Observations and questions from first V3.07 test game

[hammy]

Alan and I played another test game last night. Again most things seemed to work but I made a bunch of notes and observations. I have not had time to scour the rules to see if I have missed anything obvious yet but thought I would posts the whole list now in case I loose my scrap of paper

First the questions:

1) If a battle line contains troops that move at different rates and it wishes to move at the full speed of the slowest battle group within 6 MU of the enemy does this require a CMT for the battle line as some troops will be moving short?

2) The move chart has one line for "Expand 1 or 2 bases with GREEN advance" and another for "Turn 90 deg with GREEN advance or vice-versa" Does this mean that if expanding the expansion must be before the advance as there is no vice-versa in the first line or is the vice-versa superflous?? There are situations where you want to advance and expand and others where epanding and advancing has a different effect.

3) It would seem that by the definition in the rules a battle group that has charged the enemy camp frontally has a threatened flank as it is within 6 MU of the edge of the table. Is this intended?

4) Shock troops, is it intentional that medium foot, impact foot never have to test to avoid charging in broken or rough terrain?

5) If a battle line tests as a whole for a CMT and fails can the individual battle groups make independent simple moves? Can the individual elements test again for individual complex moves??

6) Do supporting archers use the same POA's as the front rank troops they are supporting or do they use their own?

Possible bug:

The VMR table states at the top roll 2D6 then lists the outcomes as 1-6???

Things I liked:

Shock toops: The question above asside overall I liked this rule, we had a situation where a battle group of knights were taking fire from a batle group of light horse to their flank while another battle group of ghilmen stood at a distance and watched. Had the knights been forced to charge the light horse they would have exposed their flank to the loving attentions of the ghilmen. This felt right even if the knights didn't fail their CMT's

The slightly deeper deployment zone and the new movement rules certainly speeded things up and the game seemed to develop far faster than a DBM game.


Things that felt odd:

I had two battle groups of light foot javelinmen. I am rather at a loss to see the point of this troop type. They are no better when being shot at than light foot archers and the only thing they are good at looks to be fighting other light yet they cost the same as light foot archers who at least can harrass enemy from a distance. At one point I had a BG of 6 light foot javelinemen up against 8 unprotected MF archers. I advanced to lob javelins (not a pretty plan, without careful alignment I would get 2 dice vs 6 so even the POA I had doesn't help much). I then thought about charging them but they charged me, to my dismay it ended up with me having 4 dice to the archers 8, again my POA was not much help. Had I charged the archer it would have been 4 dice gainst 12!!! So then I decided to try to get away only to discover that the only way out of the combat was for me to break

I am starting to feel that shooting is too much all or nothing. We had a lot of missile combats where there was no point in rolling the dice as 1/3 was not possible. When shooting causes a cohesion test it is always at -1 while a close combat test could be at 0, -1 or -2 on casualties alone. I think something needs to be done in this area, possibly the first 1/3 triggers the test and each extra 1/3 puts a -1 on it or something.

The one base shift on occasions felt a touch cheesy. The worst example was where I had a BG of cavalry aimed at a hole three and a half bases wide between a hill and the flank of Alan's line. A column of 6 drilled spear at the end of his line then expanded 2 bases, advanced full move and shifted over another base..

ASCII:

before

_______Cvhill
_________hill
.
.
Sp
Sp
Sp

after

_______Cvhill
_________hill
__SpSpSp

This seemed a touch generous.

All things said I enjoyed the fight and we were close to a result after about four hours including a break for food and several discussions on the rules. We only played 700 points and as a result the game was 10 BGs against 12. At the end I had one broken, Alan had two broken, one in complete poo (6 knights against 3 lots of 4 ghilmen and 4 turkomans comming from three directions) his camp was going down in a couple of turns so if my Dailami could have beaten the archers they were fighting it would have been all over.

Hammy

[shall]

Ok here goes....

1) If a battle line contains troops that move at different rates and it wishes to move at the full speed of the slowest battle group within 6 MU of the enemy does this require a CMT for the battle line as some troops will be moving short?

