Forthcoming Changes - 16/03/07

[lawrenceg]

Thanks

Please also clarify whether (all BGs need to be 1/3 or all 0) or (some 1/3 others 0).

IIRC it is intended to be all/0 but I will need to check. In particular I cannot remember what we decided about whether we wanted to allow legions to have LF while auxilia didn't.

The notes say " Legions and probably field army auxilia contained a proportion of supporting archers." so it appears you decided to allow legions to have them while auxilia didn't. In fact from that wording it looks as though they should be compulsory for all legions and optional for field army auxilia, although the lists currently have them independently optional for field army legions and auxilia, forbidden to limitanei legions.

[nikgaukroger]

IIRC it is intended to be all/0 but I will need to check. In particular I cannot remember what we decided about whether we wanted to allow legions to have LF while auxilia didn't.

I don't think we've ever actually discussed it. FWIW I'd go for all BG whether legiones or auxilia or none.

[spike]

Consider the following POA packages

Light spear / Sword cost 1
Impact foot / Sword cost 3
Impact foot / skilled sword cost 4
Light spear /Sword / Armoured rather than protected cost 3

As a further thought on Hammy's suggestion and as a change to the current way of doing this, how about POA's being applied "per BG" rather than "per element", then this is a fixed cost per group regardless as to the size of the BG. Large units are less flexible, but cheeper proportionaly to their more manovreable bretheren in smaller units. Also it gives more scope within the current costing system to amend the value of these advantages.

I can however forsee an issue with "mixed BG's" where differently equiped troop's are within the same BG. This can be resolved as a seperate total POA package to value the supporting elements, as they (esp. supporting light or medium missile troops behind heavy/meduim foot) do not have a full use of their POA compared with their seperated brethern.

Steve Clarke

[sagji]

Another method is to buy troups by "frontage" - i.e. 1/2 a waggon, 1 knight elephant or chariot, 4 pike, 3 of supported foot?, 2 of anything else.

Mixed BGs are still a problem but you might get away with charging for the most expensive - the rear rank fights with the same PoAs as the front rank, so a weaker rear rank will often benefit from PoAs it doesn't have while still benefiting from its own PoAs.

Alterantively changing the cost - so one rank of Bow is costed like Bow* not like Bow.

[petedalby]

FORTHCOMING CHANGES

Any plans to enable charging LH & LF to stop short of formed enemy, as they can when pursuing?

Pete

[rbodleyscott]

FORTHCOMING CHANGES

Any plans to enable charging LH & LF to stop short of formed enemy, as they can when pursuing?

Pete

Yes. This has been added in the latest iteration along with lots of other changes resulting from suggestions made at Leeds. The purpose of this thread is only a heads up on major rules changes that we want tested before the next full beta update, so does not attempt to give a comprehensive list of all changes that have been made.

Please bear with us. We are trying to sort out the major formatting issues before we issue another full beta update.

[rbodleyscott]

We have decided that impact foot should only cost +1 after all.

I will edit the first post accordingly.

[plewis66]

WOOHOO!

[petedalby]

2) Cohesion modifier becomes:

MF in close combat against mounted or HF in open terrain -1

Is there any reason why this minus one doesn't apply to LF too?

Pete

[petedalby]

Shooting

1) Instead of the -1 cohesion modifier for suffering 1HP3B from shooting or close combat, this becomes:

>= 1 HP2B from shooting -1
>= 1 HP3B from close combat -1

Note that these only apply when actually testing for shooting hits or losing a close combat.

NB: A cohesion test is still triggered by 1 HP3B from shooting.

2) Medium Foot with Bow, Longbow or Crossbow (but not Bow*) shoot with
1 dice per 1st and 2nd rank base at effective range.
1 dice per 2 elements outside effective range.

Cavalry still shoot in 1.5 ranks as before.

I'm broadly supportive of these changes but have a slight concern over allowing MF 1 dice per rank in effective range.

Is there a danger that MF bow could be used to tip the balance in melees by shooting in support of a small BG in contact with a large BG? Has there been any evidence of this yet?

I know it's very gamey - but hey - it's what we're inclined to do!

Pete

[rbodleyscott]

2) Cohesion modifier becomes:

MF in close combat against mounted or HF in open terrain -1

Is there any reason why this minus one doesn't apply to LF too?

Pete

It does

[hammy]

I'm broadly supportive of these changes but have a slight concern over allowing MF 1 dice per rank in effective range.

Is there a danger that MF bow could be used to tip the balance in melees by shooting in support of a small BG in contact with a large BG? Has there been any evidence of this yet?

I know it's very gamey - but hey - it's what we're inclined to do!

Pete

The MF change was based on the fact that reducing the effectiveness of shooting is fine while everyone ia grumbling about the effectiveness of shooty mounted troops and most people far prefered LF archers to MF ones it would however rather wreck MF shooters. The extra shooting power for MF shooters should make it a harder choice between LF and MF foot and ballance back the general down powering of other shooters.

Shooting at a BG in melee does not affect the melee, it is a separate action. If part of a BG is sticking out (it would have to be 2 bases as you can't shoot overlaps) then you could in theory get a good shot at the BG with MF shooters but you would need to do a lot of hits to get a test at -1. I don't see that as a major issue but am playing a test game with machine gunners tonight so will let you know how things go.

