BRITCON FEEDBACK - RULE SUGGESTIONS

[nikgaukroger]

A question - to which I don't know the answer off hand - is ther any evidence that historically the counter to massed shooting enemies was to adopt deeper than normal formations?

If Yes, then Si's tactic is justified historically, if No then it is just a game mechanism (or exploitation of such) with no historical basis and the writers may wish to look at it.

BTW from the sidelines it appears to me that opinions on shooting do seem quite polarised - it is either very effective in a game or quite ineffective with little or no middle ground.

[AlanCutner]

I'm in the camp that agrees with Roger. My reading of history is that shooting could shake troops sufficiently so that a charge would break them. I don't know too many cases of troops breaking from shooting alone - although that could be just my ignorance.

I would prefer to see the following

- shooting from skirmishers only cannot make a BG worse than disrupted
- shooting from all others cannot make a BG worse than fragmented, unless being shot at by artillery

Si's suggestion of deeper formations will still help as it enables troops to push forwards with less chance of becoming fragmented. It also forces skirmishers to have some back-up to deliver a coup-de-grace once they've weakened their opponents.

[rbodleyscott]

BTW from the sidelines it appears to me that opinions on shooting do seem quite polarised - it is either very effective in a game or quite ineffective with little or no middle ground.

This is in fact the case. BGs in a solid battle line are at little risk of being broken by shooting, usually recover from disruption or fragmentation and are not particularly likely to lose any bases from shooting. Isolated battle groups are at risk of breaking from shooting alone if the enemy can concentrate shooting on them, or if they have no general to bolster them when a lucky shot disrupts them.

The reason for this is that the key to routing a BG by shooting is to give it no chance to recover (no opportunities for bolstering). This means that you need to trigger a cohesion test every single turn (and for the enemy to fail it, so that they cannot be bolstered that turn). This is more likely to occur if you concentrate shooting on a BG, which is not possible if they are in a solid line.

When shooting does break a BG it is usually very quick (3 rounds of shooting). This is because the only time you are likely to break a BG by shooting is if you do so in 3 rounds of shooting. If you fail to achieve this they are likely to be successfully bolstered.

So shooting is indeed usually either very effective or totally ineffective and the likelihood of each is situational.

The most effective way to avoid severe effects from shooting is to be in a solid battle line - surely historical. Being in large BGs also helps. Forming up in deeper formations is of additional benefit - but only if troops are in a solid battle line - if the BG is isolated the enemy will still be able to concentrate shooting. Rear support and generals also help.

The key point, however, is that troops in solid battle lines are at little risk of serious consequences from enemy shooting. Moreover, although it is possible for a BG of HF to succumb to a single BG of skirmishers it is in fact extremely unlikely unless the HF have no general close enough to bolster them.

[rogerg]

Having to select 8 base BG's, form up three deep, in a solid line to avoid overlaps and have a general near by just to stop half a dozen LF shooting effectively is not good in my view.

A 6 base protected BG forming three deep is going to take two hits on a 25% chance. Given that this is going to reduce frontage versus the skirishers by 50% (not to mention the points differential that will give a further narrowing effect) the result is still out of proportion. It is highly likely that the skirmishers will get an overlap shot and have three shots to score two hits, much better odds.

I found my armoured Dailami, three deep, BG's shoulder to shoulder, were being taken out of the game by Ottoman skirmishers who were completely invulnerable. Attempting to drive them off merely broke my line and exposed the BG's to more concentrated shooting. Standing still just meant taking more shooting and using a general to keep bolstering them. LH went round the flank even on a steep hill and poured in more shooting. Meanwhile the bulk of the Ottomans were free to concentrate on the rest of my army.

The Ancient British have a lot of bases. Most armies do not have so many and are completely at the mercy of LF and a few LH.

[madaxeman]

Having to select 8 base BG's, form up three deep, in a solid line to avoid overlaps and have a general near by just to stop half a dozen LF shooting effectively is not good in my view.

A 6 base protected BG forming three deep is going to take two hits on a 25% chance. Given that this is going to reduce frontage versus the skirishers by 50% (not to mention the points differential that will give a further narrowing effect) the result is still out of proportion. It is highly likely that the skirmishers will get an overlap shot and have three shots to score two hits, much better odds.

I found my armoured Dailami, three deep, BG's shoulder to shoulder, were being taken out of the game by Ottoman skirmishers who were completely invulnerable. Attempting to drive them off merely broke my line and exposed the BG's to more concentrated shooting. Standing still just meant taking more shooting and using a general to keep bolstering them. LH went round the flank even on a steep hill and poured in more shooting. Meanwhile the bulk of the Ottomans were free to concentrate on the rest of my army.

