Slitherine

jlopez wrote:

philqw78 wrote:.This is impossible. Which is one of the reasons the Romans using a battlefield replacement system worked so well. People naturally have to rest.

It is possible. Even the Romans managed it, again against the Gauls:

Polybius 2.33

"And this was due to the foresight of the Tribunes: for the Consul Flaminius is thought to have made a strategic mistake in his arrangements for this battle. By drawing up his men along the very brink of the river, he rendered impossible a manœuvre characteristic of Roman tactics, because he left the lines no room for their deliberate retrograde movements; for if, in the course of the battle, the men had been forced ever so little from their ground, they would have been obliged by this blunder of their leader to throw themselves into the river."

Polybius 3.73 Trebbia

"The heavy-armed soldiers, however, who were in the front rank of both armies, and in the centre of that, maintained an obstinate and equal fight for a considerable time."

You are taking literally the description of battle reported from afar (in time and space). This could be in fact the point of view more similar to what we have as FoG generals (where we include the periods of close combat and rest in a big thing called MELEE), so it can be usefull from this aspect. But there is no doubt that prolonged "melee" where a series of clashes and pauses. There is plenty evidence: both based on phisical and psicological grounds, and even based on the inner working of the manipular system.

When the ancients say "sustained combat" it should be interpreted that the initial chrage did not break the enemy instantly (wich occur more than often, something that we as wargamers consistently fail to model because of the "fun" imperative. They di not mean that they stood hacking at each other for hours.

It could be interesting to have the account of a battle from the point of view of a Centurion, but i guess they have more important things to do than write and perhaps the idea that you have to REST is SO OBVIUOS that noone would care puting it down in words. I guess you are (as myself) no sportsman nor construction worker. Try asking those guys.

Ranimiro wrote:

nikgaukroger wrote:. Can't help it if other players lack the cajones ...

It´s COJONES ;p The phrase is funny though, because CAJONES means drawer or crate.

We are so well endowed we need crates

nikgaukroger wrote:

Ranimiro wrote:

nikgaukroger wrote:. Can't help it if other players lack the cajones ...

It´s COJONES ;p The phrase is funny though, because CAJONES means drawer or crate.

We are so well endowed we need crates

Ouch!

rbodleyscott wrote:

Moro wrote:Therefore -and caming back to rule mechanisms- how could we solve the problem of the poor underrated warbands (that no one fields)?

One option which we are considering is to change the CT modifiers to

-1 if foot losing impact combat vs drilled impact foot
-2 if foot losing inpact combat vs undrilled impact foot

On the grounds that the "barbarian" charge is fiercer and more likely to crack the enemy morale if they win the impact. If they fail, of course, then their lack of armour etc. kicks in and they get a good walloping.

This only has benefit if the undrilled impact foot win. Against superior Roman legionaries, the Romans are more likely to win or draw the combat, due to their superiority.

An alternative would be to give undrilled impact foot an extra + if all other POA are even (as per the rule for mounted Light Spear). This gives a slight ege to the undrilled impact foot during the impact phase and they would be marginally more likely to win the impact. Or even use both ideas?

DavidT wrote: This only has benefit if the undrilled impact foot win. Against superior Roman legionaries, the Romans are more likely to win or draw the combat, due to their superiority.

Which is as it should be, historically speaking, for Superior legionarii and more sweaty for Average.

rbodleyscott wrote:

Moro wrote:Therefore -and caming back to rule mechanisms- how could we solve the problem of the poor underrated warbands (that no one fields)?

One option which we are considering is to change the CT modifiers to

-1 if foot losing impact combat vs drilled impact foot
-2 if foot losing inpact combat vs undrilled impact foot

On the grounds that the "barbarian" charge is fiercer and more likely to crack the enemy morale if they win the impact. If they fail, of course, then their lack of armour etc. kicks in and they get a good walloping.

I'd support this, I think that the impact phase should be made slightly more important relative to the melee phase - losing to the initial charge seems like a bigger deal that losing in the melee. My other thought would be maybe to give impact foot an additional POA at impact for a 3rd rank? Would give some advantage to large, deep warband units?

hannibal wrote:My other thought would be maybe to give impact foot an additional POA at impact for a 3rd rank? Would give some advantage to large, deep warband units?

And small BG of Romans in column though.

philqw78 wrote:

hannibal wrote:My other thought would be maybe to give impact foot an additional POA at impact for a 3rd rank? Would give some advantage to large, deep warband units?

