800 Points of VisiGothic Fun

DataBob · Post by **DataBob** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 9:34 am

Having spent my weeks holiday in Sunny Cornwall sitting on a beach reading FoG and LT (getting too old to surf now LOL) I have decided to build a Visigothic army , initial list - after poring over rules and forums is as follows

IC - Alaric da Man 80 points
3 x TC 105 points
2 BG of 4 bases noble cavalry CV , protected , superior , Undrilled , lancers , swordsmen 96 points
1 BG of 4 bases Hun Cavalry LH , unprotected , superior , undrilled , bow , swordmen 48 points
7 BG of 8 bases HF ,protected , average , Undrilled , impact foot , swordman 392 points
1 BG 6 bases of archers LF , unprotected , average , undrilled , bow 30 points
1 BG 6 bases of Javelinmen LF , unprotected , average , undrilled , javelins , light spear 24 points
1 fortified Camp 24 points

total 799 points

I could always swap fortified camp for another BG of LF javelinmen.

the aim is to have the army up and running in time for the BHGS challenge next April so I can have my first taster of an Ancients tournament thats not Warhammer LOL

Any suggestions/critique/tactical gems greatly appreciated !!

Cheers

Bob

IrishBouzouki · Post by **IrishBouzouki** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 11:35 am

quick off hand observation from a complete and total noob...

in the unlikely event I understand the rules correctly...
you have 12 bg's so would break on losing 6.
the camp, fortified or not, would count as 1 of those 6 - and that is all it is doing for you.
another BG of _anything_ in place of the camp fortifications gives you 13 bg's so you break on losing 7 instead.
so... if I do not have the rules hosed up adding the odd bg "defends your camp" just as well as fortifications (well... better) plus can do other stuff for you.

the only reason I can see, in this situation, for you to take the fortifications is if that is what it takes for you to pass your personal morale test and not worry about your camp being ransacked, freeing you up mentally to go after the enemy army. if you are using a couple bg to defend an unfortified camp then the defenses are worth it to free up your troops.

Scrumpy · Post by **Scrumpy** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 2:54 pm

Your IF have to win the impact against most foot troops they fight, otherwise I have found they will just get ground down. I would ditch the camp, and take another unit of Javelins, they will be handy to try and delay any troops going through the bad going your HF cannot deal with.

As for the Huns, I would suggest shooty LH need to be in 6's, otherwise if you lose a base, they only have 1 die shooting, which is unlikely to do anything. An average 6 will cost you 60 pts, compared to the 48 the Superior cost, you could pick up the 12 points by dropping the C-in-C to FC, and then have 18 pts to spend elsewhere.

I'm not sure you need a high initiative with this type of army, after all, you really want to be able to get the first move in, and rush the IF across the board ( OK 6" is hardly a rush ) and try to force the issue with the enemy befre he could redeploy stuff that can hurt you in front of your IF.

Cheers

daleivan · Post by **daleivan** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 9:25 pm

Scrumpy wrote:Your IF have to win the impact against most foot troops they fight, otherwise I have found they will just get ground down. I would ditch the camp, and take another unit of Javelins, they will be handy to try and delay any troops going through the bad going your HF cannot deal with.

As for the Huns, I would suggest shooty LH need to be in 6's, otherwise if you lose a base, they only have 1 die shooting, which is unlikely to do anything. An average 6 will cost you 60 pts, compared to the 48 the Superior cost, you could pick up the 12 points by dropping the C-in-C to FC, and then have 18 pts to spend elsewhere.

I'm not sure you need a high initiative with this type of army, after all, you really want to be able to get the first move in, and rush the IF across the board ( OK 6" is hardly a rush ) and try to force the issue with the enemy befre he could redeploy stuff that can hurt you in front of your IF.

Cheers

Good points. Of course the IC will help with maneuvering all those undrilled troops, so that's a reaso to keep him. I like having three TCs in this list--nice for when you think a BG needs to be able to reroll 1s in close combat.

I'd almost be tempted to drop the fortified camp and one of the protected cav to buy another BG of HF andtwo bases to your Hunnic BG. As Scrumpy notes shooty LH really need to be in 6 base LH. My 4 base Numidian LHs in my LRR army definitely prove that point -- they just can't take many hits from enemy shooting

Dale

hammy · Post by **hammy** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 9:35 pm

I used a Visigoth army at the very first playtest of FoG. It did OK and that was with impact foot not being as good as they are now against mounted.

