Slitherine

76mm wrote:whether or not they are suicidal, crossbowmen do rather well against many heavy foot types, such as spearmen. Why? How? I also don't understand the justification. maybe they do will upon impact because they let off a last round of bolts at point blank range (although even this seems exaggerated); but why do they do so well in melee?

Yes! They have unusual staying power in melee, but when they start to crumble they go quickly. I still don't believe that they would seek out HF to charge?

I started up the Agincourt scenario. The one that came with SoA. I played the English against the Fench AI. When they were within charge range all of the French crossbowmen charged the English lines. They have stood toe to toe for five turns now and none have blinked. They are decimating the Duke of York's BG? And routing the English battle line!!!!

Tombstone wrote:I started up the Agincourt scenario. The one that came with SoA. I played the English against the Fench AI. When they were within charge range all of the French crossbowmen charged the English lines. They have stood toe to toe for five turns now and none have blinked. They are decimating the Duke of York's BG? And routing the English battle line!!!!

If i recall, the hexes you would be fighting in are fields which would disorder any Heavy Infantry battle group....

TheGrayMouser wrote:
If i recall, the hexes you would be fighting in are fields which would disorder any Heavy Infantry battle group....

In the DAG games I have played, crossbowmen regularly handle heavy spearmen very roughly in open terrain. seems rather unrealistic.

76mm wrote:

TheGrayMouser wrote:
If i recall, the hexes you would be fighting in are fields which would disorder any Heavy Infantry battle group....

In the DAG games I have played, crossbowmen regularly handle heavy spearmen very roughly in open terrain. seems rather unrealistic.

Finally! Someone agrees wtih me.....

Tombstone wrote: Finally! Someone agrees wtih me.....

heh, I have actually been meaning to post about this for some time but hadn't gotten around to it.

I have no hard evidence to base it on, but I have also felt that MF crossbow with no 'official' other weapon seem to do very well in melee against 'armed' MF.

I've been playing with Granadine and I have to admit that they have done rather well in melee.

Well, i dont think it is a matter of disagreeing or agreeing, I just havent seen my crossbowmen do all that well, unless they are in rough terrain or if they charge into a disordered/fragged BG... Oftentimes they refuse to charge at all!

Now I will agee with Amaz Ed that the Granadine crossbow men appear to be on steroids, especially the light foot ones! Maybe its the fact that you have like 50 of them on the battle field!

If you look at the combat modifiers you shoudl find they are at best even, usually down 1 or 2 POA's. If you are in terrain its a different matter - they dont suffer teh disorder penalties of other troop types.

They are lethal if uphill on a steep hill. A lot of people have not understood the implications fo a steep hill. Be careful when attacking up them!

iainmcneil wrote:If you look at the combat modifiers you shoudl find they are at best even, usually down 1 or 2 POA's. If you are in terrain its a different matter - they dont suffer teh disorder penalties of other troop types.

I don't know about other troop types, but again, in my experience, HF spearmen in open terrain do not do well at all in impact or melee with medium crossbowmen. I played several battles where these troops matched up, and the result was pretty consistent, although I have not run formal tests.

I played a game against the AI last night where my French crossbowmen tried to stand up to Swiss Halberdiers while I tried to outflank them with my knights. Maybe it was because they were the Swiss but, they blew through my crossbow/Pavisier line like - well like they were Swiss cheese. When I was desperate to help battle groups in trouble, the average crossbowmen refused to charge into combat.

If missile troops seem too strong in melee, perhaps they were made stronger to balance game play. So far in my experience, they don't seem to have enough firepower to stop a charge on their own, so maybe Slitherine had to make them better at sticking around in melee. I'm not sure if this would be the right thing to do or not. Historically, without some kind of terrain, defences or supporting melee troops, they didn't stand a chance, did they?

CaptainHuge wrote:Historically, without some kind of terrain, defences or supporting melee troops, they didn't stand a chance, did they?

And they don't in the game either, unless they get very lucky.

Once again, I get the feeling that some posters are playing an entirely different game from the one I am playing.

Those who feel that crossbowmen are too effective in melee (in open terrain) are welcome to stand and fight my HF with them any time.

Sounds like someone needs to run a selection of fight scenarios and analyse the results. All those that want to volunteer, march forward one pace....

