Slitherine

I disagree. The EAP army is one of the best around and can handily beat most anything. Keep i mind their shooty-ness, ability to fight in terrain and potent cavalry, what's not to like? The Immortals are nice too.

In IF, I would have to go with the Cumanss as the most useless depending on how you design their army. The Persians under Darius aren't so hot either, especially against Alexander.

Deeter

deeter wrote:I disagree. The EAP army is one of the best around and can handily beat most anything. Keep i mind their shooty-ness, ability to fight in terrain and potent cavalry, what's not to like? The Immortals are nice too.

The EAP "b" army is good, I agree, but not the "e" army surely? That list represents the army they had when their empire collapsed.

In IF, I would have to go with the Cumanss as the most useless depending on how you design their army. The Persians under Darius aren't so hot either, especially against Alexander.

Deeter

OK, the Cumanns will be added to the IF list and I'll take a look at the later Persian armies too. Any one used the Thessalians? Their list looks quite weak. Any other really weak ones in IF?

EDIT - Cumanns are in the S+S book.

Oops. You're right. Then they are my vote for most feeble army of S & S.

Deeter

And finally, viewers . . . just one result from the ROR qualifying group for NAFF 2011 - Early Armenians 5 v Suren Indo-Parthians 1.

So the Suren Indo-Parthians will play off against the Bogus Numidians to see who will be the ROR representative in the finals.

So now the Bogus Numidians have joined the Papal States in qualifying for the finals of NAFF 2011 in October. Next up is to sort out the representative for Immortal Fire. I have been right through this thread again and so far we have nominations for the Skythians, the Early Colonial Greeks, Thracians and the Early Achaemenid Persians (e). Are there any more to consider? I must admit that my knowledge of IF is not all that it could be so I shall definitely need some help sorting this very large book out. Thanks.

I have just looked through the IF lists and it seems that the Thessalians and Later Gatae might be added to the list of the weakest armies in this book.

So we have . . .

Skythians

Early Colonial Greeks

Thracians

Thessalians

Later Gatae

Any more? Is there one of these five armies that is a bit better than the others? Four armies would be ideal for a qualifying event really.

stockwellpete wrote:I have just looked through the IF lists and it seems that the Thessalians and Later Gatae might be added to the list of the weakest armies in this book.

So we have . . .

Skythians

Early Colonial Greeks

Thracians

Thessalians

Later Gatae

Any more? Is there one of these five armies that is a bit better than the others? Four armies would be ideal for a qualifying event really.

I would add the 28th-30th Dynasty Egyptians to the list and I think the Later Colonial Greek list is weaker than the early. Both these list lack armoured hoplites and have little really effective troops. I'd happily take Thessalians or any of the Thracian/Getae lists over either of these.

Chris

batesmotel wrote: I would add the 28th-30th Dynasty Egyptians to the list and I think the Later Colonial Greek list is weaker than the early. Both these list lack armoured hoplites and have little really effective troops. I'd happily take Thessalians or any of the Thracian/Getae lists over either of these.

Chris

Thanks Chris I really do need some help with this.

So maybe . . .

28th-30th Dynasty Egyptians

Early Colonial Greek (EDIT I actually think the Early list is weaker, Chris. Although the early list has armoured hoplites, they are all "poor" whereas the later list has better cavalry options, loads of "average" mercenary hoplites and a wider Athenian allies list to choose from.)

Skythian

and one from Thessalian, Later Gatae, Thracian or Early Ach Persian e (who I had forgotten about).

Any more thoughts? A lot of the best players of FOG go in for IF LOEG. Which armies would you definitely not want to fight with?

stockwellpete wrote:

batesmotel wrote: I would add the 28th-30th Dynasty Egyptians to the list and I think the Later Colonial Greek list is weaker than the early. Both these list lack armoured hoplites and have little really effective troops. I'd happily take Thessalians or any of the Thracian/Getae lists over either of these.

Chris

Thanks Chris I really do need some help with this.

So maybe . . .

28th-30th Dynasty Egyptians

Early Colonial Greek (EDIT I actually think the Early list is weaker, Chris. Although the early list has armoured hoplites, they are all "poor" whereas the later list has better cavalry options, loads of "average" mercenary hoplites and a wider Athenian allies list to choose from.)

Skythian

and one from Thessalian, Later Gatae, Thracian or Early Ach Persian e (who I had forgotten about).

Any more thoughts? A lot of the best players of FOG go in for IF LOEG. Which armies would you definitely not want to fight with?

I guess I'd put the Early Getae as the fourth. They don't get the Greek allies that the Thracian list does and still have a firm limit on the good (heavy weapon/offensive spear) Thracian MF at 36 and an overall limit of 48 including the mediocre light spear, sword. The later Getae at least can get upto 58 heavy weapon MF. The Early Achaemenid E list may be the weakest of their variants but it's definitely competitive with some good cavalry and the Immortals. The Thessalians get plenty of average hoplites and better cavalry than many of the other hoplite lists so are at worst a mediocre army. Definitely not in the competition for worst.

