BRITCON FEEDBACK - RULE SUGGESTIONS

rogerg · Post by **rogerg** » Thu Aug 16, 2007 4:26 pm

What might be interesting is a count of the shooting BG percentage of the armies listed in order of tje competition results. We have done the 'bottom up' approach looking at individual combats. It would be nice to see an overview of how important shooting was considered in army selection and how this played out.

If the more successful players were choosing armies with large proportions of shooting BG's, then we will have some indication of how important shooting is rated. On the other hand, if the percentage of shooting BG's in the armies was spread evenly then we can conclude that success is probably independent of missile power.

rbodleyscott · Post by **rbodleyscott** » Thu Aug 16, 2007 4:41 pm

rogerg wrote:What might be interesting is a count of the shooting BG percentage of the armies listed in order of tje competition results. We have done the 'bottom up' approach looking at individual combats. It would be nice to see an overview of how important shooting was considered in army selection and how this played out.

If the more successful players were choosing armies with large proportions of shooting BG's, then we will have some indication of how important shooting is rated. On the other hand, if the percentage of shooting BG's in the armies was spread evenly then we can conclude that success is probably independent of missile power.

In my view the best way to conduct such an analysis is on the basis of "shooting dice".

2 Skirmisher or Bow* bases = 1 shooting dice.
1 shooty cavalry or chariot base = 1 shooting dice. (They can get 1 dice per base if they form up 1 base deep).
4 MF in pure shooting BGs = 3 shooting dice. (On the basis that they are unlikely to form up one rank deep)
1 shooty MF = 1 shooting dice in Assyrian style 50:50 BGs.

On that basis, my Sassanids had 29 shooting dice, Jerome's Scots had 14 and Bruce's Hungarians had 33.

marshalney2000 · Post by **marshalney2000** » Thu Aug 16, 2007 5:23 pm

My Medieval Portuguese had 18 by that formual
John

AlanCutner · Post by **AlanCutner** » Thu Aug 16, 2007 5:58 pm

My Bedouin Dynasties had 16.

madaxeman · Post by **madaxeman** » Thu Aug 16, 2007 8:23 pm

my crap crusaders had 22 (3 x 6 foot, 1 x 4 mounted)

rogerg · Post by **rogerg** » Thu Aug 16, 2007 8:39 pm

I'm offering 16 with the Dailami, excluding the 8 LF supporters who never usually shoot.
No doubt Simon will be giving us the full list. I seem to remember him promising exhaustive analysis

bddbrown · Post by **bddbrown** » Thu Aug 16, 2007 9:08 pm

Olivier's army probably has the most. Every BG was able to shoot.
8 chariots
12 cavalry
16(8 ) skirmishers
16 medium foot bowmen (2nd rank but all able to shoot as the front rank was defensive spearmen).

A massive 44!

rbodleyscott · Post by **rbodleyscott** » Thu Aug 16, 2007 9:13 pm

bddbrown wrote:Olivier's army probably has the most. Every BG was able to shoot.
8 chariots
12 cavalry
16(8 ) skirmishers
16 medium foot bowmen (2nd rank but all able to shoot as the front rank was defensive spearmen).

A massive 44!

Not quite so many. Only 12 back rank MF bowmen, and the cavalry were Bow*.

So 34

madaxeman · Post by **madaxeman** » Thu Aug 16, 2007 9:15 pm

rogerg wrote:I'm offering 16 with the Dailami, excluding the 8 LF supporters who never usually shoot.
No doubt Simon will be giving us the full list. I seem to remember him promising exhaustive analysis

And yours was the only army mine managed to beat !

(working on the battle report as we speak)

marshalney2000 · Post by **marshalney2000** » Thu Aug 16, 2007 9:43 pm

Does anyone have a note of what the assyrian army makeup as fielded at britcon. I only saw this from a distance.
John

bddbrown · Post by **bddbrown** » Thu Aug 16, 2007 10:20 pm

Yes, but Olivier should give his ok before I post it.

shall · Post by **shall** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 6:13 am

An excellent idea for an anlysis and I may even stick a regression through it.

As the man with the army lists I can tell you you are well off the mark I'm afraid...

Oliviers has 34 on the basis that Richard proposes and I am not convinced the Bw* are worth that value as they generally have to operate 2 deep as fighting cavalry. 31 on my own basis which would reduce those down further by 50%. I've used them a lot as Byzantines and they are no real use ina firefight. Total form list being 8 c HCH, 12 Bw* Cv, 12 second rank Bw, 16 skirmishers with Bw = 8+3+12+8 = 31 my way, 34 Rbs way. May even be 3 less as one skirmish unit was perhaps javelin (I have a note of this but don't have to hand my file with the final amendment on it).