And small BG of Romans in column though.

mmm good point - would have to be limited to undrilled again I guess, or maybe it's too complicated & doesn't work. My idea was to give some sort of advantage to big 10 or 12-base BGs - ATM the rules don't seem to give much advantage to being in a big unit.

hannibal wrote:

philqw78 wrote:

hannibal wrote:My other thought would be maybe to give impact foot an additional POA at impact for a 3rd rank? Would give some advantage to large, deep warband units?

And small BG of Romans in column though.

mmm good point - would have to be limited to undrilled again I guess, or maybe it's too complicated & doesn't work. My idea was to give some sort of advantage to big 10 or 12-base BGs - ATM the rules don't seem to give much advantage to being in a big unit.

I am not sure that 10 base BGs don't have much in the way of advantages as things stand.

Last Sunday in the Northern league one of our opponents had BGs of 10 MF spearmen and the 10 bases were a definite bonus. We beat one of them 3 hits to 2 in melee and it took no penalty at all on its CT. Later when we had killed 2 bases and it was still 4 wide and 2 deep so no combat power lost it did not suffer a -1 for 25% losses. All in all not a bad pair of advantages.

If I have the choice of 10 base or 8 base spear BGs I will normally take 10s.

hammy wrote:If I have the choice of 10 base or 8 base spear BGs I will normally take 10s.

Is it the same if you have the choice between 10base and 4 base BG?

philqw78 wrote:

hammy wrote:If I have the choice of 10 base or 8 base spear BGs I will normally take 10s.

Is it the same if you have the choice between 10base and 4 base BG?

For spearmen then I would not consider 4 base BG at all.

For undrilled troops I would not go with 4s but for drilled armoured non spears then I would normally take 4s.

hannibal wrote:
My other thought would be maybe to give impact foot an additional POA at impact for a 3rd rank? Would give some advantage to large, deep warband units?

I think I read this proposal when the same topic was discused in other post. I suggested then that maybe the PoA should be allocated for the 4th rank, making it risky as you can suffer more from shooting. I suppose that the key plan for Romans in the battle of Cannae was doubling the depth of the maniples to achieve this effect on the center of the Carthaginian formation. So, an extra PoA for any unit forming in a deep formation seems to me like a risky but adventurous plan. Romans will have to form in a convetional formation than barbarians if they want to cover the whole front. We shouldn't forget that Barbarians lost most of their battles against the Romans from the 3rd century BC to 1st AD, but they should be given a chance to break through the Roman line.

In the other hand, given the line exchange in the Romans, as far as I know (maybe I am wrong) now if a BG of Roman legionaries breaks and passes through another BG of legionaries, these guys drop one level of cohesion. Shouldn't Romans be allowed to interpenetrate, at least when fleeing? This will encourage deployments in depth too.

philqw78 wrote:

hannibal wrote:My other thought would be maybe to give impact foot an additional POA at impact for a 3rd rank? Would give some advantage to large, deep warband units?

And small BG of Romans in column though.

I suggested a similar thing elsewhere, but for melee POAs rather than impact. Partly to avoid the columns at impact which then expand out, but also reasoning that it is after the initial impact that numbers start to matter, in the push and shove of melee. My suggestion was a +POA for 3rd rank of foot (MF or HF but could be restricted to HF only), if all other nets POAs are negative.

An extra POA just for depth would rather make pike rather useless.

Possibly a tiebreak POA at impact to a deeper formation but that would probably end up with a lot of tiny attack columns which is hardly 'realistic'. If you were going to introduce such a POA you would also need to include some effect of overlaps at impact.

hammy wrote: I am not sure that 10 base BGs don't have much in the way of advantages as things stand.

Last Sunday in the Northern league one of our opponents had BGs of 10 MF spearmen and the 10 bases were a definite bonus. We beat one of them 3 hits to 2 in melee and it took no penalty at all on its CT. Later when we had killed 2 bases and it was still 4 wide and 2 deep so no combat power lost it did not suffer a -1 for 25% losses. All in all not a bad pair of advantages.

If I have the choice of 10 base or 8 base spear BGs I will normally take 10s.

