Better armour PoA

[MatthewP]

Not a good thing IMO. FoG combat is already accelerated.

This may well be true from a historical perspective, but from a game pov it would speed up the process producing more definite finishes and would allow a greater chance of exploiting gaps, which would reduce game time even more. At the moment, by the time you've crushed your oponents centre and are about to flank charge the rest the umpire shouts 'time gentlemen please'.

[nikgaukroger]

Not a good thing IMO. FoG combat is already accelerated.

This may well be true from a historical perspective,

From a game one as well.

[rogerg]

An interesting one Nik. I had never considered the time scale of combat relative to the events in a battle. I doubt the current system will permit extending combat rounds. The alternative is to increase the movement distances. Everyone else gets to do more, hence the combats appear correspondingly lengthy.

How much would the change need to be? Do we double the move distances for instance? This is really interesting. Deployment becomes more crucial, perhaps it should be. Less time would be available to re-arrange things. Catching skirmishers would be easier. Perhaps more important, larger armies of weaker troops could do more.

[philqw78]

Why not half the shooting range instead of doubling move distance.

[nikgaukroger]

An interesting one Nik. I had never considered the time scale of combat relative to the events in a battle. I doubt the current system will permit extending combat rounds. The alternative is to increase the movement distances.

I'd be against increasing movement distances and it makes the game feel like a smaller battle as the troops zip around. IMO FoG is already at the lower end of what i want for the "feel" of a massed battle - one reason I think we should play with more toys on table as well

All this, of course, is based on a personal liking for a game of 3 - 3.5 hours duration with a reasonable (over 50%) chance of one (or both) armies breaking if played at a reasonable speed by both players. Mileage will vary if you think that game length is too long, etc.

[Strategos69]

I'd be against increasing movement distances and it makes the game feel like a smaller battle as the troops zip around. IMO FoG is already at the lower end of what i want for the "feel" of a massed battle - one reason I think we should play with more toys on table as well

All this, of course, is based on a personal liking for a game of 3 - 3.5 hours duration with a reasonable (over 50%) chance of one (or both) armies breaking if played at a reasonable speed by both players. Mileage will vary if you think that game length is too long, etc.

In that regard I like when the rulesets give the players the chance to choose what kind of lenght of game they want to play. I missed in FoG a chapter (or book) of additional optional rules (weather, fatigue, prebattle events, hour of start, armies with more miniatures, more resistence of infantry so that victories in the wings can really be exploited, etc.)

[shadowdragon]

I like that FoG explicitly includes armour even if that presents challenges when categorizing troops over several millenia. The number of armour classes is about right - again, despite the problem that presents when categorizing troops from different periods.

I'm not convinced despite several pages of discussion that the current rule is broken. Just about all of the suggestion seem to me to provide little game value for the amount of complexity they would introduce.

Any consideration of changing point value for "armour" also has to consider the points value for "superior" since "superior" has about the same increase as "armour" and it counts in many more ways than "armour". Now we're into serious game balance adjustments.

It may very well be that there are too many armoured and superior troops, which could be fixed in the lists but I won't pay all the money to replace all of those supplements. Sorry. Place restrictions on entries for tournaments.

As a gamer I almost always choose superior / armoured over average / protected and I suspect i would as a king too.

[Strategos69]

Sometimes I find that there is a category missing in between to reflect some situations. For example, Gaesati are considered protected, but in the description of the battle of Telamon it is said that they suffered from shooting more than other Gallic troops. Between unprotected and protected seems to me that there was, at least for the Classical era, a type of soldier that was not very heavily armoured, that suffered from shooting but was a match for other heavier troops in melee. Some of the problems we have seen in this post could be solved in that way. For example, early hoplites were heavily armoured mainly to protect them from shooting. Later hoplites reduced their equipment since the enemy was no longer the Persians but other Greeks that fought with less shooting before the clash of the armies.Therefore, without introducing big changes in the rules, wouldn't it be a solution to have a classification that treates separately shooting and close combat? That way some troops might have an extra cost in points only to protect them from shooting, which would allow players to calculate if it is better to have better troops or more troops.

[jlopez]

For example, early hoplites were heavily armoured mainly to protect them from shooting. Later hoplites reduced their equipment since the enemy was no longer the Persians but other Greeks that fought with less shooting before the clash of the armies.

