Slitherine

Hi All,

Steve Finn and I played our first game 8 days ago. Only now have I been able to get the time to post a battle report and the inevitable list of questions. Firstly I would like to say it was great! Both Steve and I thoroughly enjoyed the game and when it was time to leave I noticed it was 1:30am in the morning - both of us had completely lost track of time.

One thing about posting reports and questions - would it make sense to start a topic for each subject, or just list the questions out as people have been doing? Personally keeping track of topics would be easier, but it might mean an awful lot of them.

Anyway, battle report, initial thoughts and then questions as separate posts to this thread.

Cheers,

- Bruce.

Steve and I chose a historical match-up for our first game - Steve took Early Imperial Roman and I took Sassanid Persians around the 200AD mark.

My list was:
1 x IC Generals, Cavalry, Armoured, Bow, Swordsmen, 75
1 x FC Generals, Cavalry, Armoured, Bow, Swordsmen, 50
1 x FC Generals, Cavalry, Armoured, Bow, Swordsmen, 50
4 x Light Horse Archers, Light Horse, C, Undrilled, Unprotected, Bow, 28
4 x Light Horse Archers, Light Horse, C, Undrilled, Unprotected, Bow, 28
8 x Hill Tribesmen, Medium Foot, C, Undrilled, Unprotected, Light Spear, 24
8 x Levy Spearmen, Mob, D, Undrilled, Protected, Defensive Spearmen, Spearmen, 32
8 x Levy Spearmen, Mob, D, Undrilled, Protected, Defensive Spearmen, Spearmen, 32
6 x Archers, Light Foot, C, Undrilled, Unprotected, Bow, 24
6 x Archers, Light Foot, C, Undrilled, Unprotected, Bow, 24
6 x Noble Cavalry, Cavalry, B, Undrilled, Armoured, Bow, Swordsmen, 90
6 x Noble Cavalry, Cavalry, B, Undrilled, Armoured, Bow, Swordsmen, 90
6 x Noble Cavalry, Cavalry, B, Undrilled, Armoured, Bow, Swordsmen, 90
3 x Elephants, Indian Elephants, C, Undrilled, 60
6 x Cataphracts, Cataphracts, B, Undrilled, Heavily, Armoured, Lancers, Swordsmen, 102

I don't have Steve's list to hand, certainly not the order of march, but from memory:
1 x IC
1 x FC
1 x FC
4 x Auxilia Cavalry
4 x Auxilia Cavalry
4 x Contarii
4 x Numidian Cavalry
6 x Legionaries
6 x Legionaries
6 x Legionaries
6 x Legionaries
6 x Legionaries
6 x Auxilary Foot
6 x Auxilary Foot
6 x Auxilary Archers
2 x Bolt Shooters
2 x Bolt Shooters
1 x Foritified Camp

The romans attacked into hilly/rugged terrain (2xbroken), while the persians hoping for a chance to use their superior mobility opted for green meadows (4xopen) but the romans countered by offering battle near a small set of rolling woods (2xhill,2xwood) and the persians could not refuse.
Picture 1

Both armies were ably lead by their best generals and in the end the persians larger numbers of horse told (persians outscout romans). The romans had decided to deploy between the safety of two woods, their backs protected by the stout defences of their fortified camp. The persians deployed in the centre, hoping to catch the roman left flank with a mounted sweeping maneouver and hold up the roman right flank with their scouts.
Picture 2

The opening moves were hesitant - this was the first battle between these two great nations - and although each general was confident, neither knew the true strengths or weaknesses of the opposition.
Picture 3

The roman skirmishers closed with the lightly armed archers to test the mettle of the opposition and were greatly dismayed by the ferocity of archery.
Picture 4

Initially the persians felt their heavily armoured cataphracts and elephants would see them through the roman left flank, covered by cavalry shooting and retreating from the ponderous legionaries. But early on they saw an opportunity to attack a weak roman right flank held by auxilia. Two units of cavalry executed left turns and swept towards them while the cavalry to the right took a wide route to attack the roman left flank.
Picture 5

The romans quickly responded by moving their own cavalry to counter the threat, and the persians, realising that they could become split into two and isloated, straighted the attack.
Picture 6

Bolstered by their light troops success with the bow they decided to shoot a unit of legionaries pressing forward from their bolt shooter lines. Again the romans were surprised by the feriocity of the archery and many dead were left behind. Sensing the time was right the persian general joined the front line and charged!
Picture 7

With a crash the legionaries were thrown back, their neatly ordered ranks disrupted by the weight of the charge. The persians drew their swords and finsihed the job routing the foot.
Picture 8

The persians sensed the time was ripe, and fearful that over time the weak left flank would fall to the superior numbers. The romans braced themselves and resisted the heavily armoured cataphracts, but could not stand the elephants lead by their CinC, terrified by their noise and overpowering smell. The cavalry on the right, undeterred by roman archery chanrged home and through back the roman archers.