I agree that having some spare bases at the back (at any size BG) can help to reduce the effects of attrition, but this is in the melee phase rather than the impact phase. In the barbarians vs Romans debate however, the big barbarian BG is going to get steadily chopped up by the Romans if they don't win impact - entirely historical I might add! My thought is therefore whether the barbarians have enough of a chance at impact to disrupt the Romans and give them a chance in melee? At the moment, the superior Romans have a better chance at impact due to re-rolls, and they always have the same number of dice. My question is whether weight of numbers should make a difference at impact? Even if the barbarians outnumber the Romans 3:1 the impact odds are unchanged from a straight 1:1 fight. Romans did lose to warband sometimes, and I think I'm right in saying that was usually where their formation was disrupted in the initial warband charge? Roman accounts of battles certainly make a big play of the tactics that the Romans used to blunt the initial warband charge and that this was the most dangerous part of the battle. For example, Appian says of the Germans :

"It seems that they were without patient endurance in their battles, and did not fight in a scientific way or in any regular order, but with a sort of high spirit simply made an onset like wild beasts, for which reason they were overcome by Roman science and endurance. For, although the Germans made a tremendous rush and pushed the legions back a short distance, the Romans kept their ranks unbroken, and outmaneuvered them, and eventually slew 800000 of them."

I might be wrong & would be happy for someone to put me right!

hammy wrote:An extra POA just for depth would rather make pike rather useless.

Possibly a tiebreak POA at impact to a deeper formation but that would probably end up with a lot of tiny attack columns which is hardly 'realistic'. If you were going to introduce such a POA you would also need to include some effect of overlaps at impact.

I think you are right and I like the idea of the PoA resolving tiebreaks. A correction is needed to avoid the column attacks. What abaout a dice at impact for those cases? As impact is right now I find that some tricky charges can be tried. In some circumstances there is an incentive to receive charges in a column formation (and that is seem many times with supporting columns that receive charges).

quote="hannibal"]My other thought would be maybe to give impact foot an additional POA at impact for a 3rd rank? Would give some advantage to large, deep warband units?[/quote]]

What historical tactic or weapon system is this 3rd rank reflecting? Warbands fighting with short spears and swords are not going to get any advantage from more guys pushing from behind like hoplites or pikes. Being pushed from behind when you are trying to fence with an enemy is probably detrimental.

hammy wrote:

philqw78 wrote:

hammy wrote:If I have the choice of 10 base or 8 base spear BGs I will normally take 10s.

Is it the same if you have the choice between 10base and 4 base BG?

For spearmen then I would not consider 4 base BG at all.

For undrilled troops I would not go with 4s but for drilled armoured non spears then I would normally take 4s.

I agree with hammy on this one. I'd apply that to Persian Immortals (armoured LS/bow) as well. In the games I played with giving the Persians the impossible task of frontally attacking armoured Greek hoplites in a strong position, keeping the Persians in a deep formations kept them in the battle a lot longer than otherwise. Given the choice I would take them in 10's over 4's.

stecal wrote: What historical tactic or weapon system is this 3rd rank reflecting? Warbands fighting with short spears and swords are not going to get any advantage from more guys pushing from behind like hoplites or pikes. Being pushed from behind when you are trying to fence with an enemy is probably detrimental.

I don't think that Barbarians were "fencing" when they charged. It is described as a fierce clash and not lasting much. The 3rd rank is reflecting the pushing effect (I would suggest even a 4th rank instead). And I think Barbarian troops should not be the only ones to benefit from this. (spears are a good example, like Thebans in Leuctra). Then you have the problem hammy raised which gets us to the situation when Romans decide to receive charges in column formation and then expand. I wonder what are the odds for the Barbarians to win in that case, a situation that historically would likely have led to the destruction of the unprepared column.

Don't we have here also a problem in the rules that encourages column formations for impact?

stecal wrote: What historical tactic or weapon system is this 3rd rank reflecting? Warbands fighting with short spears and swords are not going to get any advantage from more guys pushing from behind like hoplites or pikes. Being pushed from behind when you are trying to fence with an enemy is probably detrimental.

The clue is in Appian's text:

"It seems that they were without patient endurance in their battles, and did not fight in a scientific way or in any regular order, but with a sort of high spirit simply made an onset like wild beasts, for which reason they were overcome by Roman science and endurance. For, although the Germans made a tremendous rush and pushed the legions back a short distance, the Romans kept their ranks unbroken, and outmaneuvered them, and eventually slew 800000 of them."