Therefore, without introducing big changes in the rules, wouldn't it be a solution to have a classification that treates separately shooting and close combat? That way some troops might have an extra cost in points only to protect them from shooting, which would allow players to calculate if it is better to have better troops or more troops.

Greek hoplite armour developed before Persians or other girlie missile users were on the scene and the most common enemy were other hoplites. The reduction or change in armour at the end of the Classical period has probably more to do with the increasing pauperisation of the land-owning class, much as happened towards the end of the Roman Republican period, than to external factors.

Wouldn't your idea mean all the army lists would have to re-written?

[Strategos69]

Greek hoplite armour developed before Persians or other girlie missile users were on the scene and the most common enemy were other hoplites. The reduction or change in armour at the end of the Classical period has probably more to do with the increasing pauperisation of the land-owning class, much as happened towards the end of the Roman Republican period, than to external factors.
Wouldn't your idea mean all the army lists would have to re-written?

You are right in the sense that bronze anatomical cuirasses developped before facing the Persians and maybe the first development was not only to counter shooting (or it was in the Archaric period, where these protections come from and they were at first intended to protect the noble man from dying from lighter weapons). I certainly do not have an answer but the point is that they stopped using them after the Medic Wars.

The fact is that Lacedemonians abandoned the use of anatomical cuirasses when they were at their highest power. Before that time Greeks wondered why Persians would attack a people as poor as they were. So I think it is fair to say that Greeks by the end of the 5th century (when anatomical cuirasses were abandonned) were wealthier than in the period of the Medic Wars. Some moved to the use of linothorax whereas others simply renounced to any body armour. Other city states imitated it to gain in mobility for their armies. It seems that the gain in comfort was bigger than the loss in protection. So I don't think the economical explanation holds for the Greeks, even in the case of the Romans we don't know for sure that troops were worse equipped than before (as usually weapons were inherited and military industry expanded).

As in FoG there are no rules concerning tiredness, there is no question to choose between protected or armoured in many cases whereas we can have doubts that the extra armour provided extra performance in close combat. Also armour doesn't have an impact in your movement.

As it has been said, changes to the rules do have an impact in the list and sometimes it is the list that troubles players more than the rules themselves. In some other situations, the rules do not cover situations, as, for example, when you have infantry with poor protection and suffering from shooting but standing in close combat. Thus, both have to be dealt at the same time. So, in conclusion
- I am suggesting that having an additional type of armour that suffers from shooting but not in close combat is needed to cover some situations
- Maybe splitting the armour into how it worked against shooting and close combat could help (but this is a major change)
- What about as suggested using PoA armour only for tiebreaks or when you have less PoA than enemy?

[NickW]

Sorry, coming to this a bit late, but if this is one of the reasons:

Has a strong effect on the playability of troops in FoG. Players will almost always choose armoured offensive spearmen over protected offensive spearmen, as their game performance is so much better. There is a point cost difference, but it does not offset the huge difference the armour POA makes.

Why not just adjust the points costs some more? Maybe increase armoured by 1 pt? Maybe by 0.5 pts?

[jlopez]

Sorry, coming to this a bit late, but if this is one of the reasons:

Has a strong effect on the playability of troops in FoG. Players will almost always choose armoured offensive spearmen over protected offensive spearmen, as their game performance is so much better. There is a point cost difference, but it does not offset the huge difference the armour POA makes.

Why not just adjust the points costs some more? Maybe increase armoured by 1 pt? Maybe by 0.5 pts?

To answer you, I think Rogerg was right to point out that: "Changing the points will not work; a slightly cheap loser is still a loser. Worse, a much cheaper loser becomes a non-combatant filler and we have the DBM super men supported by the massed rear ranks of Ax(I). Please, let's not go back there again. "

[shadowdragon]

Sorry, coming to this a bit late, but if this is one of the reasons:

Has a strong effect on the playability of troops in FoG. Players will almost always choose armoured offensive spearmen over protected offensive spearmen, as their game performance is so much better. There is a point cost difference, but it does not offset the huge difference the armour POA makes.

Why not just adjust the points costs some more? Maybe increase armoured by 1 pt? Maybe by 0.5 pts?