One thing to consider is what kind of Heavy foot spears are you having bad results vs mediums with?? Not so much w ROR but in SOA there are a host of poor quality spear units, many of which are Defensive spears... try to charge them into mediums, even in the open , they arnt going to do that well...

TheGrayMouser wrote:One thing to consider is what kind of Heavy foot spears are you having bad results vs mediums with?? Not so much w ROR but in SOA there are a host of poor quality spear units, many of which are Defensive spears... try to charge them into mediums, even in the open , they arnt going to do that well...

Good point.

I have to suspect that many of the comments made are based on a hazy understanding of the POA system. Crossbowmen are in fact completely sh*te in close combat with heavy troops, being usually either 1 or 2 POAs down, depending on the armament of the HF.

Check out the estimated number of hits before actioning the combat if you don't believe me.

Of course, sometimes the crossbowmen will get lucky and sometimes they will get lucky several times in a row. However, I can't help feeling that some folk are conflating such cases with other cases where the crossbowmen have done well because they are in terrain or because they managed to disrupt the HF before they get charged. In fact, the various situations give completely different odds.

rbodleyscott wrote:And they don't in the game either, unless they get very lucky.

Once again, I get the feeling that some posters are playing an entirely different game from the one I am playing.

Those who feel that crossbowmen are too effective in melee (in open terrain) are welcome to stand and fight my HF with them any time.

TheGrayMouser wrote:One thing to consider is what kind of Heavy foot spears are you having bad results vs mediums with?? Not so much w ROR but in SOA there are a host of poor quality spear units, many of which are Defensive spears... try to charge them into mediums, even in the open , they arnt going to do that well...

rbodleyscott wrote: I have to suspect that many of the comments made are based on a hazy understanding of the POA system. Crossbowmen are in fact completely sh*te in close combat with heavy troops, being usually either 1 or 2 POAs down, depending on the armament of the HF.

However, I can't help feeling that some folk are conflating such cases with other cases where the crossbowmen have done well because they are in terrain or because they managed to disrupt the HF before they get charged. In fact, the various situations give completely different odds.

Sorry guys, I'm not crazy, I played several games as Low Countries, which can field large number of average, drilled, offensive spearmen. In every game, in open terrain, they were very roughly handled by crossbowmen (of course, they were roughly handled by pretty much everyone, but the crossbowmen were harder to understand...). That is not to say that the crossbowmen won every melee, and indeed, the HF won some, but not nearly as many as you would expect expect against troops that as far as I can rationalize, would be very ill-suited against spears in melee.

I'm not conflating anything, although I guess it is possible that I was unlucky for several dozen combats over the course of these games. You can test it yourself if you want, I'm just telling you my experience. I too often wonder if I'm playing a different game from some of you...

One of the games I'm playing at the moment features a SoA army (Venetians) versus my RoR Seleucids. Over the last couple of turns I've been watching the how the MF crossbowmen perform in melee.

I must admit, they are doing very well against my Skythian Cavalry (not the strongest cavalry in the world, I'll admit) and pretty well against my Parthian Cats (somewhat stronger). I wouldn't consider the half-a-dozen or so examples of melee I've seen to be statistically significant, but if someone pushed me for an opinion I'd say they are tough! Especially since they are fighting with Knives/Daggers or Clubbing with empty Crossbows because they don't have a secondary weapon listed.

For the record, these were all melees in open ground.

Morbio wrote:One of the games I'm playing at the moment features a SoA army (Venetians) versus my RoR Seleucids. Over the last couple of turns I've been watching the how the MF crossbowmen perform in melee.

I must admit, they are doing very well against my Skythian Cavalry (not the strongest cavalry in the world, I'll admit) and pretty well against my Parthian Cats (somewhat stronger). I wouldn't consider the half-a-dozen or so examples of melee I've seen to be statistically significant, but if someone pushed me for an opinion I'd say they are tough! Especially since they are fighting with Knives/Daggers or Clubbing with empty Crossbows because they don't have a secondary weapon listed.

For the record, these were all melees in open ground.

Have you looked at the die rolls for the crossbows vs the other troops? Assuming they are protected, in melee they should hit with 4-6 vs the Skythians with no net POA for either. They should hit on 5-6 vs the cataphracts and the cataphracts on 3-6 since the cataphracts should be at ++POA.

Sounds like lucky crossbowmen to me.

Chris

How can you see the die rolls in FOG?

It has been mentioned several times, but I can't see it in the preferences menu.