Heavy weapons v spear etc

[marshalney2000]

Just to clarify presumably heavy weapon do not remove armour poa if the spears are not disordered

[rbodleyscott]

Just to clarify presumably heavy weapon do not remove armour poa if the spears are not disordered

Heavy Weapons don't get + vs steady Sp/Pk in the impact phase (only).

Armour POAs only count in the melee phase. Heavy weapons count + POA and cancel armour POAs vs steady Sp/Pk in the Melee phase.

(If you would like some justification think of English bills lopping the heads off Scottish pikes)

[jdm]

see you watch it!!

[hammy]

Just to clarify presumably heavy weapon do not remove armour poa if the spears are not disordered

Heavy Weapons don't get + vs steady Sp/Pk in the impact phase (only).

Armour POAs only count in the melee phase. Heavy weapons count + POA and cancel armour POAs vs steady Sp/Pk in the Melee phase.

(If you would like some justification think of English bills lopping the heads off Scottish pikes)

Just a thought, doesn't this mean that heavily armoured troops with heavy weapons are a bit of overkill? Granted the heavy armour will help against missiles but the heavy weapon effectively cancels it out in melee.

Would heavyly armoured heavy weapon troops fighting unarmoured opponents still get a + for having better armour?

I may be confusing myself here

Hammy

[hammy]

OK, next time check the rules before you post Hamilton

Heavy weapons cancel an ENEMY armour POA so you still get your armour POA if any but they are still somewhat redundant for heavily armoured troops as the enemy won't get an armour POA anyway.

Hammy

[rbodleyscott]

OK, next time check the rules before you post Hamilton

Heavy weapons cancel an ENEMY armour POA so you still get your armour POA if any but they are still somewhat redundant for heavily armoured troops as the enemy won't get an armour POA anyway.

Hammy

True, but +3 points for heavy weapon is a lot less proportionate to the basic base cost for heavily armoured troops than it is for unprotected Dacian nutters. Thus the less benefit you get from HW, the cheaper (relatively) it is.

[hammy]

While the relative cost point is a good one and may actually make the whole thing a non issue I was thinking more about heavy weapons overnight and the up armoured Roman legionaries from Trajans campaign against the Dacians came to mind.

If armour doesn't help against heavy weapons, what is the point?

It got me thinking that perhaps a better way to work heavy weapons would be to have them reduce the effective armour of your opponent rather than negate it completely.

I am now talking myself round in circles because Dacian falxmen are unprotected so unless heavy weaposn reduce the armour of your target by two they won't actually help the falxmen much.

I think the relativ point cost thing is a very reasonable solution, please ignore my ramblings.

Hammy

[marshalney2000]

Unusual as it is, I agree with Hhammy that removing the effect of all armour seems over the top as plate and mail should be capable of deflecting certain blows. One dreads the thought of knights stripping down to their vests and y fronts just because they are facing heavy weapons.
John

[nikgaukroger]

Does it get the right effect? That is what you need to look at.

The armour will be useful against non HW armed troops and shooting.

[shall]

The HW is an interesting one. If I get Hammy correct he is wondering if having it reduce an armour class might be a good move. In essence I suspect either or done well would get the result. If you reduce a level from Armoured to Protected it has much less effect than pulling Heavily Armoured down to normality. I guess it depends which one we are after as an effect.

The current one would make an Uprot vs Heavily Armoured equal to all intents and purposes. While heavy Armour may deflect some blows the point of most heavy weapons as defined was to make a real mess even if someone had heavy armour. One could also argue that having Heavy Armour is very bad as a big enough club as you have less chance of getting out of the way and plate mail dents under a really big impact and makes quite a mess of everything underneath - and stays bent too!

Its a bit of a double edged 2 handed sword if you'll excuse the pun.

Perhaps the most valuable apporach is to look whether - talen specific example by example - there are situations which make little sense with the current mechanism but a lot of sense with an alternative and vice-versa.

My first one on this would be palestinian clubmen UP who would still get and armour disadvantage vs anything armoured or better if we reduce by a grade whereas I kind of feel the armour you have has got little benefit (or less) vs such an attack. Similar issues I guess with unarmoured Japanese Monks wth Naginata - do we want them disdvantaged by anyone who is better than portected? Views on specific head ot heads?

Cheers

Si

[jre]

The problem I see, and what I think bothered hammy was that unlike most POAs, Heavy Weapons has a diminishing return as your armour increases. So an unprotected gets a huge benefit (two net POAs in melee), a protected a big benefit, armoured a marginal benefit over one POA equipment unless you fight a lot of medieval armies or cataphracts and heavily armoured little benefit compared to other options.

If we compare with the two obvious combos (both costing 2 points), Offensive spearmen and Impact Foot+swordsmen, armoured and heavily armoured will generally benefit more often from a cheaper option.

Or in other words, if the lists allowed the choice in dismounted men-at-arms between offensive spearmen and heavy weapons, how many would keep the heavy weapons?

In my opinion it should be worth 2 points for armoured troops and somewehere between 1 and 2 (so let's keep 2 as they are expensive already) for heavily armoured.

Jos?©

[nikgaukroger]

OK my input from having done a bit of fighting wearing full metal armour (and the necessary padding) and using a C15th type bill. It is very hard work. Most of the time you are not hitting with anywhere near full force (applies to all fighting to be honest) and when you do it is quite possible for the force of your blow to be deflected/avoided. Obvious caveat on this is that I've not been in a combat where anyone is trying to kill anyone else

Heavy weapons (in AoW speak) are better against heavier armour than non-heavy weapons, however, they are not super weapons and don't negate it IMO. We have the account of Flodden for example where the front rank of the Scots pike blocks are manned by the upper classes in full armour and where they are described as being able to withstand the blows of 4 or 5 billmen at a time - although they were taken out in the end

IMO the idea that Heavy Weapon reduced the opponents armour rating has merit but negating it may be going too far.