So the top three are

Bruces Hungarians with 33
Jeromes scots with 14
Olviers Assyrians with 31

Thus I would say that both Olviers adn Buces armies are shoot and punch variant and Jeromes is a non-shooty army.

Alas Richard you are off by a long way on yoru forecast of the shootist army.....

Hunter Hopes Pechenegs wins easily with 60!!!
Mark Taylors with 40 another high one.
My indians when I used them at Leeds had 50+.

These are all real shooty armies.

Si

marshalney2000 · Post by **marshalney2000** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 9:52 am

Petchenegs were Hunter Hope while Eric had Later Hungarian as he always does.
John

petedalby · Post by **petedalby** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 10:26 am

I had mixed experiences of the effectiveness of shooting over my 6 games.

Sometimes it was excellent and sometimes it was totally ineffective - much as Richard's earlier post describes. How the opponent used his army was key. Jerome's use of his Scots was excellent - I hardly touched them at all.

The main change I'd like to see is that a BG can not go below Fragmented by Shooting. You have to go to combat to achieve a Rout.

Pete

petedalby · Post by **petedalby** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 10:33 am

I found my armoured Dailami, three deep, BG's shoulder to shoulder, were being taken out of the game by Ottoman skirmishers who were completely invulnerable. Attempting to drive them off merely broke my line and exposed the BG's to more concentrated shooting. Standing still just meant taking more shooting and using a general to keep bolstering them. LH went round the flank even on a steep hill and poured in more shooting. Meanwhile the bulk of the Ottomans were free to concentrate on the rest of my army.

I guess this was me then?

To be fair Roger we played for nearly 5 hours and, if I recall correctly, no Dailami BG was Fragmented or Routed at game's end - yet you'd caught and Routed one of my LF?

And I'd committed quite a bit to that flank. It was 2 BGs of 8LF, 2BGs of 4 LF, 1 BG of 6LH, 1BG of 4 LH, 1 BG of 4 Cav and 2 x TC's!

Quite an investment for little return.

Pete

Pete

shall · Post by **shall** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 10:37 am

So in fact the same result as my 30 min run through of the scenrario - a few losses, 1 skirmish Bg lost, no dailami FRG or BRK.

Interesting

Si

petedalby · Post by **petedalby** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 10:49 am

Of more concern is the effectiveness of small numbers of shooting.

In the same game 6 LF bow routed a BG of Sup HvArm Knights - just through shooting.

This despite the Knights having just carved their way through a number of enemy BGs. No plusses on the CT for enemy in rout? Hence my request for nothing worse than Fragmented from shooting please.

Pete

rogerg · Post by **rogerg** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 12:45 pm

Pete, the cavalry, if I recall correctly, never got into the skirmish fight. As you state, I did not take serious loss in pushing back the skirmishers. The debate for me is about how difficult it was to hold against the skirmishers for those five hours and the number and quality of troops it took to do so. This left me insufficient forces to do well elsewhere.

There was just that inevitability about it all, that I would never break out from the pin of the skirmishers and there could only have been one result. I do not wish to take away from your win with this argument. You chose the right tactics and executed them well.

The consolation points for my LF breaking your knights adds to the argument. If we took your suggestion of reaching fragmented by shooting then the knights would need to be broken by the test from another charge. However, the shooting would have been the major cause, hence my suggestion that disruption from shooting is quite sufficient.

petedalby · Post by **petedalby** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 2:20 pm

The point we clearly agree on is that shooting can somtimes be too effective.

The Authors need to decide if they wish to change and if so by what degree.

I had other games where I was able to rout solid BGs with isolated shooting with extreme results.

Pete

shall · Post by **shall** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 4:56 pm

Clearly this can happen on occasion. Could you give me a few examples of these isolated shooting examples. What state the target BG? Was it isolated? Where were the generals? etc.

I have never been lucky enough to have 8 LF rout any such thing in all the games I have played so need to get my head around it - although I know it is technically a possibility. Its a bit hard to judge whether the issue is significant or something we are happy with from genreal comments. Roger posted a specific and having teted and simulated it we are quite happy with it and in fact would except to get some success as the Dailami with more experienced tactics.

At present I would say we are inclined to tweak a few of the other things that came up but leave the shooting effects as they are for vs 1.0 as some 50+ game in we don't feel it the same way.

Isn't the down to FRG is a pretty minor effect in practice as you will surely just charge them to make them rout instead.

Thanks

Si