Slitherine

Towards the end of games you quite frequently see a unit of quality troops that has been doing some fighting reduced to half strength. There is often a pause while lines reform, a little Benny Hilling occurs, etc. During this a general nips in bolsters our brave band back up to steady. Our brave lads then put in a final charge into something soft that takes out the enemy army. Superior knights seem to do this frequently.

Should a battle group that is down to half strength really be that good? Half the men are down, the rest are tired and the horses are nearly blown. Any more casualties and the group will just dissolve. But in game terms, it's just as good as an untouched 2 base BG, as long as it doesn't test morale (and then that's only -1 for lost bases). Would it not be better to say that a battle group losing 50% cannot be bolstered back to Steady?

But this would severely penalise units such as Verangians and Spartans who rely on being steady to survive.

philqw78 wrote:But this would severely penalise units such as Verangians and Spartans who rely on being steady to survive.

Well, only once they are down to half strength and foot units at half strength are normally in some ghastly fight that is going to kill them anyway on base losses. Not sure I've seen many BGs of 6 or 8 get to half strength but I've seen lots of half strength knights.

Would be an interesting way to make Superiors slightly less good, but not so far as giving them the same break point as average units.

You could just say any unit that has sustained 50% casaulties is disorderd as well.

ethan wrote:Would be an interesting way to make Superiors slightly less good, but not so far as giving them the same break point as average units.

You could just say any unit that has sustained 50% casaulties is disorderd as well.

Or restrict this effect to units "reduced" to 2 bases - then it only would have an impact on 4-base superior units*, killing two** bugbears with one stone.

* Come on, how many big Elite units do you see?
** Or three if you limited it to 4-base superior Lh units

What have you got against knights? They are tough but very expensive. Also 4 base units take -1 to CTs after only one base loss. So they are under some penalty even before they get to %50. This would make knights completely cost ineffective.

gozerius wrote:What have you got against knights? They are tough but very expensive. Also 4 base units take -1 to CTs after only one base loss. So they are under some penalty even before they get to %50. This would make knights completely cost ineffective.

I disagree. Superior heavily armoured knights in 4s are very cost effective right now and are widely used. This is a minor change, and yet you feel it would make them completely cost ineffective - why?

The current proposal is to have Superiors autobreak on the same base losses as Average.

Fairly radical, but this is what we plan to play-test.

rbodleyscott wrote:The current proposal is to have Superiors autobreak on the same base losses as Average.

Fairly radical, but this is what we plan to play-test.

that makes superiors expensive and loose their appeal. especialy the armylists where the superiors are in small units and where you have no choice.

Jilu wrote:

rbodleyscott wrote:The current proposal is to have Superiors autobreak on the same base losses as Average.

Fairly radical, but this is what we plan to play-test.

that makes superiors expensive and loose their appeal. especialy the armylists where the superiors are in small units and where you have no choice.

It would probably help the assessment if you indicated which lists you thought would be affected in this way - I assume you have some in mind when making the point.

rbodleyscott wrote:The current proposal is to have Superiors autobreak on the same base losses as Average.

Fairly radical, but this is what we plan to play-test.

This would completely remove superior LH from the game. A troop type that is rarely seen now

Jilu wrote:

rbodleyscott wrote:The current proposal is to have Superiors autobreak on the same base losses as Average.

Fairly radical, but this is what we plan to play-test.

that makes superiors expensive and loose their appeal. especialy the armylists where the superiors are in small units and where you have no choice.

Not necessarily. Superior troops, particularly the more expensive types, are good value at present. And would continue to be so right up until they lose the final base.

There is something of a game play issue with 4 base superior mounted at present, that Richard's change would address.

Take a game I had recently with my Early Persians against Romans. I had some 4 base units of superior armoured shooty cavalry. Early in the game I daren't commit them against the legions as they would get ground down and then they are very vulnerable. However late in the game I can be far braver with them. The worst that is likely to happen is that I lose two bases and break off (in fact that did happen) - the Romans don't have time to close and finish me off.

Richard's change would add risk to this tactic. In fact, it might be an option to make all morale classes break on 50% losses. That would toughen poor troops a bit (but not much, they normally go on morale). Elite could be an exception.

once a unit has lost 25% there is no further penalty until autobreak. An additional -1 on cohesion tests for 50% losses would not seem unreasonable. Due to autobreaks for average and poor this would only effectively come into play for Superior and Elite.

grahambriggs wrote:

Jilu wrote:

rbodleyscott wrote:The current proposal is to have Superiors autobreak on the same base losses as Average.

Fairly radical, but this is what we plan to play-test.

that makes superiors expensive and loose their appeal. especialy the armylists where the superiors are in small units and where you have no choice.

