Border Reivers

[marshalney2000]

Richard, good spot. The raider bodyguard should exactly mirror the other borderers i.e. in the early years the bodyguard should have xbox and only later have the pistols. We just need to split the bodyguard into two periods as per the other border horse.
Sorry about that.
John

[rbodleyscott]

The raider bodyguard should exactly mirror the other borderers i.e. in the early years the bodyguard should have xbox

In 1500? wow

[nikgaukroger]

How many points should an xbox be per base?

[marshalney2000]

It depends on the size of the memory.
John

[rbodleyscott]

I assume that there is no reason why bodyguard should not dismount?

I propose amending the special instrctions to:

 Light Horse and Cavalry before 1540 can dismount as Medium Foot, Bow, Swordsmen. (Armour and Quality as mounted type).
 Light Horse and Cavalry after 1540 can dismount as Medium Foot, Arquebus, Swordsmen. (Armour and Quality as mounted type).

[nikgaukroger]

Sounds reasonable.

[marshalney2000]

Totally agree.
John

[xavier]

I just had a look to the list since I love non standard-super-popular armies, and there are a couple of things that from my ignorance seem odd to me:

Mounted troops are given 3 combat capabilities: pistol, light lancers, swordsmen.
Are there any other mounted troops in the game with 3 combat capabilities? Is this consitant with the rest of troops gradings?

My first impression is that there are two possible approaches to the enemy before being engaged in the melée: either you carge (with lance, pistol or sword), or you prefer to shoot from a save distance (with bow, xbow, carbine or pistol). Having both shooting and impact capability seems too much.

This doesn't mean that shooting mounted can't charge, of course they'll do so if the shooting disorders the enemy, but if the main approach was shooting, I doubt if they were good enough at charging straight on to deserve the light lancers POA. Somehow it's the same as with ghulams in FOG. Most of them carried both lances and bow, but they only have bow capability in FOG.

Second one is about dismounting. If they came off their horses to capture an objective or loot more effectively, I don't see any difference to any other mounted troops which would do the same in those special situations and are not given the dismounting freebie. As far as I understood, dismounting capability is rather given to mounted troops who were used to fight on foot in open battle. Did the reivers do so?

If my doubts are just due to my ignorance about the subject, and they effectively deserve shot, impact and dismounting capability, i think this will be one of my FOGR armies since it can be a lot of fun

[marshalney2000]

Thank you for your comments. i think this is far from a super army. the weapons are designed to reflect the unique raiding style of the borderers and also their actions at solway Moss. At thelatter battlelt they are described as initially whittling away the enemy ranks by mounted firepower and then charging in with their lances. The lance was a prime weapon of border warefare and was used effectively but htey wer ealso keen on missile weapons on horseback starting with the xbow and then replacing this with the pistol or in the case of borderers a smany pistols as hy could carry.
Turning to dismounting this was a regular occurence otherwise why would they often also carry the longbow and other weapons such as the two handed jedburgh staff neither of which could be used effectively from a horse. In a major battle they dismounted most famously at Flodden but there this may have been as pikes.
Hope this explains my thinking.
John

[xavier]

Thank you for your comments. i think this is far from a super army. the weapons are designed to reflect the unique raiding style of the borderers and also their actions at solway Moss. At thelatter battlelt they are described as initially whittling away the enemy ranks by mounted firepower and then charging in with their lances. The lance was a prime weapon of border warefare and was used effectively but htey wer ealso keen on missile weapons on horseback starting with the xbow and then replacing this with the pistol or in the case of borderers a smany pistols as hy could carry.
Turning to dismounting this was a regular occurence otherwise why would they often also carry the longbow and other weapons such as the two handed jedburgh staff neither of which could be used effectively from a horse. In a major battle they dismounted most famously at Flodden but there this may have been as pikes.
Hope this explains my thinking.
John

It's not that I wanted to "downgrade" the borderers in order to avoid this list becoming a super-army. As you said, I don't think it would be a super-army in any case (although it can be a fun and different army to play and could become my FOGR successor to my Pictish and later medieval Scottish armies ). It's just that it surprises me to find a troop type combining two capabilities that are used in completely different fighting behaviours.