No more pictures as time was pressing. Steve and I called it a night at that point with the roman left crumbling but the sassanid left looking distinctly unsupported and vulnerable. If the game had gone on I suspect the initial blood draw by the sassanids would have been countered by the roman counter-attack. Whether the cataphracts and elephants would have been able to re-organise in time for a second charge before the flanks crumbled will never be known.

Initial Thoughts And Impressions
--------------------------------------

Steve and I both had a thoroughly pleasant game - the rules definitely work. But it was slightly marred as most of the rules are unclear in some way - we had to make some decisions on the fly and often this took a little while as we checked the rules. Mostly I think definitions could do with improving and a fair number of assumptions have been made. All to be expected at this stage I think.

The move to units, combined with the contact rules, really meant there were no opportunities to bung up the game. I tried with a few LH moves etc (as you might see from the picture) but to no avail. I have some ideas, but I think they are all non-starters - I'll try them in the next game. Also I felt units really lent a better feel to the game - maybe I am too used to Rome:Total War!

CMTs at the start of the game were a real pain. It was really a dice fest with no real purpose. Now maybe the idea is to use BGs a little more to reduce this, but I think this is more suitable for the romans than the sassanids. Once the game got into the contact areas, then they made a lot more sense and felt right.

One aspect of the game which did not fully materialise in the game is the sense that power units are very difficult to deal with - especially mounted ones. And when they hit, they tend to hit something they are going to seriously damage. i am not sure that combats hang around long enough for superior numbers to tell. But Steve and I are swapping roles for the next game - he will be playing sassanids and I will play romans - so we shall see if desperation is the mother of invention!

A few things started to emerge which would be nice to nip in the bud. For example it seems that a cavalry unit size of 5 is a sweet spot. 3-2 formation. Easy to expand to a line and get skirmishing. Second rank shooting is exactly half. Undrilled is only 3 wide so they act like drilled troops. Need to kill two elements to get to 25% etc. Although I freely admit that it is early days and this could be a red herring. Personally I would like to see sweet spots like this removed - they make the game formulaic and reduce the appeal.

Displaying wavering/disrupted and routed troops with offset elements of a unit is not going to work. Firstly there are circumstances where it is not clear - see photo of disrupted 4 Lh - which way are they facing? Secondly in a long line it may not be possible to offset elements. Also there is the dreaded table jog! And finally it is difficult to see at a glance how many attrition points you have. Therefore I think counters are going to be a necessity - I'm going to knock some up for the next game.
I would also say that using dice to denote hits on units is fraught with similar problems. Given there are a lot more dice involved it is not going to take much to have a hit dice swept away by an enthusiastic horde of dice. Again I think counters will solve that one.
Plus counters for marking cohension tests after a break / general death is going to prevent a lot of arguments.
I liked the sentiment, but I am not sure it is practical as it stands. I'll see how the counters work and see if there are any alternatives that might work.

Questions
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Ok there were a lot of niggles with the rules. What I have tried to do is raise the important ones that we had to make an arbitary judgement on, and others that are clear but not clear if you get my meaning. The first one is a real rambler, the others not so bad. The first five would be very helpful to have answered before we play the next game (Tue) as they caused real problems. Thanks!

