Second Battle Report

[bddbrown]

Game Two

Stephen and I decided to swap armies ??“ he played Sassanid Persians and I played Early Imperial Roman.

Here is my list:
1 IC General
1 FC General
1 FC General
1 Fortified Camp
4 Moorish or Numidian Cavalry
6 Legionaries
6 Auxilary Foot (After 195AD)
6 Slingers
6 Legionaries
6 Auxilary Foot (After 195AD)
6 Auxilary Cavalry
6 Legionaries
6 Auxilary Foot (After 195AD)
6 Auxilary Cavalry
4 Catafractarii / Contarii (Only From 100 AD)
2 Light Bolt-Shooters

This is Stephen??™s list:
1 IC General
1 FC General
1 FC General
4 Light Horse Archers
4 Light Horse Archers
6 Archers
2 Elephants
6 Slingers
4 Cavalry
4 Cavalry
2 Elephants
4 Cavalry
4 Cavalry
4 Cavalry
6 Cataphracts
2 Elephants


Pre-Game

The Romans invaded again and chose Rugged/Hilly. We chose to let the invader declare scouting first again and I declared 23 elements. Stephen declared 14, thus nullifying my scouting advantage. Thanks to list_lurker for the great idea of using powerpoint which I found made reading the battle report a lot easier and clearer. I have therefore shamelessly ripped off his idea.


We deployed as shown below.



Bound 1 (Romans)

Realising that the centre of the Sassanids would be too strong, I decided to incline the legionaries to unmask the artillery and force the Sassanids to wheel, hopefully exposing the flanks. I also decides to press on the left with the Cav, figuring that the combination of light spears and lancers would drive off the enemy cavalry. Then I could use the auxilaries to attack the elephants and they wheeled past to get to the legionaries. On the right I figured my slingers supported by the auxilaries would drive off the enemy skirmishers and I could turn the flank through the rough. I would use the light horse to attack the enemy light horse and slow the main lines advance. The cavalry were in reserve.



Bound 1 (Sassanids)

The game plan seemed simple enough. Push forward with the cataphracts and elephants while keeping the wings protected without risking anything.



Bound 2 (Romans)

I kept to the plan, wheeling the legionaries to accentuate the exposure of the enemy flanks. The reserve cavalry on the right were looking increasingly out of position, and would have to stand in front of the archers until the light horse battle was resolved.


Shooting was resolved between the light horse and slingers with little effect.


Bound 2 (Sassanids)

The Sassanids started their wheel in the centre, retreated outside of javelin range on the right and boxed in the cavalry advance on the left.


Shooting against the light horse did nothing.

The slingers exchanged fire with the Romans inflicting 2 hits (Sassanids ok) and receiving 3 hits (rolling a 3 for cohesion and immediately dropping to wavering). I thought this was extremely harsh, but thought no more of it, thinking I could move the general over to rally them and use the Auxilaries to drive the slingers off.


Bound 3 (Romans)

After forgetting about charges and having moved the auxilia, we started again. I charged the light horse archers with the numidians. Stephen decided to stand, both because we wanted to see combat, but also because we thought he might not be able to evade.
The combat was 8 dice for each side and the Numidians with a POA for their light spears. However, both sides inflicted 4 hits. Stephen rolled a 1 for his death roll and lost a LH. There was no need for cohesion tests.

I continued to advance on the left, figuring this was my only chance to turn the slowly encroaching tide of the Sassanid centre.


More shooting between the slingers did not result in anything.

The melee between the light horse was now even with 4 dice on each side (we realised afterwards that the light infantry giving an overlap might have been on a different POA but it did not matter). The Romans took 3 hits and lost an element, the Sassanids took 2 hits and lost none. I rolled a 2 for my cohesion and immediately wavered. Still, this was only the skirmishing battle. The rest of the army would be ok??¦


Bound 3 (Sassanids)

Steve continued his advance in the centre, boxing me in on the left and skirmishing on the right.


Shooting at the cavalry on the right resulted in nothing.
The artillery now in range of the elephants also did nothing.

In melee the light horse continued to fight each other with Steven getting 3 dice and me getting 2. We both got 1 hit each.


Bound 4 (Romans)
This proved to be the most complex and longest bound as there was a lot going on.

I charged the cavalry on the left to clear out the skirmishers, my only hope to try and pin them against the table edge and force a contact in later bounds. I charged my auxilia into the flank of the cavalry, but the elephants counter-charged to prevent it.

In the end the elephants fought the auxilia in the impact phase. 2 dice versus 2 dice resulted in the elephants doing 1 hit and the auxilia doing none (even though I had a general in the front rank and re-rerolled a 1 into a 2). Another cohesion test and I rolled a 5 leaving the auxilia disrupted! Third CT and third failure!

In movement I pressed the auxilia on the right forward while I tried to rally the slingers. Pushed the cavalry forward a little to within charge distance of the light horse. The legionaries remained stationary, bracing themselves for the crunch.

On the left I wheeled the auxilia not in contact with the elephants just enough to prevent the cavalry from attacking my cavalry.


I needed to be within 3??? and when I moved forward just close enough to prevent the cavalry pressing elements forward into contact. I had mm spare and this was the first piece of micro-move / cheese. I was preventing contact without any real danger.


Lots of shooting resulted in not a lot.

In melee we struggled with the wording of the alignment and expansion rules and so ignored this. 4 auxilia fought the elephant and caused a single hit. Stephen failed his cohesion test and became disrupted as well.

The light horse continued to fight each other with little conclusion (1 hit each).


Bound 4 (Sassanids)


Shooting was mixed. The light infantry on the right shot the cavalry, and caused 2 hits. I rolled a 2 on the cohesion test and dropped to wavering. I could see where this game was heading??¦
The remaining light infantry shot the auxilia, causing 2 hits. I rolled a 6 which caused a disruption. This was getting silly now??¦

The game was rapidly degenerating into a farce as small hits caused cohesion tests that failed.

