Slitherine

I've noted a few commenst about possible issues with MF on this forum before Leeds and so was wondering what people's conclusions were after Leeds,

I know Matt and Kevin both had MF archers (including Janisseries in Kevin's case) so how did they fare?

Could possibly impact on some list classifications.

nikgaukroger wrote:I've noted a few commenst about possible issues with MF on this forum before Leeds and so was wondering what people's conclusions were after Leeds,

I know Matt and Kevin both had MF archers (including Janisseries in Kevin's case) so how did they fare?

Could possibly impact on some list classifications.

The simple answer to that is utter junk I would take LF equivelents everytime as they are the same price, more manouverable, able to evade and far far tactically more useful. This is however based on MF, unprotected, bow

because of

- you will never put them any where near enemy foot or armoured mounted. Any enemy army with Knights will see my bow on the table edge.
- hard to manouvre
- to have an effect they really need to be working in multiple BG but that effectively creates a a huge target which has to be protected. Making you reactionary.
- Current intercept charge rules make it very hard to protect bow in the front lines. Though I may be missing a subtlety there.

Cheers
Matt

My English Longbowmen did very well. they infact rocked once I had the hang of them. Shot down a BG of spartiates from steady to routing (which was more than the MAA managed in combat) and managed to get behind a BG of supported legionaries to machine gun the supporting ps (actually no difference in the dice needed, but felt good)
Chased armoured lancers all over the board in 2 games.

They died horribly when hit by steady HI - unsurprisingly, and I was too cautious to charge them against fragmented HI (well it was my first game, a bit of nerves is to be expected)
The supporting shooting on impact was nice, but maybe the -ve on factors is not needed. That might give steady bows a bit more of a chance to survive.

Are there any HI bows?

paulcummins wrote:Are there any HI bows?

No.

There are armies that get BG's that are 1/2 HF light spear , 1/2 MF bow but that is as far as it gets.

Caveat to my post on this is I might try them if I could take them in 12's so I could field them three deep and use two BG together. This might improve their survivability. As it stands the Kushites can only take them in 8s and that just is not enough.

Regards
Matt

It seems that Matt's Kushites were pants, Simon's Indians weren't bad, and Paul's English longbowmen were pretty good.

It seems to me that this is a result of AoW's differentiating out troop types rather more than DBM.

I used a Kushite Egyptian army in a play test vs a Libyan Egyptian army and the archers weren't bad at all. This was because much of the enemy's close combat foot were themselves unprotected or lacked melee POAs.

Hammy also commented that he felt that Swiss would not be a good bet in open tournaments because they would be too vulnerable to cavalry armies.

I think this points up an issue that AoW may be better for (approximate) historical matchups than for "Open Tournaments".

We always envisaged that AoW tournaments might be based on the AoW army list books rather than "open". The AoW army list books are themed, which largely avoids mis-matches, (apart from the entirely historical mis-match of Romans vs Parthians), whereas the DBM ones are done purely by date, which still allows for horrible mis-matches. We also planned to have a list in each army list book of armies from other books that can also be used in their theme.

Some might see it as a bad thing if some types of armies are non-viable in AoW open tounaments.

Others might see it as no bad thing if a certain "tightening up" of the themes for tournaments prevents the sort of ludicrous anachronistic matches that bring Ancient/Medieval wargaming into disrepute in some quarters.

Thom and I were somewhat sheepish in explaining to an interested passer-by that we were only matching Ancient Egyptians against Ilkhanid Mongols "because it was a play-test". Honest guv.

I did note that Si's bowmen appeared to be beaten reasonably handily by Hoplites which looked fine to me.

How are archers standing up to mounted?

Having all but the best (say Janisseries and English) flattened by knights in the open seems OK to me but what about against cavalry types?

BTW as archers are not the only MF did anyone take any other MF and if so how did they do?

nikgaukroger wrote:I did note that Si's bowmen appeared to be beaten reasonably handily by Hoplites which looked fine to me.

How are archers standing up to mounted?

Having all but the best (say Janisseries and English) flattened by knights in the open seems OK to me but what about against cavalry types?

BTW as archers are not the only MF did anyone take any other MF and if so how did they do?

one BG of 8 MF, protected, light spears. Also entirely useless in an open event. Did ok in one game where they chased a single BG of 4 Light horse across the table (as the rest of the enemy army was on the other side of the table) Other than that sat in some rough going hoping no one noticed them.

Cheers
Matt

Facing MF - Thracians did pretty well - 1bg of 6 taking on 2 bg of longbow before being hit in the flank by heavy foot
The only other MF I faced were crushed beneath my knights in the open (unsurprisingly), but held up reasonably well to Heavy foot (4xHF, armour, heavy weapon against 4xMF, armour, light spear, sword +supporting LF), only going down when the knights joined in as well. They were in the wrong place at the wrong time rather than being pants

How are archers standing up to mounted?