* There is no indiciation in the rules when ambush markers get deployed. Are they done at the end?
In which case if you know the opponent's army (say in a competition after round 1) you know what has been ambushed fairly early on even before the markers are placed - sure you might not know where - but it still gets rid of the mystery.
If you do this then do the ambushed units count towards the total when calculating the 25% for deployment or not?
Do ambush units still go down in the order of march (we presumed not!)?
Which order do they go down, do the players alternate one by one, starting with who, put all of them down at once in order or simultaneous (doomed I think in a competition environment)?
Writing the units on the bottom is a little tedious and presumes that you have a supply of markers to re-use. Maybe just a marker with 1,2,3 or A,B,C on the top would be sufficient and mark the order of march?
Given points values are easy to calculate andunits make points harder to conceal then ambushes seem to be a bit of a pointless exercise - not totally but very little point. Time will tell however whether this is for the best.
In the end we added the ambush markers in the order of march and added them to the army unit total. It worked, but artifically aided in delaying deployment of key troops.

* How does scouting get announced, in which order - simultaneous annoucement seems doomed?
It makes sense that the defender has a scouting advantage (home turf) so we said the invader declares first then the defender (allows for concelament of numbers by exactly matching in increments of 10).
Does it make sense to allow the numbers to be modified after a draw?

* There is some inference in the rules that elements from different units can support each other - is this true?
Furthermore, can roman auxilary archers be in the same unit as legionaries for example?
Can you mix and match any troops into units (hope not)?
Clarification of the rules about mixing elements etc into units and inter-unit support would be nice.

* We got into a terrible mess with the definition of multiple moves. The simple cases are obvious. But for example if you make a CMT to make two SM combined does this count as a multiple move? (We said yes)
Also a CM can include elements of a SM, which could for example be a 4 element expansion and an advance, yet a 2 element expansion and advance is listed explicitly. Does the former count as a multiple move and the later not - hence the difference? (We said yes).
More absurdly, you could make a 4 element expansion with a SM of a 2 element expansion included as part of the move!

* We struggled to figure out how to calculate the line of shooting and whether units obstructed or not?
Do you measure lines from corner to corner as DBM, centre to centre etc?

* The cost of generals is listed as an extra in the rules, so do you need to add the cost of the base unit as well? This is not really possible as there are no qualities listed for the general units. But it also seems unfair that mounted generals get advantages in movement over foot generals and there is no cost difference.

* Do generals count as units?

* The army lists don't seem to have any terrain listed with them?

* Do generals count towards the element count when they join a unit? This is important for things like 1HP3E.

* Mobs are not mentioned anywhere in the rules, but the sassanids have them. No idea about base size, fighting factors etc.

* 0 and 7 are not marked on the terrain adjustment table and are achievable results for some terrain.

* The wording of the terrain rules implies that open terrain is not available to defenders. This makes no sense and we assumed they could.

* The commander limit of 3-4 which is in the text of the rules would make sense in the army lists as well. Much like any troop type as a unit size limit and a total elements in the army limit.

* It would be nice to declare parts of the table as impassable as part of terrain selection. Say take a terrain pick for a 12" table edge that is "safe". Otherwise FM and RM could be very devastating.

* Can wheels include an advance as well as the wheel to make use of the full move or does the move only allow a wheel.

* Expansions and contractions - the numbers quoted are they element count or file count?

* Including "Charge" in the movement table (p.36) is a little confusing and I missed this until just now!


Just to re-iterate after such a long list of questions - we had a lot of fun and we are really looking forward to the next game - although I need to find a counter to those nasty elephants!

Great report Bruce and a nice long list of questions.

I will work on producing a consolidated 'bug' list from various peoples reports and questions.

I suspect the best place for the bug list is as a sticky message in this forum. As I get answers or rules changes fed back I will update the bug list accordingly.

ONe point I did note is your comment on unit sizes, I seem to recall seeing a comment that there is an unwritten rule (which will appear in the next version I think) that all units must have even numbers of bases. This of course might be a problem with Elephants and Chariots but works well for other units and may remove most of the sweet sport issues.

Hammy

Thanks Bruce & Hammy, for now we're mostly clarifying so probably not worth keeping track of each issue separately and creating a bug list. Once people are a bit more familiar with the rules and we've tidied up the rough edges it makes more sense to track each item. If we tried that now we'd be burried!

Ok there were a lot of niggles with the rules. What I have tried to do is raise the important ones that we had to make an arbitary judgement on, and others that are clear but not clear if you get my meaning. The first one is a real rambler, the others not so bad. The first five would be very helpful to have answered before we play the next game (Tue) as they caused real problems. Thanks!
No problems and glad you enjoyed the game. The current text is being reworded to make it clear what was intended so we are working hard on that as you guys try things out.