In combat the elephants fought the auxilia, the elephants caused 3 hits and the auxilia caused 2 hits. I rolled a 10 for the cohension test, thus passing my first and only one of the game.

The light horse fight was finally resolved with 1 hit being caused and you guessed it I failed another CT. My Numidians routed.

My slingers failed to rally, another failed CT.


Bound 5

We continued for another bound, but I stopped recording things. I charged the light infantry with my cavalry and auxilia. Both units took more casualties than they dealt, both failed their CT. The cavalry routed and the auxilia went to wavering. The slingers again failed a CT and failed to rally again.

I turned my legionaries around 180 and marched them away ??“ using the CMT can include a SM rule.

In the end this game was only going one way - once the cataphracts and elephants got into the legionaries it was going to be all over.

[bddbrown]

Obviously luck played a significant role in this game. But hopefully some things can be taken out of this game.

* Terrain worked well. I like the way this works and it strikes a nice balance. The use of Open Areas works very well.

* The game took an extraordinary long time. 4 bounds in about as many hours. We??™ll try a 600AP game next time, and there was some rules look-ups. But even so. I think the number of dice rolls required is a root cause. All those CMT, Impact, Shooting and Melee, Cohension Tests and Death Rolls add up to a lot of dice rolling. And this really slows the game down. It takes time to roll them, assess them and carry out the results.

* Scouting seems a little too settled. I declared 23 elements. Stephen only needed 14 elements to negate this, but needed 33 to gain an advantage - needing a swing of 19 elements to affect scouting which is quite large. Plus this is even less effective with smaller armies. Either the modifiers need to be based on a smaller numbers of scouting units (say 5) or as a percentage of the army AP ??“ say 1% of the AP being ussed. Therefore for a 800AP game you would need 8 elements difference and for a 600AP 6 elements difference.

* Also there is a big advantage to deploying second and yet it is decided on a single dice throw that is barely modified. Something this important should not be so random. Either the importance of deploying second should be negated in some manner, say the out-scouted side deploys 25% then the other side deploys 50%. Then 75%/75% then 100%/100%. Either that or written deployment orders to make things less easy to be flexible and therefore make deploying second less advantageous.

* It seems to be that forcing Cohesion Tests is relatively easy and the more you can force the better. Therefore the game seems to favour lots of little groups doing lots of little damage. Shooting only required a couple of elements and you can rout an enemy unit in two bounds. It also means that combat between two elements is just as dangerous and effective as combats between larger numbers of troops. Sure you get a negative if you do 1HP3E, but it is hardly a big difference. There has to be a bigger relation to the scale of the combat to the cohesion tests. A single hit can lead to a unit going down two cohension nearly as easily as winning a combat by four hits. Which doesn??™t seem to make much sense.

* It also seems silly that the more units you get into combat the more likely you are going to experience a cohesion failure if you lose. That??™s because cohesion tests are done by unit and lots of little tests eventually leads to problems. Maybe there should be a bonus for having more units in the combat ??“ units feeling safer because they are supported?

* In short luck seems to play too much of a role in the game at the moment. It was pretty demoralising to see unit after unit go down for no good reason. I would suggest making it more difficult to fail cohesion tests. But adding additional negatives to cohesion tests for the more hits inflicted, say -1 for each 1HP3E. So six hits on a six element unit would cause a -3. If the cohesion failure for two steps was also dropped to say 0 or 1 then it would be difficult (or impossible) for a low hit result to cause a two state drop. This may not be historically right, but pyschologically it will make a big difference to the game.

* I greatly feared in this game that the Sassanid advantage in Elephants and Cataphracts would be a real problem. The Romans have no way of fighting these troops frontally and are limited in their ability to out-manoeuvre them. In fact the Romans are the ones being out-manoeuvred by the cavalry and therefore really have no obvious advantages. That said, once I had hit upon the idea of turning around 180 degrees and running away the problem was solved. Either there is a problem with units being totally outclassed and therefore having to run away, or a problem with making it so easy. In either case, the manoeuvre seemed totally ridiculous to me. Maybe making CMTs are too easy especially when threatened by the enemy? Maybe a CMT should not be allowed if enemy are within 8-12??? frontally or should be very difficult, maybe they should be harder or leave a unit disrupted?

* I really felt in this match-up that the Romans cannot win. This points to a points mismatch or a problem with the basic systems. Ideas would be welcome on how the Romans can turn this into a game rather than a massacre.

* Cavalry seem far too flexible, especially when armed with bows (and if I can find an army that has lance, bow and sword cavalry??¦). They can act as skirmishers (better than skirmishers in fact) and also charge effectively if needs be. Maybe this is partially to do with the fact it is too easy to CMT but also maybe they are too cheap or just allowing them to evade is wrong.

* Elephants causing disruption to enemy cavalry is fine by me, but it can also essentially turn a game on its head. It is also free. Which makes it a #1 candidate for competition abuse. Having your own cavalry immune to elephants should be a cost, either per mounted element or as an army wide cost ??“ much like a fortified camp.

* While we are at it, include dismounting in this. This should not be free!

* In fact, given these things get skewed with different size armies, why not make generals, fortified camps and the like a percentage of the AP and not a fixed cost. This would make it easier to play balanced games at different points?

* Deployment seems a little skewed to numbers that divide by 4. For example if you have 13 units then you deploy 4,4,4,1 whereas if you have 12 units then you deploy 3,3,3,3 which is slightly advantageous. Therefore maybe the deployment rules should say deploy 25%, 50%, 75% and then 100% which would even out the deployment for the 13 unit example to 3,4,3,3.

