What are THE armies to play....

[philqw78]

Is this a cunning deception plan for the weekend?

It is quite clear to me that the army of choice at present is Seljuq

or a double bluff

[nikgaukroger]

We're definitely not using Seljuqs.

[timmy1]

With the ++ for hitting someone's flank, the tactic with shooty cav/LH archers is always to get on the enemy's flank.

[lawrenceg]

Apparently, the army to play is any army with large numbers of poor (preferably undrilled) pikemen. [/i]

[SirGarnet]

Back on the topic of THE armies to play, presumably meaning armies that can achieve good results as well as get to the dynamices of the FoG experience, here are 4 examples.

Wall of Spears - Classical Greek is an example, but the basic idea is to line up armoured and some protected spears and engage, engage, engage the enemy. Spears are workmanlike troops and in quantity with a long line are simple to operate while adversaries work their bag of tricks against them.

Republican Roman (middle or late): Romans are a benchmark army, and none more than the Republicans, which haven't outgrown the simple idea of fighting primarily with the legions rather than getting fancy. They don't care to face medieval Knights, but are generally versatile, with a wide choice of allies.

Knight Combined Arms: A variety of Storm of Arrows armies with Knights, LH, Spears and some MF terrain troops available. The ones from Iberia are versatile and have been fairly popular.

Seljuq Turks - Good shooty mounted army with Nik's world championship win to its credit. Playing these takes skill and foresight, and once you "get it" you got it.

[dave_r]

Wall of Spears - Classical Greek is an example

Having recently taken apart a 1000 pt Classical Greek army (see the AAR for details - I used Lydian) I would suggest that mono-troop type armies don't work.

Against the Greeks I just piled down masses of rough going. As they don't get (good) LF of their own, nor cavalry I ran rings around them and cut them down where they stood.

Knight Combined Arms

Would agree with this. My fave is the Medieval French with Jock allies. Santa Hooey Doodah is also good though.

Seljuq Turks

There are any number of shooty cav armies that can be identical to Seljuq. With Shooty cav it isn't what you've got it's what you do with it. As you alluded to.

Romans

I don't see them as viable for an open tournament. They will always do will, but again are too slow to catch a mounted army that doesn't want to be caught.

I wouldn't mind trying an all Poor Pike army - are there any in the offing?

[flameberge]

If I'm going to enter an open tournament I'm thinking of a Longbow army with stakes and get as many as I can for the sole purpose of killing shooty horse armies. Then at least if I get beat by a foot army like Romans at least I'll have been beaten like a man I HATE SHOOTY CAV! KILL THEM ALL

[ScipioTerra]

My 2 cents worth would be that THE army to field is the one that gets sixes every time it rolls the dice.

[hazelbark]

If I'm going to enter an open tournament I'm thinking of a Longbow army with stakes and get as many as I can for the sole purpose of killing shooty horse armies.

It certainly is tough on the shooty armies. I fell into DBM mode sent forward a BG of Jinetes to skirmish two BGs of longbow to slow them down. Yow. Twas pincushioned right quick an ran off.

Of course elsewhere the almughaver knight combined assault wiped out the silly boys who deployed their stakes.

The trick i believe for the longbow is to have a reserve that can rapidly cover the flank where the mounted force is redeploying too.

[DVeight]

My army of choice is the mid period Serbs. Guess being Serbian my choice has been made for me.

Plenty of shock cavalry and plenty of LF bow to cause trouble with support of Cumans. The simplest of lists, just a case of how you want to weight your forces. I have played over 20 800 point games with them and only lost twice and those losses were in my early stages when I was learning the rules.

The other one I am doing well with is Later Ptolemaic. Different strategy and approach. have been smashing the Romans with my pikes. Love it.

[peterrjohnston]

My army of choice is the mid period Serbs. Guess being Serbian my choice has been made for me.

Plenty of shock cavalry and plenty of LF bow to cause trouble with support of Cumans. The simplest of lists, just a case of how you want to weight your forces. I have played over 20 800 point games with them and only lost twice and those losses were in my early stages when I was learning the rules.

Massed armoured lancers as with Middle Serbians are another type of army to worry the steppe horse armies.

[DVeight]

My army of choice is the mid period Serbs. Guess being Serbian my choice has been made for me.

Plenty of shock cavalry and plenty of LF bow to cause trouble with support of Cumans. The simplest of lists, just a case of how you want to weight your forces. I have played over 20 800 point games with them and only lost twice and those losses were in my early stages when I was learning the rules.

Massed armoured lancers as with Middle Serbians are another type of army to worry the steppe horse armies.

Well, havent gone up against them, yet. Have had victories over, Komnenan Byzantines, Early Crusaders, Principate and Federati Romans and Kingdom of Pontus. havent gone up against traditional enemies such as the Turks yet. Only lost to Gauls in a major blunder. With so much heavy cavalry, even losing one or two while commiting the rest to flanks isnt a major burden, although I have also had two victories with absolutely no BG's lost. The bow in those games was devestating in support before the cavalry followed up to exploit poorer cohesion. LF skirmishers and no less than 8 BGs of shock cavalry I have found to be damn devestating, even against the toughest of foot.