Damn Light Horse again

[Ghaznavid]

It was also my first game using the lancer Abbasid, so my own incompetence probably didn't help either.

Hey "it was my first game(s) with that army" is my excuse, go find another.

The other was Dominates with 7BG of LH out of 19 BG. The infantry stayed in terrain, I chased the LH into empty space. So a draw.

The last case sounds more like the Roman player knew that in all likelyhood a draw is all he needed to win the competition (and that you had no way to deal with infantry in terrain). I somehow doubt the last result would have changed if those dominate Roman had been without Skirmishers, consisting instead only of Infantry that stayed in terrain.

[david53]

This all reminds me of corner sitting vs table sitting in the good old DBM days. Light horse were not exactly easy to kill then either.

Prize for most frustrating game at Gent, and possibly one of the most frustrating I ever played, was a table-sitting Patrician. He just did not want to engage in combat, to the extent of even pulling AxS back in front of Ps...

Crikey, you've had an easy time of it. Mine was against French Ordonnance dug in behind fortifications! Italian team orders perhaps

Has anyone had simular games in FOG then.(not just chasing LH around I mean)

[david53]

It was also my first game using the lancer Abbasid, so my own incompetence probably didn't help either.

Hey "it was my first game(s) with that army" is my excuse, go find another.

The other was Dominates with 7BG of LH out of 19 BG. The infantry stayed in terrain, I chased the LH into empty space. So a draw.

The last case sounds more like the Roman player knew that in all likelyhood a draw is all he needed to win the competition (and that you had no way to deal with infantry in terrain). I somehow doubt the last result would have changed if those dominate Roman had been without Skirmishers, consisting instead only of Infantry that stayed in terrain.

Must have had allies as you only get 5 BG Lights with Dom Roms

[grahambriggs]

Crikey, you've had an easy time of it. Mine was against French Ordonnance dug in behind fortifications! Italian team orders perhaps

Has anyone had simular games in FOG then.(not just chasing LH around I mean)

Not so much. It's much more difficult to set up an impregnable position in FoG, which is good games design. It helped that the writers played a lot of DBM so knew a lot of the problems to avoid.

[peterrjohnston]

Crikey, you've had an easy time of it. Mine was against French Ordonnance dug in behind fortifications! Italian team orders perhaps

Ah, I know who you mean A man for building castles...

[hammy]

What if LH/LF bg would count as half bg for army size (though they still worth 2 points if broken)?

I am not sure this is a good idea. You could for example end up with an army with 8 BGs of heavy foot and 4 of skirmishers (say Swiss or Later Greek) that is only 2 AP from breaking when the skirmish BGs are broken. That really doesn't feel right.

Well, ofc i didnt say i found the panacea universalis ..was just an idea.
U r right, given ur example an army would be close to break if it lose all the skirmishers. But actually losing the skirmishers is much harder than losing any other unit, generally speaking at least

Actually losing skirmishers in armies with only a relatively small number of them is actually quite likely. If I have 8 BGs of skirmishers and you have 4 I will be able to dominate your skirmishers to the extent that they have to fall back and if I can catch them by sneaking round flanks etc. you will be in big trouble.

[azrael86]

On the value of BG's is it perhaps worth saying that once a number of BG's have evaded off table, then additional BG's doing the same each count as say 1.5 AP instead of 1?

So that say 4 Kn and 7 LH =11

If more than 3 LH evade off table the fourth and fifth count as 1.5, meaning 6 AP lost instead of 5...

[peterrjohnston]

The last case sounds more like the Roman player knew that in all likelyhood a draw is all he needed to win the competition (and that you had no way to deal with infantry in terrain). I somehow doubt the last result would have changed if those dominate Roman had been without Skirmishers, consisting instead only of Infantry that stayed in terrain.

Again you're speculating. The Medieval Irish player came very close to winning and could have jumped him into first place. Indeed, he thought that was what would happen.

