4 base skirmishing BGs

[Blathergut]

Rules are fine. Am so glad the rules won't be changed! (I was so weary of a new version every time you went to a convention or tournament.)

Fix the tournament scoring!

[Ghaznavid]

I've to agree, leave the rules alone, they work fine. It's just the Tournament scoring system that isn't coping to well with conditions probably not foreseen by Terry when he invented it.

Because Karsten and Martin need a 25-0 system*, it would be easier just keep the system as it is now, but the maximum total number of BGs counting towards an army break point is 15, irrespective if whether or not an army has more. So an army of 12 BGs would break on losing 12 attrition points, 15 BGs on 15 attrition points, 16 or more BGs on 15 attrition points. That way players can still use the armies they want, but they would be less unbreakable in a competition time frame.

Even better make it 13 or 14. Would help prevent the "benny hill" effect at the end of games.

A solution that has been proposed before, but so far the occasional win of a big tournament in the UK by 12 BG armies has served as the main argument that there is no problem. <sigh>

* It's worth noting that the rules victory conditions have decisive, major, moderate and marginal victories, plus a draw. Which is best scored by something like the 3210 system; (probably 5-0, 4-1, 3-1, 2-1 and 1-1). To get the non-decisive victories, one needs both to inflict more victory points and have ratio gains in attrition points. So there's no "let's swap BGs so I win on percentages" effect by having armies with high numbers of BGs. I don't know who came up with the 25-0 system, but frankly it wasn't well thought out. Unfortunately it now seems to be set in stone.

Nothing is set in stone, but diverting from the current 25-0 system would be most inconvenient. While the main function of the ranking system, etc. would not be affected to much additional infos like points total and points average (and everything else that depends on points) would have to be removed. That is unless you are prepared to freeze the rankings when changing scoring systems and restart from zero.
There is of course no real reason why a 5-0, 4-1, 3-1, 2-1 and 1-1 couldn't be written as 25-0, 17-3, 15-5, 12-7 and 10-10, except that it would look rather clunky.

[peterrjohnston]

A solution that has been proposed before, but so far the occasional win of a big tournament in the UK by 12 BG armies has served as the main argument that there is no problem. <sigh>

It would be more instructive to look at the win/draw percentages.

There is of course no real reason why a 5-0, 4-1, 3-1, 2-1 and 1-1 couldn't be written as 25-0, 17-3, 15-5, 12-7 and 10-10, except that it would look rather clunky.

Or 25-0, 20-5, 15-5, 12-8, 10-10.

[NickW]

Because Karsten and Martin need a 25-0 system*, it would be easier just keep the system as it is now, but the maximum total number of BGs counting towards an army break point is 15, irrespective if whether or not an army has more. So an army of 12 BGs would break on losing 12 attrition points, 15 BGs on 15 attrition points, 16 or more BGs on 15 attrition points. That way players can still use the armies they want, but they would be less unbreakable in a competition time frame.

Even better make it 13 or 14. Would help prevent the "benny hill" effect at the end of games.

That looks like a very neat solution.

[philqw78]

Even better make it 13 or 14. Would help prevent the "benny hill" effect at the end of games.

Smaller armies can give just as much Benny Hill stuff, as there as more space to run into.

[irondog068]

How did this go from skrimish size units to changinging the rules???

Leave the rules alone! Limit the number of BG?? really? Tell that to the guy who has hordes of cheap infantry. I sure he will be thrilled that he cannot use everything he planned. And more importantly bought and painted! And what is a command point?

I have not played in a tourny since the early 80s and all this talk hurts my head


For the original poster: If possible keep foot skirmishers in 6 stand units (handguns I have a unit of 4) Light horse 4 is fine, 6 is better but only in "shooty" horse armies where you have a Light horse.

This is what I have found and what the people in the Chicago area play with.

