Skirmishers hanging around

[Skullzgrinda]

... What tournaments have Mongols, Tartars, Parthians or Skythians won? Some might do well, but with your proposed changes these armies simply wouldn't be seen again....

I believe that is the objective behind virtually all of the proposed "fixes" to this "problem".

[Strategos69]

Are they? What tournaments have Mongols, Tartars, Parthians or Skythians won? Some might do well, but with your proposed changes these armies simply wouldn't be seen again.

From the rankings I would say they do pretty well provided a not very high number of players, but it is true they are not the most succesful.
Mongols (various lists): 1st 5; 2nd 5; 3rd 2.
Tartars: in the rankings they do not appear (maybe there is a typo and they are the "Tatar"?
Parthians: 1st 1; 2nd 5; 3rd 7.
Skythians: 1st 1; 2nd 4; 3rd 6.
Seljuk turks: 1st 9; 2nd 3; 3rd 6.
Later Ottoman Turkish: 1st 13; 2nd 12; 3rd 10.

compare to more popular armies
Classical Greek: 1/3/1
Later Carthaginian 4/2/4
Late Republican Roman 7/6/6

The idea of depleting is just another idea, as it could have been suffering from combat stress for shooting arrows for so long. The point is that these armies are very hard to catch and heavier troops don't have the chance they could have historically. The point in it is that standing there and shooting the whole time has a cost and troops can suffer. In other games they represent it through markers of tiredness. Here cohesion loss could serve.

[hammy]

The point is that these armies are very hard to catch and heavier troops don't have the chance they could have historically.

But historically heavy foot without missile weapons were really rather poo when it came to dealing with skirmishers with bows.

To be honest even western heavy mounted (crusaders, Teutons etc.) were hardly much cop at catching skirmishers either.

I think that there is probably an issue in the game with skirmishers bring able to evade and then immediately move with no penalty but I have no problem at all with the historicity of skirmishers being very hard to catch with heavy troops.

[waldo]

The point is that these armies are very hard to catch and heavier troops don't have the chance they could have historically.

But historically heavy foot without missile weapons were really rather poo when it came to dealing with skirmishers with bows.

To be honest even western heavy mounted (crusaders, Teutons etc.) were hardly much cop at catching skirmishers either.

I think that there is probably an issue in the game with skirmishers bring able to evade and then immediately move with no penalty but I have no problem at all with the historicity of skirmishers being very hard to catch with heavy troops.

Exactly. There is no problem with uncatchable light horse – why should heavy foot be able to catch light horse? Did they do this historically? (Although the ‘evade then full move next turn’ could need some modification)

The problem is the way the winner is decided. It forces foot armies to chase skirmisher armies to be able to win and, naturally, most foot armies aren’t very good at it. Unless the victory conditions are changed this will always be a problem in FOG.

Walter

[NickW]

Ammunition never really figured in historical battles, so I am at a loss why we are attempting to add complexity for no apparent reason.

It doesn't solve any of the perceived issues with Light Horse either.

It reduces the effectiveness of skirmishers after the initial contact, which is what occurred in most battles.

For armies with a lot of skirmishers, they can still operate effectively but need to rotate troops through the front line, which also appeared to have occurred.

[NickW]

No, it's the perfect example. The Parthians fired all day and never ran out of ammunition - they were obviously re-supplied during the battle, but it didn't seem to have any noticeable effect. Therefore why bother to model it in a game? English Longbowmen firing at full rate of fire would use all their arrows in about 10 minutes. They didn't run out of ammunition after 10 minutes though did they?

Carrhae is an important battle to demonstrate the importance of ammunition. As already noted the Romans expected to weather the arrow storm and counterattack once the ammunition ran low. They were surprised when it didn't - this was the genius of Surenas and his supply train. In later battles it did. it certainly did in medieval battles too. Therefore it should be possible in games for replicating this effect.

[Skullzgrinda]

Carrhae is an important battle to demonstrate the importance of ammunition. As already noted the Romans expected to weather the arrow storm and counterattack once the ammunition ran low. They were surprised when it didn't - this was the genius of Surenas and his supply train. In later battles it did. it certainly did in medieval battles too. Therefore it should be possible in games for replicating this effect.

Name the battles where mounted archers lost because their quivers ran empty, and I will name the battles where mounted archers destroyed their melee based opponents; not beat them - destroyed them.

We'll see which list is longer.

[ethan]

Well, the Parthians (and then Sassanids afterwards) took the extreme stroke of not actually defending their capital city.

I am not sure you can just shrug that off. Didn't the Sassanids lose at least one war to the Byzantines when their capital was sacked while they were besieging Constantinople?

