timmy1]

I think is is important to state that none of this anti-Alasdair. It is anti-Alasdair clones I think. His choice for Warfare shows that it is how he plays rather than the army that makes Alasdair so damn difficult to beat.

I think two changes are all we need.

1, 6 bases of medium/heavy/determined foot per Heavy Artillery base (most things can move out of the way of Medium Artillery - provided they deploy far enough back not to be a target)
2, Average Horse allowed in BGs of 4-6

This is few enough changes not to destabilise anything, I believe

Not seen the LF trick often enough but if both Jim and Pete say it is too gamey that is good enough for me.

[madaxeman]

... and removing the ability of Artillery to shoot through its own LF.

Is this about shooting through in general, or shooting through whilst shooting themselves ?

If you can't shoot through LF, they become even more useless - but preventing them shooting in a turn in which they are being shot over would seem pretty reasonable and sensible to me

[petedalby]

preventing them shooting in a turn in which they are being shot over would seem pretty reasonable and sensible to me

Sounds good to me.

[martinvantol]

Oh dear. My last point seems not to have met with very much agreement!

Well, I share with most people that we should change/introduce as few rules as possible ... so long as it works.

Just in response to the poster who said he likes the 'scissors-paper-stone' effect ... personally this is exactly what I dislike. I packed up Ancients because of it. The objective in an ancient competition seems to be to design an army which as many opponents as possible don't have a response to. My ideal is to see who comes up with the best game within a certain set of constraints.
Personally I prefer to fight something that's at least like an army that my army would historically have fought against (for me Swedes vs Imperialists is ideal, but Swedes vs Royalists is ok). However, if Swedes vs Chinese produces a good competitive game (albeit fantasy history) then I'll go along with it. You'll notice I always bring an army that fits historically with the theme I'm expecting to see in the comp.

I'd be happy to have a go with the artillery changes - there seems to be consensus. I'm sure it'll be an improvement and I hope it works the way we intend. Which comps will it apply to?

All the best
Martin

[hood_mick]

There seems to be consensus with most of the few people who write stuff on this forum.

[Schnockel]

I have to admit I am on the opposite side. I look at the western and eastern lists and find they have plenty of 'normilization' of the armies just in their minimums. Also, the idea of the ranges given in the army books is to allow the player to adjust an army based on his preferences and prejudices. Some of us handle cavalry better than infantry. Some handle skirmishers better than they do battle troops. At least for the above mentioned lists, the artillery limitations seem to be pretty restrictive. They also aren't as effective as one might hope, but they do have an effect. This whole system is based on NOT being historical, in that both sides are always equal. The system is set up for competitions.

If players want to gimmick their armies with a certain type of BG, they will eventually come across an opponent they are ineffective against. I say just leave it as it is and adjust the problem army list minimums with addendum.

Dave

[nikgaukroger]

I'd suggest that this is pretty much a consensus now and that we could usefully implement:

For every 2 bases of Medium or Heavy Artillery there must be at least 12 bases of Determined Foot/ Heavy Foot/Medium Foot/Warriors or a combination of those, or half the maximum number of those types of infantry that their army list allows if this is less.

and carry on considering other possible tweaks whilst we see how that goes. I think the only questions maybe whether Commanded Shot are included in the infantry making up the 12 bases, and, maybe, whether it should apply to the Qing or not.

Umm... wouldn't it be more effective phrasing to say 6 stands of foot per medium/heavy artillery stand... quite a few armies are allowed to take their guns in 3's, even if very few people do so.

Good point.