Help With First Battle

johnnyW · Post by **johnnyW** » Wed Jul 16, 2008 6:09 pm

Hi,

I'm about to embark on my first battle tomorrow evening with my shiny new English HYW army against the dreaded French. Although I've got a decent grasp of the rules I'm new to FoG and table-top wargaming in general. I would really appreciate some tips on how to handle the battle.

I have 800 points comprising Longbowmen with stakes (4 BG), Men-at-Arms (3BG), Knights (1 BG), Light Horse (1 BG), Light Foot (1BG). an IC, and 2 TC's

Any, and all, help will be gratefuly accepted. My adversaries, with many years of experience, also read the forums but I trust them not to contribute with "put all the longbowmen in a nice open field..."

Many thanks

John

Thranite · Post by **Thranite** » Wed Jul 16, 2008 6:39 pm

Do you know the composition of the army of your opponent?

I'm hoping to get my first game with the Med. French in about a month, so whatever doesn't work for you, please pass it on.

paulcummins · Post by **paulcummins** » Wed Jul 16, 2008 7:55 pm

HYW English is a really great army. You need to win with the Longbow, everything else is there to support them.
Your list sounds a bit like the one I started with, and it worked quite well. My upgrade is to more and more bowmen though.

You have a couple of options - line everybody up and wait with clenched buttocks while the French knights charge into your arrow storm, or refuse to fight fair.

I spent a long time working out deployments that basically tried to copy Agincourt and gave my bowmen lots of support from all the other troops. Sadly my opponents werent led by a thundering idiot and didnt advance slowly into my machine guns. Well not more than once anyway.

Not fighting fair means using your drilled'nes and MF'nes. With an IC to make sure you past those CMTs you can be all over them like a rash.
some ideas...

deploy your longbows last
deploy them 1 deep (32 wide?), then contract where you want them.
90 degree turn and advance can get you a very long way.

So if you are spread out and your opponent concentrates, you can be well out of his way (or directly in front, which ever you prefer) in no time.

I prefer to hunt all his support troops. 2 Bgs of longbow working together can make a nasty mess of anything that is not superior or heavily armoured and on foot. most MF and LF will die horribly (see what I mean about not fighting fair). though watch out for Almughavers and sword and buckler men (nasty, armoured, and will kill you in melee)

Your knights and heavies can fight the opposing knights head on (for a while at least), but why would you want to do that? Dont fight fair!

use them as bait, so when the cheese eaters charge towards them they are getting shot up from the flanks.

Stakes - pretty much vital for these guys in this battle. But Ideally you wont set them. Once a BG of knights has hit longbow with stakes, they will never try that again. Just knowing you have stakes means that they are scared of you and you can chase them around the battlefield in a Benny Hill Stylee.

Hope that helps

Paul

nikgaukroger · Post by **nikgaukroger** » Wed Jul 16, 2008 8:08 pm

I'd also comment that I'm not sure the knights, light horse or LF are much use in a HYW army.

paulcummins · Post by **paulcummins** » Wed Jul 16, 2008 8:18 pm

Knights can be nice - they would be good at keeping nasty MF in the grot while your bowmen run away. Against a knight army they can counter 1 BG of enemy knights, but that does mean lining up and fighting fair (see rule 1 above)
I kept the LH in my list for a while because of the silly number of BGs rallied after breaking. LF is just a target though.

The list I used at the Challenge this year was pretty good. They were only beaten by Nik (reigning world champion), Bruce (high master of FOG-fu) and Dave (winner of that and many other FOG comps). actually thats not as good as it sounds as there were only 5 games, and I lost 3 of them! Anyhoo

1IC ( you have to have Henry giving rousing speeches)
2TC

1x4 Heavy Armour, Superior, Men at Arms
3x3 Armoured Superior MAA
2x6 Longbow
3x8 longbow
1x4 undrilled armoured Superior MAA

johnnyW · Post by **johnnyW** » Wed Jul 16, 2008 8:20 pm

Paul, thanks for the really detailed reply. I'll certainly try what you recommend!

Nik, I originally chose the army as I was interested in Agincourt. It was only later that I realised the army is really only longbowmen, men-at-arms, and a muddy field! I added the skirmishers and knights so that I could utilise more of the rules

I'm already planning my next army, Alexander's Macedonians. It seems that you get the urge for the next army as the paint is drying on the first. Pretty addictive hobby methinks!

John

paulcummins · Post by **paulcummins** » Wed Jul 16, 2008 8:30 pm

oh, and 'put all the bowmen in a nice open field' could be quite amusing if you put down stakes and waited for them, with rear support , the edge of the world (table) and knights to cover the other end.

just make sure you are 6 MU in from your base edge.

not much of a game though

nikgaukroger · Post by **nikgaukroger** » Wed Jul 16, 2008 8:52 pm

paulcummins wrote:
The list I used at the Challenge this year was pretty good. They were only beaten by Nik (reigning world champion),

Only just - I think I was 1 AP off breaking myself! Good game

dave_r · Post by **dave_r** » Thu Jul 17, 2008 9:00 am

Just a quick thought.

