Slitherine

philqw78 wrote:

AlanYork wrote:Is it too late to comment? I missed this poll completely at first but I voted for swarm armies being broken.

Never too late

Whilst I'm at it, I should mention that in terms of army composition and army break points, giving as much value to a peasant mob as to the Varangian Guard is, in my personal opinion, nothing short of bizarre.

There's a reason its like it is (Brian). It stops people using LF and Mob as expendable units to drag people out of position, getting them doing something they would never do. A BG of mob worth 12 points but 2 attrition points will not be used to fight knights. They will be kept out of the way. Proper troops will fight the knights. Whereas if the mob were worth less attrition points they would happily be thrown away.

Didn't the Mongols do precisely that with Chinese civilians? Use them as cannon fodder in front of the army. I'm not saying have mobs and possibly Poor skirmishers as worthless, losing them should cause SOME damage to army morale (1 point instead of 2?) but to have Persian levy foot worth the same amount of attrition points as Spartan hoplites seems, well, at the risk of labouring the point, just wrong!

Regards
Alan

AlanYork wrote:Didn't the Mongols do precisely that with Chinese civilians? Use them as cannon fodder in front of the army. I'm not saying have mobs and skirmishers as worthless, losing them should cause SOME damage to army morale (1 point instead of 2?) but to have Persian levy foot worth the same amount of attrition points as Spartan hoplites seems, well, at the risk of labouring the point, just wrong!

Regards
Alan

Yes they did. But that troop type does not exist in FoG as they were used mainly as arrow catchers and only, IIRC, in sieges, so they would require a new troop type.

Armies had thousands of levy foot. Their loss would be a huge loss to the local economy and the nation, if not as important in the field. Thats by the by though as I had this same conversation with the rule writers. It looks odd, but forces you to use the troops in a more historical way. If they have got past the guard and into the mob you are in the pooh anyway. I now like the way it works. I remember 7th edition where I would sit my LI in front of enemy knights just to wear them out before I had to fight them. The LI would die but nobody, least of all me, cared.

philqw78 wrote:

AlanYork wrote:Didn't the Mongols do precisely that with Chinese civilians? Use them as cannon fodder in front of the army. I'm not saying have mobs and skirmishers as worthless, losing them should cause SOME damage to army morale (1 point instead of 2?) but to have Persian levy foot worth the same amount of attrition points as Spartan hoplites seems, well, at the risk of labouring the point, just wrong!

Regards
Alan

Yes they did. But that troop type does not exist in FoG as they were used mainly as arrow catchers and only, IIRC, in sieges, so they would require a new troop type.

Armies had thousands of levy foot. Their loss would be a huge loss to the local economy and the nation, if not as important in the field. Thats by the by though as I had this same conversation with the rule writers. It looks odd, but forces you to use the troops in a more historical way. If they have got past the guard and into the mob you are in the pooh anyway. I now like the way it works. I remember 7th edition where I would sit my LI in front of enemy knights just to wear them out before I had to fight them. The LI would die but nobody, least of all me, cared.

7th edition....aaaaaargh!!!!! Please don't go there! Oh the horror!

AlanYork wrote: 7th edition....aaaaaargh!!!!! Please don't go there! Oh the horror!

Fear keeps the masses in line

Note also that BGs of trash levies tend to have minimum requirements of 6 or even 8. Thus, while they are crap on a per stand basis, losing a BG of several Mbs has the same effect on the army as losing a small group of 4 Cv.

Of course, some armies do get penny packets of ghetto troops (the 8 pt. BG of 4 Militia Javelinmen are the centerpiece of my Komnenan Byzantines ). But if I lose these, it's because they are the last thing between the enemy and my baggage.

Spike

Patriarch of the Ghetto

spikemesq wrote:Note also that BGs of trash levies tend to have minimum requirements of 6 or even 8. Thus, while they are crap on a per stand basis, losing a BG of several Mbs has the same effect on the army as losing a small group of 4 Cv.

Of course, some armies do get penny packets of ghetto troops (the 8 pt. BG of 4 Militia Javelinmen are the centerpiece of my Komnenan Byzantines ). But if I lose these, it's because they are the last thing between the enemy and my baggage.

I don't think anyone object to the occasional 4 stands BG of more or less cheap infanty. It only becomes a problem if the whole army (or at least substantial parts of the armies core infantry) can be deployed in 4's.
That said I too like the current all BGs are worth the same ammount of AP rule.
The command factors in 6th did exactly zilch to prevent abominations like Late Romans with 16+ units, most of it in tiny wedges of 6 figures. Only thing it did was disadvantage (the already disadvantaged) irregulars even more.

Alan, I have used the WOTR with battlegroups of four. I do not intend to do it again. They are very vulnerable. Superior can just about get away with it, but fours of average are somewhat risky.
We played against a big dark ages army in a competition this year. It had about 20 BG's. A lot of the main infantry line was in fours. When one went, the adjacent ones soon followed. I know 'swarm armies' have had some successes but I am not convinced the system is broken.

Voted for other...

a) Morale effects of BG loss.....as win by killing the weak & unimportant BGs (which wouldn't matter as much to army morale - it makes Zama very hard to refight)

b) Cavalry break-off.....(as doesn't seem to simulate anything real at this scale)

rogerg wrote:I know 'swarm armies' have had some successes but I am not convinced the system is broken.

I quite agree. Swarm Theory requires real skill to pull off, as far as I can tell. The same is true with all the other "Theories" that I am aware of, e.g. Shooty LH.

Marc

rogerg wrote:Alan, I have used the WOTR with battlegroups of four. I do not intend to do it again. They are very vulnerable. Superior can just about get away with it, but fours of average are somewhat risky.
We played against a big dark ages army in a competition this year. It had about 20 BG's. A lot of the main infantry line was in fours. When one went, the adjacent ones soon followed. I know 'swarm armies' have had some successes but I am not convinced the system is broken.

Yes, I see your point there Roger, but what I believe is that using up 10 four base men at arms / billmen BGs shouldn't be done at all with that army or with many other armies where "infantry swarms" are possible in the lists. Not because it doesn't work in a competition but because it's just out and out WRONG. WOTR armies simply did not behave like flexible Early Imperial Roman cohorts. They formed up in 3 big blocks and ran at the enemy who had also formed up in 3 big blocks. A system that allows armies to gain advantage from behaving in a manner that was alien to them is, in my opinion, flawed.

I have to say that is no way whatsoever intended as a swipe at you and I accept that unless we are going to stick to in period games with historical opponents which some would inevitably tire of (there's only so many times you can fight Platea before getting bored) then inevitably some compromises have to be made in the interests of balance. Nevertheless I still believe the whole "swarm" concept is a flaw in the rules though not a fatal one or an unfixable one.