skirmishers and artillery units in melee

[terry1956]

Hi, after playing my 2nd game of fog, I was a little but back my how easy it was for a small unit of skirmishers ( 6 bases) to hold back a battle line of formed troops of over 16 bases. The reaction of the formed body was to my mind not one of real life, having to take account of this body of skimishers as if they had been a complete formed body of troops, it forced a reaction in that my highlanders had to charge, the skirmishers that had the obtion to stand and fight or move back. I think that this over plays the role of the skirmisher, Yes they should be able to force some reaction, but to be able to stop and fight a formed unit, I don,t think so.
In the same game an armoured elite unit of cavalry charge an artillery unit and again was forced into a melee, that went on for around 4 turns, I ask what are the artillery units fighting a melee with, again are we to take it that artillery units are some sort of hand to hane fighting unit.
These two actions slowed the game down, and resalted in a very uneven outcome.
anyone have any views on this.
michael

[hammy]

By the sound of it you were probably missing at least one key rule.

Where the skimishers are concerned when the heavy troops charge, if the skirmishers don't simply run away then the heavies will slaughter them in no time flat. Skirmishers lose 1 dice in 2 against non skirmishers (and if LF, they only get full dice against other LF). The heavies would almost certainly be a POA up at impact so 6 dice on 4 vs 3 on 5 and in melee with overlaps at bothe ends and a highly likely double plus you would have 10 dice on 3 vs 3 on 5. If the skirmishers can hold up the heavies for any length of time something really odd has happened with the dice. Dead skirmishers sill cost 2 AP, anyone daft enough to stand and fight against heavies with skimishers is not going to win many games.

Artillery have no POA at impact so would probably be a POA down against most troops and they have a - in melee so would probably be at -- in melee. A BG of 4 bases of cavalry will get 4 dice on 4 vs 4 dice on 5 at impact so probably win and have a chance to kill a base (which will destroy the artillery). Once in melee the cavalry will be on 4 dice at 3 vs 4 dice at 5 so likely to win with 3 hits and even if the artillery pass their cohesion test there is a 1/3 chance of losing a base (+1 for artillery on the death roll).

Hope that helps

Hammy

[daleivan]

The only time I've seen LF stand in close combat against non-skirmishers was in two separate actions in the same battle (it figures, doesn't it?

A unit of velites held up a Carthaginian elephant BG for several turns before finally being routed when a Gallic MF BG came up to support the elephants and the numbers finally turned. I wasn't all that surprised given that LF with javelins and lt spear are tailor-made to hold up nellies.

The other action was a classic example of very bad die rolling-- a Gallic cavalry BG (protected not armored) went in against another velite BG and had horrifically bad dice, while the velites did decent to great on their roles.

No accounting for bad luck as they say

Dale

[terry1956]

H, thanks for the replies, But again I ask why should an artillery unit be able to fight as a formed body, for the most part the crew had no weapons to fight with for a start, most would be whats called in the british army gun bunnys, and would take to their legs when any idea of close combat was to be seen, as to a small body of of light infantry holding up a formed body of troops three times or more the size, is just not on, is it ?????
terry

[philqw78]

Well I'm amazed that the skirmishers lasted past the impact phase. The HF/MF would be rolling twice as many dice and probably on plus. Once it gets to the melee, the HF/MF would also have overlaps, so more than twice as many dice and again prbably on at least plus but more likely ++. And prior to this the LF have to take a CMT just to stand when the charge is declared, if they fail they must evade.

[terry1956]

Hi, lets take the dice out of it, would in real life, any small body of unformed men be able to hold up a larger formed body of men, I think that the rules allow unformed troops to force reactions on formed bodies that are not true to life, If one looked later into teh napoleonic battles, we find light troops being used to force the line to use up powder and to take out offices and be a pain in general, there was no hope of them being able to force the line into taking any action on their part bar wasting shot and powder.
as to artillery crews being able to fight back, I dont think there is any sign of this. crews would just leave the guns and fall back on their line, they just would not be able to fight back.
terry

[lawrenceg]

Hi, lets take the dice out of it, would in real life, any small body of unformed men be able to hold up a larger formed body of men, I think that the rules allow unformed troops to force reactions on formed bodies that are not true to life, If one looked later into teh napoleonic battles, we find light troops being used to force the line to use up powder and to take out offices and be a pain in general, there was no hope of them being able to force the line into taking any action on their part bar wasting shot and powder.
as to artillery crews being able to fight back, I dont think there is any sign of this. crews would just leave the guns and fall back on their line, they just would not be able to fight back.
terry

Looks like you had some extreme luck. The chances of LF surviving enough turns that the pursuit does not compensate for lost moves is remote. Even for artillery it is fairly remote. The numbers represented by FOG skirmishers are probably greater than Napoleonic skirmish lines and they could have a significant effect with their missiles. See, for example, the battle of Telamon.