There have been some excellent ideas and tactics for dealing with knights, however, what happens if they dismount?

rbodleyscott · Post by **rbodleyscott** » Thu Jul 17, 2008 10:19 am

dave_r wrote:Just a quick thought.

There have been some excellent ideas and tactics for dealing with knights, however, what happens if they dismount?

Fight them with your dismounted men-at-arms (which are cheaper). Ride them down with your mounted Gascon knights. Fight them in terrain with your longbowmen.

dave_r · Post by **dave_r** » Thu Jul 17, 2008 11:28 am

Fight them with your dismounted men-at-arms (which are cheaper)

And worse so will lose. Although marginally more slowly than the Longbowmen.

Ride them down with your mounted Gascon knights

It is only evens in the ongoing melee! And they only get one BG of them.

Fight them in terrain with your longbowmen

At Double Plus the dismounted knights are still going to boot the bejeesus out of them!

nikgaukroger · Post by **nikgaukroger** » Thu Jul 17, 2008 11:37 am

dave_r wrote:
Fight them with your dismounted men-at-arms (which are cheaper)
And worse so will lose. Although marginally more slowly than the Longbowmen.

They're both Superior but the English don't pay mounted prices and can have them at the more cost effective Armoured - they close to half the cost of the French dismounted men-at-arms

philqw78 · Post by **philqw78** » Thu Jul 17, 2008 12:22 pm

At Double Plus the dismounted knights are still going to boot the bejeesus out of them!

How are the Knights at ++ v's longbowmen? Knights dismount as HA Off Spear normally I believe. In terrain this means the longbow sword will count. So Kn at + for armour only and a lot less dice. If they dismount as Hvy Wpn it has the same effect.

hammy · Post by **hammy** » Thu Jul 17, 2008 12:42 pm

philqw78 wrote:
At Double Plus the dismounted knights are still going to boot the bejeesus out of them!
How are the Knights at ++ v's longbowmen? Knights dismount as HA Off Spear normally I believe. In terrain this means the longbow sword will count. So Kn at + for armour only and a lot less dice. If they dismount as Hvy Wpn it has the same effect.

Most knights dismount as heavy weapon but either way as usual Dave seems to have managed to get something wrong

Men at arms are on + against longbowmen.

In rough ground the MAA get 3 dice on 4 to the longbows 4 dice at 5. It is advantage MAA but if there are 8 MAA fighting one BG of longbow there have got to be huge gaps somewhere else in the French army as they are using roughly double the points of the longbow.

dave_r · Post by **dave_r** » Thu Jul 17, 2008 12:49 pm

How are the Knights at ++ v's longbowmen? Knights dismount as HA Off Spear normally I believe. In terrain this means the longbow sword will count. So Kn at + for armour only and a lot less dice. If they dismount as Hvy Wpn it has the same effect.

The Knights do dismount as Hvy Wpn, hence the better armour and heavy weapon. The Longbowmen count their sword, but the Knights are superior, which gives them a net half-POA, so in actual fact they are Plus and a Half.

for a three element frontage, this means we have the Longbowmen with six dice hitting on five's (probably two hits) and the knights getting four dice hitting on four's, but re-rolling ones (giving approximately 2.5 dice). As soon as the Longbow lose and go disrupted they are dead. The dismounted knights going disrupted has no effect on the combat.

The dismounted knights are also plus at Impact, but the longbowmen have many more dice... i.e. using the same example above it would be four dice to the knights and nine to the bowmen, giving a probably spread of three hits to two

I would favour the knights in this scenario. When we talk terrain I am assuming rough.

carlos · Post by **carlos** » Thu Jul 17, 2008 12:55 pm

dave_r wrote:It is only evens in the ongoing melee! And they only get one BG of them.

Yes, but the mounted knights have double the dice per stand, and they are + on the impact w/ a further -1 to the dismounted knights' CT if they lose.

dave_r · Post by **dave_r** » Thu Jul 17, 2008 1:00 pm

Yes, but the mounted knights have double the dice per stand, and they are + on the impact w/ a further -1 to the dismounted knights' CT if they lose.

Which means that as soon as the knights lose a base they are goosed!

There is an argument that it is beneficial for the dismounted chaps to go disrupted at impact so the Knights can't break off.....

hammy · Post by **hammy** » Thu Jul 17, 2008 1:00 pm

dave_r wrote:I would favour the knights in this scenario. When we talk terrain I am assuming rough.

True but there are 138 points of knights against 63 of longbow.....

If you assume that the longbow might just have overlaps then things are a lot closer.

philqw78 · Post by **philqw78** » Thu Jul 17, 2008 1:01 pm

Knights are superior, which gives them a net half-POA, so in actual fact they are Plus and a Half.

You're making shit up now

dave_r · Post by **dave_r** » Thu Jul 17, 2008 1:10 pm

True but there are 138 points of knights against 63 of longbow.....

That doesn't matter. In fact if you know where the Longbow are, they should be your target with all the dismounted knights if they are in rough going. Just because that is where all your points are doesn't mean to say it is the wrong thing to do.

You could always, erm, skirmish against the other part of the army.

If the Frenchie players uses the Scots allies it would be a lot closer.