Request of opinion about a rule change

[marioslaz]

Sorry, I was suggesting Mario's -1 CT idea kick in when all APs are used up rather than the army breaking. Some battles are not truly over when the army breakpoint kicks in, though less so than DBM.

It sounds it would take too much time to end a game...
Anyway, it seems to me not historical you should wait up to half army break because your men started to feel discouraged.

[shall]

Look forward to hearing how it goes...

So far I haven't found a better option than the one in the rules, but I do have some ideas for fixing GBs cat and mouse issue

Si

[marioslaz]

Yesterday night we started a game where we will try our house rules. As it was easy to predict, we are not even near to the point in which we will start to see its effect. We are playing Mid-Republican Roman Vs Pyrrhic at 800 points. Next Thursday we will go on, so between a week perhaps I will have something to tell.

[pyruse]

Good Lord! How long does it take you to play a game?
An 800pt game should surely be complete in 3 hours?

We find a 600pt game takes 2 to 2.5 hours.

[sergiomonteleone]

MY FIRST CONSIDERATION IS TO SUGGEST TO LOOSING 1 POINT WHEN A COMMANDER DIES.

I agree to a degree.

I think the death of the CiC should be 2 attrition points as it is likely to be really harmful to the cohesion of the army, and is the kind of bad news that spreads around like fire in a dry wood ( "The king is dead?!? The day is lost then! Run for your lives!").
As for the other commanders, I think the cohesion test for seeing them die is enough. Their death is much less likely to have such a massive effect on the cohesion of the army as the death of CiC.

Good idea regarding C-in-C.
Regarding other Commanders, I've realized a lot of people (me included) risk commander in first rank in combat, considering that the probability to loose them is not high (1/ 36 if you loose the impact/ melee, 3/ 36 if you win impact/ melee).
You are right when you say if you loose 1 commander you have less commaders to rally BG's or to use them for manouvring.
Sergio

[sergiomonteleone]

and also full AP for skirmishers who've fled off the table.

Hi Carlos,
I completely agree.
Me too I prefer to loose only 1 point than 2 and so if a Bg of skirmishers has non high possibility to win impact/ melee.
I guess it could be better to loose 2 points and so to be able not to have BG's risking to evade off the table. It should depend on how the player is good or not.
Sergio

[sergiomonteleone]

Good Lord! How long does it take you to play a game?
An 800pt game should surely be complete in 3 hours?

We find a 600pt game takes 2 to 2.5 hours.

Hi,
I've realized at 800pt, if the two players know pretty well the rules (and so not to verify a lot of times rules book), normally a game can be completed in 2.5/ 3 hours.
I've never tried with 600pt, because I think it could be very different playing compared to 800pt.
Sergio

[shall]

sergiomonteleone wrote:
MY FIRST CONSIDERATION IS TO SUGGEST TO LOOSING 1 POINT WHEN A COMMANDER DIES.

I agree to a degree.

I think the death of the CiC should be 2 attrition points as it is likely to be really harmful to the cohesion of the army, and is the kind of bad news that spreads around like fire in a dry wood ( "The king is dead?!? The day is lost then! Run for your lives!").
As for the other commanders, I think the cohesion test for seeing them die is enough. Their death is much less likely to have such a massive effect on the cohesion of the army as the death of CiC.

The problem with this in game desing is you are trying to balance 2 things - scoring wins and losses where at first glance this seems a good idea, and (2) encourage reasonable behaviour with generals. Commanders did end up in combat quit a lot in battles - sensibly used. We wanted to avoid the cowering hero general that some other rules encourage.

The rules at present ecnourage putting generals in if you have large BGs, less so with small ones. So my Romans generally don't have generals in and my Britons usually have them at the front of the charge. If you lost APs for lost generals it might get too much and people would be back to hiding generals or considering the loss of general too much.

In fact the above works exactly the wrong way as it would penalize armies with small numbers of large BGs for putting generals into combat as "aps is a lot to my 12 Bg Britons but less for my 18 BG Dominate Romads.

