Slitherine

Just a quick note before I go to bed. We received the new rules last night and had a game planned for this evening reversing roles of the third battle. Stephen played Later Hungarians and I played Later Ottoman Empire at 600pts. I had planned to take no notes, but with the new rules I thought I would take some.

We had a result!

I'll post some initial thoughts on the new rules as I read through them, questions from the game and final thoughts and post-match rules analysis. But we had a result!

Not sure why this was the case but some immediate thoughts spring to mind - I will refine these once I've had a chance to think about it more:
* We were more familar with the rules - even with the new set we were more comfortable with what is possible on table.
* Early movement rattled along. By bound turn 3 we had a feeling a result was possible - that something was different with this game over the others. I stopped taking notes - just pictures and questions.
* This may have been due to the new second move rules which really encourage grouping together and the lack of CMT in the early bounds.
* There were very few combats - just two in fact. And even they seemed to work quickly - even though one was a complicated flank one.
* Both armies were high mobile and so closing to shooting and combat distance was a lot quicker.

Some other highlights were I nearly lost a general (again) but the new rules saved me. Stephen rolled two sixes for combat dice but then failed to repeat the process for the general death roll! Stephen nearly lost a general but I forgot to role for general deaths under the new rules - we rolled afterwards in the next phase and I rolled an 11 but it was too late!

More information and details to follow. But for both Stephen and I this has restored our faith that maybe results are possible in an evening. We're looking to move back to 800pts now and see how that goes. Certainly 600pts feels little like a skirmish game - but it is quite enjoyable - more so than say a 350pt DBM game.

Did I mention we had a result!

General Impressions

These are my general impressions of the new rules after the first (fourth) game.

Pre-Game
??? The new army lists are a great addition ??“ they broaden the types of battles and also make it more interesting to fight new battles.
??? The new rules look a lot more comprehensive, simpler to understand and generally feel a lot less beta and a lot more ready. They still need a lot of work and tightening up, but a real improvement.
??? The new element costs and way of presenting them were an improvement.

Setup
??? The new terrain piece number limits work well. However it seems like there is an opportunity for the defender to take very small pieces of terrain to deny them to the invader. I did this in the fourth game to deny 2 pieces of open and it worked well ??“ going last I didn??™t even need to bother placing them. Although this is fine, it feels a little ???gamey???.
??? The new rules regarding 2nd moves only with a general really made a huge difference in the game. Deployment was a lot less scattered units dotted around the place and both Stephen and I clumped units around our generals. This had the knock on effect that the early movement phases were very quick compared to previous games.

Movement
??? The new simple move and complex move chart is a real improvement and I think contributed heavily to speeding up the game and allowing us to get to a result.
??? Seeing RBS??™s comment about the missing line for skirmishers and 180 turns also removes a question / comment and comes as re-assuring news.
??? There was a lack of CMT tests in the early phases as most units were making quick simple double moves. Units were clumped together so when CMTs were required there were very few of them.
??? One of the side effects of the new movement rules, or just that had never got to this stage of this game, is that once units break up it is very difficult to get them into positions to exploit breaks, gaps or redeploy.

Shooting
??? The removal of units being able to drop two cohesion levels from shooting made a real difference. My ottoman army was entirely armed with bows and several tests would have resulted in a drop of two levels.
??? Luck still played a large roll in the battle and in some cases it feels wrong. In the middle two LH units of 4 elements each identical in all but name shot each other. Stephen??™ unit took two tests in two bounds and dropped to fragmented. On the right flank I had enough cavalry shooting to generate 8 dice which all caused 8 hits ??“ and yet this unit passed its cohesion test (and all subsequent ones). It did not seem to make much sense that sniping fire at one end caused a unit to fragment and overwhelming fire ??“ although causing a stand to be removed ??“ did not cause any loss of cohesion.
??? We had two situations which although makes sense from the rules point of view seems a little harsh. There were 5 skirmishers shooting at maximum range which means they are down to a single dice and therefore there is no point in shooting. The second situation definitely has the smell of cheese. A unit of 4 LH Bow shooting at three units. I was able to align the three units so that there was 1 element shooting at one unit, and 3 elements shooting at another. Even though there are 2 dice available due to the halves rounding down only 1 dice was actually possible and this cannot cause anything. This happened a few times where splitting a units fire meant a dice was lost and this rendered shooting ineffectual. It is right by the rules but I think it could lead to some micro moving to get unit alignment just right to prevent that all important 2 dice shot.

