Slitherine

I am now of the firm conclusion that the Chinese armies are within a hair's breath of awesome. Had they been given a sprinkling more of filler or a few superior foot units they would be extraordinarily nifty.

Now they are not for the faint of heart. The front rank Lt Spear or HW and back rank shooters is a bigger deal that I think people credit. They get a lot of dice at impact. The shooty cav armies need to be careful as they can get shot back and chased off.

The HW/XB are pretty powerful versus Knights...if you can survive the double POA at impact.

I do think they would struggle versus the Roman legions.

The hard part is its not easy to get over 12-13 BGs. Being all average you need 4 generals with a healthy argument for an IC.

I run 15mm Early Zhou with 16 heavy chariots and an IC and still get 13 BG. The key is lots of poor foot (6BG's) and only 3 generals in total. Havent tried it in comp yet (will be in early June) but its performed fairly well in friendly games. An 8 element unit of poor undrilled 1/2 HW 1/2 bw is a bargain at 36 points. I did well in a 25mm comp with a Han army (far fewer chariots and better quality foot). I also think that the late Korean armies look really good.

The chinese/korean mixed formation foot is very versatile. Its not going to beat everything but its always in the fight.

Martin

hazelbark wrote: The HW/XB are pretty powerful versus Knights...if you can survive the double POA at impact.

I suspect Nanzhao is a good anti-knight army. 16 superior cavalry crossbow plus elephants, plus foot crossbow and some decent terrain troops.

peterrjohnston wrote:

hazelbark wrote: The HW/XB are pretty powerful versus Knights...if you can survive the double POA at impact.

I suspect Nanzhao is a good anti-knight army. 16 superior cavalry crossbow plus elephants, plus foot crossbow and some decent terrain troops.

And all them naked blokes.

i love my zhao

mf hw/xb armoured + portable obstacle

one of the best infantry unit

I have been enjoying my Early Tang. The mixed MF/Prot/Av/Drill/LSp/Sw and Bw/Sw are pretty solid troops that can handle different tasks. They remind me of Ax(S)/Ps(O) from early DBM. They can deal with most enemies except for HF and Kn in the open. They can seize terrain. They also work very well supporting shooty Cv.


Might even look into some of the Koreans, since I have so many other Chinese/East Asian Turk figures.

Spike

I'm getting a little familiar with Oriental armies. I have a Western Wei army. It has a large variety of units and is fun to play. My only complaint is that I haven't gotten to play enough games with them to feel comfortable commenting on tactics. I also just got a Mongol army back from being painted in Sri Lanka. The painters at Fernando Enterprises did a terrific job. And I'm working on a Parhae Korean. Its another army with a large variety of units.

Has anyone used a Jin army? Armored, Superior, Drilled, Bow*, Lancer, Swordsmen Cavalry shouldn't be afraid of anything.

Saurocet wrote: Has anyone used a Jin army? Armored, Superior, Drilled, Bow*, Lancer, Swordsmen Cavalry shouldn't be afraid of anything.

Wasting points on a bow they never get to use is their fear.

philqw78 wrote:

Saurocet wrote: Has anyone used a Jin army? Armored, Superior, Drilled, Bow*, Lancer, Swordsmen Cavalry shouldn't be afraid of anything.

Wasting points on a bow they never get to use is their fear.

Click.

philqw78 wrote:Wasting points on a bow they never get to use is their fear.

Click

philqw78 wrote:Wasting points on a bow they never get to use is their fear.

Click

The Master (the evil one in Dr Who) wrote:Click

Something about the destruction of Carthage again?

Has anyone used a Jin army? Armored, Superior, Drilled, Bow*, Lancer, Swordsmen Cavalry shouldn't be afraid of anything.

I've looked at it a number of times but I just can't get an army I like out of the list.

hazelbark wrote:I am now of the firm conclusion that the Chinese armies are within a hair's breath of awesome. Had they been given a sprinkling more of filler or a few superior foot units they would be extraordinarily nifty.

What took you so long - I thought that when writing them

hazelbark wrote:I am now of the firm conclusion that the Chinese armies are within a hair's breath of awesome. Had they been given a sprinkling more of filler or a few superior foot units they would be extraordinarily nifty.