You would need to test to move short so there is some benefit to having same speed troops in undrilled. You can however apply the generals + to the whole thing.

2) The move chart has one line for "Expand 1 or 2 bases with GREEN advance" and another for "Turn 90 deg with GREEN advance or vice-versa" Does this mean that if expanding the expansion must be before the advance as there is no vice-versa in the first line or is the vice-versa superflous?? There are situations where you want to advance and expand and others where epanding and advancing has a different effect.

The precedent in my games has been that you can can expand before or after movement but I see that the rules don't accurcately say this. We'll put it on the fix list. Thanks.

3) It would seem that by the definition in the rules a battle group that has charged the enemy camp frontally has a threatened flank as it is within 6 MU of the edge of the table. Is this intended?

Indeed. Perhaps reasonable as they can be out on a limb - best not to get in a position where they need to test. The question there is whether it would really be worth putting in an exception anyway. As ever views welcome.

4) Shock troops, is it intentional that medium foot, impact foot never have to test to avoid charging in broken or rough terrain?

For the initial games test yes, but we are keen for views on this section of the rules and how it feels. One of the newer parts.

5) If a battle line tests as a whole for a CMT and fails can the individual battle groups make independent simple moves? Can the individual elements test again for individual complex moves??

You decide to test as a BL you now move as a BL. SO if you fail the CMT the BL can make a simple move. You cannot then test the individual BGs again.

6) Do supporting archers use the same POA's as the front rank troops they are supporting or do they use their own?

Do you mean when charged? If so they simply add dice for the front rank and use their factors. This is something of a simplification so views on whether it worked well or not most welcome.

Possible bug:

The VMR table states at the top roll 2D6 then lists the outcomes as 1-6???

Ok will fix - a legacy of when it was an evade and charge with 1d6 each.

Things I liked:

Shock toops: The question above asside overall I liked this rule, we had a situation where a battle group of knights were taking fire from a batle group of light horse to their flank while another battle group of ghilmen stood at a distance and watched. Had the knights been forced to charge the light horse they would have exposed their flank to the loving attentions of the ghilmen. This felt right even if the knights didn't fail their CMT's

Noted

The slightly deeper deployment zone and the new movement rules certainly speeded things up and the game seemed to develop far faster than a DBM game.

We are hoping the start it a lot quicker to get through now. Keep the feedback coming.

Things that felt odd:

I had two battle groups of light foot javelinmen. I am rather at a loss to see the point of this troop type. They are no better when being shot at than light foot archers and the only thing they are good at looks to be fighting other light yet they cost the same as light foot archers who at least can harrass enemy from a distance. At one point I had a BG of 6 light foot javelinemen up against 8 unprotected MF archers. I advanced to lob javelins (not a pretty plan, without careful alignment I would get 2 dice vs 6 so even the POA I had doesn't help much). I then thought about charging them but they charged me, to my dismay it ended up with me having 4 dice to the archers 8, again my POA was not much help. Had I charged the archer it would have been 4 dice gainst 12!!! So then I decided to try to get away only to discover that the only way out of the combat was for me to break

I'll put than in the discussion box for us. FWIW Jav LF are 1 pt less than Bw LF/MF IIRC. They are not too hot vs MF archers as you say. More very useful however vs El or for chasing down opposing LF bowmen. Plus they can evade so harder to kill than MF bow. As ever it depends what they are up against I suspect.

I am starting to feel that shooting is too much all or nothing. We had a lot of missile combats where there was no point in rolling the dice as 1/3 was not possible. When shooting causes a cohesion test it is always at -1 while a close combat test could be at 0, -1 or -2 on casualties alone. I think something needs to be done in this area, possibly the first 1/3 triggers the test and each extra 1/3 puts a -1 on it or something.

OK added our hot topics. We may want to create some range of effect here.

The one base shift on occasions felt a touch cheesy. The worst example was where I had a BG of cavalry aimed at a hole three and a half bases wide between a hill and the flank of Alan's line. A column of 6 drilled spear at the end of his line then expanded 2 bases, advanced full move and shifted over another base..

Ok noted. We may wan to only allow the shift for BGs that did not change formation or sometrhing like that? It seems to be the compounding effect that is the issue in your example.