Thinking about the shooting into melee thing unless you are shooting a BG in one rank you are going to be shooting at a BG with a minimum size of 6 bases, more likely 8 so will need a fair number of hits to do anything.

Hammy

[petedalby]

It does

Excellent! - sorry I missed it!

Pete

[jre]

In yesterday's game (that had little to remember it, being a cavalry slugfest between Early Byzantine and Mamluk Egyptian) a group of Byzantine Archers did exactly that. In the missile exchange they disrupted a 6 base mamluk BG at the expense of losing a base. A group of skutatoi charged the corner of the Mamluk BG (a mistake picking them 6 strong) and then did not expand to let the other corner be a target of 5 MF Bw. 3 hits made the Mamluks fragmented, then they lost the melee, broke off and two bounds later another five dice from the archers gave them three hits and broke them. Bad rolling for the mamluks, but they also passed three other CTs (losing the impact, the melee and 2 hits by the archers in the previous bound).

Certainly it was an even missile fight before the charges: 6 dice needing a 4 versus 4 dice needing a 3 but with rerolls. And the Mamluks are more flexible but much more expensive (and it was the skutatoi interception charge what kept them from riding down the archers). The archers passed their CTs because there was an IC in range.

Light horse becomes the deciding factor in an equal cavalry fight.

Jos?©

[lawrenceg]

Is there a danger that MF bow could be used to tip the balance in melees by shooting in support of a small BG in contact with a large BG? Has there been any evidence of this yet?

Simon did this to me at Leeds. IIRC he had 6 MF on a frontage of 3 shooting at a frontage of 2 on the end of my 10-base BG, which was fighting 2 elephants at the other end. He needed 4 hits from 4 dice needing 4's to force a check which would have been at -1 and I don't think he achieved anything in several rounds of shooting. With the change he would have had 6 dice instead of 4, still needing 4 hits for a check, but 5 for a -1. This would have changed him from 6% chance of forcing a check at -1 to 23% chance of a check at 0, 11% chance of a check at -1. It would also have increased his chance of killing bases significantly. Quite a big increase in effectiveness, but still only about 1 in 6 chance of making much difference in practice (as I might still pass the test).

Elsewhere with the changes he would probably have shot the rest of my largely unprotected army to bits before I got into contact anyway. This would not have changed the result of the game, just the decisiveness of it.

[rbodleyscott]

Is there a danger that MF bow could be used to tip the balance in melees by shooting in support of a small BG in contact with a large BG? Has there been any evidence of this yet?

Simon did this to me at Leeds. IIRC he had 6 MF on a frontage of 3 shooting at a frontage of 2 on the end of my 10-base BG, which was fighting 2 elephants at the other end. He needed 4 hits from 4 dice needing 4's to force a check which would have been at -1 and I don't think he achieved anything in several rounds of shooting. With the change he would have had 6 dice instead of 4, still needing 4 hits for a check, but 5 for a -1. This would have changed him from 6% chance of forcing a check at -1 to 23% chance of a check at 0, 11% chance of a check at -1. It would also have increased his chance of killing bases significantly. Quite a big increase in effectiveness, but still only about 1 in 6 chance of making much difference in practice (as I might still pass the test).

Elsewhere with the changes he would probably have shot the rest of my largely unprotected army to bits before I got into contact anyway. This would not have changed the result of the game, just the decisiveness of it.

We are currently discussing the issue of shooting at BGs in melee.

[madaxeman]

Highly Effective Shooting = Memories of 7th = negative connotations. My advice would be to err on the side of anything tha makes hand to hand combat a necessary and decisive phase of the game

[hammy]

Highly Effective Shooting = Memories of 7th = negative connotations. My advice would be to err on the side of anything tha makes hand to hand combat a necessary and decisive phase of the game

Well in last nights test game my longbow and crossbow were up against Dave "not razor" Ruddock's Scroats Conmen. A BG of 10 bases of protected spearmen went essentially mano a mano against 6 longbow and 6 crossbow (I had the very end base of a BG of knights that helped a bit but the result of shooting with 10 dice three times and 5 dice once was that Dave lost 2 bases and didn't suffer any cohesion loss. OK he had an IC nearby which helped and survived at least one death roll where he needed a 6 but I woudln't say shooting was over effective.

If the Scots had stood and not advanced they would have been blown to pieces in relatively short order but I have a feeling that is historical.

I will pop a full report on the game up later today.

[lawrenceg]

Impact Foot

1) Impact phase POAs for impact foot become:

++ against any foot
+ against any mounted, unless charging shock mounted

Does this mean :

"+ against an mounted unless the Impact foot are charging against shock mounted"
or
"+ against mounted unless those mounted are shock mounted who are charging" ?

[rbodleyscott]

Impact Foot

1) Impact phase POAs for impact foot become:

++ against any foot
+ against any mounted, unless charging shock mounted

Does this mean :

"+ against an mounted unless the Impact foot are charging against shock mounted"
or
"+ against mounted unless those mounted are shock mounted who are charging" ?

The first.

I would submit that that is by far the more natural (plain English) reading if you treat the whole POA line as a sentence. "Impact foot [get] + against any mounted, unless charging shock mounted.".

However, I accept that if you read it assuming it is in Barkerese, you could get the alternative meaning.

Can you suggest alternative completely unambiguous wording?