Not necessarily. Superior troops, particularly the more expensive types, are good value at present. And would continue to be so right up until they lose the final base.

There is something of a game play issue with 4 base superior mounted at present, that Richard's change would address.

Take a game I had recently with my Early Persians against Romans. I had some 4 base units of superior armoured shooty cavalry. Early in the game I daren't commit them against the legions as they would get ground down and then they are very vulnerable. However late in the game I can be far braver with them. The worst that is likely to happen is that I lose two bases and break off (in fact that did happen) - the Romans don't have time to close and finish me off.

Richard's change would add risk to this tactic. In fact, it might be an option to make all morale classes break on 50% losses. That would toughen poor troops a bit (but not much, they normally go on morale). Elite could be an exception.

But why would you then want to pay for superior if they broke on the same point as average would you allow army lists were you only can have Superior units the ability to take average. If not it seems a double wammy, break the same as average and yet still cost much more than average and poor were is the up side for users of superior troops then?or do you think to many people use them.

david53 wrote:But why would you then want to pay for superior if they broke on the same point as average would you allow army lists were you only can have Superior units the ability to take average. If not it seems a double wammy, break the same as average and yet still cost much more than average and poor were is the up side for users of superior troops then?or do you think to many people use them.

So the only reason you take superios is so that they don't autobreak at 50% losses. Rerolls on combat and cohesion tests are worthless then?

IMO changing the autobreak rule for superiors to mean they run at 50% would I think be a jolly good idea. At the moment with a BG of 4 bases changing from average to superior to get a better autobreak and all those rerolls is not far off a no brainer a lot of the time.

gozerius wrote:What have you got against knights? They are tough but very expensive. Also 4 base units take -1 to CTs after only one base loss. So they are under some penalty even before they get to %50. This would make knights completely cost ineffective.

What would you buy instead?

philqw78 wrote:

rbodleyscott wrote:The current proposal is to have Superiors autobreak on the same base losses as Average.

Fairly radical, but this is what we plan to play-test.

This would completely remove superior LH from the game. A troop type that is rarely seen now

I didn't think many armies could have superior LH anyway.

However, if they are more rarely seen than you might expect, it may indicate that average LH are too good (or too cheap). Or it may simply be that average LH when they lose a base can go into Benny Hill mode and never lose another base. Therefore the ability of superior LH to lose that extra base is rarely a material advantage.

Anyway, the planned play-testing should reveal what is and isn't cost effective more accurately than player prejudice, especially in the context of other changes as yet unknown.

hammy wrote:

david53 wrote:But why would you then want to pay for superior if they broke on the same point as average would you allow army lists were you only can have Superior units the ability to take average. If not it seems a double wammy, break the same as average and yet still cost much more than average and poor were is the up side for users of superior troops then?or do you think to many people use them.

So the only reason you take superios is so that they don't autobreak at 50% losses. Rerolls on combat and cohesion tests are worthless then?

IMO changing the autobreak rule for superiors to mean they run at 50% would I think be a jolly good idea. At the moment with a BG of 4 bases changing from average to superior to get a better autobreak and all those rerolls is not far off a no brainer a lot of the time.

So what your saying is that for example, of 4 base Superior BG of Foot Romans will run when losing the same bases as a unit of average Javilin/light spear armed LH (picking on those LH now) now that to me does seem strange.

david53 wrote:

hammy wrote:

david53 wrote:But why would you then want to pay for superior if they broke on the same point as average would you allow army lists were you only can have Superior units the ability to take average. If not it seems a double wammy, break the same as average and yet still cost much more than average and poor were is the up side for users of superior troops then?or do you think to many people use them.

So the only reason you take superios is so that they don't autobreak at 50% losses. Rerolls on combat and cohesion tests are worthless then?

IMO changing the autobreak rule for superiors to mean they run at 50% would I think be a jolly good idea. At the moment with a BG of 4 bases changing from average to superior to get a better autobreak and all those rerolls is not far off a no brainer a lot of the time.

Why do you think its a great idea then, its all very well saying its a no brainer but please do explain as you know stick a general with an average unit and it gets to re-roll as well.

As things stand average knights are almost never taken because superior knights are a lot better and only slightly more expensive. The package of benefits for superiors in a 4 base BG is considerable and because of the way things work BGs of 2 knights are actually quite hard to inflict a base loss on so in practice superior knights are getting on for twice as good as average ones but only cost 20% or so more.

david53 wrote:So what your saying is that for example, of 4 base Superior BG of Foot Romans will run when losing the same bases as a unit of average Javilin/light spear armed LH (picking on those LH now) now that to me does seem strange.

Why?

The whole army runs when half of it is routed so why should a whole BG keep fighting manfully when half of it is dead?