BTW Palestinian "clubmen" were regular Roman troops from the province of Palestine who happened to have large clubs/maces for dealing with catafracts - so they will have the usual Roman armour. On another occasion Constantine's legionarii did the same (Milan?). We haven't decided how to put these in the lists yet though

[terrys]

The rules for Heavy weapons says "Also cancels enemy armour POA if any."
This means that the enemy don't get an armour POA. It doesn't stop you getting one yourself.

So for example, your BG of heavy armoured varangian guard will still get their own POA against all but other heavy armoured foot.

[hammy]

The rules for Heavy weapons says "Also cancels enemy armour POA if any."
This means that the enemy don't get an armour POA. It doesn't stop you getting one yourself.

So for example, your BG of heavy armoured varangian guard will still get their own POA against all but other heavy armoured foot.

Very true but heavy armoured foot would get an armour POA if they were armed with toothpicks

Heavy armoured imapct foot swordsmen are going to be better than heavy armoured heavy weapon but cost less.

Unarmoured heavy weapon troops are very good against armoured opponents as they negate the armour POA and get a heavy weapon POA.

It may just be a points cost thing but the Romans did after all equip legionaries with extra armour to fight falxmen and under the rules as they stand this would have had no effect at all. There is an argument that heavy weapons drop the opponents armour by two classes that way they fully negate armoured but not heavy armour for the falxmen example and heavy armoured heavy weapon foot have and advantage over heavy armoured swordsmen which they don't at the moment.

Hammy

[shall]

Ok all points noted. My one point is to ask that we split the thinking into 2 distinct parts:

1. Getting the best mechanism for heavy weapons

2. Setting the points for Heavy Weapons

At present we have a mix of both things in the discussion and I think it perhaps helps a lot to split things explicitly between the two.

On (1) we have at present - as Terry says - a cancellation model for HW. This means that the value of HW is much more dependent on what they are up against than most troops - like option. It does not - as negate having an armour plus of ones own. The other option would be to allow HW to reduce the armour level of opponents by 1 or even 2 levels. I find it easiest to look at the mechanism by comparison of specifics so lets try:

Palestinian Clubmen, Prot, HW vs Cataphracts, HArm, Lance, Sword.
In the current version in melee the Cataphract would get its HA + cancelled out. If it reduced by 1 level it would keep it. The cataphracts already have a + for mounted vs MF. So do we prefer a + or a ++? If we had HW drop the opponent 2 levels it would be equal.

Sohei Warrior Monks HW, UnP vs Samurai, Arm, Sk Sw I imagine.
Current version would cancel the Arm for Samurai but alternative would keep it. Again do we prefer a + or ++ or neutral for this combat?

To me this is the best way to ficure out the game balance.

On (2) the idea so far is that an UP guy pays more in proportion for having HW as the benefit is more valuable as he is always at a disadvantage that is cancelled out. We could change it further. I agree some of the comparison at the higher point end are interesting where it is currently +1 for IF and +1 for Sw and one might prefer this to HW. But by the same measure you would pay a lot less for Prot IF and Sw and theya re worth just the same against HW.

So the points value challenge is to balance it across all possible opponents. becuase the HW mechanism is a 1/0 option you are bo8und to find that you would prefer to have bought the HW guys sometimes and not others IMHO.

Given that arther long-winded waffle perhaps we culd split thoughts down between the mechanism and the points values. I gues mechanism first as points depend on this. I am finding the cancellation effect. From a first pass the armour reduction - if on went that way - might have to be 2 levels to be any good. But then Arm foot with Hw wuld get an armour + vs HA opponents.....all good fun.

Si

[rbodleyscott]

I don't see why it would need to "reduce the enemy armour level". It could just "cancel an enemy armour advantage unless the armour level is at least x levels higher".

Cancelling 1 level of enemy armour advantage may be sufficient:

BTW the most common historical interaction is Medieval billmen/halberdiers/dismounted knights vs mounted Knights.

Most HW medieval troops are graded in the lists as Armoured or Heavily Armoured, so cancelling one level of enemy armour advantage would be sufficient to get the equalisizing effect we want vs mounted knights. The HW guys usually themselves have an armour advantage vs medieval bowmen, crossbowmen or pikemen, who are mostly graded as Protected.

[shall]

Let's see what our team of testers think and kick it around.

I can see what you mean about the most common ones. However, given how the rules get used perhaps we need to handle the historically uncommon ones that might turn out to be AOW common..........if you see what I mean.

Haven't formed a strong view yet - I can currently see some merit in both approaches - looking foward to seeing wherther people see it mainly as a mechanism or a points issue. A good one for our next Author Skype and to mull over on the plane coming home...

Si

[marshalney2000]

Just as a slightly different question on this theme - what constitutes a second rank for spear i.e. does every front rank element in a bg require a second rank element behind it or do you break down into several combats depending on whether or not a second rank element is present?

[rbodleyscott]

Just as a slightly different question on this theme - what constitutes a second rank for spear i.e. does every front rank element in a bg require a second rank element behind it or do you break down into several combats depending on whether or not a second rank element is present?

The latter.

Personally I think the present wording covers this well enough, but needs a diagram example to clinch it. We are working on the diagrams.