English HYW tactics

[david53]

Hi There

I know people have talked about certain aspects but thought I'd ask a different question. How do you stop your english army from becoming a) to defensive and b) to linear.

Defensive is a problum i have with little or no cavalry how can you move forward with a majority bow armed force who would'nt be able to stand a Cavalry charge in the open. The use of terrian is all dependent on the dice and to be honest you'd need a lot for a 800 pt army to be of any use and you'd likely lose the inicative to a cavalry army.

How to stop your army being one line to allow your advantage of the most shooting with the longbow.

I am sure this is a silly question but playing for the first time last week with this army i found my deployment was all wrong.

Any ideas on deployment ect would be welcome.
Dave

[paulcummins]

those drilled longbowmen are some of the best troops in the game. If you can get the hang of attacking with them you can stomp most armies.

The key thing with these guys is the 90 turn and move.
combined with a 1 deep deployment you can get them onto a flank really quickly
another 90 turn then opens them up for firing 2 deep.

against a mounted army (and assuming you didnt go for stakes) you can hang a BG out to dry in the open, ideally near some rough. Another BG in the rough or just out to the flank can help with the shooting.
You are going to get at least 2 rounds of shooting on them which may well do them some damage. And if its knights they are probably going to be taking 2 death rolls which is a bit scary for them.

in general I try to deploy in a 1 deep line across the table, then contract into the area I want to fight in.
Light foot are a favourite target - take out a couple of BGs and that can make the rest of the army look vulnerable.

[jlopez]

Having one BG of Gascon knights knocking around in reserve also makes your opponent think twice about commiting anything other than knights to a headlong charge into the longbowmen.

I wouldn't worry too much about flanks. Most armies may have a couple of BGs more than you but will, if anything, have fewer fighting BGs than you as skirmishers are not much use against longbowmen. If he wants to have a go at your flanks with skirmishers then let him, turn 90 degrees and show him what firepower really is about.

Julian

[Redpossum]

Another interesting thread about Longbowmen. There certainly does seem to be a lot of interest recently.

Personally, being a contrarian, I'm not so much interested in how to play an LB army as how to defeat one.

I asked that question about the middle of this thread, and got some interesting replies. Now I'm trying to reconcile those with the comments here.

Don Julian, I take it your tongue-in-cheek comment at the end of that other thread was just irony rather than a serious opinion?

I mean, there was always Bannockburn. We can probably discount that business about Templars as romantic fluff added in a later century. But it does appear that the 500-odd Scots cavalry under Keith circled around the Scots left, swinging north of St. Ninians, and charged the English archers successfully.

It's also worth noting that the Scots apparently had archers of their own.

Granted, Edward was being a horse's ass; publicly calling Gloucester a coward wasn't the brightest move. If anything Gloucester was too damn brave. The man had already been unhorsed once, while leading that "we learned nothing at Falkirk" charge of the knights with Hereford on the first day.

But setting aside all the details, which we could chew over endlessly, I don't think English armies of that era were invincible. Formidable, yes, but not invincible.

If nothing else, that tactic of screening with a line of cheap LF as your heavier melee foot approaches sounds like it would work.

Hammy, madmike, Flameberge, and nikgaukroger all had useful comments in that thread I linked above.

[jlopez]

Don Julian, I take it your tongue-in-cheek comment at the end of that other thread was just irony rather than a serious opinion?

Of course.

As you point out, English armies were formidable but not invulnerable. I think that is neatly reflected in FoG where they will give most opponents serious headaches as long as the army is a balanced one.

Julian

[Redpossum]

Don Julian, I take it your tongue-in-cheek comment at the end of that other thread was just irony rather than a serious opinion?

Of course.

As you point out, English armies were formidable but not invulnerable. I think that is neatly reflected in FoG where they will give most opponents serious headaches as long as the army is a balanced one.

Julian

Heheh, I was pretty sure that was the case

So how would you go about defeating an LB army with that Mid-Republican Roman army you were just talking about using at Jaen?

[jlopez]

Don Julian, I take it your tongue-in-cheek comment at the end of that other thread was just irony rather than a serious opinion?

Of course.

As you point out, English armies were formidable but not invulnerable. I think that is neatly reflected in FoG where they will give most opponents serious headaches as long as the army is a balanced one.

Julian

Heheh, I was pretty sure that was the case

So how would you go about defeating an LB army with that Mid-Republican Roman army you were just talking about using at Jaen?

Well, without wishing to give too much away about my army list, I suspect that I will bunch up the legions, head for the centre of the enemy with my velites absorbing two rounds of fire and charge in with rear support while my triarii square up with anything on a horse. Numbers, armour and lots of TCs should make the difference in the melee and keeping the army tight will minimize an opponent's chances of concentrating fire. A lot depends on the ratio of longbowmen to HF/knights. The more archers, the better as far as I'm concerned. Nothing subtle I'm afraid but then again what would you expect from an army led by such tactical geniuses as Varro or Paulus?

