Slitherine

grahambriggs wrote:

david53 wrote:

nikgaukroger wrote:
Graham isn't saying that

Feel free to explain then

I'll try

Say a middling player takes a heavy foot army to a competition. A big army full of chunky heavy foot spearmen. He's hoping for some decent games and a reasonable level of success.

He plays four equally middling players, each of whom has a grit and air style army (for the sake of argument, let's say Hungarian or similar with 3BGs of tough knights and the rest skirmishers). Our guy advances the shieldwall towards the enemy, protecting the flanks as best he can. The Hungarians all try and gang up in one area with the knights and delay elsewhere. If the knight charge works, they'll exploit. If not they'll run away.

The results are as follows:

Game 1. Knights ground down and destroyed for one BG lost in the shieldwall. But the spears can't catch the skirmishers. 14-6 to the spears.

Game 2. Knights destroyed but take out 3 BGs of shield wall. But the spears can't catch the skirmishers. 10-10 draw.

Game 3. Knights break through three BGs, losing a BG in the process and with the skirmishers are able to run don another 4 attrition points, but can't finish the army off. The remaining spears can't catch the skirmishers. 5-15 defeat.

Game 4. Knights break through again, losing a BG in the process, and exploit to break the spear army. 2-23 defeat.

So the spear player gets 31 points, his opponents 54. The spear player hasn't done that much wrong, and in half the games has slaughtered the cream of Hungarian nobility. However, he ends up towards the bottom of the results sheet. He's also had a bit of a depressing weekend; there hasn't really been action across the line, and he's spent a fair amount of time plodding to no effect. and all against players who are of a similar skill level.

Now, had he played four top players with Hungarians instead he might have fared slightly worse in the points tally. But not that much worse. Indeed, if a middling player knew in advance they were going to face for top players with Hungarian "grit and air" and wanted to maximise his score, he might be well advised to take a big tough spear army.

lawrenceg wrote:

rogerg wrote:Nice summation Graham.

Light horse issues:
1)Evaders returning immediately to gang up on the charger that rolled the large VMD.
2)Evade and go elsewhere in their turn, effectively a double move.
3) 1 AP for evade off table. This leads to the odd situation of forcing them to the edge them trying to shoot them down and not chase them off. 2AP for off table cleans this up.

I thought number 1 was what they did historically.

rogerg wrote:
Light horse issues:
1)Evaders returning immediately to gang up on the charger that rolled the large VMD.
2)Evade and go elsewhere in their turn, effectively a double move.
3) 1 AP for evade off table. This leads to the odd situation of forcing them to the edge them trying to shoot them down and not chase them off. 2AP for off table cleans this up.

I just can't figure out its okey for him(someone big in the game) to bring a run away army, but not someone in the middle, just can't get it, maybe cause I'm in the middle. Before people decidem to explain it again I get it but just disagree.

So the spear player gets 31 points, his opponents 54. The spear player hasn't done that much wrong, and in half the games has slaughtered the cream of Hungarian nobility. However, he ends up towards the bottom of the results sheet. He's also had a bit of a depressing weekend; there hasn't really been action across the line, and he's spent a fair amount of time plodding to no effect. and all against players who are of a similar skill level.

lawrenceg wrote:
Currently, a middling player with run away versus a middling player without might be able to win or draw. The player without might be able to draw or lose. In other words non run away armies are not a viable option for middling players.

david53 wrote:

lawrenceg wrote:
Currently, a middling player with run away versus a middling player without might be able to win or draw. The player without might be able to draw or lose. In other words non run away armies are not a viable option for middling players.

david53 wrote: Did'nt here all this shouting when the 19BG swarms were used by top players?

lawrenceg wrote:

david53 wrote:

lawrenceg wrote:
Currently, a middling player with run away versus a middling player without might be able to win or draw. The player without might be able to draw or lose. In other words non run away armies are not a viable option for middling players.

Lets be honest here

People want to strip LH of there ability in FOG under the idea your doing it for the middling people?

Did'nt here all this shouting when the 19BG swarms were used by top players?

Still I'm sure the authors will do what they will.

david53 wrote:
Okey then what would you do to stop this happening in a free army choseing event? unless you say only the top 10 can have a choice of all armies and those others can't have scoot and shoot ones

BTW I still disagree with you, but I've just a middling player.

I just can't figure out its okey for him(someone big in the game) to bring a run away army, but not someone in the middle, just can't get it, maybe cause I'm in the middle. Before people decidem to explain it again I get it but just disagree.

grahambriggs wrote:These armies are good for doing well in comp but often don't have the punch to win it; so I doubt that many top players will use them.

grahambriggs wrote:

david53 wrote:

nikgaukroger wrote:
Graham isn't saying that

Feel free to explain then

I'll try

Say a middling player takes a heavy foot army to a competition. A big army full of chunky heavy foot spearmen. He's hoping for some decent games and a reasonable level of success.