[hammy]

I had two battle groups of light foot javelinmen. I am rather at a loss to see the point of this troop type. They are no better when being shot at than light foot archers and the only thing they are good at looks to be fighting other light yet they cost the same as light foot archers who at least can harrass enemy from a distance. At one point I had a BG of 6 light foot javelinemen up against 8 unprotected MF archers. I advanced to lob javelins (not a pretty plan, without careful alignment I would get 2 dice vs 6 so even the POA I had doesn't help much). I then thought about charging them but they charged me, to my dismay it ended up with me having 4 dice to the archers 8, again my POA was not much help. Had I charged the archers it would have been 4 dice gainst 12!!! So then I decided to try to get away only to discover that the only way out of the combat was for me to break

I'll put than in the discussion box for us. FWIW Jav LF are 1 pt less than Bw LF/MF IIRC. They are not too hot vs MF archers as you say. More very useful however vs El or for chasing down opposing LF bowmen. Plus they can evade so harder to kill than MF bow. As ever it depends what they are up against I suspect.

My light foot were protected, javelin, light spear or Ps(S) in DBM terms which means they cost the same as light foot, unprotected, bow. They get little or no benefit from being protected, it only helps in melee and unless they are fighting other light foot they shouldn't be in melee anyway as everything kills them.

My DBM brain felt they should stand a chance against unprotected archers (Bw(I) in DBM I guess) with no significant support but as it panned out they really had no chance at all. Had I been medium foot rather than light foot I would probably have chopped the archers to pieces and my troops would have been no more expensive.

Hammy

[bddbrown]

6) Do supporting archers use the same POA's as the front rank troops they are supporting or do they use their own?

Do you mean when charged? If so they simply add dice for the front rank and use their factors. This is something of a simplification so views on whether it worked well or not most welcome.

Just wanted to add to this question as I was thinking about this exact topic last night. We had a situation where Stephen was using a Clipeati unit - 1st rank was 3 Sp and second rank was 3 Lf. Three questions occured to me:
1. The Lf add dice at Impact. But because they are in the 2nd rank and not a 3rd does this still count?
2. In melee they add their own base (rather than dice), so do they use a different PoA - same as James's question above?
3. Can the Lf shoot?

Questions 2 and 3 are the same for a mixed unit of Byzantine Tagmatic Cavalry who have a 1st rank of lancers and a 2nd rank of bowmen.

[bddbrown]

I had two battle groups of light foot javelinmen. I am rather at a loss to see the point of this troop type. They are no better when being shot at than light foot archers and the only thing they are good at looks to be fighting other light yet they cost the same as light foot archers who at least can harrass enemy from a distance. At one point I had a BG of 6 light foot javelinemen up against 8 unprotected MF archers. I advanced to lob javelins (not a pretty plan, without careful alignment I would get 2 dice vs 6 so even the POA I had doesn't help much). I then thought about charging them but they charged me, to my dismay it ended up with me having 4 dice to the archers 8, again my POA was not much help. Had I charged the archers it would have been 4 dice gainst 12!!! So then I decided to try to get away only to discover that the only way out of the combat was for me to break

I'll put than in the discussion box for us. FWIW Jav LF are 1 pt less than Bw LF/MF IIRC. They are not too hot vs MF archers as you say. More very useful however vs El or for chasing down opposing LF bowmen. Plus they can evade so harder to kill than MF bow. As ever it depends what they are up against I suspect.

My light foot were protected, javelin, light spear or Ps(S) in DBM terms which means they cost the same as light foot, unprotected, bow. They get little or no benefit from being protected, it only helps in melee and unless they are fighting other light foot they shouldn't be in melee anyway as everything kills them.

My DBM brain felt they should stand a chance against unprotected archers (Bw(I) in DBM I guess) with no significant support but as it panned out they really had no chance at all. Had I been medium foot rather than light foot I would probably have chopped the archers to pieces and my troops would have been no more expensive.

Hammy

Well true they cost the same, but Lf can run away whereas for Mf it is a lot more difficult - now that the CMT table has been corrected by RBS.