* I was very disappointed in this game. I thought the game looked very unrealistic and generally the mob of troops that Stephen used in the centre was very effective (the Cavalry flanks and rear could peel off at any time in any direction). It certainly put the pressure on and forced me to incline out of the way. Also three groups of skirmishers effectively routed a unit of cavalry, light horse, auxilia and slingers. Mostly from very minor shooting. Seems a little unrealistic. Overall I think the basic systems are solid (although my confidence in that is lower than it was after game 1), but there are serious checks and balances missing.

[bddbrown]

1. Elephants count as mounted. Therefore do they break-off from combat with foot if the foot remain steady? Seems silly to me, but that is how the rules read.

2. Do cavalry with light spears still get a POA against elephants?

3. The ???Double Based Knights or Cataphracts??? line on Impact and Melee for dice per element. Does this mean double based cataphracts or just cataphracts?

4. In the terrain section what are SS? We presume they are slopes?

5. Which ranks can shoot is muddied by the wording in the dice per elements table where it implies that only a second rank of medium foot with bow can shoot from a second rank.

6. When you lose dice for disrupted or wavering, is this from the original number of elements or the number of dice? This is important because skirmishers shoot half and then wavering loses another half. Is this a quarter or no shooters? Plus the rounding seems to work oddly (actually it makes sense but takes a moment to get your head round it). For example I start with seven slingers which is 7/2=3.5 dice which rounds down to 3 dice. I am wavering so I lose half, which is 3/2=1.5 rounded down is 1 dice? Therefore I shoot with 2 dice?

7. In a battle group with undrilled troops of mixed movement, does it have to make a CMT to move at all because some troops are moving short inside 6????

8. Can battle groups charge?

9. Alignment in combat is broken. The rules do not say who has to move and what happens when there is no room to do so. Expansion is also impossible for the auxila against elephant fight shown in the picture above and a little pointless for the auxilia in my case as moving two elements effectively means I still end up with 4 elements fighting but giving the elephants a chance to counter-expand and get two models fighting. See picture below for how do you align the elephants and auxilia?


The important thing to note about this picture is the second element of cavalry from the line of hte right. It has gone as far forward as it can past the first element (closest to the camera) which is in contact with the auxilia. This means the rest of hte elements cannot continue to slide forward to contact the flank of hte cavalry. Therefore the auxilia prevent contact by mm and very careful placement.

[IainMcNeil]

Thanks - we'll give you feedback as soon as we've had time to digest it.

[list_lurker]

Nice report Bruce... maybe I should be on a royalty

When you exported the slides did you use Jpeg? Your type is much clearer than mine - Maybe its a font thing

Cheers

Simon

[bddbrown]

I did a copy against each slide into Paint.NET and then used it's JPEG save routine. Maybe it's better at saving JPEGs - I left the quality fairly high.

[bddbrown]

Just noticed while knocking up another army list that the deployment situation (as intrepreted by myself and Stephen) is broken for armies with 9, 6 or 3 units.
25% of 9 is 3 - which obviously leads to a deployment sequence of 3,3,3,0!
25% of 6 is 2 - well you get the picture.

[bddbrown]

Stephen and I will be playing our next game tomorrow night and then another next week. Any thoughts or comments on our second battle that might be helpful for beta-testing the third and fouth would be great. None of our questions or comments are urgent, but if there is anything we have raised you would like us to concentrate on or try out then please let us know.

[shall]

Thanks for a great battle report - these ones with diags and details are great to read through. Lots to deal with on your report Bruce...what a dice nightmare...oh well. I'll try to pick them up piece by piece. I'll do it overall a few posting to keep it edible.

Just noticed while knocking up another army list that the deployment situation (as intrepreted by myself and Stephen) is broken for armies with 9, 6 or 3 units.
25% of 9 is 3 - which obviously leads to a deployment sequence of 3,3,3,0!
25% of 6 is 2 - well you get the picture.

Ah! Thank goodness for testers. I'm afraid our words ain't quite what we meant here .. you have got us with a nice literal interpretation. Our intent is that you split your army into 4 quartiles and where there are remaining BGs they are spread across the earliest deployment quartiles. So a 13 goes down as 4-3-3-3 and a 10 would be 3-3-2-2. I can see you would have deployment advantages that are more extreme with the interp you have (not that its wrong, it was poorly worded). We'll fix the wording in vs 2.

1. Elephants count as mounted. Therefore do they break-off from combat with foot if the foot remain steady? Seems silly to me, but that is how the rules read.

A good question and one we shall discuss and sort out thank you.

2. Do cavalry with light spears still get a POA against elephants?

Yes at present but not too happy facing El for other reasons. Jav/LS about the best thing to fight El with but clearly much better if LF....

3. The ???Double Based Knights or Cataphracts??? line on Impact and Melee for dice per element. Does this mean double based cataphracts or just cataphracts?

It refers to only double-based troops, bot normal Cataphracts. Normal cataphracts are 2 dice as Other Troops.

4. In the terrain section what are SS? We presume they are slopes?

SS is Soft Sand that is only easy going for Camels and should be only in the Desert part of the table. All of this stuff is much tighter in vs 2 now and comes complete with pretty colour coding too!

5. Which ranks can shoot is muddied by the wording in the dice per elements table where it implies that only a second rank of medium foot with bow can shoot from a second rank.

I think I see what you mean but might be wrong so help me out if so. The table says that a 2nd rank of Medium Foot counts 1 dice per 2. It doesn't say that other shooters only fire in 1 rank - just that they always count 1 dice per 2 whether front or rear. So skirmishers and crossbows shoot in 2 ranks but get less dice. Hope that makes sense and if its still confusing maybe you could give a suggestion for how to make it clearer. Perhaps we could add "front or 2nd rank" bases to the other shooters if that helps.

[shall]

Ok here goes with batch 2....