You'll just have to assume that the delay is caused by the time taken to hunt down and slaughter all the victims and/or disable/loot the artillery.

Just checking: you were doing cohesion tests after each round of combat, weren't you?

In general, you will find that there are occasional situations where the rules lead to odd things happening. We just have to put up with them.

[terry1956]

Hi, yes all tests done in each move, But the thing is that these two actions slowed down the game to a point of standstill at one point, and lead to a very odd game in deed.
maybe this was due to our playing a game at the very limit of the rules time scale, and having to much of a miss match in the armies, ie one mainly shot, the other heavy cav and pikes.
terry

[hammy]

Hi, yes all tests done in each move, But the thing is that these two actions slowed down the game to a point of standstill at one point, and lead to a very odd game in deed.
maybe this was due to our playing a game at the very limit of the rules time scale, and having to much of a miss match in the armies, ie one mainly shot, the other heavy cav and pikes.
terry

Are you sure you were running the combat correctly?

10 dice at ++ vs 3 dice at -- is as close to a certainty as anything you get in FoG. The LF would be testing needing an 8+ (assuming rear support but losing by 2 and 1 hit per 3) and more likely than not going to lose a base every melee phase. The non skirmishers would get a charge in then fight a melee and another melee before their next chance to move. If they break the light foot then they would pursue and odds on end up at least as far forwards as they would if the skirmishers weren't there.

If I played an opponent who gave me 2 AP exxentially for at most an outside chance of a 1 turn delay on 2 of my heavy BGs I would be more than happy.

[philqw78]

would in real life, any small body of unformed men be able to hold up a larger formed body of men

Yes.

If one looked later into teh napoleonic battles

The AWI was before, but unformed bodies caused lots of casualties to closely formed drilled troops. Or just the Napoleonic wars where each battalion had its own light company and each Corps/brigade its own light battalions to stop the devastating effect of being shot upon without reply by troops one could not catch.

crews would just leave the guns and fall back on their line

The guns at the battle of Balaclava didn't do too badly! Considering they were, in your view, totally defenceless. And we must assume in FoG that the Heavy artillery are in prepared positions as they cannot move.
In fact I would like to take your light foot and artillery to a competition as they are obviously nails 'cos dice/odds don't enter in to it.

[terry1956]

Hi, lets look again at a few facts, Balaclava, The guns did not hold up any attack, and when it came to melee, I think you will find that there was a fair few russian infantry and cavalry around.
In the awi, light troops again did not stop formed infantry, In fact there job was to take officers and nco,s, I don,t think you will find one case in which light infantry made a larger formed unit run, or in which light infantry did not fall back due to the present of formed troops, and the fear of getting into contact with them, or of artillery crews being able to fight off an attack in hand to hand contact, also take into account, that durring the 16th/17th and early 18th cen, the greater part of an artillery unit was made up of civilians, only master gunners maybe having any interest in defending the guns, But with poor swords if any, what would they use to fight in hand to hand combat with a armoured horseman trained in the use of weapons, there would be no way they would stand and fight.
If you take the numbers into account in the game I am talking about, 6 bases of shot,one fig per base, held up over 16 bases of formed troops, and one artillery unit held up an elite armoured cavalry unit,
If you look at the napoleonic period, you will find if you take a look at the battle of jena, the french light infantry even after hours of popping away at the prussian line, did not make much of a dent in it, until later in the battle when the french line infantry came into play.

[carlos]

Another thing the authors didn't take into account was the lethal musket fire in close range... oh wait, these are not Napoleonic rules! Somebody tell Terry.

[hammy]

If you take the numbers into account in the game I am talking about, 6 bases of shot,one fig per base, held up over 16 bases of formed troops, and one artillery unit held up an elite armoured cavalry unit,

I am still not sure that you played the rules correctly.

Just taking the situation of the light foot:

The light foot advance really close to the formed troops.
The formed troops charge, let's say 0MU.
The light foot have to pass a CMT to not evade (assuming there is a general nearby then there is a 28% chance they will have to evade)
At impact the light foot will roll 3 dice needing 5s and the formed troops will roll 6 dice needing 4s (or possibly 3s), there ie an 85% chance the light foot will lose and an 11 % chance of a draw. If the light foot lose there is a good chance (over 50%) they will lose a base and an similar chance (58%) they will drop cohesion.

