Slitherine

Superior Swordsman (a POA seemingly only there for Romans)?

Not quite - some Imitation Legionnaires get it as well - Seleukids for example.

yeah, a couple of others get it as well, but it seems to be there mainly to allow Legionaries to shred barbarians

Didn't they?

Im not arguing that they shouldnt have it - I m arguing that FOG isnt anti roman.

Romans are really good in FOG.

FOG is not anti Roman

Skilled swordsmen is an example of where Romans are good

For those that might have lost something in translation...

TIC was my comments on the pro/anti roman rant....

D@mn F'erners!

Madcam.

paulcummins wrote:Im not arguing that they shouldnt have it - I m arguing that FOG isnt anti roman.

Romans are really good in FOG.

FOG is not anti Roman

Skilled swordsmen is an example of where Romans are good

well, untill they meet mtd swordsmen that is - then they are just overpriced swordsmen..

Fulgrim wrote:

paulcummins wrote:Skilled swordsmen is an example of where Romans are good

well, untill they meet mtd swordsmen that is - then they are just overpriced swordsmen..

Actually they are overpriced Swordsmen against almost everything IMO. If I could get Superior Legionaries that are just swordsmen instead of skilled swordsmen I would take them instantly. It's useful against HW users, but that's pretty much it. Sure, nice to have against barbarian swordsmen, but not really required IMO, being better armour and superior is more then enough for them and skilled swordsmen is 'wasted' points if you hit upon Hoplites, Phalangites or similar, not to mention mounted.

Of course my view may be skewered by the fact that I usually face Macedonians of one type or another when playing Romans (unless going completely out of period of course, but that hardly counts).

Ghaznavid wrote:

Fulgrim wrote:

paulcummins wrote:Skilled swordsmen is an example of where Romans are good

well, untill they meet mtd swordsmen that is - then they are just overpriced swordsmen..

Actually they are overpriced Swordsmen against almost everything IMO. If I could get Superior Legionaries that are just swordsmen instead of skilled swordsmen I would take them instantly. It's useful against HW users, but that's pretty much it. Sure, nice to have against barbarian swordsmen, but not really required IMO, being better armour and superior is more then enough for them and skilled swordsmen is 'wasted' points if you hit upon Hoplites, Phalangites or similar, not to mention mounted.

Of course my view may be skewered by the fact that I usually face Macedonians of one type or another when playing Romans (unless going completely out of period of course, but that hardly counts).

I agree, it seems pretty rare to find a situation where the "Skilled" swordsmen is really useful.

For those who think Skilled Swordsmen is a waste for Roman Legions, may I suggest you give them a run out against Thracians but with your opponents permission, drop to Swordsmen. An in period opponent and a list that can have LOTS of terrain. Then repeat with Skilled Swordsmen.

You might also like to fight against another Roman where you are Swordsmen and he is Skilled. The other place it might work for the Romans is in an open competiton where there may be a bias towards SoA armies.

timmy1 wrote:For those who think Skilled Swordsmen is a waste for Roman Legions, may I suggest you give them a run out against Thracians but with your opponents permission, drop to Swordsmen. An in period opponent and a list that can have LOTS of terrain. Then repeat with Skilled Swordsmen.

You might also like to fight against another Roman where you are Swordsmen and he is Skilled. The other place it might work for the Romans is in an open competiton where there may be a bias towards SoA armies.

I was thinking along the same lines-- Romans legionaries as sword against Gauls, Ancient Spanish or Early German instead of skilled sword lowers the Roman foots fighting ability. Against pike armies I can see using sword but against other sword the POA for skilled sword is handy.

I do not think S.Sw. is a waste in general, and in period (EIR that is for me) it works beutifully. But my remark adressed the view that Romans got some extra special perk by getting it and i dont agree - the fact that mtd swordsman equals it leeds me to belive that it will be negated most of the time in most open tournament in Sweden. The tendency right now in my region is to go medevial (or shooty cav) where mtd swordsmen are pretty plentyful. In that "climate" the points investend in Skilled Sw are wasted to a degree. A bias towards (knightly) SoA-armies seems to reduce the uses of S.Sw. in my eyes.