My understanding is that the main rule for grading in FOGx is not equipment but actual performance in battle. As I said, this looks quite similar to Ghulam cavalry and similars in FOG. They carried lances in order to charge disordered enemies, but it was decided not to give them lancer POA at impact. I assume that the reason behind is that their main strenght was shooting, and they didn't charge frontally if the enemy was steady. Another option we have in FOG is the Bw* + lance for troops that did actually charge frontally and combine the charge with shooting, but in this case they have less firepower than pure Bw or XBw armed mounted.

What looks odd to me is to find a troop able to have the same firepower as caracolling reiters (a dense formation expressely designed to deliver fireweapon volleys), and at the same time have the same shock force as demi-lancers. With other words, the borderers grading could be fine by itself, but looks odd when compared to the rest of the lists.

Dismounting is a different issue. If they did it regularly to fight they should have this capability. My question rose when you wrote they did it for saking camps or assaulting objectives (fortifications?), which are very specific situations where almost any mounted would dismount as well.

[rbodleyscott]

I must admit to sharing Xavier's concerns.

Had we known in advance that Border Reivers were going to be classified thus, I would have added Pistol* to the list of capabilities.

I don't have a problem with them as LH, but I agree with Xavier that full triple capability as cavalry is a little strong.

Perhaps we should consider giving only half of each BG crossbow or pistol capability when fielded as Cavalry.

Likewise, on foot they ought to be Bow* or 1/2 Arquebus, Swordsmen, 1/2 swordsmen, to reflect the fact that they are not really professional Arquebusiers.

[marshalney2000]

To split their armament in this way would make the army unlike what it was in history. I am happy to listen to your historical evidence for this action rather than the categories do not cover them.
Firstly they always carried the lance and are rcorded as using it effectively.
Secondly they were loaded down with pistols which they used. Much more than many other troop types. If they were pistol* then i think we have to go back and review most of the cavalry in the first army book.
Re dismounted option again I can find no historical justification for the changes. Again many of the units with arquebuses and bows in other lists can hardly be called professional are we going to do similarly with these.
I look forward to your hearing the historical justifications for any changes.
John

[Ghaznavid]

Game design, there are no (combat) troops that get full capabilities in all three categories. The Reiver mounted are not the only ones that could otherwise be argued to have such, there been and going to be a couple of other examples for it (Szekler Cv to name another current one). Been there, done that, you will have to accept it I'm afraid.
If the Reiver mounted had it all, the trick will be to identify their primary mode of combat (i.e. did they prefer to charge or shoot) and if that's not possible give both options and leave it to the players.

[marshalney2000]

Loking at the first book of army lists, I can see two armies that have mounted troops with triple capabilities albeit skirmishers. As a compromise I could concede that borders who are cavalry will lose their shooting and not have triple capabilities but will instead be lancers, pistol. The skirmishers should retain the three as per the precedent set by the wars of religion book for their descendants (the moss troopers). This change will also have to be made in all lists that have borderers i.e. Scots and English.
I would still suggest that dismounting remains the same.
John

[xavier]

To split their armament in this way would make the army unlike what it was in history. I am happy to listen to your historical evidence for this action rather than the categories do not cover them.
Firstly they always carried the lance and are rcorded as using it effectively.
Secondly they were loaded down with pistols which they used. Much more than many other troop types. If they were pistol* then i think we have to go back and review most of the cavalry in the first army book.
Re dismounted option again I can find no historical justification for the changes. Again many of the units with arquebuses and bows in other lists can hardly be called professional are we going to do similarly with these.
I look forward to your hearing the historical justifications for any changes.
John

I think that the main discrepancies are coming from a different understanding on how do we grade the troops.
My impression is that you try to literally translate historical evidence into troop gradings, while in general what we try to do is to adapt historical evidence into the game mechanics so that the final result is as much historical as possible.

