Slitherine

Anybody use them? I thought Knights were underpowered for their cost in FOG1. Taking away the more advantageous break point for superior (which in general is a very good thing) seems to make them even less attractive. In any medieval themed competitions I play in armies are almost exclusively based around pike or skirmishers to avoid having to fight the pike. Is anybody using an army with a stike force of knights and will they continue to use them if the battle groups of 4 now break on 2?

They will suffer a lot with the change to autobreak. They are meant to deploy in a single file, which means it is common that they suffer several hits, even when they win. One base lost at impact and another in melee and puf .... there goes 92 points!

A lot of concern is being expressed on that point.

TimSnoddy wrote:Anybody use them? I thought Knights were underpowered for their cost in FOG1.

I think they are currently excellent value for money if heavily armoured. But a lot depends upon what comes with them in the list.

philqw78 wrote:

TimSnoddy wrote:Anybody use them? I thought Knights were underpowered for their cost in FOG1.quote]I think they are currently excellent value for money if heavily armoured. But a lot depends upon what comes with them in the list.

Can you expand a little? What armies do you use them in? What other troops are necessary in the army list for them to be used well in your opinion? What troop types do you find they fight well against? Do you play in medieval themed tournaments in which pike do not dominate?

philqw78 wrote:

TimSnoddy wrote:Anybody use them? I thought Knights were underpowered for their cost in FOG1.quote]I think they are currently excellent value for money if heavily armoured. But a lot depends upon what comes with them in the list.

Drilled ones are nice, Superior are better but I have used Average Knights, for a couple of events and they have lasted.

But in V2 with no minus for getting shot at by skirmishers, this IMO will make a big difference.

I would have liked the handgunners to be in with the minus mind.

Maybe the points cost will also drop a bit.

TimSnoddy wrote:

philqw78 wrote:

TimSnoddy wrote:Anybody use them? I thought Knights were underpowered for their cost in FOG1.

I think they are currently excellent value for money if heavily armoured. But a lot depends upon what comes with them in the list.

Can you expand a little? What armies do you use them in? What other troops are necessary in the army list for them to be used well in your opinion? What troop types do you find they fight well against? Do you play in medieval themed tournaments in which pike do not dominate?

For best effect they need some none shock battle troop support and a good amount of LH/LF. preferably LH. Post Latin Conquest Byzantine and Hungarian are good examples. Neither of them fought in pike heavy areas though. However, providing you can split the pike blocks up, they are not that bad against them. With drilled Kn especially the pike cannot move fast enough to get to grips where you do not want to, but you need good LH to make space for the knights to move to.
They fight well against anything because they get so many dice. Hitting pikes hurts, but if they are split you will generally be superior and 6 dice to 4 on single minus in melee. You only need be lucky once. The pikes need to be lucky all the time.
My perfect Kn army would be something like
4 BG of drilled superior Kn
1-2 BG of not shock Cav
4-6 BG of LH, Jav, Lt Sp, Sw (some superior hopefully)
2 BG LF
2 FC
But it doesn't exist. Or would cost too much.

TimSnoddy wrote:Anybody use them? I thought Knights were underpowered for their cost in FOG1. Taking away the more advantageous break point for superior (which in general is a very good thing) seems to make them even less attractive. In any medieval themed competitions I play in armies are almost exclusively based around pike or skirmishers to avoid having to fight the pike. Is anybody using an army with a stike force of knights and will they continue to use them if the battle groups of 4 now break on 2?

Loads of people used superior, heavily armoured knights in 4s. They are very good value generally. True, pike are a problem for them but the answer is of course don't point the knights at the pikes, point them at something softer instead.

grahambriggs wrote:

TimSnoddy wrote:Anybody use them? I thought Knights were underpowered for their cost in FOG1. Taking away the more advantageous break point for superior (which in general is a very good thing) seems to make them even less attractive. In any medieval themed competitions I play in armies are almost exclusively based around pike or skirmishers to avoid having to fight the pike. Is anybody using an army with a stike force of knights and will they continue to use them if the battle groups of 4 now break on 2?

Loads of people used superior, heavily armoured knights in 4s. They are very good value generally. True, pike are a problem for them but the answer is of course don't point the knights at the pikes, point them at something softer instead.

Alas pike is all people take here, and a few LF which the knights can't close with. It also concerns me that superiror troops used with an inspired general (eg Swiss pike) will now be almost invulnerable to fire from massed LH. Skirmishers won't be able to achive 1 hit per 2 in most circumstances on pike. So the superior pike can only fail if they roll a 3 or 4, rerolling a result of 2. It is then even more unlikely the same pike battlegroup will have to test cohesion again before it has a chance to bolster. I can see why skirmishers have been downgraded and that superior troops with an inspired general should have good morale, but this good? I wonder.

philqw78 wrote:

TimSnoddy wrote:

philqw78 wrote:I think they are currently excellent value for money if heavily armoured. But a lot depends upon what comes with them in the list.

My perfect Kn army would be something like
4 BG of drilled superior Kn
1-2 BG of not shock Cav
4-6 BG of LH, Jav, Lt Sp, Sw (some superior hopefully)
2 BG LF
2 FC
But it doesn't exist. Or would cost too much.

