Slitherine

Howdy,

In response to the invite can I please ask that late roman Legionaries be revisited.
My suggestion is that ALL/0 legionaries in an army can optionally be reclassified as Offensive Spearmen in the Later Principate (say after 260AD?) and Dominate lists.

The various evidence for this is outlined in the Late Legionarii - Player designed lists. I've tried to outline the evidence in my posts there - viewtopic.php?p=164122

cheers

zocco

nikgaukroger wrote:

gozerius wrote:I would like to see an improved Late Medievel (Imperial) German list, comparable to the ones in OoF and LS.

Can you be a bit more specific please - improved in what way?

The SoA Late Medieval German list offers none of the historical background that accompanies the German lists in OoF or LS. This for a period of history that saw a lot happening in and around the Reich. Even if we think of the LMG list as representing only Imperial armies of the time, there is nothing there to offer aside from a generic "knights, spearmen and crossbows" list. Regraded after 1450 as a knights, pike, crossbow army. Surely there was some regional differentation in an Empire that streched from the Rhone to the borders of Poland, and from the Baltic to the Alps. Perhaps the person who wrote the Lost Scrolls German lists could share his wisdom on the Imperial armies of the period.

Some changes are necessary to Ordnance French as the list is mildly inaccurate in early period ant totally fantasy in late period
I work on it in my (very few actually) spare time

Some time ago I drew up a list of lists that I thought could be usefully revised in some way or other. Whilst it could certainly be updated with info posted recently and stuff I've looked into I thought you all may be interested to see what I was thinking. Please don't read anything into this list in relation to what may or may not happen - but what I think the sort of scope could be if Slitherine agreed.


Lists to Revise

The following are those lists that I think could usefully have enough material changes made to justify a revised list rather than making changes through an amendment sheet of some description.

Principate Roman
Dominate Roman
Foederate Roman
Sasanid Persian
Later Hungarian
Christian Nubian
Thematic Byzantine


The following possibly justify revision.

Condotta Italian
Later Grenadine
Komnenan Byzantine
Post Latin Conquest Byzantine
Catalan Company
Late Byzantine
Maurikian Byzantine
Nikeforian Byzantine
Middle Assyrian
Tibetan
Anglo-Irish (2 lists)


Lists to Amend

The following are lists where I think that the amendment of an item or two could improve the list, and could possibly be done through an amendment sheet. Other amendments may well be necessary depending on rules changes.

Ancient Spanish
Later Seleucid
Later Ptolemaic
Pontic
Early Armenian
Later Jewish
English Hundred Years War (2 lists)
Wars of the Roses
Santa Hernandad Nueva Castilian
Bosporan
Thracian
Ancient British
Later Ottoman Turkish
Early Byzantine
Rus
Anglo-Danish
Later Sicilian
Fanatic Berber
Later Heian to Muromachi Japanese

Other Thoughts

Those troops which we said could be either entirely HF or entirely MF due to backwards compatibility with older rule sets, should be changed to the classification that we think is most realistic. As these are, I think, all troops where the old view makes then MF in FoG (Roman Auxilia, Hellenistic Thyreophoroi), the rules section on non-standard basing already covers players using these as HF. Additionally I think after Empires of the Dragon players are more accepting of such changes.

The “Anti-cavalry squads” in various Chinese armies in Empire of the Dragon, and indeed Byzantine menavltoi, are not actually used as such as they aren’t that good. Revisiting how we classified them may well be worthwhile.

East Asian mixed bodies of elephants, cavalry and infantry may be better represented by some sort of “special formation” as opposed to the separate battle groups of the present lists. If something could be worked out an amendment for all those lists would be needed.

Heh... more other thoughts:

If you're looking into troops that aren't used because they "aren't that good" but maybe (or maybe not) should be better, how about Isaurians, Ligurians, Nubian swordsmen, etc. Basically any troop that is disadvantaged by an unfortunate weapon classification, rather than a necessarily historical poor performance.

Another thing that might be worth looking at is there are a number of "heavy weapons" troops in these lists that have cut and thrust type polearms who seem to be given an armor canceling capability more due to a holdover from WRG rules than whether their equipment -should- actually neutralize armor (Chinese "dagger axes", Japanese Spear-Glaives, heck, probably a number of new world club weapons also belong here).

Two comments on Nik's propose army list changes:

1. Do whatever you feel you need to do with the rules and lists (and of course you will) ... One of the reasons I enjoy FoG is how Romans are treated by the rules and lists. At least Romans from the Principate back ... Please be careful not to damage the game's treatment of Romans vs. historical opponents. Things like changing the Impact phase for barbarians need to be well thought out and play-tested as does any changes to SS. Do not DBM-enize the Romans.