When Richard proposes to give only half the bases the shooting capability, what he's actually doing is simply giving the borderers less shooting dices. Therefore it shouldn't be read as "only half the borderers carried pistols", but rather as "since they combined shooting with charging, their firepower wasn't as effective as specialised pistol armed mounted".

When dismounted, if they did it regularly, I see it less of a problem giving them full shooting capability.

[xavier]

Game design, there are no (combat) troops that get full capabilities in all three categories. The Reiver mounted are not the only ones that could otherwise be argued to have such, there been and going to be a couple of other examples for it (Szekler Cv to name another current one). Been there, done that, you will have to accept it I'm afraid.
If the Reiver mounted had it all, the trick will be to identify their primary mode of combat (i.e. did they prefer to charge or shoot) and if that's not possible give both options and leave it to the players.

Exactly. Spanish celadas, for example, carried light lance, pistols and sword / axe. They actually carried the lance in a bag so that they could ride and shoot more effectively, but in any case, their main tactical role was the lance charge, and therefore we decided not to give them any shooting capability.

[marshalney2000]

I think my compromise suggested around lunchtime today would appear to meet everyones concerns and keep the light horse option in line with that already accepted for moss troopers in the first army list book but stepping back the cavalry option from the threble whammy everyone seems to have concerns about.
Most also seem happy to go along witht the foot option as listed at present. I think if we move back from this then I see quite a lot of cases of non professional arquebus etc who could then also be queried as to whethe rthwey should have full firing capability.
John

[rbodleyscott]

I think my compromise suggested around lunchtime today would appear to meet everyones concerns and keep the light horse option in line with that already accepted for moss troopers in the first army list book but stepping back the cavalry option from the threble whammy everyone seems to have concerns about.
Most also seem happy to go along witht the foot option as listed at present. I think if we move back from this then I see quite a lot of cases of non professional arquebus etc who could then also be queried as to whethe rthwey should have full firing capability.
John

As I said, I don't have a problem with triple armed LH - we have a lot of them in the FOGAM lists - e.g. Szeklers, Wallachians, Lithuanians. What we don't have in any lists is close combat troops with full shooting, impact and melee capabilities.

It is partly a game balance issue, but also one of philosophy, and a desperate aversion to the old scramble in the days of WRG Ancient rules to scrape up some evidence to get things triple armed.

As the others have said, there are plenty of troops with a good historical claim to being triple-armed - e.g. Avars, Ghilman, even Maurikian Byzantines, but we have not allowed it, and we are happy with the "primary function" logic that makes this so.

I just don't think that English-Scottish borderers were better at handling all their weapons than any other nation in history - even if they really did all carry several pistols, a light lance, a sword and an arquebus. (Frankly it is scarcely credible that they could all afford that lot, but even if they could and did, it does not mean they should have full capabilities for all of them).

They may have been jacks of all trades, but the rules philosophy is that this inevitably means that they cannot have been masters of all of them.

I could live with LH as pistols (or crossbow), light lancers, swordsmen and Cavalry as light lancers, pistol (or light lancers swordsmen). It is analogous to FOGAM where LH can be Javelins, Light Spear, but Cavalry can only ever be Light spear.

I suppose that 10 point mounted dismounting as 7 point foot isn't too bad from a game balance point of view. (Though the foot swordsmen capability is probably better than we may have anticipated - it proved very useful to my longbowmen in a 1522 English vs French battle this evening. Even so, without stakes we would have been toast.).

[marshalney2000]

Richard, i am happy with the compromise shown and prefer the light lance pistol option for later border cavalry.
I am not so sure the borderers themselves will be too happy about your disparaging remarks about their abilities. If you get any strangers oaying you a visit with names like Elliot, Nixon etc then i would be locking your doors. You don't own any cattle do you?
John

[rbodleyscott]

Richard, i am happy with the compromise shown and prefer the light lance pistol option for later border cavalry.
I am not so sure the borderers themselves will be too happy about your disparaging remarks about their abilities. If you get any strangers oaying you a visit with names like Elliot, Nixon etc then i would be locking your doors. You don't own any cattle do you?
John

What is my last name?