The beauty of the list spreadsheets is you can find out pretty quickly that an army like this wouldn't cost too much. All you have to do is persuade a list writer, eh? Looking at some of the lists, that might not be too difficult.

Hmm. IC+2TCs, 9x8 superior pike, 3 units of LF say.

So, 18 base widths of unstopable pike, how do you fill the rest of the table (i.e. the extra 28 base widths on a 15mm 6 foot table)?

FoG is a bit of a rock, scissors, paper game. You guys only use rocks and scissors! Get some paper.

grahambriggs wrote: FoG is a bit of a rock, scissors, paper game. You guys only use rocks and scissors! Get some paper.

TimSnoddy wrote: It also concerns me that superiror troops used with an inspired general (eg Swiss pike) will now be almost invulnerable to fire from massed LH.

Try saying this out loud to, say, another wargamer and see whether they think it sounds reasonable .

TimSnoddy wrote: I can see why skirmishers have been downgraded and that superior troops with an inspired general should have good morale, but this good? I wonder.

Currently 4 bases of armoured Roman Auxilia (16 figures), moving first and advancing straight across the table who are faced by 6 LF with bows (12 figures worth) have less than a 1 in 3 chance of pushing the LF off the table without being at least disrupted once. I think thats a lot more unreasonable than a big block of superior pike led by an inspired commander rarely failing a morale test

grahambriggs wrote:Hmm. IC+2TCs, 9x8 superior pike, 3 units of LF say.

So, 18 base widths of unstopable pike, how do you fill the rest of the table (i.e. the extra 28 base widths on a 15mm 6 foot table)?

FoG is a bit of a rock, scissors, paper game. You guys only use rocks and scissors! Get some paper.

How do you fill the rest of the table? Answer, you don't need to. Your drilled troops are more than capable of adjusting to meet any threat on their flanks. And what can that threat be as no other unit has a chance in melee against superior pike. Now I agree in theory you should be able to bring numbers to bear and gain some advantage somewhere but you need a particularly incompetent Swiss general to allow this to happen.

Madaxeman I don't disagre with you. Just wonder if there is more of a happy medium somewhere. Don't want to fall into the trap of predicting what will happen before playtesting but I would guess LH armies will be passed over in favour of shooty cavalry armies.

TimSnoddy wrote:How do you fill the rest of the table? Answer, you don't need to. Your drilled troops are more than capable of adjusting to meet any threat on their flanks. And what can that threat be as no other unit has a chance in melee against superior pike. Now I agree in theory you should be able to bring numbers to bear and gain some advantage somewhere but you need a particularly incompetent Swiss general to allow this to happen.

Then why are Swiss not winning all the competitions? Does your group know some tactic the rest of us do not?

TimSnoddy wrote:Don't want to fall into the trap of predicting what will happen before playtesting but I would guess LH armies will be passed over in favour of shooty cavalry armies.

Which is how big a revolution? Besides the shooty cv armies can drop your superior with a flank charge. Even Superior Pike from two directions have a tough go of it with an IC.

TimSnoddy wrote: no other unit has a chance in melee against superior pike.

What about Superior Armoured Heavy Weapon (or Offensive Spearmen, although less likely in a historical theme)? Even POAs in melee and 26 points per file compared to 32 for the pike so will outnumber them. The Heavy Weapon BG also has the advantage of not losing POAs when in terrain, when bases are lost or when fragmented.

Polkovnik wrote:

TimSnoddy wrote: no other unit has a chance in melee against superior pike.

What about Superior Armoured Heavy Weapon (or Offensive Spearmen, although less likely in a historical theme)? Even POAs in melee and 26 points per file compared to 32 for the pike so will outnumber them. The Heavy Weapon BG also has the advantage of not losing POAs when in terrain, when bases are lost or when fragmented.

Add in often wider so getting extra dice unless pike by pike by pike. Which is of course how the swiss like to fight. If the HW get through impact its a dice fest.

The problem for armies like Swiss is that while tough frontally they are narrow and have little terrain capability. So it is often difficult to force a win, which is why they seldom win competitions. They are tough to get a big win over though particularly with knight heavy armies - historically accurate!

The only real way to fight pikes is to manouver to break them up. 8s (and even 12s) of pike who are double overlapped are suddenly weak. The Swiss also lack medimu foot, so can't go too close to bad terrain for fear that enemy within it will hit their flank. Of course, you will need to sacrifice the odd unit to keep the other pikes busy and that needs fine judgement.

grahambriggs wrote:
Loads of people used superior, heavily armoured knights in 4s. They are very good value generally. True, pike are a problem for them but the answer is of course don't point the knights at the pikes, point them at something softer instead.

One of the biggest issues with the lists was that Knights are almost universally superior. Average knights appear rarely, and usually with something else in the army as the main draw (Pike, Longbow etc).

Fog upgraded a significant number of DBM Kn(O) to Superior HA Kn, tipping the scale away from the likes of French, Teutonic, Serbian etc towards Hungarian, German, Spanish and so forth that have light horse, simply because Hungarian or German knights are deemed as good: having tried Italian Condotta, the tendency of average knights is to explode if in 4's, and to rout conspicuously if in 6's.