To answer you, I think Rogerg was right to point out that: "Changing the points will not work; a slightly cheap loser is still a loser. Worse, a much cheaper loser becomes a non-combatant filler and we have the DBM super men supported by the massed rear ranks of Ax(I). Please, let's not go back there again. "

Given the advantages in FoG of flank / rear attacks / attacking a unit from two directions, I'd much rather have two "losers" to your one "winner" if it means that one of my units can hit yours in the flank.

Of course, some armies have a huge challenge to exploit their numbers since they aren't very maneourable, but we shouldn't reduce this just to a one-on-one unit comparison.

[nikgaukroger]

- What about as suggested using PoA armour only for tiebreaks or when you have less PoA than enemy?

How about better quality gives you a PoA and better armour gives you re-rolls on your misses ...

[shadowdragon]

- What about as suggested using PoA armour only for tiebreaks or when you have less PoA than enemy?

How about better quality gives you a PoA and better armour gives you re-rolls on your misses ...

How about better armour gives you re-rolls on your enemy's hits?

[Strategos69]

How about better quality gives you a PoA and better armour gives you re-rolls on your misses ...

I like the idea right now of the quality reroll for CMT and alike, but maybe something can be worked out without changing some of the basis that were good.

[ethan]

How about better armour gives you re-rolls on your enemy's hits?

That's better than a PoA...Currently having better armor reduces each die from 0.5 hits to 0.33 hits. That will reduce it 0.25 hits...

[rogerg]

The easiest of all would be to make armour an extra quality re-roll level in combat. Protected and superior would then be equal in combat to armoured average. Heavily armoured superiors with a general, the 'standard knight attack', would be pretty powerful. It would take away the current 'game' of watch ing for threes though

[NickW]

Sorry, coming to this a bit late, but if this is one of the reasons:

Has a strong effect on the playability of troops in FoG. Players will almost always choose armoured offensive spearmen over protected offensive spearmen, as their game performance is so much better. There is a point cost difference, but it does not offset the huge difference the armour POA makes.

Why not just adjust the points costs some more? Maybe increase armoured by 1 pt? Maybe by 0.5 pts?

To answer you, I think Rogerg was right to point out that: "Changing the points will not work; a slightly cheap loser is still a loser. Worse, a much cheaper loser becomes a non-combatant filler and we have the DBM super men supported by the massed rear ranks of Ax(I). Please, let's not go back there again. "

Ah thanks - I've found that now. A fair point, but not necessarily always the case.

Probably best to see where the problem lies before determining a solution. The main problem seems to be with just a few certain troop types, mainly protected ones. Specific ideas about them may be better than changing the whole armour POA, which seems to work reasonably well I think.

Seems to be mainly protected troop types I think, from the perspective of them fighting armoured troops or being shot at, compared to armoured troops.

A possible idea might be:
- when shooting at protected cavalry with a 3-6 to hit, 3s are re-rolled (like Poor troops re-rolling 6s).
- when shooting at protected foot with a 4-6 to hit, 4s are re-rolled.

This makes them a bit more halfway between their current status and that of armoured troops.

A similar thing could be done in melee too, where armoured troops have both an armour POA and a net POA advantage while fighting protected troops in melee, must re-roll the lowest to hit score (i.e. either a 4 when + or a 3 when ++) as above.

[RichardThompson]

Consider 4 Average LH bow shooting at 6 HF Spearmen.

If the Spearmen are Protected there is a 1 in 4 chance of them needing to take a CT.

If the Spearmen are Armoured there is a 1 in 9 chance of them needing to take a CT.

Should Armoured Spearmen be more than twice as resistant to shooting?

In the design notes on this site it says:

“Protected is the widest armour class category, covering a wide range of protection levels. In particular, foot battle groups with metal armoured front ranks and textile/leather armoured back ranks are treated as Protected.” A formation does not need to be wholly mail (or similar) equipped to count as Armoured, just a high enough proportion. RBS said that for armoured classification something like 75% or more must qualify as armoured – “for foot, partial body armour + shield, or more extensive coverage if without shield.“

Given that Protected HF often have large overlapping shields and an armoured front rank I would suggest they should be treated the same as Armoured HF for the purposes of shooting.