Shock Troops
??? At first reading this was an interesting concept that would help with the units standing in front of bowmen, not charging and being shot to pieces problem. However it also seemed a little excessive to introduce so many potential CMTs into the game.
??? As it turned out there were only too shock units on the battle field and they generally wanted to charge anyway.

Impact
??? We had very few impacts in the game, which may have accounted for the result. However one of the impacts we did have was a flank contact. A unit of infantry charged and a unit of cavalry on the flank intercepted. There was no frontal combat with the infantry. This lead to a debate about what happened in the movement phase ??“ did the infantry unit align with the cavalry unit (i.e. forming a one element wide column) and did they then get the option of expanding this column by 1 element? If this is the case the it sort of makes sense to initiate a charge to provoke the interception because you then get your movement phase to sort things out. Whereas if you wait then the enemy attacking your flank get a whole extra bound with overlaps in the melee phase.

End-Game
??? Having got to the end-game it seemed like the army broke just when things were turning badly rather than when things were completely lost. 3 units of LH and 1 unit of infantry and 1 unit of LH fragmented. 2 units of Kn, 1 unit of infantry and 1 unit of LH were still fine.

??? Is the terrain adjustment dice rolled before or after the placement of terrain?

??? Do the defender and invader select all of their terrain first then place them, or do they select, place and then select, place and then select, place?

??? When making a CMT for a BL with missed quality troops how are re-rolls made?

??? When making a 2nd move, must the first move be simple as well or can it be a complex one?

??? When making a CMT for a BL with missed quality troops how are re-rolls made?

??? Does a unit attacked in the flank and only the flank reform to face the attacking flank?

??? Can a unit attacked in the flank and only the flank expand on the flank combat if it is not reformed ??“ i.e. the only elements available for expansion are those facing in the original direction and not turned to face the flank attack? This presumes that the unit does not reform or has not had the movement phase to do so.

??? The new rules seem to suggest that death rolls now happen after cohesion tests at impact and melee. Does this mean that if a unit loses a stand due to casualties and drops to 25% that it no longer takes the -1 in the cohesion test?

Thanks again for the great feedback Bruce. We have been itching to see how people feel about vs 2 in comparison with vs 1. I'll get the rules out and come back to each item in turn in a while.

Si

Pre-Game
??? The new army lists are a great addition ??“ they broaden the types of battles and also make it more interesting to fight new battles.
??? The new rules look a lot more comprehensive, simpler to understand and generally feel a lot less beta and a lot more ready. They still need a lot of work and tightening up, but a real improvement.
??? The new element costs and way of presenting them were an improvement.

Good news in general. While vs2 is leap forward (we hope) we know full well there will be a lot of sharpening and red ink to deal with before we get to final print ready rules. We are anticipating dealing with these on a more ongoing basis than waiting now for a large scale batch update. The element costs are also going to need to evolve now over time so views on the relative value of troops - once people have played enough games to get a feel for them - would be most welcome.

Setup
??? The new terrain piece number limits work well. However it seems like there is an opportunity for the defender to take very small pieces of terrain to deny them to the invader. I did this in the fourth game to deny 2 pieces of open and it worked well ??“ going last I didn??™t even need to bother placing them. Although this is fine, it feels a little ???gamey???.

You can indeed take 4"square pieces of terrain to use up the quota and stop the invader choosing them. So if really wanting to avoid marshes and knowing that the opponent might pick them you could put them down yourself and use them up. In doing so you give the opponent some small terrain of the type they want for "free". A good or bad thing - other opinions? An alternative considered was to allow the defender the full quota and the invader half quota (for example). I will add it to our watch list. More views welcome.

??? The new rules regarding 2nd moves only with a general really made a huge difference in the game. Deployment was a lot less scattered units dotted around the place and both Stephen and I clumped units around our generals. This had the knock on effect that the early movement phases were very quick compared to previous games.