There is no indiciation in the rules when ambush markers get deployed. Are they done at the end?
In which case if you know the opponent's army (say in a competition after round 1) you know what has been ambushed fairly early on even before the markers are placed - sure you might not know where - but it still gets rid of the mystery.
If you do this then do the ambushed units count towards the total when calculating the 25% for deployment or not?
Do ambush units still go down in the order of march (we presumed not!)?
The rules are still vague in this area so probably best to avoid any ambushes until we've improved them! At present the units in ambush would go down when they normally would in the order of march. This seemed to work well in the few games we had with ambushes but early days. The primary thought was to use bases to avoid the hassle of drawing maps. If you knew somebody's order of march well, the ambush would be less effective of course. If you like ambushing a lot you will find you want to put some ambush units late in your OOM.

Which order do they go down, do the players alternate one by one, starting with who, put all of them down at once in order or simultaneous (doomed I think in a competition environment)? Writing the units on the bottom is a little tedious and presumes that you have a supply of markers to re-use. Maybe just a marker with 1,2,3 or A,B,C on the top would be sufficient and mark the order of march?
This is not set in stone so we'll see what works best in practice. A/B/C has some risks when used by the least scrupulous but generally OK. Use whichever you prefer for now.

Given points values are easy to calculate and units make points harder to conceal then ambushes seem to be a bit of a pointless exercise - not totally but very little point. Time will tell however whether this is for the best. In the end we added the ambush markers in the order of march and added them to the army unit total. It worked, but artifically aided in delaying deployment of key troops.
We have aimed to make them less of a shock and only really dramatic in very low visibility terrain. We felt if they were too useful on most tables they could bog the game down. They are primarily there to allow lots of ambushes in Forest/Jungle/Mountain dominated terrain. We have had some good Ancient British ambushes that were very scary, but on a fairly open table with little low visibility terrain they are - and perhaps should be - quite limited in effect. We need more feedback to know if the system works though.

How does scouting get announced, in which order - simultaneous annoucement seems doomed? It makes sense that the defender has a scouting advantage (home turf) so we said the invader declares first then the defender (allows for concelament of numbers by exactly matching in increments of 10).
Good point - the rules do not sepcify at present, but it makes sense for the Defender to go first.

Does it make sense to allow the numbers to be modified after a draw?
In our view, no.

There is some inference in the rules that elements from different units can support each other - is this true? Furthermore, can roman auxilary archers be in the same unit as legionaries for example? Can you mix and match any troops into units (hope not)? Clarification of the rules about mixing elements etc into units and inter-unit support would be nice.
First see the new Design Philosophy as we want to get away from the unit thinking and focus on where the real design concept comes from, which is very top down - this will change in v2.0. There are several supports that exist:
1. Rear support in cohesion tests
2. Some battlegroups (units) in their list will be allowed to exchange fighting ranks to simulate how they fought (some romans)
3. Battlegroups can generally come in as a 2nd rank to support an impact phase and we are working on the details of this (Mongols did this) - but it has its risks
4. A small number of battlegroups have mixed troops in them as thye fought habitually together in the same block - e.g. Ps supports for late romans. These are the only mixes allowed and they are list specified.

In the main therefore, battlegroups have to be of the same type and can only provide cohesion test support to each other. By the way you can't have 5 Cv as it must be an even number - so 4 or 6 (cheese restriction). Lists are likely to say 4 or 6 rather than 4-6 to make this clear.

We got into a terrible mess with the definition of multiple moves. The simple cases are obvious. But for example if you make a CMT to make two SM combined does this count as a multiple move? (We said yes)
Also a CM can include elements of a SM, which could for example be a 4 element expansion and an advance, yet a 2 element expansion and advance is listed explicitly. Does the former count as a multiple move and the later not - hence the difference? (We said yes). More absurdly, you could make a 4 element expansion with a SM of a 2 element expansion included as part of the move!
There has been much discussion over this internally and we agree the table is very hard to understand so is being re-written. To clarify :
* A MOVE is a physical single movement of the unit - so the only mutliple moves are sort of March moves where you move twice.
* Combining 2 simple moves into a single complex move is therefore 1 move but unfortunately we have used move to mean 2 things and caused confusion. We will fix this.
* You can add a simple move from a different section to any complex move - so you can add a simple wheel to an expansion but not a simple expansion to a complex expansion. We need to fix this in the descriptions.

