Better Armour - proposal

[nikgaukroger]

After much consideration, and consulting with the good doctor, we have decided that a slightly modified version of Jhykronos' re-roll solution is the best way forward on this. A big thank you for the suggestion.

What we have come up with is the following:

Melee Table: Delete POA for better armour.

P.35

Section "Battle Group Quality Rerolls":

Replace the bullet list and the first paragraph after with the following:

Quality Re-roll Scores

------------ 1,2,3
Elite troops can re-roll 1’s and 2’s
Superior troops can re-roll 1’s
Average troops reroll no dice
Poor troops must re-roll 6’s
A dice is only rerolled once.


A commander fighting in the front rank of the battle group in close combat allows the close combat “to hit” dice (but not any other dice rolls) of that battle group to be one re-roll level higher.
If a stand is in combat with enemy that has a lower armour rating and that is not Shot, Heavy Weapons, Elephants, War Wagons, Protected Horse, Protected Determined Horse or Protected Cavaliers, the Melee close combat “to hit” dice (but not any other dice rolls) of that stand are one re-roll level higher. This is cumulative with the re-roll effect of a commander fighting in the front rank.

Comment away.

[timmy1]

There are three occurrences of 'that' in one sentence. 'and that is not...' does it apply to the 'stand ... in close combat' or to the 'enemy'? Are the terms 're-roll level higher' and/or 'lower armour rating' defined in the rules (sorry I don't have my rules to hand currently)? An example would help.

[ravenflight]

If a stand is in combat with steady enemy that has a lower armour rating and that is not Shot, Heavy Weapons, Elephants, War Wagons, Protected Horse, Protected Determined Horse or Protected Cavaliers, the Melee close combat “to hit” dice (but not any other dice rolls) of that stand are one re-roll level higher. This is cumulative with the re-roll effect of a commander fighting in the front rank.

???

[nikgaukroger]

More than happy to have a more elegant wording suggested

Re-roll level higher is the current wording recycled.

If people can't work out what lower armour rating means <<insert RBS-esque comment here>> (see Better Armour in Glossary)

[nikgaukroger]

If a stand is in combat with steady enemy that has a lower armour rating and that is not Shot, Heavy Weapons, Elephants, War Wagons, Protected Horse, Protected Determined Horse or Protected Cavaliers, the Melee close combat “to hit” dice (but not any other dice rolls) of that stand are one re-roll level higher. This is cumulative with the re-roll effect of a commander fighting in the front rank.

???

Nope. Steadiness is not part of the proposal.

[timmy1]

It is 'Better Armour' not 'lower armour rating' or 'higher armour rating'. I believe you need to use consistent terms. RBS is no longer actively involved so now you can write the rules clearly rather than just based upon whatever RBS decided he meant at any given moment.

[DavidT]

OK
I understand what you mean.
I'll leave it to others to sort out the correct wording.

We'll give it a go tomorrow night with Milanese v Early Henrician English.

[timmy1]

I don't.

[vexillia]

I don't.

Me too. I do think Phil Barker would be really pleased with that rule.

It's badly in need of some KISS editing. May I suggest you simply state the intention of the rule before listing the exceptions and exclusions.

[Vespasian28]

Assuming I understand this correctly we are saying that troops with the better armour are now more susceptible to hits and therefore casualties? Their lesser armoured brethren are even more susceptible to hits to balance things out? So this means combats are going to be bloodier across the board to fix a relatively small number of mounted interactions?

[Jhykronos]

More than happy to have a more elegant wording suggested

Re-roll level higher is the current wording recycled.

I may give it a try later if no on else does.

I think the wording has (at least) 2 major issues from a technical writing standpoint. First, my original proposal was intended to be formatted as a table of troop quality to re-roll numbers, and the instructions for the commander and armor class was to move up or down one row on the table. I don't know if the original wording conveyed that clearly enough, but it seems a bit confused in this version.

The second is this bit:

is not Shot, Heavy Weapons, Elephants, War Wagons, Protected Horse, Protected Determined Horse or Protected Cavaliers.

The list of exceptions here has ballooned enough that it really needs a keyword or something.

Maybe: "is not a type that ignores armor (see below)."

and below have a bullet-ed list:

"Types that ignore armor include:
- Shot
- Troops armed with Heavy Weapons
- Elephants
- War Wagons
- Protected Horse, Determined Horse, or Cavaliers"

[nikgaukroger]

More than happy to have a more elegant wording suggested

Re-roll level higher is the current wording recycled.

I may give it a try later if no on else does.

I think the wording has (at least) 2 major issues from a technical writing standpoint. First, my original proposal was intended to be formatted as a table of troop quality to re-roll numbers, and the instructions for the commander and armor class was to move up or down one row on the table. I don't know if the original wording conveyed that clearly enough, but it seems a bit confused in this version.

The intention is to use the table format - for the purposes of this discussion I just used your post's format.

Commanders fighting in the front rank and better armour will move you up the table and both can apply (we decided that moving up for better armour was preferable to moving down for having worse and is a change from your original proposal.

As mentioned above any suggestions for better wording are gratefully received - this is a first stab and we don't expect it to remain unchanged

The second is this bit:

is not Shot, Heavy Weapons, Elephants, War Wagons, Protected Horse, Protected Determined Horse or Protected Cavaliers.