Neither Parthians or Sassanids were steppe nomads that could endlessly retreat into a sea of grass. Their capitals (and the other cities sacked) were real cities, with real wealth and value...

[NickW]

Carrhae is an important battle to demonstrate the importance of ammunition. As already noted the Romans expected to weather the arrow storm and counterattack once the ammunition ran low. They were surprised when it didn't - this was the genius of Surenas and his supply train. In later battles it did. it certainly did in medieval battles too. Therefore it should be possible in games for replicating this effect.

Name the battles where mounted archers lost because their quivers ran empty, and I will name the battles where mounted archers destroyed their melee based opponents; not beat them - destroyed them.

We'll see which list is longer.

The length of the lists isn't especially important in determining whether such a rule should be in place. If it happened, or skirmisher effect reduced during a battle - which it did - then it should be reflected in the rules. The relative length of each list would simply serve to inform the likelihood.

Having said that, I was talking about shooting and you have turned it to melee, which is actually a good, extra point. Maybe instead of being disrupted, a new category is added - 'low ammo'. Same as disrupted for shooting. Same as disrupted for melee if armed only with missile weapon. No other effect. Has the effect of reducing the impact of skirmisher fire late in a battle, which seems to have had less importance.

[nikgaukroger]

Carrhae is an important battle to demonstrate the importance of ammunition. As already noted the Romans expected to weather the arrow storm and counterattack once the ammunition ran low. They were surprised when it didn't - this was the genius of Surenas and his supply train.

Nothing genius about this at all, the Parthians just did what all such armies did, it was just that the Romans didn't know much about them and so it came as a shock that the Parthians didn't run out of arrows.

[nikgaukroger]

I am not sure you can just shrug that off. Didn't the Sassanids lose at least one war to the Byzantines when their capital was sacked while they were besieging Constantinople?

FWIW, no - but only just

[NickW]

Carrhae is an important battle to demonstrate the importance of ammunition. As already noted the Romans expected to weather the arrow storm and counterattack once the ammunition ran low. They were surprised when it didn't - this was the genius of Surenas and his supply train.

Nothing genius about this at all, the Parthians just did what all such armies did, it was just that the Romans didn't know much about them and so it came as a shock that the Parthians didn't run out of arrows.

Did they all do that?

Gareth Sampson suggests in his book that this was not normal.

[jlopez]

The problem is the way the winner is decided. It forces foot armies to chase skirmisher armies to be able to win and, naturally, most foot armies aren’t very good at it. Unless the victory conditions are changed this will always be a problem in FOG.

Walter

Fundamentally, Dave isn't wrong. Skirmishers work historically in FOG and making them crap isn't going to help with the simulation aspect of the game and will throw up more problems than it will resolve.

As Walter has pointed out, the solution lies in the victory conditions. As long as the only means of securing a victory is by destroying enemy BGs then any army that cannot catch another is at a serious disadvantage. Simple solutions are to play with more points or reduce the table size until a balance is reached.

Another is to use objective(s) the possession of which gives the owner a victory or a bonus (+5) at the end of the game. Want to flit about the battlefield with skirmishers? No problem, you have 3 hours to shoot your opponent into oblivion but failing to do that and occupy the objective(s) will hand him the victory. Historical justifications can be the skirmishers have failed to stop the enemy from marching on their capital or will be unable to achieve their strategic goals because the enemy army remains intact.

Since it's clearly a means to an end for competition gaming, this (or similar) change to victory conditions should be added to the rules as an optional alternative to the current straight 25-0. It doesn't even have to be one or the other, it's perfectly feasible to use both systems in the same competition by (off the top of my head) having the player with least initiative deciding which will be used in that particular game.

From a gaming perspective, this system forces both players to fight a decisive battle at some point in a competition game. The thought of even one three hour game where absolutely nothing happens is what is driving players like me to give up on competition gaming. I'd rather read a book at home. I don't want to deny anyone the opportunity to use his army the way it should be used but at some point I want some fun too with whatever army I happen to be fielding. Is that too much to ask?

If this is a complete no-no for the design team, I'd appreciate it if it was made clear then I'll stop banging on about it. Otherwise I'll start a new thread to discuss this theme further. Ta.

Julian

[nikgaukroger]

Did they all do that?

Gareth Sampson suggests in his book that this was not normal.

Large numbers of arrows available seem pretty normal from what I've read - things like the Qidan cavalryman having 400 arrows for example.

Which book is that?

[Jilu]

Now saying that the Romans did this and the Parthians did that is interesting but it does not help the discussion as we are dealing with rules that last from -3000 till +1500.


the purpose of LF and LH are quite different and rules should differentciate them.