My sense is if you did the above you would need to crop the CT for a general being killed as well - which we like.

FWIW

Si

[marioslaz]

Good Lord! How long does it take you to play a game?
An 800pt game should surely be complete in 3 hours?

We find a 600pt game takes 2 to 2.5 hours.

Hey, why should we play faster? We would lose all the flavour of the game. Anyway, we meet quite late in the evening, so we have 2-3 hours to play for each session, and we use a lot of this time to talk.

[philqw78]

Hey, why should we play faster? We would lose all the flavour of the game. Anyway, we meet quite late in the evening, so we have 2-3 hours to play for each session, and we use a lot of this time to talk.

Bloody Europeans. Enjoying life.

[marioslaz]

Hey, why should we play faster? We would lose all the flavour of the game. Anyway, we meet quite late in the evening, so we have 2-3 hours to play for each session, and we use a lot of this time to talk.

Bloody Europeans. Enjoying life.

Yes, we are for slow food, against fast food, because we like to taste slowly all the life pleasures... This is the bright side, but we are also very busy men due to our jobs, so we have few occasion to play or even to meet

[marioslaz]

This post is intended to Si, but I encourage all to write their own impressions.
Tomorrow we will meet again to continue our last game, where we are experimented the modifier to CT due to army deterioration. I continued to think about it in this days and I concluded a -2 is to great and we will limit modifier to -1 when your attrition points accumulated reach 50% of army rout value.

But there is a more important issue. I was thinking that an army with 1/3 or even 1/4 of its BG formed by skirmishers would suffer this modifier only due to skirmisher routs. We are historical fan and we usually play our army in historical fashion, but this doesn't mean we like to lose . So, if there is an advantage we try to use it. In this way, I fear this would open hunting season to LF. In a more general reasoning, I have the feeling skirmisher rout in FOG has a weight greater than that it had in real battles. I don't want to say skirmishers could be treated as expendables, like scythed chariots, but they are less important than battle units.

So I thought for a possible solution, and the better I found at present is this:

• for army rout battle units (i.e. non-skirmishers) count 2 points
• attrition point for non-skirmishers e camp sacked are doubled

Just an example with armies we are using in our game.
Pyrrhic: 12 BGs with 4 skirmishers. Standard rules: army breaks with 12 points and suffer -1 for our house rule with 3 BG routs (it would be enough my 3 LF). New rules: army breaks with 20 points and even if you destroy all my 4 skirmisher BGs my units don't get -1 for CT.
MRR: 15 BGs with 4 skirmishers. Standard rules: army breaks with 15 points and suffer -1 for our house rule with 4 BG routs. New rules: army breaks with 26 points and again the rout of all skirmishers is not enough to produce CT effect.

What do you think about? Could this work? (I mean: could this give us the result we are looking for?)

[SirGarnet]

On the attrition point issue, there have been quite a few posts, many by Simon, on the design and intention and I think I accurately condensed the various threads into the following summary:

--All BGs are 2 APs:(Condensed/Paraphrase:) Making all BGs the same victory point (AP) value is a simple mechanism to incentivise players to use the troops more historically. LF harass the enemy on his way in, withdraw behind their supports or to terrain when the enemy approach, and then dance round the edges, helping pick off enemy on the flanks, and trying to avoid getting slaughtered. Having LF BGS count 2 APs encourages historical use, which some other games do not. In the case of light foot types this means keeping them out of the way of "proper" troops. Historically they didn't play too great a role on the whole but if their loss is very cheap in victory points they will get used up in a historically inappropriate manner, especially in mismatches where the disadvantaged player would do all he can with trash to stave off "real" fighting. With all BGs rated the same there is a definite incentive to get the expensive stuff stuck in so you aren't defeated by losing the chaff –you end up fighting with the troops that really would have done the fighting.

[MadBanker]

sergiomonteleone wrote:
MY FIRST CONSIDERATION IS TO SUGGEST TO LOOSING 1 POINT WHEN A COMMANDER DIES.

I agree to a degree.