The list of exceptions here has ballooned enough that it really needs a keyword or something.

Maybe: "is not a type that ignores armor (see below)."

and below have a bullet-ed list:

"Types that ignore armor include:
- Shot
- Troops armed with Heavy Weapons
- Elephants
- War Wagons
- Protected Horse, Determined Horse, or Cavaliers"

I think that is a good suggestion. Thanks

Also it will probably be best to word this section in terms of if a base has better armour rather than if a base is fighting one that has worse armour - fits with the glossary that way for one thing and emphasises the base that is getting an advantage.

[Vespasian28]

Again assuming I have understood correctly, this proposal means more hits being generated which appears to impact on the 1HP3B modifier on the close combat CT test and make more likely the 2 hits necessary to test for commander loss. Also a more heavily armoured BG is going to be more prone to death rolls when drawing or winning a melee combat than previously as their better armour no longer prevents hits but allows them to hit their lesser armoured opponents more.

So melee combat becomes more bloody whereas impact combat remains the same?

All in all, no thanks.

[vexillia]

A commander fighting in the front rank of the battle group in close combat allows the close combat “to hit” dice (but not any other dice rolls) of that battle group to be one re-roll level higher.
If a stand is in combat with enemy that has a lower armour rating and that is not Shot, Heavy Weapons, Elephants, War Wagons, Protected Horse, Protected Determined Horse or Protected Cavaliers, the Melee close combat “to hit” dice (but not any other dice rolls) of that stand are one re-roll level higher. This is cumulative with the re-roll effect of a commander fighting in the front rank.

Replace second paragraph on p35 with:

Close combat rolls to hit are re-rolled as above plus the maximum score re-rolled is increased by 1 for each of the following:

• Commanders fighting in the front rank.
• Battle groups (bar exceptions below) are fighting an enemy with better armour.

The armour re-roll does not apply if the Battle group is any of Shot, Heavy Weapons, Elephants, War Wagons, Protected Horse, Protected Determined Horse or Protected Cavaliers.

[vexillia]

Two other points worth bearing in mind.

[1] This proposal blurs the distinction between the key(?) and previously separate concepts of quality & points of advantages. Although simple to write down it is far less clean than before. In practice it's easy enough to do but it's the first time that troop capabilities have been shifted to the "quality" re-roll portion of the rules.

Imagine trying to explain to a new player why only armour differences result in "quality" re-rolls.

[2] In the original post on this issue you were looking to adjust the game balance by reducing the benefit of armour but elsewhere you said you were also looking to speed up the game (combat?). Increasing the number of "quality" re-rolls (for average in combat against better armour) may achieve the former but end up slowing down the game.

Unintended consequences perhaps?

[nikgaukroger]

Two other points worth bearing in mind.

[1] This proposal blurs the distinction between the key(?) and previously separate concepts of quality & points of advantages. Although simple to write down it is far less clean than before. In practice it's easy enough to do but it's the first time that troop capabilities have been shifted to the "quality" re-roll portion of the rules.

Imagine trying to explain to a new player why only armour differences result in "quality" re-rolls.

Nothing "key" about the separation it is just the way the rules were originally developed - things then move on and evolve, we're trying not to be too dogmatic about changes to mechanisms (within reason).

You'll be glad to know the implication of moving from a PoA to the reroll has been considered and felt to be OK.


[2] In the original post on this issue you were looking to adjust the game balance by reducing the benefit of armour but elsewhere you said you were also looking to speed up the game (combat?). Increasing the number of "quality" re-rolls (for average in combat against better armour) may achieve the former but end up slowing down the game.

Unintended consequences perhaps?[/quote]

Did we say we wanted to speed up the game?

FWIW we do recognise that adding some re-rolls may slightly slow things down - it essentially boils down to some[/] Average troops getting a reroll - as noted elsewhere the suggested method may also slightly speed up combats as it raises the hit rate in combat a bit. Personally I think they should cancel out

[vexillia]

You'll be glad to know the implication of moving from a PoA to the re-roll has been considered and felt to be OK.

Did we say we wanted to speed up the game?

I've just checked and indeed you didn't. Clearly wishful thinking on my part.

FWIW we do recognise that adding some re-rolls may slightly slow things down - it essentially boils down to some[/] Average troops getting a reroll - as noted elsewhere the suggested method may also slightly speed up combats as it raises the hit rate in combat a bit.

This change does three things:

• It increases the chance of a hit as there's one less PoA.
• It increases significantly the number of dice re-rolled - all dice where armour differs.
• The additional re-rolls will negate a proportion of all hits - I'd say somewhere between 33-50%.

Net result: lots more re-rolls and, as you say, slightly more hits. The consequences of the latter are two-fold:

• An increased likelihood of more Cohesion Tests than previously - yet more dice!
• An increased likelihood of a "successful" death rolls due to more hits.

So I make that two separate additions to the amount of dice rolled balanced against an increased rate of battle group attrition and loss of cohesion (which in turn will result in fewer dice being rolled as the game progresses).

Personally I think they should cancel out

On reflection I think you may be being a touch optimistic. I suppose only a bout of play testing will provide the answer.