IMO :

1.- LF should not be allowed to move in contact with any troops but LF so not even in overlap.
2.- i proposed that they would be pushed away by heavier troops when the LF are zocked and the heavier troops advance closer than 2 MU but noone seem to like this.
3.- i would Zock the LF at 4 MU or their effective fire range
4.- seeing units of LF passing trough gaps in a battleline and running around ennemy troops to stop CV/KN from breaking of seems silly to me this must not have happen a lot during battles.
5.- Frag LF should move towards the camp and stay there untill they recover
6.- LF count at 1 AP if broken and 0 AP if Frag
7.- if LF evade they cannot move next turn except evade again.


LH being completely different i think they work well in the rules except for the move distance.

Just my toughts

[Strategos69]

Fundamentally, Dave isn't wrong. Skirmishers work historically in FOG and making them crap isn't going to help with the simulation aspect of the game and will throw up more problems than it will resolve.

I agree with Julián and Waldo regarding the fact that victory conditions are key when dealing with light horse (maybe victory points for controlling the terrain, more for capturing enemy camp?). I haven't proposed that skirmishers should be easier to catch and what nick proposed does not go in that direction. It is the simple fact that in historical accounts of battles skirmishers do not play a major role after their skirmishing in the first part of the battle (except when they acted as hamipoi). The idea here is getting a rule that avoids its extensive use after that task has been completed. CT for every time they evade seems right. Fleeing disorders a unit. The ammo rule is another way to cover that. A more drastic solution is forgetting about CT and ammo and simply losing a cohesion point every time they evade. If you evade many times, that evasion can turn into a real flight.

[grahambriggs]

The issues of LF and LH seem quite different. Re LF they seem to work quite historically in terms of the initial phase of the battle; cover the deployment, take on the enemy LF. There is an issue in the later satges of the game that they can gang up on isolated enemy units and shoot them down. It seems a bit silly that I can shoot knights down to routed with light foot without causing casualties. What, exactly, has scared the knights?

This does not seem to reflect history; once the main lines clash little is heard of the LF; presumably their usefulness is over.

One way to reflect this would be to remove the LF at some point. However, that would cause problems for armies with large numbers of them and their role in the army morale mechanism would break (e.g. my cavalry are just about to slaughter some when they dissappear). Plus there's be an issue of counting bounds or time.

Another way would be to restrict their ability to get close to enemy capital troops - perhaps not allow LF to advance into effective missile range of non skirmishers might do it? They tend not to need to do that in the early game anyway.

Another option would be to say that shooting from LF alone can't reduce non skirmishers to worse than disrupted. That way they might shadow the enemy to distract them but can't do any real damage

[jlopez]

It is the simple fact that in historical accounts of battles skirmishers do not play a major role after their skirmishing in the first part of the battle (except when they acted as hamipoi).

While it may be true for non-steppe armies, that's pretty much all steppe armies did until the enemy was sufficiently weakened to finish him off in hand-to-hand combat and FOG simulates that nicely. CTs for evaders or other artifical restrictions on skirmishers might simulate the first case but it will cripple steppe armies which isn't right nor desirable (and I hate those steppe armies as much as the next man).

Hobbling skirmishers is a complicated means of restoring an artificial balance on the table-top. All we'll do is make skirmish BG users more cautious which will make for even less decisive games which is why I prefer a solution that gives them an incentive to fight the battle to a finish towards the end of the game. Here's an example:

Infantry army player has 0 initiative vs a steppe army with 2 initiative. Infantry player chooses to surrender initiative to the steppe player and chooses objective-driven victory conditions instead. Steppe player decides on terrain type and after terrain deployment places the objective marker in open terrain within X MUs of the centre-line. I suspect he'll choose steppe and place the marker bang in the middle of the table forcing the infantry player to come forward to occupy it. The steppe player now has two and half hours and most likely two open flanks to use steppe army tactics to rout the infantry. Failing that he has half an hour to charge in and pray to the dice gods or face defeat. What constitutes an objective and how you hold it shouldn't be hard to define but you get the gist of the idea.

Julian

[NickW]

Did they all do that?

Gareth Sampson suggests in his book that this was not normal.

Large numbers of arrows available seem pretty normal from what I've read - things like the Qidan cavalryman having 400 arrows for example.

Which book is that?

"The Defeat of Rome" - about Carrhae from Pen & Sword.

[nikgaukroger]

Did they all do that?

Gareth Sampson suggests in his book that this was not normal.

Large numbers of arrows available seem pretty normal from what I've read - things like the Qidan cavalryman having 400 arrows for example.

Which book is that?

"The Defeat of Rome" - about Carrhae from Pen & Sword.

Quite a nice book that, read it a year or so back - but hardly a great study of the Parthians (or similar) from what I recall.