Slitherine

Vespasian28 wrote:

....armoured (2?) which is generally useful just not when in combat with the flaxmen.

I have often found armour useless when fighting linen troops weaving all around you

ShrubMiK wrote:"Dacian falx wielders become pretty close to being the equal in combat to Veteran legionaries (Sup, arm, impact foot, ssw) at 1/2 the price. Which too my mind is completely wrong gamewise"

Where to start...?

First of all, let's note that you can almost always "prove" that any troop type you like is undercosted or overcosted by carefully selecting the matchup to suit your argument on.

You have to look at the overall picture. And in that overall picture, the Dacians suffer from being less manoeuvrable than the Romans, are more vulnerable to shooting. They also have different POAs against different opponents. In particular, they don't get the ++ agsint foot that the Romans do, and they don't always get a + against mounted.

Not to mention that the difference between average and superior makes quite a difference, both in term sof causing hits and surviving tests. Not exactly "close to equal" IMO.

"doubly so when you consider that there are very few troops rated as ssw and you have to pay a lot of points for them."

Well, being pedantic, you pay most of those points for being superior (3?) which is still useful, and for being armoured (2?) which is generally useful just not when in combat with the flaxmen.

Personally I've always been in favour of removing Ssw form legionaries, as it seemed too overpowering for too little cost in many situations, and too cheap to really worry about in the situations in which it didn't help...perhaps reatining it in the game only for some very specialist sword-only troops (e.g. gladiators?) to make up for not having impact capability.

If you want to argue that HW troops are under-costed, then feel free to do so. But to use it as a reason why Roman legionaries should be improved is a bit silly.

I'll also point out that if you think the veteran legionaries are over-costed for their abilities, you still have the option of taking non-veteran legionaries to avoifd the problem entirely. Your call.

ValentinianVictor wrote:That's right, why let a little thing like historical accuracy get in the way of playing a good game. I vote to give the barbarians laser cannons just to even things up just a tad more. It wont matter as its only a game after all...

Fluffy wrote:However what is the logic behind the only generals depicted as elephants can affect (or not affect) rerolls? First what happened to the idea that what is on a general's base doesn't matter because they are not fighting troops? Second elephants are risky already, why do they need to be even less desirable by having a general effectivly dedicated to them?

hazelbark wrote:

Fluffy wrote:However what is the logic behind the only generals depicted as elephants can affect (or not affect) rerolls? First what happened to the idea that what is on a general's base doesn't matter because they are not fighting troops? Second elephants are risky already, why do they need to be even less desirable by having a general effectivly dedicated to them?

The authors appear very leery about making Elephants overly powerful. They seem to have a very cautious view of the efficacy of elephants in general.

The general dedicated them in the beta didn't work that way. And I expect final wording to be more like beta. It was essentially:
typical general can effect anyone except elephants.
Elephant mounted general can effect anyone including elephants.

So if you don't have the ability to have an elephant mounted general you cannot help the elephant for COMBAT re-rolls. But Elephant generals did not suffer any restrictions. So you don't have Republican Roman consuls leading elephants in combat.

So "elephant armies" are better at using elephants if they want to be, makes sense. I do not like some armies having and advantage just because. That only seems fair if elephant mounted generals cost more.

philqw78 wrote:Other troops less manouverable and smaller tables. A double whammy.

Fluffy wrote:For a positive start, I like the armour thing, makes protected and heavily armoured more worthwhile (who doesn't hate having the points for heavily armoured wasted on protected troops, or amoured on unprotected?).

Also I like the extra power for elephants (not only because I like elephants), because the impression I get from history is that they are "hign risk, high reward" weapons, but the reward side seemed a little lacking in v1.
However what is the logic behind the only generals depicted as elephants can affect (or not affect) rerolls? First what happened to the idea that what is on a general's base doesn't matter because they are not fighting troops? Second elephants are risky already, why do they need to be even less desirable by having a general effectivly dedicated to them?

philqw78 wrote:I got a Dacian army today. Those superior heavy weapon guys will be great at 7 points a pop