Slitherine

hazelbark wrote:...My recollection there are only a few things that people think may be over baked.
Janissaries
Immortals.
Support shooting.
Mixed foot shooters in certain Chinese lists.
...

The two first because superior and especially one because armoured and light spear at the impact !
The two last are only one for me and are feared because their first rank.

In both cases they are not feared for their shooting power !

All these changes, on this post or the other, only complicate a rule which was as simple as possible while remaining interesting!

I have been looking with interest at the shooting suggestions and they look to severely hamper crossbows (especially eastern armies) turning their armies into defensive armies, which is unhistorical. Also the suggestions look fiddley with individual differences between weapons. I can see what is trying to be achieved, what we tend to forget in the west is that the XBow was used in the east very effectively for nearly a thousand years before it was seen in Europe.
Counter suggestion
MF with XBow, Firearms, Bow, Longbow or Bow* who wish to shoot in the shooting phase have their movement reduced by 50%
> They cannot fire at all if they turned, expanded or placed PO's' this turn.
Crossbows no longer get the -POA for shooting at foot
Support shooting by MF with XBow, bow or bow* get a -POA if their front rank has an impact weapon or impact factor. (even if the weapon doesn't give them a POA against the current enemy - eg HW against mounted)

The other option is leaving it as v2 but adding
Support shooting by MF with Xbow,bow or bow* get a -POA if their front rank has an impact weapon or impact factor. (even if the weapon doesn't give them a POA against the current enemy - eg HW against mounted)

The other option is leaving it as v2 but adding
Support shooting by MF with Xbow,bow or bow* get a -POA if their front rank has an impact weapon or impact factor. (even if the weapon doesn't give them a POA against the current enemy - eg HW against mounted)

The problem with these troops types at the moment is that when the front rank has a POA they get more dice against most opponents at the same POA.
For example - Sparabara or Immortals against Greek Hoplites. The hoplites will be on evens at impact, with more dice against them.
There are 2 approaches we could take:
1) Reduce the effect of support shooting by giving it a -POA (as per V1)
However, this still leaves the Sparabara at an advantage at impact .
2) Reduce the impact POA and not leave the support shooting alone.
This makes impact evens for protected hoplites and slight better than that for armoured hoplites.
This seems a more reasonable result

Doesn't Graham B who did some research argue the immortals should lose their Light Spear and be given PO ?
Does that fix the Immortals? In a positive way for the game.

Another option to balance mixed BG's would be to give the front rank a -POA at impact if also receiving support shooting.

Treble minus Ch'in MF v HCh

terrys wrote:

There are 2 approaches we could take:
1) Reduce the effect of support shooting by giving it a -POA (as per V1)
However, this still leaves the Sparabara at an advantage at impact .
2) Reduce the impact POA and not leave the support shooting alone.
This makes impact evens for protected hoplites and slight better than that for armoured hoplites.
This seems a more reasonable result

In V1 the -1 support shooting made bow,Xbow only troops very vunrible, in V2 removing the -1 support shooting made bow/ LS and combat weapon front rank troops a little to good. The logical conclusion then would be to give some - factor to bow/LS and front rank combat weapon troops. A minus to support shooting seems the easiest way.
That would make the immortal / hoplite clash more even on the impact ( yes I know not quite) with the hoplite gaining the advantage over time. From what I have read on this period this seems to be historical

There has been some discussion of Hoplite vs Immortals or Sparabara and it has been pointed out that the Immortals or Sparabara will be at an advantage in impact but will then be at a disadvantage in melee. I have compared the number of for the 3 different FOG standards. (Rerolls have been ignored apart from immortals shooting). For unit of 8 vs 8.
The number of hits expected by the Sparabara/ Immortals is to the left and that for the Hoplites to the right
Shooting
You should get 1 long range sparabara 4 at 5 (1 1/3) , immortals with rerolls it would be (1 5/9) and 2 short range shots with Sparabara 6 at 5 (2), immortals with rerolls it would be (2 1/3) need 3 to make them test, 4 gives them a minus on the test. If you are lucky you might get them to test and even more occasionally they might then drop.

For Impact (assuming hoplites didn’t disorder)
V1 8 at 4 + 4 at 6 (4 2/3) vs 8 at 4 (4)
V2 8 at 4 + 4 at 5 (5 1/3) vs 8 at 4 (4)
V3 12 at 4 + 4 at 6 (6 2/3) vs 12 at 4 (6)

Melee (assuming neither side is disordered after impact)
V1 8 at 5 (2 2/3) vs 8 at 3 (5 1/3) vs Sparabara
vs 8 at 4 (4) vs Immortals
V2 8 at 5 (2 2/3) vs 8 at 4 (4) vs Sparabara/ Immortals
V3 8 at 4 (4) vs 8 at 3 (5 1/3) vs Sparabara/ Immortals

Melee with the hoplites disordered
V1 8 Sparabara at 5 (2 2/3) vs 6 hoplites at 3 (4)
Immortals at 5 (2 2/3) vs 6 hoplites at 4 (3)
V2 8 at 5 (2 2/3) vs 6 at 4 (3) vs Sparabara/ Immortals
V3 8 at 4 (4) vs 6 at 3 (4) vs Sparabara/ Immortals

So at V1 the Sparabara/ Immortals are dogmeat, at V2 they should win impact but even if the hoplites disorder will lose the melee. At v3 they have a very small edge in impact, however, if they do win and the hoplites disorder they will be 50/50 in the melee.

Which is why vs Hoplites, Sparabara/ Immortals hide in bad terrain. Interestingly historically the Greeks hid in bad terrain vs the Persians as they were frightened of the Persian cavalry. Not something you would dream of doing in FOG.

Interestingly historically the Greeks hid in bad terrain vs the Persians as they were frightened of the Persian cavalry. Not something you would dream of doing in FOG.

Another reason I believe wargames handle terrain badly for infantry

paullongmore wrote: So at V1 the Sparabara/ Immortals are dogmeat, at V2 they should win impact but even if the hoplites disorder will lose the melee. At v3 they have a very small edge in impact, however, if they do win and the hoplites disorder they will be 50/50 in the melee.

I agree which is why we need to be very careful with the combat factors and movement restrictions in version 3
In fact this get worse if the hoplites can move 4mu

Someone brought up the problem earlier about unprotected MF bow being out shot by LF. This ofcourse makes unprotected MF bow almost unusable. Easy solution, is that the + factor for shooting at unprotected doesnt count for LF shooting
" unprotected HF or MF shot at by at all except LF" or something like that.