Slitherine

I was looking at the Thematic Byzantine list last night, with all its mixed BGs of shooty cav and pointed-stick cav. I cannot decide whether those are really useful or really useless. I had a look through the rules but could not find the answers to the following questions.

1) is there a mechanism for allowing them to shift their formation to bring the currently needed bases to the front rank? For instance, if the shooty cav are in the back rank of the BG then the BG is piss-poor for shooting; if the pointed-stick cav are in the back then they are piss-poor for impact. Dividing them left/right instead of front/back seems ahistorical and creates its own battlefield issues.

2) what happens if they force an enemy BG to take a CT during close combat if only shooty cav bases are fighting? Say, for instance, that the formation has the shooty cav in the front rank to maximize shooting and they get charged by enemy. In the impact phase only the front rank fights; if the Byz win will the enemy BG get a -1 on their CT for losing, even partially, to enemy lancers? How about in the subsequent melee phase?

Any help out there?

Marc

babyshark wrote:I was looking at the Thematic Byzantine list last night, with all its mixed BGs of shooty cav and pointed-stick cav. I cannot decide whether those are really useful or really useless. I had a look through the rules but could not find the answers to the following questions.

1) is there a mechanism for allowing them to shift their formation to bring the currently needed bases to the front rank? For instance, if the shooty cav are in the back rank of the BG then the BG is piss-poor for shooting; if the pointed-stick cav are in the back then they are piss-poor for impact. Dividing them left/right instead of front/back seems ahistorical and creates its own battlefield issues.

The rear rank archers shoot at full effect (1 dice per base) because they are the "1st shooting rank". Hence there is no need to switch them around.

2) what happens if they force an enemy BG to take a CT during close combat if only shooty cav bases are fighting? Say, for instance, that the formation has the shooty cav in the front rank to maximize shooting and they get charged by enemy. In the impact phase only the front rank fights; if the Byz win will the enemy BG get a -1 on their CT for losing, even partially, to enemy lancers? How about in the subsequent melee phase?

This is unlikely to happen because there is no good reason to put the shooty bases on their own in the front rank. If it did the enemy would not get the -1 for losing the impact phase to lancers. There is no -1 for losing to lancers in the melee phase.

rbodleyscott wrote:

babyshark wrote:I was looking at the Thematic Byzantine list last night, with all its mixed BGs of shooty cav and pointed-stick cav. I cannot decide whether those are really useful or really useless. I had a look through the rules but could not find the answers to the following questions.

1) is there a mechanism for allowing them to shift their formation to bring the currently needed bases to the front rank? For instance, if the shooty cav are in the back rank of the BG then the BG is piss-poor for shooting; if the pointed-stick cav are in the back then they are piss-poor for impact. Dividing them left/right instead of front/back seems ahistorical and creates its own battlefield issues.

The rear rank archers shoot at full effect (1 dice per base) because they are the "1st shooting rank". Hence there is no need to switch them around.

Ahah! That's what I was missing. Not first rank, but first shooting rank. Do they measure range from their own front or the front of the pointed-stick cav?

Now it all makes sense, and they look pretty useful.

Marc

babyshark wrote: Do they measure range from their own front or the front of the pointed-stick cav?

The front of the pointed-stick cav.

Now it all makes sense, and they look pretty useful.

Of course, they are shock troops, so you may not get many shots in!

Effectvively this is allowing for the reality that they may movea round positions but hovering above such detal to get the ovrall effect right.

They are rather good - I like using Byzantines in FOG very much. We are doing Manzikert at the SOA day in Sept with about 1600 pts a side.

Si