And I tried the river/road option as attacker. Unfortunately the river went so my opponent got decent terrain to keep the infantry in. Perversely I think he'd have been better on an open table, using his LH to attack my flanks and swamp me with numbers.

[peterrjohnston]

Not so much. It's much more difficult to set up an impregnable position in FoG, which is good games design. It helped that the writers played a lot of DBM so knew a lot of the problems to avoid.

Still do-able. But Gent is unusual as it's a team competition with, theoretically at least, the best players, so team tactics can play a part. I do, however, have a good idea who Graham is referring too, and building virtual castles is his forté, no pun intended.

[ethan]

There are more complex calculation wrt to fleeing skirmishers that could be made, although I am not sure you would want to go there. Something like:

Troops fleeing off the table count as 1 AP lost, unless more one third of the armies BGs have fled off table. In this case each BG fled off table counts as 2AP.

This might simulate the odd skirmisher slinking away from the battle to come back later, but if significant chunk of the army has done that it turns into a rout. A skirmishing army that was doing well could continue as normal but wholesale fleeing off the table would be dangerous. It would also encourage the skirmiser to stand and fight after a couple units were fled off table.

[nikgaukroger]

Must have had allies as you only get 5 BG Lights with Dom Roms

True, if rather irrelevant - not quite sure why you'd want to have 7 with them, other than to annoy Porter and the other hippotoxatophobes

[peterrjohnston]

True, if rather irrelevant - not quite sure why you'd want to have 7 with them, other than to annoy Porter and the other hippotoxatophobes

There's a support group started up, called hippotoxatophobics anonymous help association, or HAHA for short...

[philqw78]

HAHA for short...

Very good for a sufferer

[madaxeman]

True, if rather irrelevant - not quite sure why you'd want to have 7 with them, other than to annoy Porter and the other hippotoxatophobes

There's a support group started up, called hippotoxatophobics anonymous help association, or HAHA for short...

There's a support group for LH fans called hippotoxatophiliacs association for mounted rehabilitation (or, HARM) I understand ?

[gozerius]

gozerius wrote:
Dang, and here I was getting together a shield wall army to push LH armies off the table. 8 BGs Undrilled protected defensive spear. With rear support and an IC in the neighborhood they can just about cover the table. The rear support comes from 4 BGs Lsp armed cav, just in case something finds a gap. Then there are the 4 BGs LF bow to cover the terrain on the flanks.


Well, ok, if u keep on building up armies against LH armies, u'll surely find some good one out!
But are they so effective against non-LH/skirmisher armies? mmmm...

Defensive spear is highly underrated.

[NickW]

What about bigger AP games? That would mean more troops on the table and hence less room to run away. I can't imagine that it would really take any longer than 800AP games as combats are pretty quick and there may actually be less manoeuvring, which is where a lot of time seems to go.

[ShrubMiK]

I already suggested smaller tables

Larger AP games change things in other ways too:
- A smaller proportion of the army comes from the mandatory minumum base numbers
- Loss of the camp counts less, percentage wise, towards army break and scoring.
- More/better generals needed to effectively control and bolster the larger numbers of BGs?

Players of course can react to all of those, and of course the ability to adapt to circumstances ought to be part of a great generals skillset!

Requiring players to have more figures to compete in a tournament might be a stumbling block for some.

[NickW]

But think of all the extra toys you can play with. Instead of deciding whether you'll have the Varangians or the cataphracts or the extra cavalry - have them all!

[ShrubMiK]

You're preaching to the converted I can already put out about 1300 points of something Roman-y, or 1100 pts of something Macedonian-y, and what actually hits the table tends to bear very little similarity to what hit the table last time out.

The urge to keep adding another wrinkle or two to my existing armies probably means I'll never get around to actually building any of the completely new armies I like to daydream about. And the urge to keep trying completely different compositions of my existing armies probably means I'll never get really good at using them properly on the table!

But anyway, I can anticipate a few people complaining if you ask them to extend their army. Even if only because it took them many iterations to arrive at their perfect competition list.

[hammy]

650 points on a 5 by 3 table, it's the future you know