War of the Roses - Yorkist Pretender

[ravenflight]

Hi All,

Here's the list I took to CanCon. Comments welcome.

3 x TC's.

1 x BG of 6 Irish Kerns - Light Foot, Unprotected, Average, Javelin, Light Spear. (Shot like elites in one game - fragged a BG of Armoured Superior Offensive Spear)
1 x BG of 4 Handgunners - Light Foot, Protected, Average, Handgun.
4 x BG of 8 Longbow - Medium Foot, Protected, Average, Longbow, Swordsmen.
1 x BG of 4 Men-at-Arms - Heavy Foot, Armoured, Superior, Heavy Weapon.
1 x BG of 4 Men-at-Arms - Heavy Foot, Heavily Armoured, Superior, Heavy Weapon.
2 x BG of 8 Pikemen - Heavy Foot, Protected, Average, Pike,

649 points. Such was my contempt for my opponents that I forfeited that 1 point to make it 650... not that it did me any good - I ended up in the middle of the pack.

[hazelbark]

I think if you are looking at this configuration there are better lists.
The 800 point YP I did well with only had 1 pike and its purpose was anti knight and if necessary absorb a swiss attack. So 2 is too much.
I think the strength of the WOTR lists in general is abundant HW troops. So I would have more of them.
At 650 and this was a 5x3 right? then I think I would drop down to no more than 4 bases of LF. Probably kerns to counter attack enemy LF.
Then do you need 4x8 Longbow? I'd reduced 1-2 to 6s. On the theory that its plenty of fire power vs mounted and not enough versus nasty massed attacks.
That all yields more HW troops.

[ravenflight]

I think if you are looking at this configuration there are better lists.
The 800 point YP I did well with only had 1 pike and its purpose was anti knight and if necessary absorb a swiss attack. So 2 is too much.
I think the strength of the WOTR lists in general is abundant HW troops. So I would have more of them.
At 650 and this was a 5x3 right? then I think I would drop down to no more than 4 bases of LF. Probably kerns to counter attack enemy LF.
Then do you need 4x8 Longbow? I'd reduced 1-2 to 6s. On the theory that its plenty of fire power vs mounted and not enough versus nasty massed attacks.
That all yields more HW troops.

Thanks Hazelbark - I'm glad someone responded .

Yes, it was 650AP on 5x3.

I'll have a look at what you say.

I will say though, that the handgunners were there to 'give a -' to aid bow shooting, but it was very hard to get them into the right place to cause such a test. I did, however, like the fact that I had 2 BG's of lights. It allowed me to have lights on both flanks to slow things down 'out there' when I needed to. Several times I wish I had more lights because I was countering a skirmish screen with archers... which seemed a waste of points. Having said that it would have been a smaller waste of points if it was only 6 base BG's doing the countering.

[hazelbark]

Your archers should shoot the piss out of a skirmish screen. Also even at 800 i found i only needed one to screen as the other flank was my archers and like I said a small BG that wanders near the archers gets decimated.

[ravenflight]

Your archers should shoot the piss out of a skirmish screen. Also even at 800 i found i only needed one to screen as the other flank was my archers and like I said a small BG that wanders near the archers gets decimated.

Sure, but you still need to put it there. So, you have a BG of skirmishers worth bugger all hovering around outside of range of the longbowmen and you have a BG of longbowmen waiting for their chance. Sure, you can maneouver around and have a good time chasing them, but chances are you wont catch them. If there are two BG's your even worse off as they will get one around you while the other is trying to draw you out. Ignore that one and go after the one going around you and you dance around all game trying to catch them. I've cost a lot more in points than they have... and no - I haven't found that my longbowmen 'shoot the piss' out of skirmish screens. In fact, I've found that not a lot happens to a skirmish screen... but maybe that was one game I'm complaining about.

[Fluffy]

Of all the things that can shoot my skirmish screen I like longbows the most, because you are paying for longbows which don't get any POA against "any other foot".
Also a "skirmish screen" implies a more than one BG, which should be acrobatic enough to split shooting enough to avoid dying horribly.
Leading me to want at least one group of skirmishers with bows to get in the way of acrobatics and maybe even get in close combat with other skirmishers keeping them still long enough for my bows to get involved and bring me 2 points worth of dead skirmisher.

[peteratjet]

Surely the raison d'etre of a Yorkist Pretender army is the pike-armed infantry. If you want to minimise the pike complement, or do without it completely, then other flavours of Yorkist, or even (spit!) Lancastrian armies are the way to go.

Personally, nothing says gerrartovvit! to enemy skirmishers than some lance-armed Northern Border horse

[hazelbark]

Of all the things that can shoot my skirmish screen I like longbows the most, because you are paying for longbows which don't get any POA against "any other foot".
Also a "skirmish screen" implies a more than one BG, which should be acrobatic enough to split shooting enough to avoid dying horribly.
Leading me to want at least one group of skirmishers with bows to get in the way of acrobatics and maybe even get in close combat with other skirmishers keeping them still long enough for my bows to get involved and bring me 2 points worth of dead skirmisher.

A skirmish screeen that is not very robust will get shot up badly and driven back in all liklyhood. I've run down a LH bw wall with them.

Rarely will people put a base to base width in front of the longbow. If they do they are attacking not skirmishing. One a LH or LF start getting 6-8 dice they become very vulnerable and the Longbow are moving at 4 MU a turn.

I am not saying they are uber troops. But they don't go quietly.

[hazelbark]

Surely the raison d'etre of a Yorkist Pretender army is the pike-armed infantry. If you want to minimise the pike complement, or do without it completely, then other flavours of Yorkist, or even (spit!) Lancastrian armies are the way to go.

Agreed. But you really only need one pike to create a zone that knights don't want to attack. Most WOTR types will stay close up.

[philqw78]

or even (spit!) Lancastrian

I may not understand quantum theory but surely you understand the word vendetta. Yorkist Scum.