The intention was to both speed the game and to encourage more realistic deployment. We'll look forward to more views of whether the changes have achieved this or not.

Movement
??? The new simple move and complex move chart is a real improvement and I think contributed heavily to speeding up the game and allowing us to get to a result.
??? Seeing RBS??™s comment about the missing line for skirmishers and 180 turns also removes a question / comment and comes as re-assuring news.

Yes a little faux-pas by the authors there...in the process of simplifying we managed to lose a line from the chart. Fixed now and coming out shortly.

Shooting
??? The removal of units being able to drop two cohesion levels from shooting made a real difference. My ottoman army was entirely armed with bows and several tests would have resulted in a drop of two levels.
??? Luck still played a large roll in the battle and in some cases it feels wrong. In the middle two LH units of 4 elements each identical in all but name shot each other. Stephen??™ unit took two tests in two bounds and dropped to fragmented. On the right flank I had enough cavalry shooting to generate 8 dice which all caused 8 hits ??“ and yet this unit passed its cohesion test (and all subsequent ones). It did not seem to make much sense that sniping fire at one end caused a unit to fragment and overwhelming fire ??“ although causing a stand to be removed ??“ did not cause any loss of cohesion.
??? We had two situations which although makes sense from the rules point of view seems a little harsh. There were 5 skirmishers shooting at maximum range which means they are down to a single dice and therefore there is no point in shooting. The second situation definitely has the smell of cheese. A unit of 4 LH Bow shooting at three units. I was able to align the three units so that there was 1 element shooting at one unit, and 3 elements shooting at another. Even though there are 2 dice available due to the halves rounding down only 1 dice was actually possible and this cannot cause anything. This happened a few times where splitting a units fire meant a dice was lost and this rendered shooting ineffectual. It is right by the rules but I think it could lead to some micro moving to get unit alignment just right to prevent that all important 2 dice shot.

Another one we will add to our watch list and keep an eye on as views come in than you. If I read you right we have an improvement overall by removing the double drop for shooting but 2 queries : 1) does it make sense to have the odds of a drop equal for low hits and very high hits or should it be ranged more?; 2) does it make sense to have units forced to split fire and therefore lose their chance of any effective shooting? Please correct the paraphrase if I haven't quite caught it. We'll be doing an authors discussion next week I expect and can kick it around then. In the meamtime the more views the merrier.....

Shock Troops
??? At first reading this was an interesting concept that would help with the units standing in front of bowmen, not charging and being shot to pieces problem. However it also seemed a little excessive to introduce so many potential CMTs into the game.
??? As it turned out there were only too shock units on the battle field and they generally wanted to charge anyway.

We need to see whether the extra effort is worth it as the testing develops. As you say much of the time the CMT will not be taken as the troops will want to charge anyway.

Impact
??? We had very few impacts in the game, which may have accounted for the result. However one of the impacts we did have was a flank contact. A unit of infantry charged and a unit of cavalry on the flank intercepted. There was no frontal combat with the infantry. This lead to a debate about what happened in the movement phase ??“ did the infantry unit align with the cavalry unit (i.e. forming a one element wide column) and did they then get the option of expanding this column by 1 element? If this is the case the it sort of makes sense to initiate a charge to provoke the interception because you then get your movement phase to sort things out. Whereas if you wait then the enemy attacking your flank get a whole extra bound with overlaps in the melee phase.

I think you are correct that this is not clearly specified at present and I will add it to the fix list. In my own games we have indeed treated the opening of movement as being when you align troops and thereafter - if you surivived the crunch on the flank at ++/-- - you woudl expand and fight more fully. I see your point about the delay depending on which phase is goes in. A good one.

End-Game
??? Having got to the end-game it seemed like the army broke just when things were turning badly rather than when things were completely lost. 3 units of LH and 1 unit of infantry and 1 unit of LH fragmented. 2 units of Kn, 1 unit of infantry and 1 unit of LH were still fine.

So a 9 BG 600pt army if I read that right. Was this the army gone due to 3 LH and 1 inf Broken and 1 LH fragmented, or am I reading wrongly between the lines. That would be 8 AP for broken troops and 1 for the Frag = 9 I guess. It will be good to hear what people feel about the victory conditions and the levels of victory introduced.