By the way, I'm taking MRR because I've had the army for something like 15 years accumulating dust (ever tried Polybian Roman in a DBM competition?)and I want some return on the hours I spent painting the buggers, not because it's good. In period it should do OK but in an open tournament it will struggle largely because i will be facing armies I can't catch (girlie horse archers) or medieval shock armies which will make life very difficult for my armoured (pah!) foot.

Julian

[Redpossum]

Once again, kind sir, I thank you for the courtesy of your reply

OK, so it sounds like you are adopting the a similar approach to the one outlined in this post by Madmike

Further to the comment about Legionaries against longbow men I would suggest adding offensive spearmen or pikes. What I would do is put a screen of the cheapest LF you can buy in front of the HF and move them up towards the archers. Don’t move the LF out of the way, just let the HF charge straight through your own skirmishers, that way the archers don’t even get a single shot at the quality guys.

Even the poorest quality skirmishers will provide protection from at least 3 rounds of fire, assuming the worse case scenario where they fail every cohesion test. Actually they should do much better as they will have rear support and command range for a +2 on the roll.

Of course after taking all that missile fire and being charged through the LF are ruined so I always go for the poor quality javelin skirmisher when available, at 2pts each they work as well skirmishers 3 times the price.

So I take this to mean that such an approach will indeed work, good to know. How do you feel about the burst through vs move them out of the way issue? Can the LF at that point simply use interpenetration to move back behind the line of Legionaries before those Legionaries charge, or would you have to leave them gaps to move through?

I take your point about not giving away details of your army list.

I'm just thinking that with the (apparently from all the questions here) booming popularity of LB armies, one should be thinking about them when assembling an army list, creating doctrine, etc. Even the Free Company army in this thread has Longbowmen.

[ethan]

Even the Free Company army in this thread has Longbowmen.

I would think the Romans would need rather different tactics against that....The Super knights are the real power in that one with as many knights as longbowmen.

[jlopez]

Even the Free Company army in this thread has Longbowmen.

I would think the Romans would need rather different tactics against that....The Super knights are the real power in that one with as many knights as longbowmen.

Quite. If I come across large numbers of knights or dismounted knights, I'm toast. In fact there are a lot of armies out there that might make it very difficult for me to win games. Unlike other armies I usually field, I will struggle to impose a battle plan on a lot of opponents with the MRR.

Actually, Possum, I disagree about having to design armies with longbowmen in mind. The only thing I worry about at the list designing stage is whether the army will be able to force a battle on a reluctant opponent (skirmish/shooty cav armies). Most of my armies have been designed precisely with that in mind as I don't do draws.

My one bad experience was with a Free Company (all HF and Knights) vs David Caceres' Andalusian. There was no way I could catch him because of terrain and my lack of missile troops. Any attempt to do so was likely to end in disaster as David is a good player and with plenty of experience with that army. Since I had no other choice, I formed a box in a corner of the table and waited for him to commit his heavy troops. I let him move to his heart's content until he was in range with his skirmishers. He then shot at my immobile HF for something like 15 bounds before he gave it up as hopeless and decided to send in his heavier troops in the last turns to see if he got lucky. He didn't and things were getting sticky for him when time was called. If I come across the Granadines again next weekend in Jaen, I will face an almost identical challenge except my army will be a lot wider than the Free Company giving me scope for some different tactics depending on terrain. Still, I would be surprised to win the battle outright.

With regards to your question about whether to burst through the LF screen or not, my personal preference is to avoid dropping cohesion levels at all costs. Even with four generals, you often don't have the time or opportunity to boost them back to steady and every turn you fail to boost them is another turn you hesitate to send them to support the flanks. Another issue is I don't like the idea of waiting for my shock troops to fail their tests before I go in. I would much prefer to allow my opponent to get a couple of shots in and then go in all along the line. With legions of 8 bases deployed in three ranks (3-3-2), the longbowmen will need three hits with four dice so the chances of having to test are not high and even then I will get a minimum of +2 for rear support and general. Shooting is not a worry but where possible I will attempt to reduce its possible impact. People with more armour are of greater concern.

Julian

[Redpossum]

Yet again, kind sir, I thank you profusely for taking the time to explain that.

Si may be the best at explaining rules, but I think I learn more about tactics from your posts than any others.

I remember seeing the write-up about that match with Señor Caceres' Andalusians, and I think there was even a pic of your testudo in the corner. The thing I was wondering at the time was, didn't you then suffer a -1 to CT's for non-skirmishers within 6 MU of a map-edge? Err, I'd have sworn I read about that, but now I don't see it on the QRF, unless it's lumped in with Threatened Flank...