[kevinj]

I agree with Irondog and Ghaznavid, it is the tournament scoring system that relates to the number of BGs in an army that causes most of the issues. Change (and simplify) this so that scoring relates to numbers of APs inflicted/lost rather than % and many of these problems will go away.

[hammy]

A solution that has been proposed before, but so far the occasional win of a big tournament in the UK by 12 BG armies has served as the main argument that there is no problem. <sigh>

It is not occasional, it is a regular occurrence.

At Burton (a 900 point doubles comp) the army placing second had IIRC 13 BGs, one of the armies in joint 4th has something like 11.
Both singles periods a Britcon were won by 12 or 13 BG armies.
The Challenge was won with a normal sized 100 years war army.

Where are all these events being won by armies with high numbers of BGs?

I used 14 BGs at Derby in the Old Glory teams and that was I think the biggest army in my theme so perhaps that is one of them.

[Ghaznavid]

Where are all these events being won by armies with high numbers of BGs?

You miss the point Hammy. It's not about high BG count armies winning, but about them being the FoG equivalent of DBMs "Corner Sitters". Worse it's not even a product of the rules, they don't encourage such armies. It's only and purely a result of the current scoring system. Maybe it's not that much of a problem in the UK (yet), but elsewhere it is, and it's damaging the game in those areas.
Personally I also think it's pretty irritating if after a long battle vs "the hordes" I then find that despite being ahead I actually drew or even 'lost' (marginally as it might be) just because one of his BGs is worth so much less then one of mine when it comes to scoring. That kinda contradicts the stated approach of the rules to make all BGs worth the same in AP to prevent 'sacrifical units' and the unhistorical tactics that come with them. Some armies are basically all 'sacrifical units' now.

[Ghaznavid]

There is of course no real reason why a 5-0, 4-1, 3-1, 2-1 and 1-1 couldn't be written as 25-0, 17-3, 15-5, 12-7 and 10-10, except that it would look rather clunky.

Or 25-0, 20-5, 15-5, 12-8, 10-10.

That would be scores assuming an army rout though and leave only 2 (non-draws) for those battles that did not end with an army rout. At any rate the main disadvantage of such a rather crude system remains. Such a system would inevitably require some additional tie-breaker score and that is something I would prefer to avoid at all costs.

[irondog068]

For those who are keeping score,
My Swiss have 8 crossbow not 6 and as many hand gunners as I could. That is all the crossbow you can get for post 1467 Swiss.

[hammy]

Where are all these events being won by armies with high numbers of BGs?

You miss the point Hammy. It's not about high BG count armies winning, but about them being the FoG equivalent of DBMs "Corner Sitters". Worse it's not even a product of the rules, they don't encourage such armies. It's only and purely a result of the current scoring system. Maybe it's not that much of a problem in the UK (yet), but elsewhere it is, and it's damaging the game in those areas.
Personally I also think it's pretty irritating if after a long battle vs "the hordes" I then find that despite being ahead I actually drew or even 'lost' (marginally as it might be) just because one of his BGs is worth so much less then one of mine when it comes to scoring. That kinda contradicts the stated approach of the rules to make all BGs worth the same in AP to prevent 'sacrifical units' and the unhistorical tactics that come with them. Some armies are basically all 'sacrifical units' now.

Well why not try the very simple scoring system that I support? Each side gets 10 points - the AP they lose (minimum zero) plus the AP they claim (maximum 10) plus 5 if they break the enemy without breaking themselves. That way against a 20 BG army if you take 10 AP for the loss of say 4 the score would be 16-4 and if your opponent wants more points they have to come out and play risking total defeat.

I have seen a few games where skirmishy armies have ducked and weaved but normally this means that while they don't lose they don't win the game either. With the 5 point win bonus players should fairly quickly realise that to do well or even to place above half way the odd win actually helps a lot.

[kevinj]

Well why not try the very simple scoring system that I support?

How about trying it for the 1 day comp you're organising in Birmingham?

[hammy]

Well why not try the very simple scoring system that I support?

