Shooting at Britcon

[shall]

Using the new RBS-SAH method (as per RBS propsoal but Bw* at 1/2) .... and done rather rapidly so excuse the odd minor error here and there ... I jsut wanted to get something good enough to see any pattern ........... here's the list of shooty points in finishing order. Crossbows and slings included - which may be a bit too harsh on crossbows.

Highest 2 shooties are pechenegs at 60, Mongols at 42 (no wonder them playing each other was such fun) - as you can see not much correlation. The Mongols, for what its worth, would have lost badly to my Ancient Britons who have only 8 shooty points (30-2).

Charted it and the stats just say that the variance shows a massive dominance over any pattern

1 33
2 14
3 31
4 12
4 26
6 6
7 42
8 26
9 40
10 8
10 2
12 60
13 24
14 29
15 8
16 8
17 16
17 24
19 14
20 8
21 15
22 5
23 12
24 24
25 3
26 24
27 16

Si

[rogerg]

This would suggest shooting as a whole is not an issue. Is their any value in a similar approach for doing a similar analysis for heavy foot, light horse bow and light foot bow? Thinking through the DBM experience, imbalances in the rules tended to show up through army choice. I am thinking of the dominant eras of the Cv(S), dismounting cavalry archer, the wall of spear/blade and the era of the camel superior.

It is quite difficult to argue probabilities from the base interactions up, but army choice tends to reveal an overall effect. Would there be any value in asking Britcon players which army they would choose for the next competition? This assumes people will offer a straight answer and not be going for a competitive double bluff of course.

[shall]

Not a bad idea that Roger. Certainly I am slowly taking a look at other items. Mix of generals choice is the next one I will put up

Si

[hammy]

FWIW the army I am currently trying to get to work has 28 shooting bases of Bw and Sling plus 3 of Javelin.

Looking at the list of armies from Britcon there does appear to be a slight weighting of shooting bases towards the top of the list but that might just be better players have decided they want shooting rather than vice versa.

[lawrenceg]

Any correlation between relative shootiness and scores in individual games?

Might need to account for the ability of shooty LH to ride down shooty LF in this case.

[clivevaughan]

Simon
Your results aren't complete - the three games my Ghaznavids played gave me, I think 55 points (2 wins 1 loss). Despite being a horse shooty army, my game plan was to win with the elephants (2)/Dailami (superior armoured impact foot)/Ghazi (superior protected impact foot) combo in broken terrain - which gave me the wins. My ghulams were there to occupy clear terrain and slow the advance of heavy infantry with Lt horse aiming for a flank and lancers held as a reserve.
I beat Steve Sykes' WOR English more by luch than judgement. One unit of longbow in broken went disrupted to shooting from a ghulam so so I promptly charged it with general in front rank (I get the better armoured POA in melee). Another longbow unit faced the Dailami, didn't get any hits so got flattened by impact foot. The Ghazis beat a unit of men at arms so didn't make to paradise!
Against the Late Romans I won in broken as a (smaller) unit of protected auxiliaries had no chance against the Dailami/elephant combo. 2 units of legionaries trudged forward slowly against a hail of mounted arrows and never got to grips whilst I shooed his lights off the table.
Jerome's formidable Jocks completely intimidated me!! I felt that there wasn't a lot in my army to cause him damage. I mis-deployed and didn't follow my game plan - had I thrown the elephant/Dailami/Ghazi combo against the highlanders and longbow armed Lt foot I might not have lost too badly.
I don't think horse shooty armies are too powerful. They are useful to occupy heavy foot but you need a battle winner with punch - and the elephant/Dailami/Ghazi combo certainly provides this!! Heavy metal medieval armies are always going to be difficult to beat with Ghaznavids

[rogerg]

In fact all even point games tend to have something of the 'pin and punch' about them. You hold up his good stuff while hitting him with yours. Our debate has been about the shooting pin being so effective.

[clivevaughan]

I know the debate is about shooting being too effective! My point is that I did not get any unexpected shooting results from my shooty army and that it performed its pinning role as planned while the punch troops did their job. Therefore in my experience, shooting is effective but not too effective.

[shall]

Seems to be the consensus and our view too

Of course if we later find it evolves to dominate then we can tweak it and have a few years of alternative fun with tyhe new version. As long as the mechni9cs are solid such changes of calibration over time add to the fun - jusdt as they have with DBM. Can anyone relly say whether 1,1.3,2,3,3.1 is the one that is right?? I can't.