And good luck with the Granadines at Jaen. I looked it up on Wikipedia; it looks and sounds like a delightful little city. That photograph on the wiki page is oddly jarring for me. Land, sky, city, and architecture look so much like the older sections of San Diego near the bay that it's just eerie. Well, OK, except for the giant cathedral, we don't have one of those

Many of those medieval Iberian armies look very formidable, though many seem to fit into the category of "toolkit" armies, and thus are probably not suited for raw beginners like myself.

[nikgaukroger]

I remember seeing the write-up about that match with Señor Caceres' Andalusians, and I think there was even a pic of your testudo in the corner. The thing I was wondering at the time was, didn't you then suffer a -1 to CT's for non-skirmishers within 6 MU of a map-edge? Err, I'd have sworn I read about that, but now I don't see it on the QRF, unless it's lumped in with Threatened Flank...

That -1 is for a threatened flank - being within 6 MU of the table edge is part of the definition.

[jlopez]

Yet again, kind sir, I thank you profusely for taking the time to explain that.

Si may be the best at explaining rules, but I think I learn more about tactics from your posts than any others.

I remember seeing the write-up about that match with Señor Caceres' Andalusians, and I think there was even a pic of your testudo in the corner. The thing I was wondering at the time was, didn't you then suffer a -1 to CT's for non-skirmishers within 6 MU of a map-edge? Err, I'd have sworn I read about that, but now I don't see it on the QRF, unless it's lumped in with Threatened Flank...

And good luck with the Granadines at Jaen. I looked it up on Wikipedia; it looks and sounds like a delightful little city. That photograph on the wiki page is oddly jarring for me. Land, sky, city, and architecture look so much like the older sections of San Diego near the bay that it's just eerie. Well, OK, except for the giant cathedral, we don't have one of those

Many of those medieval Iberian armies look very formidable, though many seem to fit into the category of "toolkit" armies, and thus are probably not suited for raw beginners like myself.

You're welcome.

The -1 for threatened flank is only an issue if you have to take a test. Since my HF was heavily armoured, the Andalusian skirmishers needed a 6 for a hit which, given my use of 8 base BGs, usually meant they needed to get hits with all their dice to force a cohesion test. They did get a few on me and I think I even lost a couple of bases but that was about it. Bear in mind that with knights in rear support and TCs in command range of all targeted BGs. I had a +2 or +1 for the test depending on the distance from the edge of the table. I really can't stress enough how important it is to avoid cohesion tests and design armies with that in mind. For example, a 6 base BG is hugely more vulnerable to shooting than an 8 base BG as it requires only two hits instead of three to take a cohesion test. That means a single 4 base LH BG can inflict a test on the smaller BG while opponents will need to concentrate two groups on the larger one. Might seem an insignificant detail but you won't believe how many times I've heard my opponents damn their luck when they have just failed to get the required number of hits for a test or simply realised too late that they didn't have enough dice to even make me test.

San Diego, you say? I think the clue may be in the name!

Nice thing about Jaen, if you don't mind splashing out a few euros, is the mountain-top castle has been extended into a hotel. Stunning views of a huge part of Andalucia and eating in the hall is rather grand: http://www.parador.es/en/cargarFichaPar ... arador=042
You're welcome over anytime and bear in mind we'll usually pickup overseas players from the airport and lend them armies. Still, it's a long way from California and I suspect tourism might be a higher priority than gaming if you do come over!

For beginners, I tend to suggest two types of armies: highly mobile quality ones (Huns, Ilkhanid) or slow, undrilled, protected and average ones (Early German, Spartacus). The former will give you a reasonable chance to win, are fun to use and require less knowledge of the rules to use (fewer movement restrictions) and will give you a clue as to how to use, or not to use, other armies when you face them. The undrilled armies will be a pain to use and you will lead them to defeat after defeat until you have gained a good understanding of the rules and its mechanisms. However, the latter method has a more pronounced learning curve and the experience will serve you much better with other armies. I've often found that beginners who learn to play with mobile armies tend to pick up bad habits (poor deployment that you fix later, lack of a plan...) which they find hard to shake off later. Difficult armies often force you to make up for their deficiencies with good generalship.

Julian

[ethan]

The castle at Jaen is really neat, I visited a few years ago, unfortunately couldn't stay in the hotel. I do know I really, really woulnd't want to try and take that place in a siege...

I think the above post illustrates why FoG is so interesting. The things that make your army better against shooting (larger BGs) also make it less good in other ways (notably less mobile, few BGs, etc) so you have to decide on the trade-offs you can live with. The point about a 4 element BG not being able to force a test is really important. FoG can really be a numbers game in terms of BGs and having "free" or "extra" BGs can make all the difference. Sure you can concentrate 2X4EE BGS, but then do you lose the ability to skirmish? Are you skirmishers on the other side of the table now outclassed by the single enemy 6EE group? All part of the fun of FoG army design.