We are fixing the definitions of simple move - for instance combining an advance and a single wheel - taken literally on the table - is 2 simple moves! Which it isn't. A simple move in column 1 is an advance with a single wheel. Hope that all helps and we will issue a new improved table asap!

We struggled to figure out how to calculate the line of shooting and whether units obstructed or not? Do you measure lines from corner to corner as DBM, centre to centre etc?
We are working on target priorities right now. Use centre-to-centre until we get you a new version of the rules.

The cost of generals is listed as an extra in the rules, so do you need to add the cost of the base unit as well? This is not really possible as there are no qualities listed for the general units. But it also seems unfair that mounted generals get advantages in movement over foot generals and there is no cost difference.
No. We took the view that the generals type is just for show and doesn't ever come into play. The only advantage is the speed of movement which we have left for now but we could either vary points a little or have all generals move the same speed no matter what troop type they are in practice. We need to decide whether the extra complexity is worthwhile after a few more games & feedback. We felt that it wasn't worth worrying about and was ok as a bit of army flavour. They all move fast enough in practice as foot generals in foot armies tend to need to fly around less than people commanding mounted armies. So in practice it kind of balanced out.

Do generals count as units?
No

The army lists don't seem to have any terrain listed with them?
These have not been inserted yet. Please make a judgement call of which you think they would have for now.

Do generals count towards the element count when they join a unit? This is important for things like 1HP3E.
No - their figure is just nominal to show where he is and what he is doing.

Mobs are not mentioned anywhere in the rules, but the sassanids have them. No idea about base size, fighting factors etc.
We are adding this in the next version. As a preview...they will be on Hd base sizes and fight with half-dice like skirmishers. You can try that out.

0 and 7 are not marked on the terrain adjustment table and are achievable results for some terrain.
Well spotted - it should read 2 or less, and 6 or more.

The wording of the terrain rules implies that open terrain is not available to defenders. This makes no sense and we assumed they could.
This sounds like a typo, as the defender should be able to lay Open. Could you clarify where it says this? The defender can choose Open and lay it down in his phase before the attacker places non Open. If this isn't what it says we need to clarify. The defenders have placed lots of Open in our test games.

The commander limit of 3-4 which is in the text of the rules would make sense in the army lists as well. Much like any troop type as a unit size limit and a total elements in the army limit.
Good point - we will need to decide if it goes in the lists or the rules.

It would be nice to declare parts of the table as impassable as part of terrain selection. Say take a terrain pick for a 12" table edge that is "safe". Otherwise FM and RM could be very devastating.
This is an interesting idea, but can you wait until you've seen a flank march in action and then see what you think. As with ambushes, flank marches are less of a shock than before but work if large enough. Its not that often that a flank march has looked a good idea in current test games.

Can wheels include an advance as well as the wheel to make use of the full move or does the move only allow a wheel.
Yes it should say advance with a single wheel

Expansions and contractions - the numbers quoted are they element count or file count?
Files, so if it says 2 it means you can go from column to 3 wide and deep.

Including "Charge" in the movement table (p.36) is a little confusing and I missed this until just now!
It's there to specify that a complex move test is required in some cases. It is a bit confusing but we are putting a special section on charges in the Impact phase rather than the movement phase.

Once again, thanks for the great feedback.

[/i]

Thanks Iain for your response to Bruce's report. It is much clearer to me now what is required from us as beta testers.

Before making a serious point can I claim any bragging rights for the first EIR who started off in a corner under AOW? Bruce has the pictures to prove it.

In terms of the way the rules are structured can I say that I am delighted to see a glossary and I would urge you and your fellow writers to make as much use as possible of this.

When drafting leases and commercial agreements often the most important part of the document is the list of definitions. these are usually set out in alphabetical order in clause 1 where they are very easy to find. Where a defined word or phrase is used in the body of the document the word is given a capital letter. Everybody then knows that it is a defined word.

If an amendment then has to be made to the lease or whatever it is often a simple matter of tweaking the definition rather than changing a clause in the document.

Where a word or phrase is to be used only in one particular clause in the document, it might be defined at the beginning of the clause itself. Again it is easy to find there and defined in context; so this alternative can be a useful alternative

I am convinced that a significant part of the problem with DBM is that definitions are scattered about and are hard to find.

Regards

Stephen