Slitherine

My romantic side is telling me that I need to have an Early 17th Century French army with Musketeer led Enfants Perdu, but my practical side says that 40 points is a heckuva lot to spend to get 2 shooting dice.

Has anyone given Superior LF Musket a run out? and are they as overpriced as I fear?

Be a man and give it a try.... Cavaliers are expensive cavalry but I have to run them every game, do you know how much foot I can get if I made them useless poor unarmoured???

I like it that well-armed lights are a thinking man's choice. They are too expensive for filler, cost a lot for the number of shooting dice they throw and need to avoid firefights with battle troops, but they are nimble and can be incredibly annoying with harassing fire against non-missile troops or against flanks or rear of any troops. Like artillery, they are weak, but can be lethal over time given good tactical conditions.

They need time to do their work. A rapid assault army (Impact Foot musketeers) is likely to give them less time and room for telling musketry. Indeed, it is likely to decide the issue in the middle of the field before the victors on the flanks can pitch in.

However, the coolness factor trumps everything else - could always put them as escorts on a commander base to aid him against nefarious plots.

Ya...very annoying to anything with four legs and no gunpowder! That constant threat of the dreaded "one hit = one death roll" can be a real pain in la derriere!!!

A unit of Schutzenkompanien ( LF Superior musket) is one of the first optional battle groups I have taken for my 30 yw Germans. Depending on terrain they have proved to be a majot irritant to my opponents. The one hit death roll has resulted in my opponents using valuable battlegroups to chase then off when the units would be better used elsewhere. Also being superior, the battlegroup can take some damage before they have to be withdrawn. They seem to work well with Dragoons . However for the early C17th French they may not have much time to do their work as the French infantry need to get stuck into hand to hand combat.

Minor irritant if I recall before my dragoons saw them off. Bit of a pain when they withdrew before I completely shot them to hell and then they rallied

If you want to force the enemy cavalry to attack your kurassier and commanded shot formation, then having the Schutzenkompanien in front of one of your Kurassier BGs increases your firepower and protects your kurassiers from enemy shooting.

I've found that having carbine-armed horse + commanded shot also forces the cavaliers to charge in whether they think it is time or not.

Blathergut wrote:I've found that having carbine-armed horse + commanded shot also forces the cavaliers to charge in whether they think it is time or not.

True, but the Cavaliers are still quite likely to win as the Harquebusiers are Average. They are far less likely to win against Heavily Armoured Superior cuirassiers and commanded shot.

They have been winning against the cavaliers..very consistently. Part of the problem is the cavaliers spread out to fight with each base and his dice are then spread out against two or three Parliamentarian horse BGs. If he condenses, he's got a huge amount of points in behind. Yes, the superior quality has been keeping him in the fight (he's been unarmoured) but the spreading out of the dice seems to be critical. Since he's running unarmoured, the cuirassiers are actually costly for me! But I can't help myself...two little 2paks with commanded shot tucked in between....ahhhHHHHhhh....

It's irrelevant really. The only case you could have for NOT having musketeers would be if omitting them would be a winning difference.

rbodleyscott wrote:If you want to force the enemy cavalry to attack your kurassier and commanded shot formation,

aren't the commanded shot the most vulnerable? If the dice distribution is bad they could get hurt in a hurry.

Don't forget +1 to death roll for starting off as 2 base BG, that has been a constant pain in the rear for me. Although in our last game 4 superior muskets fragged 2 cuirassier and then auto broke a unit of commanded shot, all from shooting alone. So yes and no to how vulnerable they can be.