How about trying it for the 1 day comp you're organising in Birmingham?

I could but to be honest as a 12 BG army is huge at 650 points and quite a few players have less than 10 BGs I don't see it being a valid test

[philqw78]

I could but to be honest as a 12 BG army is huge at 650 points and quite a few players have less than 10 BGs I don't see it being a valid test

So you mean only you would suffer from such a system so you do not want to change it as it slants the odds in your favour. I see that as as good a reason to change as any

[kevinj]

It also has the benefit of simplicity.

[rbodleyscott]

Well why not try the very simple scoring system that I support? Each side gets 10 points - the AP they lose (minimum zero) plus the AP they claim (maximum 10) plus 5 if they break the enemy without breaking themselves. That way against a 20 BG army if you take 10 AP for the loss of say 4 the score would be 16-4 and if your opponent

But this will encourage small armies of super hard troops, and players taking extreme care to avoid losing any BGs at all.

Will this encourage a type of play that we will enjoy?

I think not.

(The Lavender style springs to mind).

-----------------------------

Here's another simple suggestion. Keep the the current scoring system except that the break point of the army cannot exceed 1 AP per 60 points army total. (15 for a 900 point game, 13 for 800, 10 for 650). Allow armies to contain as many BGs as the player wants but the break point of the army cannot exceed that limit. Scores for uncompleted game are calculated on AP lost/min(total BGs,maximum permitted break point).

[hammy]

I could but to be honest as a 12 BG army is huge at 650 points and quite a few players have less than 10 BGs I don't see it being a valid test

So you mean only you would suffer from such a system so you do not want to change it as it slants the odds in your favour. I see that as as good a reason to change as any

I would be more than happy to use it and as Kevin says it is as simple as a simple thing.

I didn't play at Birmingham last year because the organisers only let me have 28 places and there were more players that wanted to play than places so I umpired but had an army just in case someone couldn't turn up on the day.

At the Manchester 650 point comp I used Libyans with 12 BGs so if I lost 4 APs or more it would have cost me a VP, 10 AP would have been 2 VP worse and 11 AP would have been 1 VP worse. Not a big deal really.

[grahambriggs]

Where are all these events being won by armies with high numbers of BGs?

You miss the point Hammy. It's not about high BG count armies winning, but about them being the FoG equivalent of DBMs "Corner Sitters". Worse it's not even a product of the rules, they don't encourage such armies. It's only and purely a result of the current scoring system. Maybe it's not that much of a problem in the UK (yet), but elsewhere it is, and it's damaging the game in those areas.
Personally I also think it's pretty irritating if after a long battle vs "the hordes" I then find that despite being ahead I actually drew or even 'lost' (marginally as it might be) just because one of his BGs is worth so much less then one of mine when it comes to scoring. That kinda contradicts the stated approach of the rules to make all BGs worth the same in AP to prevent 'sacrifical units' and the unhistorical tactics that come with them. Some armies are basically all 'sacrifical units' now.

Yes that is a problem. I particularly dislike the type of army that has, say, three BGs of strike troops and the rest light forces. You have to respect the strike force but that tends to mean if you beat it you don't get the time to hoover up the lighter stuff. The opponent can throw the strike in, exploit if it wins, run away if not.

That sort of army is unlikely to win a comp (the strike by itself will usually have insufficient power to do so) but it should do reasonably well - the odd big win, fair amount of drawish games. There are some armies that are good against it - I found Merovingians with lots of light spear armoured cavalry did well - but slower armies will struggle to defeat it.

[rbodleyscott]

I particularly dislike the type of army that has, say, three BGs of strike troops and the rest light forces. You have to respect the strike force but that tends to mean if you beat it you don't get the time to hoover up the lighter stuff. The opponent can throw the strike in, exploit if it wins, run away if not.

But it would be a strange sort of Ancient/Medieval wargames rules that prevented such perfectly historical army organisations from being used. (e.g. Parthians)