2. Any changes to lists should be re-published ... amendment sheets or computer errata will detract from the quality of the game. Make certain the changes are really necessary and if they are, publish another "lost scrolls" with these up-dated lists. So make darn sure these changes are necessary and not just some tournament swill.

Mike B

mbsparta wrote:Two comments on Nik's propose army list changes:

1. Do whatever you feel you need to do with the rules and lists (and of course you will) ... One of the reasons I enjoy FoG is how Romans are treated by the rules and lists. At least Romans from the Principate back ... Please be careful not to damage the game's treatment of Romans vs. historical opponents. Things like changing the Impact phase for barbarians need to be well thought out and play-tested as does any changes to SS. Do not DBM-enize the Romans.

2. Any changes to lists should be re-published ... amendment sheets or computer errata will detract from the quality of the game. Make certain the changes are really necessary and if they are, publish another "lost scrolls" with these up-dated lists. So make darn sure these changes are necessary and not just some tournament swill.

Mike B

I think the Roman list changes being contemplated are mostly along the lines of reducing the number of 4 base BGs allowed in some of them, primarily the Dominate and possibly Principate. They tend to be allowed a disproportionate number of small, relatively cheap, good quality BGs than most armies.

Chris

Just an aside, but how large do you think 'battle groups' were in Roman armies from the Dominate period onwards?

If current thinking is correct, a Legion would be between 1000 to 1500 men strong, an auxilia unit 400 to 800 men strong, cavalry units on average 200 men strong, with the catafractarii/clibanarii being possibly 300 men strong. Legions and Auxilia units were brigaded into pairs, not sure if the same applied to the cavalry. I have no idea if FOG bases represent a number of men, but say each infantry base is 250 men, and each cavalry base is 125 men, then its pefectly feasible for Dominate mounted battle groups to be a maximum of four bases strong for cavalry and light horse, upto six bases for the catafractarii/clibanarii, whilst the Legions and auxilia battle groups work out about 6 bases each.

ValentinianVictor wrote:Just an aside, but how large do you think 'battle groups' were in Roman armies from the Dominate period onwards?

If current thinking is correct, a Legion would be between 1000 to 1500 men strong, an auxilia unit 400 to 800 men strong, cavalry units on average 200 men strong, with the catafractarii/clibanarii being possibly 300 men strong. Legions and Auxilia units were brigaded into pairs, not sure if the same applied to the cavalry. I have no idea if FOG bases represent a number of men, but say each infantry base is 250 men, and each cavalry base is 125 men, then its pefectly feasible for Dominate mounted battle groups to be a maximum of four bases strong for cavalry and light horse, upto six bases for the catafractarii/clibanarii, whilst the Legions and auxilia battle groups work out about 6 bases each.

There is no scale per se for FoG BGs, it is more about getting the correct feel for the army.

nikgaukroger wrote:There is no scale per se for FoG BGs, it is more about getting the correct feel for the army.

You can get a rough scale by comparing bow range with the typical number of men per frontage. This makes it about the same as DBM/MM scale, i.e. around 200-250 infanty per base.

There is no scale per se for FoG BGs, it is more about getting the correct feel for the army.

Well I might be wrong, but the feeling I have is that Romans operated in smaller units than their enemies, centuries, maniples, then cohorts....so 4 bases BGs seems right for Romans, until the 1000 men legions of late empire.

VMadeira wrote:

There is no scale per se for FoG BGs, it is more about getting the correct feel for the army.

Well I might be wrong, but the feeling I have is that Romans operated in smaller units than their enemies, centuries, maniples, then cohorts....so 4 bases BGs seems right for Romans, until the 1000 men legions of late empire.

Except 1 BG represents several "units" (in this case several maniples, cohorts etc.) In practice, the Romans fought in multiple continuous lines without much in the way of manoeuvre below the level of the line. While individual maniples supposedly moved back and forth and changed places in the early period, this was in the context of fighting in the line. Cases where individual maniples or cohorts moved around independently are IMO exceptional and are singled out for special mention in histories when they do happen. THe ballet of 4-base BGs that you get in FOG does not feel like a historical Roman army.