6. When you lose dice for disrupted or wavering, is this from the original number of elements or the number of dice? This is important because skirmishers shoot half and then wavering loses another half. Is this a quarter or no shooters? Plus the rounding seems to work oddly (actually it makes sense but takes a moment to get your head round it). For example I start with seven slingers which is 7/2=3.5 dice which rounds down to 3 dice. I am wavering so I lose half, which is 3/2=1.5 rounded down is 1 dice? Therefore I shoot with 2 dice?

Its from the number of dice so the translation from elements to dice happens first and then the reduction for DISR etc. The way I think of the reduction is literally as dropping every 3rd dice rather than rounding - so 1-2 = no drop, 3-5 = 1 drop etc. So in your example above I go 7 slingers gives me 1 dice per 2 so = 3 dice and I lose 1 in 3 for DISR so 2.

7. In a battle group with undrilled troops of mixed movement, does it have to make a CMT to move at all because some troops are moving short inside 6????

In vs 1 then if any unit would need to take a test then the whole BG has to test to move short. Alternatively you can move the rest and then test just that unit - its a choice. In vs 2 we have simplified the number of CMTs needed early in the game and put a lot of work into improving the CMT table and clarity - hopefully with a good result. We'll wait to see what you think.

8. Can battle groups charge?

Technically you declare each unit in the BG as charging as some may need CMTs some may not and some opponents may evade others not. Seems like the same thing. Is there something cunning I am missing?

9. Alignment in combat is broken. The rules do not say who has to move and what happens when there is no room to do so. Expansion is also impossible for the auxila against elephant fight shown in the picture above and a little pointless for the auxilia in my case as moving two elements effectively means I still end up with 4 elements fighting but giving the elephants a chance to counter-expand and get two models fighting. See picture below for how do you align the elephants and auxilia?

This is much more sorted in vs 2. For the time being I would suggest you simply align elements in contact as much as possible. Expansions is a subject of some discussion at present...more anon. Certainly you are right that sometimes expanding just makes things worse....

The important thing to note about this picture is the second element of cavalry from the line of the right. It has gone as far forward as it can past the first element (closest to the camera) which is in contact with the auxilia. This means the rest of hte elements cannot continue to slide forward to contact the flank of hte cavalry. Therefore the auxilia prevent contact by mm and very careful placement.

OK I think I get it. We have tried hard to remove cheese and have managed to empty most of the shop but there is always Mr Wensleydale left inside....we'll give it a think. Is the cav on the side a 5 base unit in its entirety?

[shall]

And batch 3...only touching on anything I can add anything too. E.g good to know terrain worked well.

* The game took an extraordinary long time. 4 bounds in about as many hours. We??™ll try a 600AP game next time, and there was some rules look-ups. But even so. I think the number of dice rolls required is a root cause. All those CMT, Impact, Shooting and Melee, Cohension Tests and Death Rolls add up to a lot of dice rolling. And this really slows the game down. It takes time to roll them, assess them and carry out the results.

This is an area where we are very interested to keep track of how things develop. In vs 2 we have stripped out some of the dice rolling early in the game to speed things along. Also the increased clarity of mechanism will hopefully help. I remember starting DBM and taking 5 hours a game....we need to make sure that the time drops to sensible levels once there is limited rule debate and we are just playing and not recording everything as well. See how you get on as familiarity rises and vs 2 saves some time. Definitely a hot topic for us so keep the data and views coming. Thanks.

* Scouting seems a little too settled. I declared 23 elements. Stephen only needed 14 elements to negate this, but needed 33 to gain an advantage - needing a swing of 19 elements to affect scouting which is quite large. Plus this is even less effective with smaller armies. Either the modifiers need to be based on a smaller numbers of scouting units (say 5) or as a percentage of the army AP ??“ say 1% of the AP being ussed. Therefore for a 800AP game you would need 8 elements difference and for a 600AP 6 elements difference.

We'll give this some thought. It might be worthwhile to drop the levels as you say. Although there is a pretty vast range of armies to deal with.....Pecheneg to Spartans. We'll add that one to the list of things to mull over.

* Also there is a big advantage to deploying second and yet it is decided on a single dice throw that is barely modified. Something this important should not be so random. Either the importance of deploying second should be negated in some manner, say the out-scouted side deploys 25% then the other side deploys 50%. Then 75%/75% then 100%/100%. Either that or written deployment orders to make things less easy to be flexible and therefore make deploying second less advantageous.

Do you find this is still the case with the different interp of the 25%. Is it the order of battle that creates this effect or the order of deployment in your view?

* It seems to be that forcing Cohesion Tests is relatively easy and the more you can force the better. Therefore the game seems to favour lots of little groups doing lots of little damage. Shooting only required a couple of elements and you can rout an enemy unit in two bounds. It also means that combat between two elements is just as dangerous and effective as combats between larger numbers of troops. Sure you get a negative if you do 1HP3E, but it is hardly a big difference. There has to be a bigger relation to the scale of the combat to the cohesion tests. A single hit can lead to a unit going down two cohension nearly as easily as winning a combat by four hits. Which doesn??™t seem to make much sense.

Certainly forcing COH tests is the key to the game. One thing we are looking at for vs 2 is to reduce the chances of suffering double drops except when you have a lost melee. We are also thinking about the levels of win/loss and how they feed into the test. More views welcome on this. More anon.

* It also seems silly that the more units you get into combat the more likely you are going to experience a cohesion failure if you lose. That??™s because cohesion tests are done by unit and lots of little tests eventually leads to problems. Maybe there should be a bonus for having more units in the combat ??“ units feeling safer because they are supported?

That's an interesting one. The supported factor we have played with, but we are trying to avoid complicating the tests too much. There's an interesting debate about small units...from your play so far would you prefer a 12xbase vs 3x4 base units in an otherwise equal combat?

