Slitherine

Scouting. This is bad. A method based only on Cav/LH/Cam is basically flawed. I would suggest a completely new approach.

We??™re back to the days of 7th Ed, with the assumption that more mounted troops in the army means better tactical awareness and superior deployment, this is not always so, some armies had lots of mounted but did not effectively scout, some armies were just plain lucky when spotting the enemy, some armies used forced marches it trick the enemy, some armies used local knowledge and contacts.

I think a scouting factor per army would be a better and simpler approach. Its could work something like an aggression factor to determine attacker/defender (terrain/weather), a scouting factor to determine who deploys first (deploy by line of march as per AOW or by commands as per DBM 3.x), attacker moves first.

The scouting factor could be based on the effectiveness of the army in scouting, the proportion of mounted in the army, the proportion of Light Infantry, home types of terrain etc. I think that all armies regardless of the number of mounted should be able to win the scouting contest, the current system to heavily favours mounted armies.

There are many cases when the armies with less mounted out scouted an opponent.

I think it could be better - I think it gives too much benefit to mainly LH armies because it allows all of the army to scout, and also it carries no risk.

Changes I would make:
1) Scouting points for elements depends on the approach and weather defender or attacker - Lh may count for 2 if approaging from the stepps but 0 if coming through forrests.
2) Which units are scouting should be listed on the Order of March, and only units in the first 1/4 can be designated as scouts.
3) If a side rolls a 1 it suffers a scouting failure - all scouting units make a (cohesion) test after all deployment is completed.
4) Use 2 dice, or reduce the maximum bonus to +3
5) Defender wins ties - having the advantage of "friendly" natives and the enemy coming to them.

We are reviewing the scouting rules but one thing to bear in mind is that being outscouted is not the handicap it has been in some other rules.

If outscouted you must
* Deploy 1/4 of your army first, then your opponent deploys 1/4 of theirs and so on.
* The outscouted player moves 2nd

Although it is an advantage to the outscouting player, it's not massively so, so give it a try and let us know how it feels in practice.

Also, the quality of your general will have almost as much effect as the number of cavalry available, and when combined with the die roll modifier it means there is no sure thing as far as scouting goes.

In one test game we had Parthian vs Romans. The Parthians had a +2 due to so many LH, but the Romans had a +2 for the Inspired Commander, giving a net 0 adjustment to the dice.

My concern is more with armies that are mostly or entirley scouting units. These can safely send their entire army out scouting which I don't believe they could have done. If they have a IC then they are at +6 so will outscout unless the opponent also has an IC or 20+ scouting elements. This is why I suggest that only units in the first 1/4 of the army should count for scouting.

The benefit is not large, so any risk should also be limited. In my suggestion there is a 1/6 chance of a scouting failure, and if it happens then on average each scouting unit starts 0.5 of a cohesion level down (3/36 down 2, 12/36 down one, 21/36 on full)

We're thinking of reducing the maximum bonus for Light Horse to +2, which would prevent a mssive LH army from outscouting all opponents. That makes the effect of LH around equivalent to the effect of generalship.

I agree with Peter on this.

Scouting should relate to the army type, the terrain that it is campaigning in and the quality of its leaders.

Sheer numbers are irrelevant and "scouting" frequently reflected the need to forage and loot by certain armies in the field. The quality of military intelligence requires a supply of trustworthy information and the ability to make sound judgements based upon experience and competance.

Maybe then an army sould have a scouting factor in its list based upon the terrain that it finds itself in compared to the factor of its opponents and maybe modfied by the presence of an IC?

Lance.

We are reviewing this area at present and testing an alternative. More news soon.

Simon