So far for the light foot to have stood and not lost cohesion we are on about 14% to have not lost a base or cohesion it is now less than 10%

Then we get the melee, 10 dice at ++ vs 3 at --
There is over a 99% chance that the light foot will lose by more than 2 hits and nearly an 80% chance they will lose a base. The expecte number of lost bases for the light foot is more than 1.
For the light foot still to be fighting needs a passed cohesion test and ideally not to lose a base (which to be honest is very unlikely so I will ignore it). To pass a cohesion test now is another 40% chance.

The odds are that by now there will be a disrupted or possibly fragmented BG of light foot that is down 1 or 2 of its 6 bases.

In the next melee phase the light foot will again go through the mincer. If they were down a base at impact then they will now be down 3 bases and autobreak, if they managed not to lose a base at impact there is still a fair chance (perhaps 30%) they they will have lost 3 bases in two rounds of melee. There is also a good chance that having had to take three cohesion tests, mostly at -2 for combat outcome that they will break on cohesion.

If the light foot break then the formed troops pursue and end up pretty much exactly where they would have done had the light foot evaded in the first place.

The formed foot are only slowed if the light foot can hold for 1 impact and 2 melee phases, something that will happen VERY rarely.

[philqw78]

the french light infantry even after hours of popping away at the prussian line, did not make much of a dent in it

So the formed Prussian line was held up for hours by skirmishers until the main French line got there.

[terry1956]

Hi, yes sure we played the game correct, the point I am trying to make, is why should a very small unit of light open order troops, be able to stand and get into hand to hand with larger formed bodies, and I still thing that there is no way that artillery could do so.

my point re jena was just that, The prussian infantry line did not move forwards, after hours of being shot had my french lights, they stood their ground, ie no reaction.

I feel that light troops have to much input on the game, It would be much better if the larger unit was able to complete its movement, as ordered, the lights giving way, but able to give fire, but not be able to stop the larger unit in any way, and not be able to join in hand to hand combat, as to the artillery, well, lets see a few crew members with poor swords taking on an elite armoured cavalry unit armed with all sorts of death dealing items, would they stand or run like hell.
t

[hammy]

I feel that light troops have to much input on the game, It would be much better if the larger unit was able to complete its movement, as ordered, the lights giving way, but able to give fire, but not be able to stop the larger unit in any way, and not be able to join in hand to hand combat, as to the artillery, well, lets see a few crew members with poor swords taking on an elite armoured cavalry unit armed with all sorts of death dealing items, would they stand or run like hell.
t

Surely light foot being charged and evading is pretty much the same as them giving way? Granted they can slightly disrupt the emeny line as a result of VMD rolls but the long and short of it is that if formed troops charge lights and the lights evade then the formed troops move almost as if the lights weren't ther and if the lights stand and fight (which is by no means certain) then there is a very high probability that by the start of the formed troops next move they will be exactly where they would have been had the lights evaded, if not further forwards.

Artillery are about as good in close combat as unprotected mob or in other words they are rubbish. At best they are going to hold up decent cavalry for on turn (i.e. 4 melee rounds). Unless you make them automatically destroyed by enemy in contact it would be difficult for them to be much worse. I have only encountered artillery once as it is and having them auto killed in close combat would mean that I suspect they would only appear if compulsary.

[philqw78]

It would be much better if the larger unit was able to complete its movement, as ordered, the lights giving way, but able to give fire, but not be able to stop the larger unit in any way, and not be able to join in hand to hand combat

Lets just remove light troops from the game. The Huns were obviously rubbish and no light troops never had any effect on anybody especially if it was a larger unit.
Although conversely the fact that anybody bothered to use them must mean that they had an effect.

[dan_morey]

It is important to remember that this is a game. It's probably possible to have one light foot BG fight an entire roman legion and win. The light foot just have to pass every roll they make and the legion must fail every roll. If that ever happens then the light foot player should buy a lottery ticket straight away as they could probably win three times in a row with less odds.

I agree with Phil, in that if heavy foot couldn't be affected by light foot in any way then why would people use them. I could imagine light archers could slow down heavy foot simply by forcing them to keep their shields up. Also, if they did manage to kill the officer in charge then wouldn't that shake the unit up a bit. Without anyone holding them back they might charge, or be so shaken that they lose cohesion.

For each troop type you could take the best historic performance and the worst and try and pry these into the game as the best and worst results of a die roll but it would probably not make a great game. Besides, it might have been possible for a type of unit to perform better or worst than it did historically, it just never got the chance.

[Dakadave]

I am 100% sure that you have never seen ancient light troops in actual combat and so really dont know how they would react.They were used quite regularly by most ancient armies so must have been of some significant use.I would tend to think they would be more useful then less useful.Incidentally I would thank my opponent if they allowed my formed unit of infantry to contact their light infantry.2 almost certain points is a welcome gift for sure.