I think the death of the CiC should be 2 attrition points as it is likely to be really harmful to the cohesion of the army, and is the kind of bad news that spreads around like fire in a dry wood ( "The king is dead?!? The day is lost then! Run for your lives!").
As for the other commanders, I think the cohesion test for seeing them die is enough. Their death is much less likely to have such a massive effect on the cohesion of the army as the death of CiC.

The problem with this in game desing is you are trying to balance 2 things - scoring wins and losses where at first glance this seems a good idea, and (2) encourage reasonable behaviour with generals. Commanders did end up in combat quit a lot in battles - sensibly used. We wanted to avoid the cowering hero general that some other rules encourage.

The rules at present ecnourage putting generals in if you have large BGs, less so with small ones. So my Romans generally don't have generals in and my Britons usually have them at the front of the charge. If you lost APs for lost generals it might get too much and people would be back to hiding generals or considering the loss of general too much.

In fact the above works exactly the wrong way as it would penalize armies with small numbers of large BGs for putting generals into combat as "aps is a lot to my 12 Bg Britons but less for my 18 BG Dominate Romads.

My sense is if you did the above you would need to crop the CT for a general being killed as well - which we like.

FWIW

Si

I totaly agree...
That's why I was only talking about the CiC and NOT the subcommanders.
Commiting your CiC to closecombat should be a very serious step and even more so if he is an IC or a FC.
Imagine what would have happened to his army should Alexander have been killed in one of his glorious charges?
Remember Pyrrhos too, when he was thought to have been killed, his army was on the verge of collapsing (he had to run around the lines to prove he was still alive).

[marioslaz]

On the attrition point issue, there have been quite a few posts, many by Simon, on the design and intention and I think I accurately condensed the various threads into the following summary:

Thanks for your hints. This has a lot of sense, but:

• I'm talking about of a house rule to use in campaign games by experienced players
• the role of skirmishers is defined by game mechanics, because you can take advantage from them only if you use in a proper manner, not if you waste them in suicidal charge
• I want to avoid skirmishers attire too much attention, not the opposite

With these arguments in mind, IMO the situation you describe shouldn't happen.

[sagji]

So I thought for a possible solution, and the better I found at present is this:

• for army rout battle units (i.e. non-skirmishers) count 2 points
• attrition point for non-skirmishers e camp sacked are doubled

Just an example with armies we are using in our game.
Pyrrhic: 12 BGs with 4 skirmishers. Standard rules: army breaks with 12 points and suffer -1 for our house rule with 3 BG routs (it would be enough my 3 LF). New rules: army breaks with 20 points and even if you destroy all my 4 skirmisher BGs my units don't get -1 for CT.
MRR: 15 BGs with 4 skirmishers. Standard rules: army breaks with 15 points and suffer -1 for our house rule with 4 BG routs. New rules: army breaks with 26 points and again the rout of all skirmishers is not enough to produce CT effect.

What do you think about? Could this work? (I mean: could this give us the result we are looking for?)

I think it could cause problems.
Under the standard rules the Pyrric would break after 6 BGs rout, and I would expect that to be 6 of the 8 "heavy" BGs.
Under your rules once 5 "Heavies" rout you are at -1, but once all 8 heavies have routed you still have to rout one of the skirmishers before the army breaks.


From what you say I suspect that one reason you games are too long might be that you are letting the skirmisher clash be decisive - possibly by having skirmisher melees. This is because skirmishers generally don't have melee POAs.

The skirmisher clash is probably better moddeled by both sides shooting each other, and when one side is at a clear disadvantage it either moves its skirmishers back, or moves its heavies into position to charge without orders through the screen.

As a general guide skirmishers should avoid close combat, unless LH vs LF (dice advantage), They have a melee advantage (such as Protected versus Unprotected), or charging fragmented enemy (may break on declaration and are likely to evade), or charging enemy flank/rear (loss of cohesion level + impact at ++)
Minor advantages - such as impact POA, better cohesion, better numbers, or better quality, generally aren't enough.