Now they are not for the faint of heart. The front rank Lt Spear or HW and back rank shooters is a bigger deal that I think people credit. They get a lot of dice at impact. The shooty cav armies need to be careful as they can get shot back and chased off.

The HW/XB are pretty powerful versus Knights...if you can survive the double POA at impact.

I do think they would struggle versus the Roman legions.

The hard part is its not easy to get over 12-13 BGs. Being all average you need 4 generals with a healthy argument for an IC.

Is this based on playing experience or just toying around with lists on paper?

footslogger wrote:

hazelbark wrote:I am now of the firm conclusion that the Chinese armies are within a hair's breath of awesome. Had they been given a sprinkling more of filler or a few superior foot units they would be extraordinarily nifty.

Now they are not for the faint of heart. The front rank Lt Spear or HW and back rank shooters is a bigger deal that I think people credit. They get a lot of dice at impact. The shooty cav armies need to be careful as they can get shot back and chased off.

The HW/XB are pretty powerful versus Knights...if you can survive the double POA at impact.

I do think they would struggle versus the Roman legions.

The hard part is its not easy to get over 12-13 BGs. Being all average you need 4 generals with a healthy argument for an IC.

Is this based on playing experience or just toying around with lists on paper?

Hazelbark is a pretty serious user of them..Now, I think he is a bit overconfident based on his last week's Korean xbows rolling 13 out 15 hits (needing 5s) in impact and melee against my knights (true the xbows were superior...) which combined with my amazing ability to roll 1s on shooting casaulty tests (I think in about 9-12 total rounds of shotting he managed to score three hits I lost a stand 50% of the time) but they are solid armies.

I kinda hate to hear that. I just shifted a pile of beautiful curtey's Qin chinese to a friend of mine. I bought them because they were gorgeous and never got around to painting them. Now if they turn out to be a great army, I'll be crushed! Looking at them on paper I tend to agree but we haven't seen them on the table yet.

Western Han finished 4th at the Challenge recently,admitedly it was led by Graham Evans
David

davidandlynda wrote:Western Han finished 4th at the Challenge recently,admitedly it was led by Graham Evans
David

An it was a 'tough as old boots' army to play against. Armoured HW/CB with Portable Obstacles. Not that my Aztecs minded the latter.

After a major rebasing project my Warring States (Wei) have been succesful in beating Classical Indians 4-1 in a series of battles (this may be due partly to how Classical Indians appear to suffer in FOG), armoured mixed battle groups HW/XB work well and are proven Elephant killers. However being mainly Medium foot armies with mostly average troops the various Chinese army lists suffer when facing non Empire of the Dragon armies especially of the Heavy Infantry variety. My Western Jin (Tsin) used to do well under another set of rules (with the title "ever victorious army"),happily taking on Roman legions etc but not any more. Protected medium foot have great trouble facing up to heavy foot as I never seem to get the terrain I need in the center of the battle field. Still hopefully an ongoing reappraisal of tactics might help although what I have always been told was the tactics of the day do not hold out much chance of a victory against the foreign devils. Hopefully more individuals will collect armies from "empire" so I can play "in theater" but with the prejudice against Medium Infantry armies I do not hold out much hope. I say prejudice but our club is on its second FOG "Classical" campaign and no medium foot based army has won a battle to date. Hopefully that will not change as my Syracusan's are taking on Maccabean Jewish this weekend but in the future hopefully it will as I am building a Thracian army to take part in the next campaign.

Can anyone explain whats so good about the portable defences? The +1 against cavalry when charged sounds great but limits their manouverability slightly, and at 9-12 pts a bg sounds a bit too expensive to me. Any chance of seeing the list that Graham used? If you don't mind at all.. I just finished painting up my first ever army of Western Han and just want to see how my lists square up against other peoples.

Cerberias wrote:Can anyone explain whats so good about the portable defences? The +1 against cavalry

Also do not count as being in good going - so the mounted would not get Lancer PoA or the fighting MF in the open PoA.