* In short luck seems to play too much of a role in the game at the moment. It was pretty demoralising to see unit after unit go down for no good reason. I would suggest making it more difficult to fail cohesion tests. But adding additional negatives to cohesion tests for the more hits inflicted, say -1 for each 1HP3E. So six hits on a six element unit would cause a -3. If the cohesion failure for two steps was also dropped to say 0 or 1 then it would be difficult (or impossible) for a low hit result to cause a two state drop. This may not be historically right, but pyschologically it will make a big difference to the game.

We are keen to get rid of the 6-1 effect so that games aren't dominated by one or two freaky results. In vs 2 we have reduced the potential for such accidents to occur. The main idea is to reduce the ability of shooting to cause double drops. More anon. Having said that your dice really were awful.....

* I greatly feared in this game that the Sassanid advantage in Elephants and Cataphracts would be a real problem. The Romans have no way of fighting these troops frontally and are limited in their ability to out-manoeuvre them. In fact the Romans are the ones being out-manoeuvred by the cavalry and therefore really have no obvious advantages. That said, once I had hit upon the idea of turning around 180 degrees and running away the problem was solved. Either there is a problem with units being totally outclassed and therefore having to run away, or a problem with making it so easy. In either case, the manoeuvre seemed totally ridiculous to me. Maybe making CMTs are too easy especially when threatened by the enemy? Maybe a CMT should not be allowed if enemy are within 8-12??? frontally or should be very difficult, maybe they should be harder or leave a unit disrupted?

We are looking at having more differentiation of movement when near and far from enemy in vs 2. Some good ideas above thanks and we'll add them to the dicussion list.

* I really felt in this match-up that the Romans cannot win. This points to a points mismatch or a problem with the basic systems. Ideas would be welcome on how the Romans can turn this into a game rather than a massacre.

The points system has been another area of considerable change to the numbers. Its one of the bits that we know we need to iterate with you guys and our own test games to get the balance right. IIRC correctly the Sassanids would be a bit more expensive now. See what you think when you get vs 2 and recost the armies.

* Cavalry seem far too flexible, especially when armed with bows (and if I can find an army that has lance, bow and sword cavalry??¦). They can act as skirmishers (better than skirmishers in fact) and also charge effectively if needs be. Maybe this is partially to do with the fact it is too easy to CMT but also maybe they are too cheap or just allowing them to evade is wrong.

The evade seems to be a historically correct thing according to the gurus (what do I know). We'll keep an eye on this issue as we finalise the points and rules. Certainly cavalry have some decent mobile shooting capability. I suspect our changes to the cohesion testing under vs 2 will dilute that power a fair bit. Again see what you think.

* Elephants causing disruption to enemy cavalry is fine by me, but it can also essentially turn a game on its head. It is also free. Which makes it a #1 candidate for competition abuse. Having your own cavalry immune to elephants should be a cost, either per mounted element or as an army wide cost ??“ much like a fortified camp.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think we have said that El affect friends as well as enemy. I saw Sri lankan horses in action and they weren't daft enough to enjoy being near elephants.

* While we are at it, include dismounting in this. This should not be free!

A good point and one we'll kick around in our next session.

* I was very disappointed in this game. I thought the game looked very unrealistic and generally the mob of troops that Stephen used in the centre was very effective (the Cavalry flanks and rear could peel off at any time in any direction). It certainly put the pressure on and forced me to incline out of the way. Also three groups of skirmishers effectively routed a unit of cavalry, light horse, auxilia and slingers. Mostly from very minor shooting. Seems a little unrealistic. Overall I think the basic systems are solid (although my confidence in that is lower than it was after game 1), but there are serious checks and balances missing.

Reading the report it seems like the effect of shooting was the cause and the double drops did for you. This is something that seemed a little too extreme in some of our games. See what you think with vs 2 and let us know if you think the changes would have converted this game into a much better tussle.

Thanks again for all the great work and don't let a bunch of 1s get you down.

Cheers

Si

[bddbrown]

Thanks for a great battle report - these ones with diags and details are great to read through. Lots to deal with on your report Bruce...what a dice nightmare...oh well. I'll try to pick them up piece by piece. I'll od it overall a few posting to keep it edible.

Thanks Simon for your effort on this. I know that with all the feedback you are getting this could turn out to be a lot of effort. But suffice to say we all want (well Stephen, Phil and myself) AoW to work and getting replies to our feedback really makes a difference.
I'll keep my reply to the bits that need comment.

Just noticed while knocking up another army list that the deployment situation (as intrepreted by myself and Stephen) is broken for armies with 9, 6 or 3 units.
25% of 9 is 3 - which obviously leads to a deployment sequence of 3,3,3,0!
25% of 6 is 2 - well you get the picture.

Ah! Thank goodness for testers. I'm afraid our words ain't quite what we meant here .. you have got us with a nice literal interpretation. Our intent is that you split your army into 4 quartiles and where there are remaining BGs they are spread across the earliest deployment quartiles. So a 13 goes down as 4-3-3-3 and a 10 would be 3-3-2-2. I can see you would have deployment advantages that are more extreme with the interp you have (not that its wrong, it was poorly worded). We'll fix the wording in vs 2.

Great. This makes a lot of sense.

5. Which ranks can shoot is muddied by the wording in the dice per elements table where it implies that only a second rank of medium foot with bow can shoot from a second rank.

I think I see what you mean but might be wrong so help me out if so. The table says that a 2nd rank of Medium Foot counts 1 dice per 2. It doesn't say that other shooters only fire in 1 rank - just that they always count 1 dice per 2 whether front or rear. So skirmishers adn crossbows shoot in 2 ranks but get less dice. Hope that makes sense and if its still confusing maybe you could give a suggestion for how to make it clearer. Perhaps we could add "front or 2nd rank" bases to the other shooters if that helps.