What I did have that this list doesn't was a Dacian ally to give me some decent medium foot.

I tend to agree that 6 average Huns would be better in this army than 4 superiors. In my list I ran them as cavalry and it didn't work.

I also had the maximum allocation (or nearly the maximum) of light foot archers and from memory had 4 or possibly even 5 BGs of them.

HF Impact foot plus some decent MF terrain troops plus a load of light foot with lancers in reserve works quite well.

Bob, if you want to have a go pop down to MAWS one Monday evening and I will loan you my Gothic hordes.

Scrumpy · Post by **Scrumpy** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 9:53 pm

Will the Later Moorish ally list be similar to the Numidian ally list ? I have a Vandal army complete with from the old days, the Cm(I) will become baggage, but how many LH & LF will we be allowed or need ?

Cheers

hammy · Post by **hammy** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 9:55 pm

Scrumpy wrote:Will the Later Moorish ally list be similar to the Numidian ally list ? I have a Vandal army complete with from the old days, the Cm(I) will become baggage, but how many LH & LF will we be allowed or need ?

Cheers

The Later Moorish ally list is not unlike the Early Moorish one.

marty · Post by **marty** » Sat Sep 06, 2008 2:24 am

I am currently painting an army I plan to use as visigoth as well. My proprsed list is as follows

3 TC, 1 allied (ostrogoth) TC

2 BG 4 el protected sup lancer cav

1 BG 6 el unpr ave LH bow swrd

4 BG 10 el imp foot

3 BG 6 el LI foot archers (1 unit are ostrogoth allies)

2 BG 6 el Protected sup lancer cav (ostrogoths)

12BG, init +2. 800 points

So basically 4 big warbands and 4 units of lancers with supporting light troops. Its all about numbers and impact. I'm hoping the lancers will make it difficult for people to avoid sections of the army or spend all game running away. The main problem as I see it is an absence of MF. Hopefully the reasonable LF component would help fill this void a little bit

Martin

philqw78 · Post by **philqw78** » Sat Sep 06, 2008 2:44 am

HF are not too bad in rough going if they have impact foot and swordsmen capability. Unlike Sp, who are not steady in such terrain when HF

hammy · Post by **hammy** » Sat Sep 06, 2008 8:27 am

IMO you are better running protected lancers in BGs of 4. That way you can move them around in single rank against shooty cavalry and lights but contract to a decent fighting width quickly. BGs of 6 are really forced to move 2 deep and that makes them a lot more vulnerable to missiles.

marty · Post by **marty** » Sun Sep 07, 2008 4:59 am

The 6 el units were partially a function of them been part of an allied command. wanted to keep it to 3 BG in case I felt the need to flank march. Also with only 1 gen able to lead these units Into combat I thought bigger would be better. I would hope to use the allied unit of LI to screen these guys if it was necessary.

The sort of people with lots of bows probably wouldn't be able to withstand six elements of Germanic supermen anyway!

Martin

DataBob · Post by **DataBob** » Wed Sep 10, 2008 11:49 am

Thanks for all the comments guys , I will test out all the permutations of BG size and composition in my practise games until I arrive at an optimum

I may even post some of them in the AAR forum

Cheers

Bob

daleivan · Post by **daleivan** » Wed Sep 10, 2008 3:12 pm

DataBob wrote:Thanks for all the comments guys , I will test out all the permutations of BG size and composition in my practise games until I arrive at an optimum

I may even post some of them in the AAR forum

Cheers

Bob

Please do post some

Dale

domblas · Post by **domblas** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 7:21 am

i'v playd with my visigothic army 3 time and won 2. May be yours is ok but IMO u don't have enough foot skirmishers.
3 BG of at least 6 bases would be good.

Huns don't need to be superior, they are used to slow down ennemy or to avoid being slowed down by ennemi so its their move rather than their strengh in fighting that is usefull

What is important with this army is to make a big line of HF and to make as many double move as possible to pressure the ennemy front. So u must avoid being slowed down by ennemi skirmishers. And to avoid that, u must have skirmishers.

fogly