Si

[lawrenceg]

I have calculated the probability of a BG having to take a CT from shooting by 2 ranks of skirmishers of equal frontage to the target BG:

Target BG of 6 in 2 ranks, shot at by 3 dice
Target BG of 8 in 2 ranks, shot at by 4 dice
Target BG of 8 in 3 ranks, shot at by 3 dice

Shooters are assumed to be Average.

Needing 4 to hit:

6@2, 3 dice: 50%
8@2, 4 dice: 31%
8@3, 3 dice: 13%

Needing 5 to hit:

6@2, 3 dice: 26%
8@2, 4 dice: 11%
8@3, 3 dice: 4%

So there is a significant benefit to be had merely by having BG of 8 instead of 6.
If you put your 8 into 3 ranks, the benefit is really quite substantial, albeit at a 25% loss in frontage.

[shall]

Nicely done Lwarence. See I told you going 3 deep was the most important thing vs bowfire .....

Your numbers match ours pretty well - if you then add the CT tests to find the odds of fialing 3 you find its quite a spread.

But no more proof needed I suspect.

Si

[madaxeman]

I still think the world would be a much better place if it was impossible to break from skirmisher shooting, irrespective of the odds.

A final charge to break you would be much more acceptable to my view of ancient warfare.

And I cant really see this would dramatically unbalance the rules

But then again, I'm the UKs worst FoG player

[shall]

We're balancing up a range of things and have made some changes.

From your games, I actually think the most important one was that pursuit issue where one could set up traps. We have introduced a CMT to avoid having to contact troops in a pursuit so decent Def Spearman can avoid losing all those POAs. This one was a clear irritant largely out of your control. Standing back its items such as these that we want to avoid most. The other issues form your games we can see a mix of army choice adn design and tactical use changing considerably - which is less a rule issue and more and experience one combined with the natural character of your army.

On the shooting we are pretty comfortable overall. There are mixed views from players and we are wary of changing things when sp,e agree amd some disgaree - that's often a sign its about right.

If you don't allow things to break from shooting its hard to replicate several real battles. The Hattin one I mentioned started with big block of knights that was wilttled down below autobreak levels due to repeated charges, evades and concentration of fire upon it. The 100 were forced to surrender by skirmishing and shooting alone. The huns seems to have broken many a troop with shooting. History is ambiguous as to whether they charged them before or after they were broken in game terms...all one can say is it is shooting that was their weapon. My suspicion is that they charged them as they were starting to break - so in game terms on the line between FRG and BRK.

If it cannot get you 2 APs under even the best of management I fear a complete skirmish army will have little chance. I would like to see an all LH Hun army have a fighting chance on the table which it does at present. I can just about get a hun to work at present ok.

If after a year of play we find it needs tweaking it will give us a change for version 2 to liven us all up. The ideas of dropping only to FRG, or even not having -s on CTs for shooting for cohesion levels, are two of about 6 we have "stored on the back burner" to return to once we have a good deal of competition play under our belts. So we are not ignoring this -ust filtering the ideas onto 1) do todays and 2) store as a future idea.

Cheers

Si

PS don't worry about those ears .. 'Tis not being a bunny that matters; 'tis how long one remains so ..... I was a bunny at DBM in my first comp and ended up doing ok. I am sure they will drop off soon

[madaxeman]

Nicely done Lwarence. See I told you going 3 deep was the most important thing vs bowfire .....

Your numbers match ours pretty well - if you then add the CT tests to find the odds of fialing 3 you find its quite a spread.

But no more proof needed I suspect.

Si

1. Why should going 3 deep be a way to beat bowfire? Feels like a game mechanic rather than a histrical simulation?

2. 32 figures of drilled protected crossbowmen vs 16 figures of LH (2 x 4) means 6 dice (on 5s) vs 4 dice (on 4's). I cant do the math to detail, but I suspect the chances of the 32 crossbowmen breaking are better than that of the 16 Light horsemen. I still don't get it.

[neilhammond]

Regarding 1) it was genewerally recofnised that deeper formations helped steady morale. Examples are poorly trained Byzantine cav and, out of period, Napoleonic columns.

Regarding 2) don't the crossbows hit LH on 4's? I haven't got my rules handy.

Neil

[rbodleyscott]

Regarding 2) don't the crossbows hit LH on 4's? I haven't got my rules handy.

They do. And we are talking about 8 bases of crossbows vs 8 bases of LH. The LH cost more. The crossbows win.