This was a comment from Stephen. I think it is relatively clear, but the wording implies what you saying. That because medium foot have an entry showing the number of dice they get for a second rank it implies other shooters do not. This is something that just needs re-wording when the rules come to final draft. Stephen is very keen to see the rules written clearly and as a notary has both a keen nose in spotting any lack of clarity and has a good sense of how to fix this.

[bddbrown]

7. In a battle group with undrilled troops of mixed movement, does it have to make a CMT to move at all because some troops are moving short inside 6????

In vs 1 then if any unit would need to take a test then the whole BG has to test to move short. Alternatively you can move the rest and then test just that unit - its a choice. In vs 2 we have simplified the number of CMTs needed early in the game and put a lot of work into improving the CMT table and clarity - hopefully with a good result. We'll wait to see what you think.

This is really great news. As you will see from my third battle report (coming soon) this is one area that we thought could be improved to speed up the game.

8. Can battle groups charge?

Technically you declare each unit in the BG as charging as some may need CMTs some may not and some opponents may evade others not. Seems like the same thing. Is there something cunning I am missing?

The question arose from the auxilia versus El fight in the last game. I had two units of auxilia as a BG. Only one unit could charge and contact enemy. The other unit had nothing in front of it. However it would have been nice to keep the units in line. Now this is possible as a charge for the first unit and move for the second (but say I was undrilled and failed a CMT therefore could not move short). In essence it would make it slightly easier to maintain group cohension especially for undrilled troops. It would also frankly just make things simpler in some cases. Of course it might complicate things as well!

The important thing to note about this picture is the second element of cavalry from the line of the right. It has gone as far forward as it can past the first element (closest to the camera) which is in contact with the auxilia. This means the rest of hte elements cannot continue to slide forward to contact the flank of hte cavalry. Therefore the auxilia prevent contact by mm and very careful placement.

OK I think I get it. We have tried hard to remove cheese and have managed to empty most of the shop but there is always Mr Wensleydale left inside....we'll give it a think. Is the cav on the side a 5 base unit in its entirety?

It is a 4 element unit with a general at the far end. We might be best served moving to an WAB method of basing generals on round bases (read 2p) to allow easy distinction. Certainly it would make for easier spotting of generals on the table and make it easier to create little diarama's. Plus for DBM I can always mount them on a temporary base.

[nikgaukroger]

* Cavalry seem far too flexible, especially when armed with bows (and if I can find an army that has lance, bow and sword cavalry??¦). They can act as skirmishers (better than skirmishers in fact) and also charge effectively if needs be. Maybe this is partially to do with the fact it is too easy to CMT but also maybe they are too cheap or just allowing them to evade is wrong.

The evade seems to be a historically correct thing according to the gurus (what do I know). We'll keep an eye on this issue as we finalise the points and rules. Certainly cavalry have some decent mobile shooting capability. I suspect our changes to the cohesion testing under vs 2 will dilute that power a fair bit. Again see what you think.

If I may chip in. I wonder if some of the perception is based on the DBM distinction between "light horse" and "cavalry" which rigidly separates "proper" skirmishers such as Pathian horse archers from, say, Roman equites whereas history (see Arrian in this case) shows that the "cavalry" were also perfectly good skirmishers.

Note that IIRC cavalry in AoW have to trade off formation and shooting ability to be able to evade as they have to be in 1 ranks to do so.

Note also that many troops which in DBM are LH will have a Cavalry option in AoW - steppe horse archers are a good example of this.

Points cost may be an issue but (at present) I'm personally not worried about the hsitorical basis of the flexibility.

[hammy]

It is a 4 element unit with a general at the far end. We might be best served moving to an WAB method of basing generals on round bases (read 2p) to allow easy distinction. Certainly it would make for easier spotting of generals on the table and make it easier to create little diarama's. Plus for DBM I can always mount them on a temporary base.

I am already thinking of doing that but it could get to be a rather large amount of currency (if indeed they make coins that big) for general in a chariot or on an elephant

My existing general elements will I suspect end up as 'command' figures among my battlegroups

Hammy

[shall]

The question arose from the auxilia versus El fight in the last game. I had two units of auxilia as a BG. Only one unit could charge and contact enemy. The other unit had nothing in front of it. However it would have been nice to keep the units in line. Now this is possible as a charge for the first unit and move for the second (but say I was undrilled and failed a CMT therefore could not move short). In essence it would make it slightly easier to maintain group cohension especially for undrilled troops. It would also frankly just make things simpler in some cases. Of course it might complicate things as well!

It works the way you say as even the undrilled unit can move short to form a BG with the first. See short move to join battlegroup/create battlegroup.

[bddbrown]

* The game took an extraordinary long time. 4 bounds in about as many hours. We??™ll try a 600AP game next time, and there was some rules look-ups. But even so. I think the number of dice rolls required is a root cause. All those CMT, Impact, Shooting and Melee, Cohension Tests and Death Rolls add up to a lot of dice rolling. And this really slows the game down. It takes time to roll them, assess them and carry out the results.

This is an area where we are very interested to keep track of how things develop. In vs 2 we have stripped out some of the dice rolling early in the game to speed things along. Also the increased clarity of mechanism will hopefully help. I remember starting DBM and taking 5 hours a game....we need to make sure that the time drops to sensible levels once there is limited rule debate and we are just playing and not recording everything as well. See how you get on as familiarity rises and vs 2 saves some time. Definitely a hot topic for us so keep the data and views coming. Thanks.

More information to follow from game three where I tracked the times for each phase. Impact BTW was the worst. We think because so many dice were involved and there were lots of re-rolls. But I'm jumping the gun a little bit here.

* Scouting seems a little too settled. I declared 23 elements. Stephen only needed 14 elements to negate this, but needed 33 to gain an advantage - needing a swing of 19 elements to affect scouting which is quite large. Plus this is even less effective with smaller armies. Either the modifiers need to be based on a smaller numbers of scouting units (say 5) or as a percentage of the army AP ??“ say 1% of the AP being ussed. Therefore for a 800AP game you would need 8 elements difference and for a 600AP 6 elements difference.