The Ancient British have a lot of bases. Most armies do not have so many and are completely at the mercy of LF and a few LH.

Agreed - it seemed perfectly possible to concentrate skirmish firing on a single BG, even when in a BL - skirmishers have so much maneuverability that can manage this. I also dont buy the depth argument - no-one seemed to be arguing that armies were too wide this weekend, so narrowing them further to help protect heavily armoured close formation foot from equal numbers of light horse archers is a bit iffy.

I'm not quite in the "you cant break/you cant even fragment from shooting" camp - but I do think there is something potentially unbalancing with the interaction between skirmishers and foot (even/especially skirmishers vs foot bowmen)

Not sure what it is, but somewhere in the number of shooting dice, the "-"'s that stack up in Cohesion tests (skirmishers dont even suffer for exposed flanks, wheras foot suffer just for being near the edge of the table), the maneuverability of skirmishers so they can optimise shooting on vulnerable targets and - maybe most importantly - their ability to be pulled out of shooting range at will vs infantrys total inability to avoid being shot at (and falling down the ladder) 3 or more times in a row.

I cant help feeling this might be like the pin-n-punch argument in DBM, when the solution to skirmish screens was partly achieved by limiting the ability of knights to do multiple march moves. Make skirmishers harder to pull out of the line other than by evading (bigger unit sizes, reduced moves, more CMTs), or remove the "-"'s for being DISR / FRAG if shot at (only) by skirmishers, or allow units to self-recover or same-turn-recover from disr/frag caused by skirmish shooting all might be other ideas .

tim

[nikgaukroger]

I'm in the camp that agrees with Roger. My reading of history is that shooting could shake troops sufficiently so that a charge would break them. I don't know too many cases of troops breaking from shooting alone - although that could be just my ignorance.

Well when this very question came up on Ancmed and previously amongst the beta testers I think the answer was in fact none. There was always a final charge that broke the last bit of will to stand even after a unit had been ripped to shreds by shooting.

[spike]

I'm in the camp that agrees with Roger. My reading of history is that shooting could shake troops sufficiently so that a charge would break them. I don't know too many cases of troops breaking from shooting alone - although that could be just my ignorance.

I would prefer to see the following

- shooting from skirmishers only cannot make a BG worse than disrupted
- shooting from all others cannot make a BG worse than fragmented, unless being shot at by artillery

Si's suggestion of deeper formations will still help as it enables troops to push forwards with less chance of becoming fragmented. It also forces skirmishers to have some back-up to deliver a coup-de-grace once they've weakened their opponents.

I know some feel that “shooty” armies are too effective, so thinking laterally and as an alternative to the above suggestion, why not make the –ive from the disorder state a +ive on the morale test vs shooting only. (yes it’s a bit perverse, but stay with me)
This would make it harder for BG’s to progress down the disorder ladder, whilst not ruling out entirely the troops breaking from shooting only.

Spike

[shall]

Keep it coming and all good food for thought. A few thoughts that strike me............

• 3 deep isn't needed for armoured troops against bowfire. 2 deep and a general will do it. you have only 1 in 3 chance per shot so need to get 3 hits on 4 dice.
  
  3 deep with protected is great. Moves the odds a lot.
  
  Remember that 3 deep isn't a single formation being 1 deep as it ISNT a unit but rather a set of unit deployed in a deeper than averagen formation. Seems a likely formation vs bowfire to me - unless you can spread out and form skirmish. So to my mind yes it is a historical tactic and correct.
  
  As for concentrating fire on one part of a battle line it is exactly what huns and mongols did, so we want to allow it a chance of success.
  
  Normally ther way to break things is to drop them 2 levels and charge them - so this too fits with Niks comments about shooting. We could linit drops from shooting to FRG to corce this to happen to break something. It wold at least force one to charge to finish things off - albeit that its the best option anyway (guaranteed to force a test and probably another from combat even if they don't run).

Of course one should also add that the 3 winning armies were:

Middle Hungarian..............Modest skirmish fire driven home mainly by a knight chanrge and good anti-skirmisher LH
Later Scots......................just a walking target in this anaylses that did very well despite fighting several mounted shooty armies
Neo-Assyrian...................mildy shooting army with HCH to drive home the wins

Non of the mass fire armies were in the top 3 ............. so let us not get too carried away...they hardly dominated proceedings.

Si

[rogerg]

It is not the massed shooting armies that are the issue. It is the use of three or four small skirmish BG's forcing a large proportion of the enemy plus a general out of the game. On the rest of the battlefield the victim is badly outnumbered due to having had to deal with a small number of skirmishers elsewhere.