[marioslaz]

I think it could cause problems.
Under the standard rules the Pyrric would break after 6 BGs rout, and I would expect that to be 6 of the 8 "heavy" BGs.
Under your rules once 5 "Heavies" rout you are at -1, but once all 8 heavies have routed you still have to rout one of the skirmishers before the army breaks.

I think you made a wrong calculation. Doubling attrition point for non-skirmishers means that each heavy rout count 4 attrition points. So with 5 heavy in rout game is over for Pyrrhic (5x4=20)

From what you say I suspect that one reason you games are too long might be that you are letting the skirmisher clash be decisive - possibly by having skirmisher melees. This is because skirmishers generally don't have melee POAs.

We didn't use skirmishers in melee, other than against other skirmishers and only when we had a better option than shooting. I think we used skirmishers quite well since now, and in a historical fashion.
Thanks for your input. I appreciate all your opinions because this permit me to test my opinion from a lot of point of views..

[sergiomonteleone]

The rules at present ecnourage putting generals in if you have large BGs, less so with small ones.
Si

Hi Simon,
I completely agree considering all you wrote.
I'm adding, generally speaking, if in a battle or tournament you have a BG with average figures against superior ones I prefer to use a commander in combat.
Sergio

[marioslaz]

We at last ended our game, but we cannot see any effect because my army breaks suddenly . In the meantime I refined my original idea to try a first compromise between easiness and accuracy.
The new idea is:

• AP and army rout are calculated as usual
• when your AP are equal to 50% of army rout you make a new test (I call it army cohesion test) each time:
  • one BG rout;
  • one commander is killed
• Army cohesion test use these factors:
  • C-in-c killed +2|-2
  • commander killed +1|-1
  • each BG actually in rout, fled in rout from table or destroyed +1|-1
• You sum all factors (plus when refer to your army, minus when to opponent's army) and the number you get, if positive, is the number of dice you roll
• You roll the number of dice as above and if the net score is 12 or more your army becomes shaken and get a -1 to all CT
• Game end as usual

This system is just a little more complicate than original rule, because you need to make some calculation to take the test, but many of the factors are the same you need to calculate AP. I see these advantages:

• it's not a mathematical rule (more fun in scenario or campaign games)
• Commander loss has some importance
• This balance better the match between an army of few BG of good troops and one with a lot of poor troops, in fact:
  • army with good troops lose less BG so with a such Army cohesion test usually they will last computation of factors with a negative numbers and they must not roll (pass automatically)
  • army with poor troops begins to have trouble when it loses near 1/4th of its BGs

Any comments? (again, please remember that this is not a proposal for a change of main rules, but just an house rule to use in scenario and campaign games).

[sagji]

It doesn't cope well with different army sizes.
Example 1
Army A has 9 BGs and is fighting army B with 17 BGs.
A has 4 BGs routing/lost, and B 8. Both armies are 1 BG from breaking, the battle is very close.
Both sides loose a commander and have to test - A army doesn't roll any dice (5-9) and B rolls 4 dice (9-5)


Example 2a
Armies as above
Army A has no losses (say several BGs fragmented but no current routs) Army B looses its 5th BG and rolls 5 dice for the army check.

Example 2b
Army B has no losses, Army A looses its 3rd BG and rolls 3 dice.

Here the situation for the two loosing armies is similar they have just crossed 1/2 way, but the chance of failure is very different.

Example 3
Army A has no BGs lost, but all but 1 BG are Fragged (1 AP from breaking)
Army B looses its 5 BG
Here Army B is very close to winning, but still risks army collapse while A never has.

Also as you use routs instead of AP it breaks down for some cases - a LH army will have lots of BGs that evade off table for 1 AP but very few routs/loses.

I would be inclined to use the score instead of BGs lost as this corrects for army size and includes fragged, and evaded off table.
Each interphase each army rolls 1 dice, if it gets less than or equal to its score it counts as shaken next turn. If it is already shaken it rolls an extra dice. Its score is reduced for commanders lost (as above), but not increased for enemy generals lost.
This is probably on the hard side - you need to be significantly loosing to have a chance of failing - so you may want to add 1 or 2 to the roll if not shaken.