Slitherine

What annoys me is taking 3 TC's, they are the only thing that uses an uneven number of points. So if you take 3 or 1 you will not be able to spend the extra point and will have a max total of 799.
I sould say though, it's always just a peeve and not an acctual problem.

Fluffy wrote:What annoys me is taking 3 TC's, they are the only thing that uses an uneven number of points. So if you take 3 or 1 you will not be able to spend the extra point and will have a max total of 799.
I sould say though, it's always just a peeve and not an acctual problem.

But they'll have an advantage in a 799 point competition!

>they are the only thing that uses an uneven number of points

Ah - now that's where 1/3 supporting LF can come in handy!

I have an example - putting together a medieval army where the cheapest troop type is 6AP - potential to waste up to 11AP. Or even worse - you have selected all of your BGs with maximum allowable size and have, say, 14AP left over. What can you do with that? Seems a little unfair and artificial to require you to reconfigure your army to use all the AP, otherwise be at a disadvantage relative to armies with more flexible troop options.

I use Sassanids. Is it fair then that I can overspend by 75 points as the cheapest BG in my army is 76.

That appears to be your logic

NickW wrote:I have an example - putting together a medieval army where the cheapest troop type is 6AP - potential to waste up to 11AP. Or even worse - you have selected all of your BGs with maximum allowable size and have, say, 14AP left over. What can you do with that? Seems a little unfair and artificial to require you to reconfigure your army to use all the AP, otherwise be at a disadvantage relative to armies with more flexible troop options.

I appreciate you find this frustrating but being unable to spend that 14 AP is unlikely to make much difference in reality. And in the great majority of armies it's possible to get very close to the points limit.

Even if everyone agreed it was a glaring fault, which it isn't, nithing will be done about it for ages as we just have a new version of the rules.

grahambriggs wrote:Even if everyone agreed it was a glaring fault, which it isn't, nithing will be done about it for ages as we just have a new version of the rules.

What could be done?
And points limits aren't really part of the rules, they are set by those organising the game.

I really think this is a non-issue. I checked the armies for 2 tournaments I umpired last year. Out of 40 lists:

19 were exactly 800 points.
17 were between 796-799.
4 were between 792-795.

So only 10% of players "lost" more than 5 points, and the greatest was 8.

I totally agree with Phil, allow people to overspend a little to avoid the "frustration" of not being able to spend all of the nominal limit, and all you achieve is people then getting frustrated because they spent exactly the nominal limit and therefore wasted the extra points they could have overspent by.

I have wondered though if the rules should perhaps allow odd numbers of bases in BGs (aside from the 9 base 2/3 1/3 thing). Seems theoretically perfectly justifiable to me. You have an 8 bases phalanx and can lose a base in combat in the battle today. Alternatively maybe that base was lost in a small skirmish yesterday and today as you deploy on table you start with an already depleted BG.

How the rules should work in such cases is presumably why the authors avoided this - do you count hits per base vs. 7 bases, or 8 bases on the theory that that's the units proper strength and the casualties lost before this battle should decrease their morale slightly? If the former, does the player game the system by choosing BG sizes that don't divide easily by 2 or 3. If the latter, why does the player pay normal cost that actually makes its BG quicker to get to -1 on CTs (lose one base from a 6 base BG and you haven't lost 25%; lost one from a 7 base BG that is considered to be 8 bases for morale purposes, and you have lost 25%).

ShrubMiK wrote:I have wondered though if the rules should perhaps allow odd numbers of bases in BGs (aside from the 9 base 2/3 1/3 thing). Seems theoretically perfectly justifiable to me. You have an 8 bases phalanx and can lose a base in combat in the battle today. Alternatively maybe that base was lost in a small skirmish yesterday and today as you deploy on table you start with an already depleted BG.

True but...

People would FREQUENTLY buy the odd base because it would give you so many advantages. For HPB in melee and shooting, the 25% penalty to autobreak level.

Now you consider giving a free extra base to every average, protected/un protected, defensive/offensive spear unit on the ground why not they need all the help they can get and make the minorly more sturdy. Still not enough to make them worth much.

Agreed. Which is why either making sure the benefits and downsides are reasonably balanced would be important, or perhaps just limit it to one BG with an "extra" base, purely for the purposes of using up some points, thereby limiting the possible gains that could be made from it.

Which also makes me think, why not consider allowing one BG of smaller than normal size? One 4 base auxilia BG in a Dominate Roman army, for example, presumably doesn't instantly turn it into a swarm, but does allow another mechanism for increased flexibility in spending points.

But of course this is just idle musing...I'm not particularly bothered by the rules as they stand, and seldom find myself wasting more than a 5 points.

I think the solution is to restrict armies to 795 points, but allow you to go over the limit by up to 5 points.

lawrenceg wrote:I think the solution is to restrict armies to 795 points, but allow you to go over the limit by up to 5 points.

I see your and raise you

lawrenceg wrote:I think the solution is to restrict armies to 795 points, but allow you to go over the limit by up to 5 points.

grahambriggs wrote:

NickW wrote:I have an example - putting together a medieval army where the cheapest troop type is 6AP - potential to waste up to 11AP. Or even worse - you have selected all of your BGs with maximum allowable size and have, say, 14AP left over. What can you do with that? Seems a little unfair and artificial to require you to reconfigure your army to use all the AP, otherwise be at a disadvantage relative to armies with more flexible troop options.

I appreciate you find this frustrating but being unable to spend that 14 AP is unlikely to make much difference in reality. And in the great majority of armies it's possible to get very close to the points limit.

Even if everyone agreed it was a glaring fault, which it isn't, nithing will be done about it for ages as we just have a new version of the rules.

It's not a fault nor a major problem, just a frustration (that is probably unnecessary).

lawrenceg wrote:I think the solution is to restrict armies to 795 points, but allow you to go over the limit by up to 5 points.

Brilliant!

I played 7th and Warrior for years and you could exceed the notional total by the value of the cheapest element in your army.

I never understood there to be any basis in principle for that approach.

It lead to lots of discussion.

I prefer the hard limits.

I am also in favour of having tournaments at varying points sizes to prevent people obsessing about their one perfect list that they use all the time.

Adrian

I recently saw a fow tournament posted at 1760 points. Speculation was that someone had found a perfect list at 1760 so made the tournament at this level.

Ian

lol

sounds like an entirely reasonable speculation!

I could relate to a FoW points limit of something like 1939 though.