If the Huns and the like are using skirmishers to disrupt the enemy, then hitting them hard with non-skirmishers that is OK.

What we are seeing is a relatively small number of skirmishers being tough opponents for much better equipped troops. The skirmishers are completely invulnerable. It is only a matter of time before they hammer down opposing BG's to fragmented and then finish them off, probably with more shooting.

Who was it said that skirmishers in FoG are not used for the main fighting?

[madaxeman]

It is not the massed shooting armies that are the issue. It is the use of three or four small skirmish BG's forcing a large proportion of the enemy plus a general out of the game.

The "plus a general" is the issue. I would have needed to commit a general to bolster my flank troops (I tried Kn, Armoured foot, protected bowmen & cavalry) who lost at least 1 unit to 2x4 LH skirmishers in pretty much every game -

OK, I only had 3 generals, which was a 100% mistake, but then again, if we find that everyone thinks 4 generals is defacto mandatory to survive shooting, thats another barrel of monkeys opened.

[shall]

Interesting.....I would like to see some specific examples of this to think through. Is that against isolated BGs or a reasonably solid attack.

On average if 4 wide Bgs of 8 as a target and 4s to hit then (rough figures as not got si,ulator or Maths to hand):

Average 2 hits a shot which won't force a test - get 3 about 35% of the time
The test will be at 0 or -1 if you get 4 hits = 7% say (1 in 16)
You need a 6 or 7 respectively with a general, no supports and no re-rolls
So it 62% or 72% chance of passing
So assuming 3 such BGs then on average 1 will be forced to test each go and then have a roughly 2/3rds chance of passing
Having failed they wait a move and have a roughly 60% chance of recovering
Gives something for the general to do

Armour
3 deep
Rear support

All ways of lowering the risk further still.

I feel that skirmishers are an irritant to me but not capable of devastation unless superior and focusing on one bit of a BLine - which Huns and Mongols can do (and indeed did do to great success).

Could we post a few specific examples so that, as auithors, we can see if they are general problems or just issues where you are yet to get used to how to avoid being so vulnerable. Certainly BGs of 6s as hoplites say tend ot be rather vulnerable compared to 8s. This is something one learns with time.

Another thing one learns is to drop a DISR BG back to allow it to redover without receiving further fire and press on with other troops to push skirmishers away.

We have an authors meeting tomorrow night to review things so any insights by then most useful.

Thanks

Si

[nikgaukroger]

Remember that 3 deep isn't a single formation being 1 deep as it ISNT a unit but rather a set of unit deployed in a deeper than averagen formation. Seems a likely formation vs bowfire to me - unless you can spread out and form skirmish. So to my mind yes it is a historical tactic and correct.

However, I cannot think of a single example to support this idea. Even the Scots after being repeatedly shot to crap by the English didn't do this, they only adopted deeper formations when they took up the pike so that was weapons driven.

I'll buy it if some sort of historical support can be found

[hammy]

Remember that 3 deep isn't a single formation being 1 deep as it ISNT a unit but rather a set of unit deployed in a deeper than averagen formation. Seems a likely formation vs bowfire to me - unless you can spread out and form skirmish. So to my mind yes it is a historical tactic and correct.

However, I cannot think of a single example to support this idea. Even the Scots after being repeatedly shot to crap by the English didn't do this, they only adopted deeper formations when they took up the pike so that was weapons driven.

I'll buy it if some sort of historical support can be found

How about deeper formations against shooting are essentially closer packed sheltering behind the shield of the next man etc. (OK doesn't work if there are no shields about but...) ?

Hammy

[dave_r]

ven the Scots after being repeatedly shot to crap by the English didn't do this, they only adopted deeper formations when they took up the pike so that was weapons driven.

I'll buy it if some sort of historical support can be found

The battle of Mohi? I believe a Large army of Hungarians was massacred by far fewer Mongols.

I used the Lydians with lots of Armoured Spearmen, Armoured Cavalry and Light Horse. Not one of the spearmen got disrupted by bowfire. In the last game they advance the entire width of the table when faced with LF with bow. They eventually got into my opponents camp! They may have been disrupted once or twice, but because the line was solid they swiftly recovered. They were never bothered by cavalry of any type!

I think that initially, shooting seems far too good, but can easily be countered by not becoming isolated and taking precautions.

I also use Medium Foot that are protected Longbow swordsmen with the Scots and they are superb rough going troops and are not bothered by most cavalry either.

