Slitherine

While I am at it, I want to ask sometihng to help me increase my understanding of the battle reports: how does one win? I gather, in a general way, that one seeks to break the opponent's battle groups by causing them to degrade down the cohesion ladder. Fair enough, but . . .

Are all battle groups worth the same amount toward army break point? How many BGs have break for the army to run away? And so on.

Marc

At present an army breaks when it has taken as many attrition points as it has battlegroups.

Each fragmented battlegroup is one attrition point, each unbroken battlegroup forced off table is one AP, each broken battlegroup is two AP's and losing your camp is another two AP's.

In my game against the Ghaznavids at Usk, Bruce only had 8 BG's which meant that with two broken and two fragmented that if I broke another BG I won the game.

hammy wrote:At present an army breaks when it has taken as many attrition points as it has battlegroups.

Each fragmented battlegroup is one attrition point, each unbroken battlegroup forced off table is one AP, each broken battlegroup is two AP's and losing your camp is another two AP's.

In my game against the Ghaznavids at Usk, Bruce only had 8 BG's which meant that with two broken and two fragmented that if I broke another BG I won the game.

That leads to interesting possibilities for BGs of filler bulking up the army. Does AoW have hordes?

Marc

babyshark wrote:
That leads to interesting possibilities for BGs of filler bulking up the army. Does AoW have hordes?

Marc

Yes it does but not many armies get lots of them. It is also harder to protect 'filler' in AoW and if your opponent gets to your filler it can be curtains as our game two opponents in Usk nearly discovered.

hammy wrote:At present an army breaks when it has taken as many attrition points as it has battlegroups.

Each fragmented battlegroup is one attrition point, each unbroken battlegroup forced off table is one AP, each broken battlegroup is two AP's and losing your camp is another two AP's.

In my game against the Ghaznavids at Usk, Bruce only had 8 BG's which meant that with two broken and two fragmented that if I broke another BG I won the game.

This sounds a little like Armati, with Key Units broken as the determinant. Well, also along with winning in 15 turns if you have a higher army iniative.

bolderdash wrote:This sounds a little like Armati, with Key Units broken as the determinant. Well, also along with winning in 15 turns if you have a higher army iniative.

A little but there are no key units and no auto win after a set number of turns.

I tried Armati and found the expendable nature of non key units to be an issue. In AoW you have to ballance the value of using more fragile units against the risk of loosing them.

hammy wrote:I tried Armati and found the expendable nature of non key units to be an issue. In AoW you have to ballance the value of using more fragile units against the risk of loosing them.

Hi

In comparison with Amarti does AoW allow for greater manoeuvre? How does it compare?

regards

Stephen

ashur_dan wrote:

hammy wrote:I tried Armati and found the expendable nature of non key units to be an issue. In AoW you have to ballance the value of using more fragile units against the risk of loosing them.

Hi

In comparison with Amarti does AoW allow for greater manoeuvre? How does it compare?

regards

Stephen

I only played a handfull of games of Armati and have some really bad memories of protractors and 12.5 degree wheels and such like (I only played Armati V1) so bear in mind my experience is limited.

That said I think that AoW allows far more maneuver than my memories of Armati and in the early stages of a game at least feels more fluid than DBM. Once the action gets started there is less low level maneuver in AoW than DBM (no move this element back out of charge, put this element exactly there to cover a flank etc.) but as combats resolve the victors can (assuming they pass a control test) be relatively rapidly back in combat.

In my game last night my Visigoth noble lancers eventually broke a BG of Roman cavalry and thanks to the fact they were superior troops and led by a general they were able to stop their pusuit, turn around then launch a charge into the rear of the remaining Roman legionaries in that area of the battlefield. This took a couple of turns but all felt perfectly reasonable and there was plenty of chance for the lancers to go haring off into the sunset after the broken cavalry.

Yours

Hammy

hammy wrote:I only played a handfull of games of Armati and have some really bad memories of protractors and 12.5 degree wheels and such like (I only played Armati V1) so bear in mind my experience is limited.

That said I think that AoW allows far more maneuver than my memories of Armati and in the early stages of a game at least feels more fluid than DBM. Once the action gets started there is less low level maneuver in AoW than DBM (no move this element back out of charge, put this element exactly there to cover a flank etc.) but as combats resolve the victors can (assuming they pass a control test) be relatively rapidly back in combat.

In my game last night my Visigoth noble lancers eventually broke a BG of Roman cavalry and thanks to the fact they were superior troops and led by a general they were able to stop their pusuit, turn around then launch a charge into the rear of the remaining Roman legionaries in that area of the battlefield. This took a couple of turns but all felt perfectly reasonable and there was plenty of chance for the lancers to go haring off into the sunset after the broken cavalry.

Yours

Hammy

Hi

Sounds quite reasonable! I'm looking forward to seeing the final rules.

regards

Stephen

PS You are not actually from Larryworld are you?

It might sound reasonable to you, but they were my legionaries!

plewis66 wrote:It might sound reasonable to you, but they were my legionaries!

Very true...

In this case specifically, the Roman cavalry routed and outdistanced their pursuers (say 33% chance). Had the routers not out distanced the lancers I would have had a chance to break off pursit (needing 8 on two dice).

With the routers out of the way one of my generals joined the lancers and with his urgings they turned 180 ready to charge the Roman rear (needing 6 on 2 dice).

Had the Roman legionaries managed to break the warriors they were fighting quickly they would have possibly gotten away. When they didn't ..... History is often written by the victor