Slitherine

Fifth Battle Report- Carthaginians in Spain V Gauls.

Lots of open space in the central 80% of the battlefield with all significant terrain well out to the flanks. This suited the Gauls as they had Heavy Foot, although they were concerned about the open flanks and Carthaginian LH.

6 Numidian LH shot down and routed 4 mounted gallic nobles very quickly and at the end of the game 6 Balaeric slingers were doing the same to another BG of nobles.

4 armoured + 4 protected cartho` cavalry led by a general in a straight fight eliminated 4 protected + 4 protected cavalry, general led Gauls, for no loss whatsoever.

Of the 7 BG`s of heavy warband only two remained unfragmented at the end of the game with elephants romping all over them. Overall 12 units of Cartho`s fought 14 of Gauls, and the Gauls were slaughtered across the field.

The dice were very poor for the Gaul and generally excellent for the Carthaginian which led to consistent Coh failures, several of them double drops, despite generals leading the way and a fair amount of rear support. Many of the fights were on even terms but ended up as pure lotteries as the dice rolling made the significant decisions decisively against the barbarian.

Its always the double 1`s that stick in the mind, but it does bring it home that the average competition player is only going to select armies that have significant proportions of Superior troops to do the serious fighting?

Generally the rules played well but it seemed that with so many Average troops on both sides that COH tests were actually much more significant than the combats.

This will be refought at a later date ??“ if only to allow wounded pride to be restored!

Ensuing queries and comments are to follow.

Lance.

lanceflint wrote:
Generally the rules played well but it seemed that with so many Average troops on both sides that COH tests were actually much more significant than the combats.

Isn't this one of the points of AoW - the fact that CT will be the major mechanism?

Combats are (I think) the major way of forcing them but actual combat losses (in elements) are only a minor mechanism.

Maybe the importance and central position of the CT needs to be emphasised for players coming to the rules who look to casulaties to be the major mechanism?

I certainly agree and accept that Coh tests are key to the game system.

But I still believe that tests resulting from combats can be forced, and failed, as the result of losing a combat result in a very minor way.

What about only taking a combat forced Cohesion test if you suffer 2 more hits than the enemy? As Superior stuff seems so good this would gave the average warrior more of a chance to tough it out?

Lance.

We changed it to a double drop only being possible with a loss by 2 hits or more.

The hit mechanism is an abstract to decide who won or lost primarily. In DBM you have 2 effects to look at : odds of getting a PB and odds of getting a kill. A big PB is worth no more than a small one, and a big kill is worth not more than a small one. The comparison in AOW combat is that you have 2 levels to aim for: a win and a win by 2 or more.

The challenge has been to balance the odds of these happening with the cohesion test declines. Extreme wins currently have limited value - they tend to take a base down which is helpful. Given the above the general pressure is a drop of 1 level for 2 out of 3 losses in combat. This seems to give a fairly gradual decline and is designed to give players time - with good use of generals - to shore up the problems. You then get the odd double drop shock to the system to deal with.

If you drop to 2 hit difference to force a test you will find to much incentive to have small BGs I suspect. The odds fo getting a 2 hit win drop as you get less dice involved, whereas the odds of winning do not vary in this way. Pretty important if we want to keep it simple to avoid brain strain.

The other option is to have more complex measure than the 2 hit difference - 50% more hits received than inflicted etc. or some such variable measure. But its a head-ache by comparison and we felt thus far it wasn't worth the pain.

I'll take a look at our simlator for 2 hits gaps and see what we get.

Si