Border Reivers

[nikgaukroger]

For John.

You have the border horse as Bow armed but we have them as Crossbow in the Scots list - which I think we agreed on previously. Is there a reason for the difference or a change of mind?

List goes up to the "Union of the Crowns" - that was in 1707 IIRC, I assume you mean when James became James I of England as well as king of Scotland. Is that correct?

[marshalney2000]

Sorry typo on my part they should be crossbow (latch) when mounted. When dismounted they are however often reported as having longbow. Happy to leave you to make a judgement on that. Certainly the dismounted guys in the optional section should be longbow.
1707 was the Union of the Parliaments while the union of the crowns was in 1603. With the union of the crowns , the borderers had less safe places to raid due to the lack of a border and this seems a good time to conclude this list. I will make this clear in the covering notes.
John

[nikgaukroger]

Sorry typo on my part they should be crossbow (latch) when mounted. When dismounted they are however often reported as having longbow. Happy to leave you to make a judgement on that. Certainly the dismounted guys in the optional section should be longbow.

OK, will tweak based on that.

1707 was the Union of the Parliaments while the union of the crowns was in 1603. With the union of the crowns , the borderers had less safe places to raid due to the lack of a border and this seems a good time to conclude this list. I will make this clear in the covering notes.
John

Fine - if you do the blurb and cover all that we'll be fine.

I have made a couple of changes. I assumed that the bodyguard should be 0-4 of either LH or Cv rather than 0-4 of each and I moved the enraged tenants up into the optional troops as we can't really have troops only available if defending (and I didn't want to drop them).

For the English allies I've just done an ally for the Early Henrician English and said that applies for the whole of the Reivers list on the basis that the English northern counties appear to have had quite old fashioned troops (even into the Bishops Wars).

[marshalney2000]

Nick I am happy with the changes you propose re enraged farmers and also numbers of bodyguard.
John

[marshalney2000]

Nik, just a thought but should the option for border horse to be lh or cv also carry over into the Scots and English lists where they are a troop choice?
John

[rbodleyscott]

Sorry typo on my part they should be crossbow (latch) when mounted. When dismounted they are however often reported as having longbow. Happy to leave you to make a judgement on that. Certainly the dismounted guys in the optional section should be longbow.

If they are to be crossbow when mounted and bow when dismounted, some explanation is required in the troop-notes or people will think it is an error.

How likely is it that an individual man would carry both crossbow and longbow?

If they are a mixture, we should consider the nature of the mix. Would it be better to represent them as Bow* when dismounted, especially as they are not paying any points for the Bow (since they are paying for Crossbow which is free)?

(I would suggest that they would be Crossbow* when Cavalry mounted, but sadly that capability does not exist).

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Why is there no LH option for veteran raiders (other than bodyguard) after 1540?

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Need to specify more clearly that LH dismount as LF, Cavalry as MF. (Unless perhaps they should all dismount as MF)

[nikgaukroger]

Nik, just a thought but should the option for border horse to be lh or cv also carry over into the Scots and English lists where they are a troop choice?
John

Probably.

[nikgaukroger]

If they are to be crossbow when mounted and bow when dismounted, some explanation is required in the troop-notes or people will think it is an error.

How likely is it that an individual man would carry both crossbow and longbow?

From my limited reading very likely, almost compulsory in fact

[marshalney2000]

I think what we have with the crossbow is a small latch weapon almost like an early pistol which was popular with the reivers before pistols become commonplace. The longbow would be on the back until dismounted. All the records indicate that the longbow was still extremely popular with the Border reivers right throught he period even when it seemed to be dropping out of fashion/use elsewhere. I do intend to cover this in the notes.
Re dismounting my intention was that both cavlry and light horse would have the choice to dismount as either light foot or medium foot. I think both the cavlary and the light horse are the same animal but would either skirmish or close up as necessary to meet the demands of the tactical situation. In practice this meet happen on the battlefield (Pinkie) but I think the player has to make the choice. Unlike other armies I do not see separate tactical bodies on a formal basis.
You are correct that a light horse option should apply where i missed it off in the list - post 1540 as I recall.
John

[Ghaznavid]

Re dismounting my intention was that both cavlry and light horse would have the choice to dismount as either light foot or medium foot. I think both the cavlary and the light horse are the same animal but would either skirmish or close up as necessary to meet the demands of the tactical situation. In practice this meet happen on the battlefield (Pinkie) but I think the player has to make the choice. Unlike other armies I do not see separate tactical bodies on a formal basis.
You are correct that a light horse option should apply where i missed it off in the list - post 1540 as I recall.
John

Actually I don't see a formal division between similar armed and operating LH and Cv in most armies throughout the ages (from Skythians over Huns, Turks, Mongols to Hussars, etc.). It's just a game system crutch (and a bad one at that). In an ideal world we would have only Cv that can spend a turn to switch from a more open formation (LH), manouvering a bit better, maybe even moving slightly faster but worse at fighting, to a more combat capable formation which is less ideal for complicated manouvers (Cv) (and back again).
Well maybe in the next incarnation of FoG. (Hmmm, why did Richard just faint?)

Anyway bottom line is: I think if you give LH the option to dismount as LF or MF you will not see them dismounting as LF very often, if at all.

[nikgaukroger]

Actually I don't see a formal division between similar armed and operating LH and Cv in most armies throughout the ages (from Skythians over Huns, Turks, Mongols to Hussars, etc.). It's just a game system crutch (and a bad one at that). In an ideal world we would have only Cv that can spend a turn to switch from a more open formation (LH), manouvering a bit better, maybe even moving slightly faster but worse at fighting, to a more combat capable formation which is less ideal for complicated manouvers (Cv) (and back again).
Well maybe in the next incarnation of FoG. (Hmmm, why did Richard just faint?)