firstly i would say let the version 2 rules dry run a little while before amending the lists, just to check the new rules implications (but then from experience i would expect this of the FOG team)
as to lists, I would be inclined to look at all the barbarian lists (they seem far more bland than actually needed, a BG or 2 of superior chieftains guards would probably make them more appealing without significantly changing thier historical accuracy)
the other steps i would look at (having discussed on the forum before and with Nik in regards to the swiss) is where the intuative classification does not bring the correct historical result, as noted the chinese anti-cavalry suffer (at least in part i suspect due to heavy weapon classification, might off spear work better?) some cases this has been applied and i would humbly suggest it could be carried further (the example i posited was swiss as all offensive spear for arbedo as it makes the Milanese have a reason to dismount as historically occured from my reading)
beyond this i would recomend mostly amendments either for further reaserch or to bring older books in line with newer design preference, however this would be very much dependant on how the version 2 rules change?
regards
Ben

mbsparta wrote:
2. Any changes to lists should be re-published ... amendment sheets or computer errata will detract from the quality of the game. Make certain the changes are really necessary and if they are, publish another "lost scrolls" with these up-dated lists. So make darn sure these changes are necessary and not just some tournament swill.

Mike B

What would people think about a single v2 list book containing a number of revised lists plus amendments for other lists for which a major revision is not deemed necessary.

What would people think about a single v2 list book containing a number of revised lists plus amendments for other lists for which a major revision is not deemed necessary.

Seems good to me.

Gets my vote.

Except 1 BG represents several "units" (in this case several maniples, cohorts etc.) In practice, the Romans fought in multiple continuous lines without much in the way of manoeuvre below the level of the line. While individual maniples supposedly moved back and forth and changed places in the early period, this was in the context of fighting in the line. Cases where individual maniples or cohorts moved around independently are IMO exceptional and are singled out for special mention in histories when they do happen. THe ballet of 4-base BGs that you get in FOG does not feel like a historical Roman army.

Don't think I agree, there are numerous references were romans moneuvred cohorts independently, (even I can recall some of them - Caesar in Pharsalus for example). Also in Gaul, I think that at least on one occasion cohorts camped for the winter in separate camps, which led to some of them geting in serious trouble, if I am not messing up history . The point being that cohorts did operate indendently as required.

Hi guys.


I´m not sure which is the Richard´s idea about it, but maybe we have to consider if a change in some list are really justified.

Certainly we all agree that there is some army lists that need´s revision, but some list needs only a few changes, and I´m not sure that a minimal change justify a new version of one army list.

Keep in mind that each list to change will invalidate the original list and I don´t think that people who have bought 13 books will make much grace to know that there are many lists that are not valid.

By other hand would be quite normal for people to be wary of the changes in the lists because no guarantee that these will not occur again in the future.

VMadeira wrote:

Except 1 BG represents several "units" (in this case several maniples, cohorts etc.) In practice, the Romans fought in multiple continuous lines without much in the way of manoeuvre below the level of the line. While individual maniples supposedly moved back and forth and changed places in the early period, this was in the context of fighting in the line. Cases where individual maniples or cohorts moved around independently are IMO exceptional and are singled out for special mention in histories when they do happen. THe ballet of 4-base BGs that you get in FOG does not feel like a historical Roman army.

Don't think I agree, there are numerous references were romans moneuvred cohorts independently, (even I can recall some of them - Caesar in Pharsalus for example). Also in Gaul, I think that at least on one occasion cohorts camped for the winter in separate camps, which led to some of them geting in serious trouble, if I am not messing up history . The point being that cohorts did operate indendently as required.

Taking a closer look at your example (Pharsalus):

Caesar, Civil War 3:89 wrote:he rapidly drafted a single cohort from each of the legions composing the third line, formed of them a fourth line,

(this is during deployment).

Caesar, Civil War 3:93 wrote:When Caesar perceived this, he gave the signal to his fourth line, which he had formed of the six cohorts.[2] They instantly rushed forward and charged Pompey's horse with such fury, that not a man of them stood; but all wheeling about, not only quitted their post, but galloped forward to seek a refuge in the highest mountains. By their retreat the archers and slingers, being left destitute and defenseless, were all cut to pieces. The cohorts, pursuing their success, wheeled about upon Pompey's left wing, while his infantry still continued to make battle, and attacked them in the rear.

Although the reserve battlegroup is made up of single cohorts from different legions, they act in the battle as a single "unit".

This is fully consistent with my view that although Cohorts were administatively separate units, which could be attached, detached or relocated for strategic or logistic purposes separately from their parent legion, in battle they were grouped together into battlegroups and it is these larger groups that were the manoeuvre elements.

nikgaukroger wrote:[What would people think about a single v2 list book containing a number of revised lists plus amendments for other lists for which a major revision is not deemed necessary.

Absolutely the way to go.