I am firmly in the shooting is not too powerful camp

[dave_r]

I think this is the best one to provide rule problems with...

I think I basically had three problems with the rules over the seven games (so that wasn't bad to start with)

1. a BG of LF was charged from the front by LF and from the rear by LH. It evaded away from one so that it was directly behind and to the flank of the other BG, who couldn't wheel to contact and get away. Seemed wrong.

2. I had a BG of LH which was pinned by some knights - right on the edge of the table. I wheeled away and then right at the end turned 180 degrees so that only a tiny bit of my flank was in front of the knights. If he charged I could evade directly to my own rear (it was not a valid flank charge) and therefore get away. There seems to be to much ability for LH to get away, even when pinned.

3. When contracting and expanding the rules state bases, I think it should state files.

[marshalney2000]

Just a thought but what about a -1 on cohesion tests if testing for the loss of an IC - if he is that good at inspiring then why should the opposite kick in when he goes down.
Amazing how many IC commanders were in the armies I faced at the weekend
John

[hammy]

Just a thought but what about a -1 on cohesion tests if testing for the loss of an IC - if he is that good at inspiring then why should the opposite kick in when he goes down.
Amazing how many IC commanders were in the armies I faced at the weekend
John

I am considering changing the 1 FC and 2 TC structure for my Bosphorans to 4 TC.

IC's are good but can only be in one place.

Hammy

[madaxeman]

Interesting...............So assuming 3 such BGs then on average 1 will be forced to test each go and then have a roughly 2/3rds chance of passing
Having failed they wait a move and have a roughly 60% chance of recovering
Gives something for the general to do
Armour
3 deep
Rear support
All ways of lowering the risk further still.
This is something one learns with time.
Another thing one learns is to drop a DISR BG back to allow it to redover without receiving further fire and press on with other troops to push skirmishers away.
Si

These are all things I "can" learn to counter these tricky little blighters.

However the point is whether I would be put of playing FoG because they are things I don't feel I should have to learn. I'm not saying thats on teh cards personally, but clearly a fe wof us feel a little disgruntled at being d-cked over by Lh over the weekend in situations when we just felt the outcome was counter intuitive to us as newbies, and where we felt that there should have been either no, or certainly far less risk than there actually transpired to be.

What I'm saying is that the rules mechanics should make "armoured units surviving skirmishers shooting" an outcome that requires no knowledge of the rules whatsoever to achieve.

[rbodleyscott]

What I'm saying is that the rules mechanics should make "armoured units surviving skirmishers shooting" an outcome that requires no knowledge of the rules whatsoever to achieve.

FoG is an accelerated outcome system. In order to make the game proceed at the desired rate, so that it can be completed within the desired time frame, outcomes have to be somewhat faster than in real life.

In the vast majority of cases armoured units will survive skirmishers in FoG. What is being complained about is the few occasions when they don't. (I don't buy the argument that they should be able to survive indefinitely without access to bolstering from a commander, as the latter mechanism is a fundamental part of the game system - the availability of commanders to bolster disrupted BGs is assumed in the balance of the shooting system. With adequate commanders shooting is only dangerous if a BG takes and fails cohesion tests every turn).

If troops become largely invulnerable to skirmishers, then what use are skirmishers? They certainly aren't any good in close combat.

Clearly a balance needs to be struck. We think that we have the right balance. Some people disagree.

However, when looking at the historical basis of results, the accelerated nature of the model must be taken into account, unless you want games that proceed at a historically realistic pace but take 10 hours to play on a 6 foot by 40 foot table. (To allow LH armies to realistically fall back in front of the enemy).

In reality a spear armed infantry army could never defeat a LH army (except in exceptional circumstances), because the latter could always retreat. In order to give the infantry army a chance of winning we restrict the LH to the area of a wargames table. In order to give the LH a chance of winning within these spacial and time constraints, the effects of skirmishing are somewhat accelerated.

What matters is the balance, so that all army types get a fair crack of the whip - overall. It is not, however, necessary (or even desirable) that all army types should be equally effective against all other army types.

Historically when an inexperienced commander with an infantry army met a LH army the result was usually disaster to the infantry (e.g. Carrhae). Is it unreasonable that the rules should reflect this?

[AlanCutner]

I may be completely wrong on this, but going with deeper formations against shooting just strikes me as basically unlikely historically. Deeper formations give shooters a far better target. I would have thought the natural thing to do is spread out a bit, ie. go wider and thinner - and there are a number of examples of this.

I think the methods being suggested of reducing the effects of shooting are simple games mechanisms. That may be perfectly justifiable if it gives a good game. But it isn't necessarily historical.