Is the terrain adjustment dice rolled before or after the placement of terrain?

After (we will clarify in vs3)

??? Do the defender and invader select all of their terrain first then place them, or do they select, place and then select, place and then select, place?

Select all pieces first and then do the placement prodecure. So the order as written is important. Again we will make it crystal clear in vs3.

??? When making a CMT for a BL with mixed quality troops how are re-rolls made?

Not specified at present IIRC although in our own games we have used the lower of the BGs quality - consistent with using worst column represented by the BL. I will add it to our fix list.

??? When making a 2nd move, must the first move be simple as well or can it be a complex one?

It can be either now. Easier to deal with. Just limited to the generals being needed to get the 2nd move at all. Are there any issues ith this you foresee?

??? Does a unit attacked in the flank and only the flank reform to face the attacking flank?

See above posting

??? The new rules seem to suggest that death rolls now happen after cohesion tests at impact and melee. Does this mean that if a unit loses a stand due to casualties and drops to 25% that it no longer takes the -1 in the cohesion test?

Yes cohesion test first and death roll second so as you lose the first base you get 1 test without the -1 and thereafter it comes to get you.....

shall wrote:

Shooting
??? The removal of units being able to drop two cohesion levels from shooting made a real difference. My ottoman army was entirely armed with bows and several tests would have resulted in a drop of two levels.
??? Luck still played a large roll in the battle and in some cases it feels wrong. In the middle two LH units of 4 elements each identical in all but name shot each other. Stephen??™ unit took two tests in two bounds and dropped to fragmented. On the right flank I had enough cavalry shooting to generate 8 dice which all caused 8 hits ??“ and yet this unit passed its cohesion test (and all subsequent ones). It did not seem to make much sense that sniping fire at one end caused a unit to fragment and overwhelming fire ??“ although causing a stand to be removed ??“ did not cause any loss of cohesion.
??? We had two situations which although makes sense from the rules point of view seems a little harsh. There were 5 skirmishers shooting at maximum range which means they are down to a single dice and therefore there is no point in shooting. The second situation definitely has the smell of cheese. A unit of 4 LH Bow shooting at three units. I was able to align the three units so that there was 1 element shooting at one unit, and 3 elements shooting at another. Even though there are 2 dice available due to the halves rounding down only 1 dice was actually possible and this cannot cause anything. This happened a few times where splitting a units fire meant a dice was lost and this rendered shooting ineffectual. It is right by the rules but I think it could lead to some micro moving to get unit alignment just right to prevent that all important 2 dice shot.

Another one we will add to our watch list and keep an eye on as views come in than you. If I read you right we have an improvement overall by removing the double drop for shooting but 2 queries : 1) does it make sense to have the odds of a drop equal for low hits and very high hits or should it be ranged more?; 2) does it make sense to have units forced to split fire and therefore lose their chance of any effective shooting? Please correct the paraphrase if I haven't quite caught it. We'll be doing an authors discussion next week I expect and can kick it around then. In the meamtime the more views the merrier.....

Good summary.

shall wrote:

Impact
??? We had very few impacts in the game, which may have accounted for the result. However one of the impacts we did have was a flank contact. A unit of infantry charged and a unit of cavalry on the flank intercepted. There was no frontal combat with the infantry. This lead to a debate about what happened in the movement phase ??“ did the infantry unit align with the cavalry unit (i.e. forming a one element wide column) and did they then get the option of expanding this column by 1 element? If this is the case the it sort of makes sense to initiate a charge to provoke the interception because you then get your movement phase to sort things out. Whereas if you wait then the enemy attacking your flank get a whole extra bound with overlaps in the melee phase.

I think you are correct that this is not clearly specified at present and I will add it to the fix list. In my own games we have indeed treated the opening of movement as being when you align troops and thereafter - if you surivived the crunch on the flank at ++/-- - you woudl expand and fight more fully. I see your point about the delay depending on which phase is goes in. A good one.