Note: I do not advocate that S.Sw should trumph mtd sw.

A bias towards (knightly) SoA-armies seems to reduce the uses of S.Sw. in my eyes.

Note: I do not advocate that S.Sw should trumph mtd sw.


Note that a lot of the good infantry in the medieval lists are HW. Not a lot of help when you are being crushed betweent he hoofs of heavily armored mtd sw while they cheer from the back though.

Ian

timmy1 wrote:For those who think Skilled Swordsmen is a waste for Roman Legions, may I suggest you give them a run out against Thracians but with your opponents permission, drop to Swordsmen. An in period opponent and a list that can have LOTS of terrain. Then repeat with Skilled Swordsmen.

You might also like to fight against another Roman where you are Swordsmen and he is Skilled. The other place it might work for the Romans is in an open competiton where there may be a bias towards SoA armies.

Actually I did, although only with s. swordsmen. Just that you seem to equal Thracian's with HW, while my opponent fielded them as offensive spears with 2 BG's of Light Spear/Swordsmen for difficult Terrain. In our game they Lsp/swordsmen ended up giving rear support to the Spears and s. swordsmen vs. spears... are no better then regular swordsmen.

Anyway, I already stated that I consider skilled swordsmen usefull vs. HW. I just think that on average HW troops are to rare in period to justify the premium charge on superior legionaries.

As for the Romans vs. Romans example... of course if one is s.swordsmen and the other isn't it's a significant advantage to the s.swordsmen. But as with the Thracian's I can construe examples where this or that ability is useful for almost everything. The question is however are those cases common enough to justify the increased cost? In my experience so far it clearly wasn't. YMMV of course.

philqw78 wrote:Record keeping and rule complications. 7th edition/Warrior did/do it. They weren't very popular. The odds should mean that they eventually will lose, sometimes, even often they don't

Curious assertion that 7th wasn't very popular (unless you mean that record keeping wasn't very popular?). It went ten years as the primary ruleset, and is probably still a better simulation than FoG.

azrael86 wrote:

philqw78 wrote:Record keeping and rule complications. 7th edition/Warrior did/do it. They weren't very popular. The odds should mean that they eventually will lose, sometimes, even often they don't

Curious assertion that 7th wasn't very popular (unless you mean that record keeping wasn't very popular?). It went ten years as the primary ruleset, and is probably still a better simulation than FoG.

7th/Warrior is popular in the US but in the UK it did a very good job of destroying the tournament circuit. The number of players who left Ancients with the advent of 7th and only came back when DBM was building to its pomp were significant. I for one played all the WRG sets from 3rd to 7th then dropped out only to be brought back by DBA then DBM.

7th .........is probably still a better simulation than FoG

How may I ask?

Hammy, I stopped figure gaming altogether when 7th came out. DBM/DBR returned me.

Phil, I to am interested in that idea.

I won't hold my breath as complication does not make simulation.
In fact I don't think I've ever seen a wargame that was a good simulation. And I've played at lots of different scales.

Curious assertion that 7th wasn't very popular (unless you mean that record keeping wasn't very popular?). It went ten years as the primary ruleset, and is probably still a better simulation than FoG.


Well, Most of the 7th / Warrior games I see have units scattered across the table (in a seemingly random order) and no battlelines -DBM gave a much better appearance. It sure doesn't look like an ancients battle to my eyes. Haven't had that in FOG yet, although you might get some odd BG's chasing each other on the flanks.

Ian

IanB3406 wrote:Well, Most of the 7th / Warrior games I see have units scattered across the table (in a seemingly random order) and no battlelines -DBM gave a much better appearance. It sure doesn't look like an ancients battle to my eyes. Haven't had that in FOG yet, although you might get some odd BG's chasing each other on the flanks.

Ian

I suspect that realism is in the eye of the beholder. I look at a DBM game (e.g. at Britcon) and think "what a mess". And it looks very fiddly with individual elements scattered everywhere.