He plays four equally middling players, each of whom has a grit and air style army (for the sake of argument, let's say Hungarian or similar with 3BGs of tough knights and the rest skirmishers). Our guy advances the shieldwall towards the enemy, protecting the flanks as best he can. The Hungarians all try and gang up in one area with the knights and delay elsewhere. If the knight charge works, they'll exploit. If not they'll run away.

The results are as follows:

Game 1. Knights ground down and destroyed for one BG lost in the shieldwall. But the spears can't catch the skirmishers. 14-6 to the spears.

Game 2. Knights destroyed but take out 3 BGs of shield wall. But the spears can't catch the skirmishers. 10-10 draw.

Game 3. Knights break through three BGs, losing a BG in the process and with the skirmishers are able to run don another 4 attrition points, but can't finish the army off. The remaining spears can't catch the skirmishers. 5-15 defeat.

Game 4. Knights break through again, losing a BG in the process, and exploit to break the spear army. 2-23 defeat.

So the spear player gets 31 points, his opponents 54. The spear player hasn't done that much wrong, and in half the games has slaughtered the cream of Hungarian nobility. However, he ends up towards the bottom of the results sheet. He's also had a bit of a depressing weekend; there hasn't really been action across the line, and he's spent a fair amount of time plodding to no effect. and all against players who are of a similar skill level.

Now, had he played four top players with Hungarians instead he might have fared slightly worse in the points tally. But not that much worse. Indeed, if a middling player knew in advance they were going to face for top players with Hungarian "grit and air" and wanted to maximise his score, he might be well advised to take a big tough spear army.

ValentinianVictor wrote:
From a historical perspective, is this not what would have happened on the battlefield? The Heavy spear armed foot would have defensively huddled down whilst the opposing army would have probed for weaknesses and then either found one and exploited it, or after several hours of to-ing and fro-ing both sides would have retired to their respective camps. This article by Rance may be of some interest here- http://www.duke.edu/web/classics/grbs/F ... Rance2.pdf

Of course, if you want a set of rules that gives you a game whilst ignoring history, then this will be of no interest to you.

philqw78 wrote:

grahambriggs wrote:These armies are good for doing well in comp but often don't have the punch to win it; so I doubt that many top players will use them.

Bosphoran is doing very well! But these armies can make the game easier to draw.

grahambriggs wrote:

ValentinianVictor wrote:
From a historical perspective, is this not what would have happened on the battlefield? The Heavy spear armed foot would have defensively huddled down whilst the opposing army would have probed for weaknesses and then either found one and exploited it, or after several hours of to-ing and fro-ing both sides would have retired to their respective camps. This article by Rance may be of some interest here- http://www.duke.edu/web/classics/grbs/F ... Rance2.pdf

Of course, if you want a set of rules that gives you a game whilst ignoring history, then this will be of no interest to you.

Very probably it is. And reflecting that history on the table is good. What isn't so good is a scoring system that allows the more mobile player to score more points than the less mobile one if both show the same degree of skill.

What would be better is rules mechanics that give historical outcomes and scoring systems that reflect how well players do against historical expectation.

It was also historical for the foot army to refuse battle, stay in their fortified towns and wait for the mounted army to withdraw if they felt they didn't have a chance of a win. Perhaps we should allow the foot player to opt for a 10-10 draw at the outset? I'm joking of course.

shall wrote:Middline, top, bottom seems a bit of a red-herring to me.

What all are saying is that heavy skimisher armies have too little risk. People choose them for different purposes, but armies that are too low risk are perhaps not good for game fun and balance. Full stop really.

Personally I like going for high risk armies with high odds of winning ... but look where that got me at Derby!

Si

dave_r wrote:

shall wrote:Middline, top, bottom seems a bit of a red-herring to me.

What all are saying is that heavy skimisher armies have too little risk. People choose them for different purposes, but armies that are too low risk are perhaps not good for game fun and balance. Full stop really.

Personally I like going for high risk armies with high odds of winning ... but look where that got me at Derby!

Si

Which is fair enough, but you do needto consider those players who use Light Horse very aggressively and not punish them as well as those who run away at first instance and then never come back.

If there was an easy solution, somebody would have found it by now. ....

expendablecinc wrote:
There is and they have. Some combination of
- 2 ap for an evade off table
- Can evade off side edges as well
- CMT to turn 90 and move
- CT at the end of any evade move (running out of puff, ammunition, chutzpah)

david53 wrote:

expendablecinc wrote:
There is and they have. Some combination of
- 2 ap for an evade off table
- Can evade off side edges as well
- CMT to turn 90 and move
- CT at the end of any evade move (running out of puff, ammunition, chutzpah)

As Dave says you'll punish those that use LH aggressively by doing the above!