We'll give this some thought. It might be worthwhile to drop the levels as you say. Although there is a pretty vast range of armies to deal with.....Pecheneg to Spartans. We'll add that one to the list of things to mull over.

I quite liked the observation someone made on the fourm that just because you have all that LH does not mean you can use it all for scouting. I also like the tension that would be created by only allowing scouting elements from the first and maybe second quartiles to be used. Means if you are low on scouting elements and want to use cavalry then you might have to reveal them earlier in the deployment sequence than you would like. Having the scouting figures fixed in the order of march (either marked as such or all figures in the first quartile must count) means there is no problem with simultaneous revealing of points. It also gives opponents a little more information to work with at deployment with increases the generalship / skill that can be used in the game. IMO a good thing.

* Also there is a big advantage to deploying second and yet it is decided on a single dice throw that is barely modified. Something this important should not be so random. Either the importance of deploying second should be negated in some manner, say the out-scouted side deploys 25% then the other side deploys 50%. Then 75%/75% then 100%/100%. Either that or written deployment orders to make things less easy to be flexible and therefore make deploying second less advantageous.

Do you find this is still the case with the different interp of the 25%. Is it the order of battle that creates this effect or the order of deployment in your view?

I think so. Thinking about it a little more it is not the early stages that are a problem. What tends to happen (much like DBM now - although different specifics) is you get your skirmishers out first. Then you put out troops that are obvious (heavy foot or auxilia opposite rough). Finally you delay your strike troops until last. The last deployment is key. The outscouted person commits his entire army and the outscouter (is this a real word) now has 2-4 prime strike units that they can position virtually anywhere in the deployment zone - most likely aware from threats and opposite something soft and swishy.

* It seems to be that forcing Cohesion Tests is relatively easy and the more you can force the better. Therefore the game seems to favour lots of little groups doing lots of little damage. Shooting only required a couple of elements and you can rout an enemy unit in two bounds. It also means that combat between two elements is just as dangerous and effective as combats between larger numbers of troops. Sure you get a negative if you do 1HP3E, but it is hardly a big difference. There has to be a bigger relation to the scale of the combat to the cohesion tests. A single hit can lead to a unit going down two cohension nearly as easily as winning a combat by four hits. Which doesn??™t seem to make much sense.

Certainly forcing COH tests is the key to the game. One thing we are looking at for vs 2 is to reduce the chances of suffering double drops except when you have a lost melee. We are also thinking about the levels of win/loss and how they feed into the test. More views welcome on this. More anon.

Ok, sounds promising. I'll wait for the new version of the rules and after a practise game or two before commenting further.

* It also seems silly that the more units you get into combat the more likely you are going to experience a cohesion failure if you lose. That??™s because cohesion tests are done by unit and lots of little tests eventually leads to problems. Maybe there should be a bonus for having more units in the combat ??“ units feeling safer because they are supported?

That's an interesting one. The supported factor we have played with, but we are trying to avoid complicating the tests too much. There's an interesting debate about small units...from your play so far would you prefer a 12xbase vs 3x4 base units in an otherwise equal combat?

Interesting comeback! I'm going to think about this one in more detail - there are some complicated interactions involved here and also what exactly do you want to happen.

* In short luck seems to play too much of a role in the game at the moment. It was pretty demoralising to see unit after unit go down for no good reason. I would suggest making it more difficult to fail cohesion tests. But adding additional negatives to cohesion tests for the more hits inflicted, say -1 for each 1HP3E. So six hits on a six element unit would cause a -3. If the cohesion failure for two steps was also dropped to say 0 or 1 then it would be difficult (or impossible) for a low hit result to cause a two state drop. This may not be historically right, but pyschologically it will make a big difference to the game.

We are keen to get rid of the 6-1 effect so that games aren't dominated by one or two freaky results. In vs 2 we have reduced the potential for such accidents to occur. The main idea is to reduce the ability of shooting to cause double drops. More anon. Having said that your dice really were awful.....

True and shooting seemed to be the main cause. It happened a little bit in the third battle. B class troops really make a difference here. But still I had two units of B class cav effectively stopped dead by small numbers of bowmen. The fact you get shot three times and there is about a 1 in 3 chance of failing a CT (C-class) gives you a rough indication of what happens. Then you need a CMT to charge which means you sit there and take another couple of rounds of shooting. Personally I would think the unit would auto-charge!

* I greatly feared in this game that the Sassanid advantage in Elephants and Cataphracts would be a real problem. The Romans have no way of fighting these troops frontally and are limited in their ability to out-manoeuvre them. In fact the Romans are the ones being out-manoeuvred by the cavalry and therefore really have no obvious advantages. That said, once I had hit upon the idea of turning around 180 degrees and running away the problem was solved. Either there is a problem with units being totally outclassed and therefore having to run away, or a problem with making it so easy. In either case, the manoeuvre seemed totally ridiculous to me. Maybe making CMTs are too easy especially when threatened by the enemy? Maybe a CMT should not be allowed if enemy are within 8-12??? frontally or should be very difficult, maybe they should be harder or leave a unit disrupted?

We are looking at having more differentiation of movement when near and far from enemy in vs 2. Some good ideas above thanks and we'll add them to the dicussion list.

Following this up in the third battle. We gave this some more thought. What would happen if a unit within a certain distance of enemy turned about 180 (or 90) and moved. For D class troops it could easily turn into a rout... Maybe you should have to make a CT if you turn your flank or rear to the enemy (excluding skirmishers)?

* I really felt in this match-up that the Romans cannot win. This points to a points mismatch or a problem with the basic systems. Ideas would be welcome on how the Romans can turn this into a game rather than a massacre.