Having all but the best (say Janisseries and English) flattened by knights in the open seems OK to me but what about against cavalry types?

the cav ran a mile from my long bow - One bg tried to sneak up behind them, but ran when they turned roudn (whats the time mr Wolf ) no one really attempted to fight them with cav. Some armoured knights did try, and failed to get the cohesion drop so recoiled, then cleared off once the PF were deployed

While I didn't have any medium foot I reall missed not having them. The Visigioths I used at Usk had 2 BG's of medium foot who did very well. One of them even massacred a BG of Ghilmen (OK I hit them in the flank but..)

BTW, one source of confusion during several of my games was that people kept on thinking the Swiss halberds were MF. This is because in DBM they are Bd(X) and three to a 20mm base. I would rather not have to rebase so what about allowing Swiss halberds to be MF. Either that or allow HF to be on 20mm deep bases which makes things compatible with DBR and will also when translated to 25mm basing make things easier for the WAB guys.

BTW as archers are not the only MF did anyone take any other MF and if so how did they do?

I faced a New Kingdom Egyptian with my Skythians, which had plenty of MF Impact Foot. They got absolutely flattened by my Hoplites. I have to say I was fairly lucky in that the ipact foot came in at advantage in the impact and not only was disordered, but lost a stand as well. This happened twice!

The main reason they were disordered was the -1 for being medium foot in combat with heavy foot in the open - this gave an overall minus three on the CT so was exceedingly difficult to pass (lost the combat badly as well)

Whenever I saw medium foot I generally just saw targets

nikgaukroger wrote:I did note that Si's bowmen appeared to be beaten reasonably handily by Hoplites which looked fine to me.

How are archers standing up to mounted?

Having all but the best (say Janisseries and English) flattened by knights in the open seems OK to me but what about against cavalry types?

BTW as archers are not the only MF did anyone take any other MF and if so how did they do?

I took 2 BGs of MF.

1 x 8 impact swordsmen (Spanish); total liability (ok i could be using them incorrectly). Used them to dominate terrrain in all my games (had hoplites for the open) only to watch them pursue out of the terrain and get butchered to a man. ( won me 2 points but then lost me 2 each time).

1 x 8 Lt Sp (Ligurians), These were more reliable but less effective, so could hold terrain to support the flank but not neccesarily dominate it. Better vfm as terrain troops by far.

Whilst i am on the soap box it would be good if the designers could explain how they wanted shock MF to work. In knowing this then their best roll on the battlefield might be clearer to dimwits like myself who haven't worked it out yet. (Thinking in terms of Thorakitai, Thureophoroi, Spaniards) who unfortunately at the moment behave the same as a gallic tribesman.

Cheers

Andy Robinson

andy816 wrote:Whilst i am on the soap box it would be good if the designers could explain how they wanted shock MF to work. In knowing this then their best roll on the battlefield might be clearer to dimwits like myself who haven't worked it out yet. (Thinking in terms of Thorakitai, Thureophoroi, Spaniards) who unfortunately at the moment behave the same as a gallic tribesman.

Thorakitai are drilled armoured offensive spearmen
Thureophori are the same but protected
Spanish foot have become impact foot bexause essentially that is what they were. In AoW the Celtiberians are heavy foot and the Iberians are medium.

I suppose the issue is why DBM treats Spaniards as Ax(S) but Gauls as Wb(F). Under older WRG sets Spaniards were irregular C LMI HTW and Gauls irregular C LMI JLS.

In AoW any BG that wins will have to pursue once but thereafter you have an option to make a CMT to break off the pursuit. Spaniards won't be quite so good at that as they are undrilled but unless you are near the edge of the terrain you would have a chance of staying in it. Also if you are in terrain you don't have to test to stop charge out of it even if you are impact foot and you never have to test to not charge mounted. Were you playing all of these rules correctly?

Hammy

hammy wrote:

andy816 wrote:Whilst i am on the soap box it would be good if the designers could explain how they wanted shock MF to work. In knowing this then their best roll on the battlefield might be clearer to dimwits like myself who haven't worked it out yet. (Thinking in terms of Thorakitai, Thureophoroi, Spaniards) who unfortunately at the moment behave the same as a gallic tribesman.

In AoW any BG that wins will have to pursue once but thereafter you have an option to make a CMT to break off the pursuit. Spaniards won't be quite so good at that as they are undrilled but unless you are near the edge of the terrain you would have a chance of staying in it. Also if you are in terrain you don't have to test to stop charge out of it even if you are impact foot and you never have to test to not charge mounted. Were you playing all of these rules correctly?