I would like to say that Stephen not only survived the initial ++/-- fight, but won the combat with a double six. We thought my general was dead but half remembering something I looked it up and fortunately Stephen didn't kill the general in the re-roll! My cavalry none-the-less failed their CT for losing the fight!

shall wrote:

End-Game
??? Having got to the end-game it seemed like the army broke just when things were turning badly rather than when things were completely lost. 3 units of LH and 1 unit of infantry and 1 unit of LH fragmented. 2 units of Kn, 1 unit of infantry and 1 unit of LH were still fine.

So a 9 BG 600pt army if I read that right. Was this the army gone due to 3 LH and 1 inf Broken and 1 LH fragmented, or am I reading wrongly between the lines. That would be 8 AP for broken troops and 1 for the Frag = 9 I guess. It will be good to hear what people feel about the victory conditions and the levels of victory introduced.

Sorry, I could have been a little better at describing that. You are right.

I don't think there was any doubt about the final outcome. However it felt like the game was ending a little early when you looked at the battlefield - it was obvious where things were going but aybe we had not quite reached that point. Now I freely admit that is is probably due to a DBM-centric view and I am not sure we want to prolong the game any further. Maybe the real issue was that the two main units of knights had not taken part in the game and it was support troops that all routed (part of my game plan admittedly).

Maybe the real issue was that the two main units of knights had not taken part in the game and it was support troops that all routed (part of my game plan admittedly).

That was my first reaction reading your report....

On the other hand if you say the result was no longer in doubt are we/you happy that this is a good point at which to call it a win? I guess more games that finish or get close to will inform us all. With vs 2 now out to a broader group we are hoping we can get a good sample of games to develop our views.

Cheers

Si

Thanks for the swift response Simon - do you ever sleep?

shall wrote:

??? When making a 2nd move, must the first move be simple as well or can it be a complex one?

It can be either now. Easier to deal with. Just limited to the generals being needed to get the 2nd move at all. Are there any issues ith this you foresee?

No. Just makes things more whizzy with a general. And I really like the new drilled column in the CMT table. It makes drilled cavalry worth having which is brilliant. In DBM Reg Cv were hardly worth the points.

shall wrote:

??? Does a unit attacked in the flank and only the flank reform to face the attacking flank?

See above posting

So just to clarify (sorry to keep on with this one but it is not clear in my head):
* You get hit in the flank and resolve the impact.
* If it is your move you _may_ align with the flank attackers - most likely forming a column.
* If it is your move, and you aligned, you may expand by 1 base. Can you expand by 1 base if you did not align?
* If it is not your move and the flank attacker expands, can you match the expansion (probably only with troops that are facing in a different direction)? (This is probably the same question/answer as the above bullet point).

shall wrote:
Quote:
??? Does a unit attacked in the flank and only the flank reform to face the attacking flank?



See above posting



So just to clarify (sorry to keep on with this one but it is not clear in my head):
* You get hit in the flank and resolve the impact.
* If it is your move you _may_ align with the flank attackers - most likely forming a column.
* If it is your move, and you aligned, you may expand by 1 base. Can you expand by 1 base if you did not align?
* If it is not your move and the flank attacker expands, can you match the expansion (probably only with troops that are facing in a different direction)? (This is probably the same question/answer as the above bullet point).

Happy to keep with it and I can hardly complain as it isn't terribly clear nor fully defined. So first let me say we'll take it away and fix it properly and come back to you. Its on the list now as a high priority item.

As far as my games go we have doen the following:

1. If your move you turn to flank as part of aligning to enemy.
2. Further on in the movement phase - when you come to that unit you can expand 1 base width. You couldn't expand if you didn't align...but you have to align if its possible so it isn't a problem there.
3. If its the opponents move you can expand if you have any troops who could do so to match their expansion.

The whole thing need specifying properly and the ordering issue is an important one that you raise. So more anon. Most of the flank charges we have had have had troops in contact to front as well and your example seems particularly interesting as its the intercept move that causes issues, so yu are being charged in your own bound. Otherwise it would be your bound after a full IMPACT and MELEE fought to the flank before you could turn - which is the intentin of the rules IIRC.

If it happens again persevere as written for now. More soon. Thanks

And yes I do sleep.......badly. I've always been an early bird.

Si