The points system has been another area of considerable change to the numbers. Its one of the bits that we know we need to iterate with you guys and our own test games to get the balance right. IIRC correctly the Sassanids would be a bit more expensive now. See what you think when you get vs 2 and recost the armies.

Will do. We fully intend to re-fight the same battles with the different rules to really get a handle on the changes as well as some new fights.

* Cavalry seem far too flexible, especially when armed with bows (and if I can find an army that has lance, bow and sword cavalry??¦). They can act as skirmishers (better than skirmishers in fact) and also charge effectively if needs be. Maybe this is partially to do with the fact it is too easy to CMT but also maybe they are too cheap or just allowing them to evade is wrong.

The evade seems to be a historically correct thing according to the gurus (what do I know). We'll keep an eye on this issue as we finalise the points and rules. Certainly cavalry have some decent mobile shooting capability. I suspect our changes to the cohesion testing under vs 2 will dilute that power a fair bit. Again see what you think.

Ok. Don't want to get rid of the power of shooting - well documented examples such as Mamluks. But I'm the same - what do I know? I'm just looking for a fun, balanced game.

* Elephants causing disruption to enemy cavalry is fine by me, but it can also essentially turn a game on its head. It is also free. Which makes it a #1 candidate for competition abuse. Having your own cavalry immune to elephants should be a cost, either per mounted element or as an army wide cost ??“ much like a fortified camp.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think we have said that El affect friends as well as enemy. I saw Sri lankan horses in action and they weren't daft enough to enjoy being near elephants.

99.5% sure armies with El are immune. I'll double check when I get home.

* I was very disappointed in this game. I thought the game looked very unrealistic and generally the mob of troops that Stephen used in the centre was very effective (the Cavalry flanks and rear could peel off at any time in any direction). It certainly put the pressure on and forced me to incline out of the way. Also three groups of skirmishers effectively routed a unit of cavalry, light horse, auxilia and slingers. Mostly from very minor shooting. Seems a little unrealistic. Overall I think the basic systems are solid (although my confidence in that is lower than it was after game 1), but there are serious checks and balances missing.

Reading the report it seems like the effect of shooting was the cause and the double drops did for you. This is something that seemed a little too extreme in some of our games. See what you think with vs 2 and let us know if you think the changes would have converted this game into a much better tussle.

I'm sooooo unlucky!
Will do - even better we'll re-fight it (maybe at 600pts though).

Thanks again for all the great work and don't let a bunch of 1s get you down.

Not any more - I'm only using B class troops from now on (and that might be a source of game in-balance that needs addressing).

Thanks for the replies and as you can guess from my swift reply I've been eagerly awaiting it! I won't be expecting another reply for at least a few minutes.

[bddbrown]

* Cavalry seem far too flexible, especially when armed with bows (and if I can find an army that has lance, bow and sword cavalry??¦). They can act as skirmishers (better than skirmishers in fact) and also charge effectively if needs be. Maybe this is partially to do with the fact it is too easy to CMT but also maybe they are too cheap or just allowing them to evade is wrong.

The evade seems to be a historically correct thing according to the gurus (what do I know). We'll keep an eye on this issue as we finalise the points and rules. Certainly cavalry have some decent mobile shooting capability. I suspect our changes to the cohesion testing under vs 2 will dilute that power a fair bit. Again see what you think.

If I may chip in. I wonder if some of the perception is based on the DBM distinction between "light horse" and "cavalry" which rigidly separates "proper" skirmishers such as Pathian horse archers from, say, Roman equites whereas history (see Arrian in this case) shows that the "cavalry" were also perfectly good skirmishers.

Note that IIRC cavalry in AoW have to trade off formation and shooting ability to be able to evade as they have to be in 1 ranks to do so.

Note also that many troops which in DBM are LH will have a Cavalry option in AoW - steppe horse archers are a good example of this.

Points cost may be an issue but (at present) I'm personally not worried about the hsitorical basis of the flexibility.

Good to here from you Nik. Interesting about the Roman cavalry - never knew that. Certainly would be something useful to include in the list or in the rules for uneducated louts like myself. Cause for me at first blush it made no sense.

[shall]

Not any more - I'm only using B class troops from now on (and that might be a source of game in-balance that needs addressing).

Thanks for the replies and as you can guess from my swift reply I've been eagerly awaiting it! I won't be expecting another reply for at least a few minutes.

Did I keep you in suspense long enough?

If you use all B class you may find - as Terry did - that your dice will only roll 2s....

Si

[bddbrown]

The question arose from the auxilia versus El fight in the last game. I had two units of auxilia as a BG. Only one unit could charge and contact enemy. The other unit had nothing in front of it. However it would have been nice to keep the units in line. Now this is possible as a charge for the first unit and move for the second (but say I was undrilled and failed a CMT therefore could not move short). In essence it would make it slightly easier to maintain group cohension especially for undrilled troops. It would also frankly just make things simpler in some cases. Of course it might complicate things as well!

It works the way you say as even the undrilled unit can move short to form a BG with the first. See short move to join battlegroup/create battlegroup.

Ahhh! You are of course spot on. So long as you can form a BG with a unit in combat that makes things happy. As it happened I needed that Auxilia unit to prevent those nasty Cv contacting the flank of my Cv!

Talking of which, that raises a nasty thought. If the Cv did charge my Auxilia only a single Cv would contact. Which reduces the fight to a 2 dice combat each way at impact. Sure the Cv have at least one PoA, but on two dice bad luck can strike and the Aux must be more likely to "luck" there way to a win (say 2 hits to 1) and force the Cv to CT. In melee the Cv are probably going to get less numbers (although new alignment rules may help this) and no PoA. Making it more likely they will be beaten, take another CT and then break-off.

So it might pay to force lots of small combats between smaller numbers of elements if you have low quality units and rely on luck to win you a couple of fights you might not have any right winning in the first place. Hmm.