Hammy

which is fine until your in the terrain being shot to bits by enemy skirmishers without the option of charging because then you hurtle out into the open facing something nasty

warfareeast wrote: which is fine until your in the terrain being shot to bits by enemy skirmishers without the option of charging because
then you hurtle out into the open facing something nasty

Ahh well, now we are on to the shooty mounted troops and skirmishers argument aren't we

I am trying to put my thoughts on this subject into words at the moment. I want to make it a contructive commentary and it is taking me longer than I thought to come up with suitable words.

If you are a bunch of light spear armed foot and you want to stay in a specific place then somebody with a bow or sling will eventually cause you a lot of hassle. The rules don't force the troops in terrain to come out. They don't even force them to test not to charge. If you have a BG of medium foot being shot and essentially pinned in place by some nasty mounted then unless said mounted are the shooters you are tying up two enemy BG's with one of yours which is not a bad thing.

Dailami are not that bad against mounted in the open under 5.01 and I beleive that in the next revision the POA for mounted fighting medium foot in melee is likey to dissapear and impact foot will probably gain a POA at impact against all mounted (there are other related possible changes in this area too). The nett affect of these changes will be that Dailami are even at impact with Ghilmen and even in melee. The only mounted troops Dailami will be concerned by in the open are lancers.

Hammy

hammy wrote: BTW, one source of confusion during several of my games was that people kept on thinking the Swiss halberds were MF. This is because in DBM they are Bd(X) and three to a 20mm base. I would rather not have to rebase so what about allowing Swiss halberds to be MF. Either that or allow HF to be on 20mm deep bases which makes things compatible with DBR and will also when translated to 25mm basing make things easier for the WAB guys.

No reason they should be MF. I think allowing variations in basing to cover legacy troops is essential - in practice, of course, we all allow it but it would be nice if the rules made it explicit IMO.

We are current considering the following collection of amendments to improve the lot of MF:

Mounted get a + POA vs MF in the open in the impact phase but not in the melee phase.
MF cohesion test modifier -1 vs HF or mounted in the open.

Impact Foot get + POA vs mounted in the impact phase

but

Mounted don't suffer a -1 CT modifer if they lose vs impact foot in the impact phase.
Mounted swordsmen do count vs Skilled Swordsmen in melee. (Thus cancelling out instead of the skilled swordsmen getting a net +)

This means that

1) Legions will be better (than currently) vs mounted in the impact phase, but not as good in the melee phase.
2) Legions will be less like road-kill against elephants. (But they will still be disadvantaged in the melee phase).
3) Legions won't be worse than HF auxilia vs mounted in impact phase.
4) Dailami can stand up to ghulams in the open.
5) Spanish are less like road kill vs mounted in open.

It is possible that the points cost of Impact Foot may need to go up to +2.

I had 7 BG of 8xMF average unprotected light spear swordsmen.

To cut a long story short:

I expected them to die like flies and kept them out of combat if possible.
When they did fight, they did better than I expected. They were roughly on a par with Simons MF unprotected bow swordsmen. I think some fought hoplites as well with success, but they were supported by better troops and a flank-march. They were very vulnerable to shooting, especially skirmishers. LF would be far better value for fighting in rough or difficult.

In one game I used 3 BG of them to clear 1 BG of 6xLF from terrain, but it was the first game and we didn't get enough bounds in for this to have any effect. Mostly they were in the open because there was no alternative.

I also had 1 BG of 10 x MF superior protected impact foot swordsmen. They killed quite a lot, but generally took a lot of damage as well.

I didn't get into any MF versus mounted fights, except vs Simons elephants, which beat me, although the superior MF hung on for quite some time.

I do have the feeling that the good performance of these troops was mainly due to having generals in the front rank and consistently good to-hit dice rolling.


I'm keen on the idea of allowing both 15 mm and 20 mm base depth for both MF and HF. THis would save a lot of rebasing of Roman Auxilia, Celtic Wb(S), Bd(F) and Bd(X) etc for DBM transfers. Base depth has no game mechanics effect and identifications generally get sorted out at the start when players declare their troops.


Lawrence Greaves

lawrenceg wrote:I'm keen on the idea of allowing both 15 mm and 20 mm base depth for both MF and HF. THis would save a lot of rebasing of Roman Auxilia, Celtic Wb(S), Bd(F) and Bd(X) etc for DBM transfers. Base depth has no game mechanics effect and identifications generally get sorted out at the start when players declare their troops.

It would also allow DBR based elements to be correct.

The main argument against it is that some troops types that are allowed to be fielded as either (e.g. Roman auxiliaries) could be hard to identify. However, we intend to change to lists to say "all MF or all HF" for such types, so declaration at the start of a game could be sufficient. (And they should be the same for the whole tournament as this represents differing interpretations of their role rather than a choice of formations they could adopt).

Nevertheless, scope for (possibly unfair) misidentification by opponents does exist.