Chris

OK Chris, thanks. So we have a provisional qualifiers list of four armies . . .

28-30th Dynasty Egyptian

Early Colonial Greeks

Skythian

Early Gatae

I'll leave this open until the weekend and see if there are any more comments or suggestions. If not, we can start the qualifying games with these four armies next week.

In my view there aren't any totally useless armies in IF. If given the right terrain or opponent all the armies can stand a chance of winning.

Here is my list:

1(worst). Late Ach Persian (Bessos). In a world of hoplites and pike and melee-cav army need to find a way around to back of the enemy to win. Pretty hard thing to do against wall to wall spears.

2. Indo-Greek. Same problems as the LAP but has slightly better cav.

3. Early Ach Persian e. You can only withdraw your bowmen so far before they are caught and this army doesnt have hoplites to back them up.

4. Early Gatae. Mostly rubbish MF. Will do well if there is lots of terrain or if the enemy is small and you can horde-swarm them.

5 Late Colonial Greek. Lots of poor prot hoplites. Good as a horde army, but will get eaten up by other hoplite armies .

Thanks Ian.

So we agree on Early Gatae. They are in. Now both yourself and Chris have said Later Colonial Greeks but I have chosen Early Colonial Greeks. I will defer to you two esteemed players if you can answer this point. Forgetting their Athenian allies for a moment, the Early Colonial Greeks are forced to pick a minimum of 33(!) "poor", "armoured" hoplites in a 500pt army whereas the Later Colonial Greek do not have to pick a single "poor", "protected" hoplite battle-group in their 500pts because they can load up with 28 mercenary hoplites that are "average" and "protected" (8 pts a go). Surely that makes them stronger than the earlier army?

And I will add the Late Ach Persians (Bessos) and the Early Ach Persian "e" army to the provisional list along with the Indo-Greeks. So that now makes 7 armies.

The Early Gatae can get a bye to the semi-final as everyone seems to agree about them and then the other 6 armies can play off in 3 matches to decide the other semi-finalists. So we just need to sort out which of the Colonial Greek armies is going to be in it.

Since you called me 'esteemed', and flattery will get you anywhere with me, I will change my mind and go Early Colonial Greeks.

Bit you can"t legitimately ignore the Athenians allies for the Early Colonial Greeks. The big thing that made the Indians the worst army in ROT was that the Info-Partisans got Saka allies.

Chris

batesmotel wrote:Bit you can"t legitimately ignore the Athenians allies for the Early Colonial Greeks. The big thing that made the Indians the worst army in ROT was that the Info-Partisans got Saka allies.

Chris

No, I agree, but I said that because I felt that the Athenian allies were very similar for Early or Late Colonial Greeks and were therefore not a decisive difference. In fact there are some small differences. The Athenian allies for the Early Colonial Greeks have weaker cavalry and weaker skirmishers than the Athenian allies for the Later Colonial Greeks but they do have slightly better foot soldiers - 12x average armoured hoplites (at 9 pts each) are possible compared to the later army's 9x average drilled protected hoplites (at 8 points each) + 3x average protected hoplites (at 7 points each).

So while I would say that the Athenian allies for the Later Colonial Greek army are a bit better than those of the Early army, I wouldn't say that it offsets the fact that the Early army still has to have quite a few "poor" armoured hoplites. Of course, I may be wrong here. Perhaps we could play a paired game together to settle which Greek army should qualify?

1. Maybe seed the Greek armies 4 & 5 in the tourney and let them playoff? It would eliminate giving the gate a bye.
2. If there's a chance, I'd like to be one of the people who take the Bessossians for a pared rnd 1 match. I was reallyntempted to nominate them after my loeg season, but I thoughtbitvwas just me.

Cheers

Tom

zumHeuriger wrote:1. Maybe seed the Greek armies 4 & 5 in the tourney and let them playoff? It would eliminate giving the gate a bye.

Yes, that's a good idea, Tom. I'll do that then so we can have the 8 quarter-finalists.

2. If there's a chance, I'd like to be one of the people who take the Bessossians for a pared rnd 1 match. I was reallyntempted to nominate them after my loeg season, but I thoughtbitvwas just me.

Cheers

Tom

OK then, I'll put you down for them. I'll do the quarter-final draw now and put the details in the NAFF thread in the other forum.

Quarter-Final draw (ties to consist of 2x paired games = 4 battles in total, 500pts, FOW and DM on)

1. Indo-Greeks v 28-30th Dynasty Egyptians
2. Late Ach Persians (Bessos) v Skythians
3. Early Gatae v Early Ach Persians (e)
4. Early Colonial Greeks v Later Colonial Greeks

Please go to the NAFF 2011 thread in the Tournaments section if you wish to participate in this very exciting event.

The qualifying event for Immortal Fire is coming to a conclusion now and the next book to look at is "Swords and Scimitars". I have been right through the thread and there are two nominations so far - Seljuk Turks and Cumanns. Are there any other naff armies that you would like to nominate?

I am hoping to restrict this qualifying event to just the four worst armies if possible.