I'm in general agreement. I think I'd not have LH but have non-shock Cv in one rank move at 1 MU more than normal.

Anyway bottom line is: I think if you give LH the option to dismount as LF or MF you will not see them dismounting as LF very often, if at all.

To avoid excessive flexibility I'm going to go with LH dismount as LF and Cv dismount as MF - unless there are really good arguments otherwise. Game balance issue I think in the end.

[rbodleyscott]

Actually I don't see a formal division between similar armed and operating LH and Cv in most armies throughout the ages (from Skythians over Huns, Turks, Mongols to Hussars, etc.). It's just a game system crutch (and a bad one at that). In an ideal world we would have only Cv that can spend a turn to switch from a more open formation (LH), manouvering a bit better, maybe even moving slightly faster but worse at fighting, to a more combat capable formation which is less ideal for complicated manouvers (Cv) (and back again).
Well maybe in the next incarnation of FoG. (Hmmm, why did Richard just faint?)

No reason to faint, as we had exactly that in early beta test of FOGAM. However, the duplicate basing causes issues, so we went with a single rank of cavalry bases to represent the skirmish formation.

We really only kept LH in at all for 2 reasons

1) To avoid people being put off the rules by massed rebasing (and needing more figures - 3 to a base - even if duplicate troops not required)
2) Some types we could not see ever operating as Cavalry - e.g. Parthian and Numidian LH.

So that is why all steppe nomads get the option to be LH or Cv.

[rbodleyscott]

Anyway bottom line is: I think if you give LH the option to dismount as LF or MF you will not see them dismounting as LF very often, if at all.

And if you do, it will only be because players see some cheesy gamey advantage in it.

To avoid excessive flexibility I'm going to go with LH dismount as LF and Cv dismount as MF - unless there are really good arguments otherwise. Game balance issue I think in the end.

The bottom line is, do we have evidence of border reivers on foot behaving like LF - whizzing all over the place, evading etc. If not, then I think it would be more realistic to have them all dismount as MF.

The LH/Cv choice represents different "on the day" tactics by the same people when on horse back. What reason is there to suppose that reivers choosing to fight in skirmish formation (for whatever reason) when on horseback would do the same on foot, and those fighting in a denser formation would do the same on foot.

It really isn't logical.

I think they should all dismount as MF.

[Ghaznavid]

we had exactly that in early beta test of FOGAM. However, the duplicate basing causes issues, so we went with a single rank of cavalry bases to represent the skirmish formation.

Well it's a start, the main problem is probably that while the 1 rank skirmish option works ok, it ends up being less rather then more maneuverrable. But then that's a discussion for another time and place I guess.

[rbodleyscott]

we had exactly that in early beta test of FOGAM. However, the duplicate basing causes issues, so we went with a single rank of cavalry bases to represent the skirmish formation.

Well it's a start, the main problem is probably that while the 1 rank skirmish option works ok, it ends up being less rather then more maneuverrable. But then that's a discussion for another time and place I guess.

Having decided to retain LH for the reasons listed above, we could not really make single rank cavalry equally manoeuvrable for reasons of game balance.

[Ghaznavid]

Having decided to retain LH for the reasons listed above, we could not really make single rank cavalry equally manoeuvrable for reasons of game balance.

That's ok, I was more referring to the somewhat anti-intuitive detail that once in 1 rank (and hence in a more dispersed and theoretically easier to manoeuver formation) you actually find that your Cv is now less manoeuverable then it was in "combat formation" (basically a side effect of the BG being so much wider now).

[nikgaukroger]

The bottom line is, do we have evidence of border reivers on foot behaving like LF - whizzing all over the place, evading etc. If not, then I think it would be more realistic to have them all dismount as MF.

Whizzing around is pretty much the reivers style - you'd probably be better arguing that the Cv and MF options are the dubious ones

The LH/Cv choice represents different "on the day" tactics by the same people when on horse back. What reason is there to suppose that reivers choosing to fight in skirmish formation (for whatever reason) when on horseback would do the same on foot, and those fighting in a denser formation would do the same on foot.

If you've chosen to skirmish why wouldn't you also do it on foot.

It really isn't logical.

I think they should all dismount as MF.

I disagree.

[marshalney2000]

I tend to go with Richard on the dismounting option. When mounted I think that the reivers did a lot of skirmishing and then grouped for the charge when they saw a weakened enemy ala Solway Moss. On foot, I rather think they came off their horses to capture an objective or loot more effectively. If they did not like the situation then it would be back on the horses and lets get out of here. I have not yet really found an example of borderers skirmishing on foot as we understand it in the rules. I now the get back on the horses is not covered by the rules but it will make players think before they dismount them.
Re mounted classification, it would be shame if the light horse option was lost as these are some of the few lgiht horse in armies north and south of the border and were clearly recognised for this skill. Indeed this is why they were so sought after and appeared in so many English and scottish armies. Equally o reflect Solway moss and their attack on the Scottish wing at Flodden we also need a cavalry option. I say go with the choice option and hae both.
John

[nikgaukroger]

OK, if John is happy with MF only then I'll make that change - he certainly knows more than me

No intention of changing the LH and Cv options.

[rbodleyscott]

Should the raider bodyguard really have pistol shooting capability from 1500? (No other army does before the 1540s).

Presumably the raider bodyguard should be crossbow before 1540