scaring shooty cavalry

[SirGarnet]

Neatly done destruction of the Ottomans. Facing an IC across the table is extremely aggravating for shooty LH - at least shooty Cavalry can often charge in with advantage on a disruption before the enemy bolsters.

One question I have is how your 6 LH Xb and 4 LF HG managed to trash the opposing LH bows that should have been able to bring more dice to bear than you had as well as split your fire?

Thanks,

Mike

[flameberge]

Neatly done destruction of the Ottomans. Facing an IC across the table is extremely aggravating for shooty LH - at least shooty Cavalry can often charge in with advantage on a disruption before the enemy bolsters.

One question I have is how your 6 LH Xb and 4 LF HG managed to trash the opposing LH bows that should have been able to bring more dice to bear than you had as well as split your fire?

Thanks,

Mike

I was wondering how this all played out too, I would suspect the -1 to CTs the handgunners force on the opposition was a big help.

[fredrik]

One question I have is how your 6 LH Xb and 4 LF HG managed to trash the opposing LH bows that should have been able to bring more dice to bear than you had as well as split your fire?

The supporting 4-base BG of Knights were a major contribution, being able to both draw fire away from my LH and chase off opposing LH allowing me to concentrate on one opposing LH BG at a time. My LH/LF combo put out 4-5 shooting dice per turn (I had the LF in column at times due to space issues) hitting at 4s - two hits on a four-base LH BG meant a cohesion test at -2 (firearms + 1HP2B) which quickly dropped the LH to broken (first round test at -2 disrupts the LH, next round test at -3 to frag and then -4 to break), while my LH always tested on +2 due to the IC.

Once fragmented (which happened very quickly), the dice loss for a four-base BG meant that their shooting were effectively neutralized unless shooting from two BGs were converged on my own LH, and even then they only had 3 dice hitting on 4s so only a 50% chance of forcing a test at all.

It also helped a lot that I reserved the 4-base Kn BG to the last batch in my order of march. I put out my right-wing LH early which my opponent matched with some LH lancers to support his bows, expecting that I would deploy the small Kn unit (he knows my army very well by now...) in rear support behind my main Kn line in the center. When I put it out on the right flank it shifted the balance of power on that flank dramatically since he didn't have enough shooty LH to wear them down, and gave me a solid block to protect my own units from charges by the lancers. The combined arms effect of the Knights, Light Horse crossbows and handgunner skirmishers was quite astonishing.

[Fulgrim]

Good job fredrik! Who are we going to bully at the club now?

I too was a bit surpriced at the effectiveness of my handgunners vs your knights this monday, and reading trough your AAR vs Tomas above I must say that you were correct when you stated firearms as one of the big differentiatiors between medevial armies in FOG and the rest. I didnt put them on the same shelf as the knights and the longbows before this.

[fredrik]

I think you'll have plenty of cause to keep bullying me and my italians... I expect Tomas will bring an IC of his own next time so the coming ten games or so we'll play on a billiard table. Also, I think he'll think thrice about not evading in the face of steady Kn with his Cv in the future.

Firearms are great but of the published lists it's really only the later Condotta and Swiss that have them in any greater number, most lists in SOA have a maximum of 6 or 8 bases.

But yes, against mounted they're great, less so against foot since they'll need 5's to hit so in that case they need to be combined with bows, crossbows or longbows (depending on the armour of the target). Their short range can also make them very vulnerable if they don't have good supporting troops to evade through.

In our game this Monday I should have just charged your handgunners at first opportunity and impacted your supporting knights rather than let you shoot me up for several turns, but as you know I was hoping to buy some time for my flank march to arrive and didn't expect my avg knights to stand up against your superior ones. How was I to know those wretched flankers weren't going to turn up until the last bound of the game!

[rtaylor]

I'm surprised you could deploy a BG of knights six-wide and not get shot up. How did you manage that?

[fredrik]

I'm surprised you could deploy a BG of knights six-wide and not get shot up. How did you manage that?

It's all about forcing the opposing shooters to divide their fire - a 4-base LF unit in 2x2 formation deployed in front in the middle of the 6-base Kn will break up shooting from the front into three two-base frontage wide sections - with bows against Kn at least six shooting bases are required to cause the two hits needed to force a cohesion test and that will be very difficult to concentrate against such a formation while the Cv need to be in single rank to be able to evade (keep in mind also that LF and Kn can act as a single battle line for double-moving, also remember that the Cv always need to take into account the risk of the Kn bursting through the LF to its front in the impact phase).

I would not be as comfortable with a 6-base frontage against handguns, crossbows or longbows, but against bows it can be done if supported by an IC (and preferable rear support). Two hits are required to force a test, and if properly supported I would be willing to risk that (with a +3 on the cohesion test it shouldn't be too dangerous) - that means six bases of shooting bows. Three hits are more dangerous, since it will force a death roll (albeit on a 1) and cause a -1 on the cohesion test, but that would statistically require 9 shooting bow bases, which is hardly realistic from Cv in a single line. That said, I would keep the LF two-base-frontage screen for as long as possible, just to be safe, but if/when the LF drops to fragmented I would withdraw them through the Kn to give me a chance to rally them (again, an excellent task for the IC in the JAP).

However you'd have to look to the whole picture, your Kn unit needs to be properly supported (IC, rearsupport) and you need to take into account the type of element shooting - the weaponry, formation etc. You also need to make sure that the flanks of the Kn unit are secured, if the opponent gets the opportunity to target multiple shooters against an isolated unit things rapidly start to deteriorate.

Also, since shooty cav are mostly in 4-base BGs it might be preferable (and often easily achievable) to attempt to disrupt them with shooting before withdrawing your skirmish screen through the Kn (again, a reason why I prefer LF) - two four-base LF handgunner units (or one LF handgunner unit supported by a 4-base unit of LF crossbows or similar) will statistically force one cohesion test each turn on a 4-base mounted unit at -2 (handguns+1HP2B), and no unit can stand up to that for very long.

But this is primarily applicable to shooty cavalry units, shooty light horse are more difficult to counter since they can withdraw from your LF shooters more easily to stay away from the handgunners. I have actually started running my supporting shooty LH units in sixes to make them a bit more durable against enemy shooting since the 1HP2B modifier is harder to reach when deployed on a three-base frontage (as you know, unlike Cv, LH units can evade even if not deployed in single rank and do not suffer additionally from shooting from the second rank). I use mounted crossbows to hunt other mounted, but I've just bought the figs for a six-base LH bow unit (turks) to try as a counter against small LF units like this.

It is a testament to the great design of the game that there are no super-troops that can sweep all before them - all units have their uses and their counters, and a great part of the fun is experimenting with finding them out!

[rtaylor]

I would not be as comfortable with a 6-base frontage against handguns, crossbows or longbows, but against bows it can be done if supported by an IC (and preferable rear support).

I didn't take the -1 POA into account. Thanks.