[rbodleyscott]

My light foot were protected, javelin, light spear or Ps(S) in DBM terms which means they cost the same as light foot, unprotected, bow. They get little or no benefit from being protected, it only helps in melee and unless they are fighting other light foot they shouldn't be in melee anyway as everything kills them.

You found a bug in the Seljuk army list. The LF javelinmen are supposed to be Unprotected.

(As a general rule, if there is no special evidence to the contrary, LF javelinmen are usually graded as unprotected and MF javelinmen Protected, on the assumption that the latter usually have larger shields at least. You are right that being Protected is of little value to LF).

(Please note that Hammy has access to the Seljuk army list because he is on the army list panel.)

[hammy]

You found a bug in the Seljuk army list. The LF javelinmen are supposed to be Unprotected.

Ah, that explains a lot. Ignore my grumblings on protected light foot.

(Please note that Hammy has access to the Seljuk army list because he is on the army list panel.)

A perk of being moderator which so far has not actually meant too much work (other than reading all the lists) but I think that that may change in the not too distant future.

My other question regarding light foot is the lack of break off which I don't have a big problem with but essentially once my light foot were in trouble there was nothing they could do except wait to rout and hope not to loose too many bases along the way.

Also after reading the rules (generally a good plan) it seems we were wrong in thinking that javelin light foot only shoot in one rank so the issue with shooting is actually not that bad, the light foot against unprotected MF archers is an even shoot out assuning equal numbers. On a 4 base frontage you get 4 dice for the javelins and 6 for the archer but the javelins are at + and the archers at even. If the javelins can disrupt the archers then a charge would give four dice at + against eight dice at even so really the light foot need to get the archers fragmented before charging if they are going to beat them which sounds OK.

All that said now I have noticed that the javelinmen can be medium foot I am probably going to change at least one BG to that. I am also intending buying some suitable figures at Warfare to expand my Arabs to allow for Seljuk and Fatamid AoW armies to be fielded. The new toy bug has bitten again.

Hammy

[rbodleyscott]

My other question regarding light foot is the lack of break off which I don't have a big problem with but essentially once my light foot were in trouble there was nothing they could do except wait to rout and hope not to loose too many bases along the way.

That is something that the rules writers had under discussion last week and we decided to remove optional break-offs. We took the view that as we 1) allow LF to evade 2) have a mechanism for heavier foot having a chance of catching them, there is not much point in then allowing them to escape by breaking off. If they get into that situation then we want their demise to be swift and inevitable. Essentially they break off by breaking!

We feel that too many escape options make for an indecisive game.

However, we are always open to play-testers' opinions.

[nikgaukroger]

All that said now I have noticed that the javelinmen can be medium foot I am probably going to change at least one BG to that. I am also intending buying some suitable figures at Warfare to expand my Arabs to allow for Seljuk and Fatamid AoW armies to be fielded. The new toy bug has bitten again.

Hammy

You too

[bddbrown]

My other question regarding light foot is the lack of break off which I don't have a big problem with but essentially once my light foot were in trouble there was nothing they could do except wait to rout and hope not to loose too many bases along the way.

That is something that the rules writers had under discussion last week and we decided to remove optional break-offs. We took the view that as we 1) allow LF to evade 2) have a mechanism for heavier foot having a chance of catching them, there is not much point in then allowing them to escape by breaking off. If they get into that situation then we want their demise to be swift and inevitable. Essentially they break off by breaking!

We feel that too many escape options make for an indecisive game.

However, we are always open to play-testers' opinions.

I totally agree. Breaking-off just slows the game down. Was breaking off a maneouver that was done historically? I figure in most cases it could easily turn into a rout unless you have very disciplined troops. If we did want to allow it - which I don't - then at the very least you should be forced to take a CT.

On a related note, the ability to volentarily "give ground" in a fight might be nice - say 1"-2" per melee - and I am sure this was done a few times historically (please correct this historical ludite if not) to lure opponents forward and out of position. Opponents would have the option of following up or not (shock troop interaction aside). Maybe it could be an allowed CM during the movement phase if you are in combat?