Slitherine

Hi Guys,

I haven't played a single game of FoG since September, so I'm behind the times.

I started this thread over 1 year ago: viewtopic.php?f=53&t=31816
at a time when V.2 was being talked about but wasn't actually here yet.

(I didn't want to commit threadomancy! )

Now that V.2 is here, it seems like the arguments FOR mixed units, such as HW in the front, Xbow in the back, are only improved now. For example, these two rules:
- "Heavy weapon capability no longer cancelled by skilled swordsmen or skirmishers."
- "Support shooting no longer on a - POA."

Does anyone agree or disagree? Please give me your opinion, if these mixed units have improved or not!

dugroz wrote:Hi Guys,

I haven't played a single game of FoG since September, so I'm behind the times.

I started this thread over 1 year ago: viewtopic.php?f=53&t=31816
at a time when V.2 was being talked about but wasn't actually here yet.

(I didn't want to commit threadomancy! )

Now that V.2 is here, it seems like the arguments FOR mixed units, such as HW in the front, Xbow in the back, are only improved now. For example, these two rules:
- "Heavy weapon capability no longer cancelled by skilled swordsmen or skirmishers."
- "Support shooting no longer on a - POA."

Does anyone agree or disagree? Please give me your opinion, if these mixed units have improved or not!

I think they would be good, but not earth shattering. They are quite expensive, and not particularly maneuverable, so feel that you may get out maneuvered. But they dish out a reasonable amount of shooting.

I think you might suffer a little against a shooting army. Generally you can't stand a shooting match. They will eventually win... which means you HAVE to charge and that's exactly what a bow armed troop type would want. Then again, you may want that too

Tough call.

ravenflight wrote:

dugroz wrote:Hi Guys,

I haven't played a single game of FoG since September, so I'm behind the times.

I started this thread over 1 year ago: viewtopic.php?f=53&t=31816
at a time when V.2 was being talked about but wasn't actually here yet.

(I didn't want to commit threadomancy! )

Now that V.2 is here, it seems like the arguments FOR mixed units, such as HW in the front, Xbow in the back, are only improved now. For example, these two rules:
- "Heavy weapon capability no longer cancelled by skilled swordsmen or skirmishers."
- "Support shooting no longer on a - POA."

Does anyone agree or disagree? Please give me your opinion, if these mixed units have improved or not!

I think they would be good, but not earth shattering. They are quite expensive, and not particularly maneuverable, so feel that you may get out maneuvered. But they dish out a reasonable amount of shooting.

I think you might suffer a little against a shooting army. Generally you can't stand a shooting match. They will eventually win... which means you HAVE to charge and that's exactly what a bow armed troop type would want. Then again, you may want that too

Tough call.

Other than English longbows - who outstoots them? Most foot armies, other than longbow types, do not have much firepower (especially against armored). In combat against longbows they will a POA advantage in both impact and melee. Mounted bows can't compete with them in shooting. And their mounted crossbows are now more effective. They appear to be a very good army in V2. A couple of German pike BG's wouldn't hurt also.

Hal

I have a question about mixed units in general. The Med Danish list states, under bases per BG, for Select Levy Heavy Foot, 1/2 or all and for Medium Foot 1/2 or none. I would interpret this to mean for each BG. Therefore since a total of 12-24 total bases are listed for Select levy, with 6-8 bases per BG, I would assume that you could have one BG with 4 HF and 4 MF and another BG with 8 HF and no MF.

Is this correct?

Delbruck wrote:Other than English longbows - who outstoots them? Most foot armies, other than longbow types, do not have much firepower (especially against armored). In combat against longbows they will a POA advantage in both impact and melee. Mounted bows can't compete with them in shooting. And their mounted crossbows are now more effective. They appear to be a very good army in V2. A couple of German pike BG's wouldn't hurt also.

Hal

Everyone (on foot) outshoot them. 1.5 dice to 1 at even factors. So let's say you put a BG of Saparabara in front of them and all you do is shoot. A BG of 8 Saparabara will throw out 6 dice hitting on 5's, so averaging 2 hits. The Danes would put out 4 dice hitting on 5's so averaging 1.5 hits, thus the Saparabara are hitting more often. Nothing earth shattering, BUT look at the points disparity. You're going to be hit by more dice SOMEWHERE purely on overlaps. On Impact you are even on factors, but down on dice. IF you manage to get through the shooting and impact without disrupting you're THEN advantaged. If you're disrupted your advantage disappears.

Against Longbows they are hitting 3 times on average, and STILL cost less. IF you manage to impact without being disrupted then you're advantaged on impact but down on dice.

In both cases while you may be at an advantage once you're in melee, you are so outnumbered points wise that you are possibly going to be overlapped OR hit in the flank by other segments of the army... remembering that you have compulsory knoghts.

I love the Danes. I wanted to build the. In V1. It's a viable army, but it's not going to be kicking arse and taking names. It will be a middle ranker (I believe)

mceochaidh wrote:I have a question about mixed units in general. The Med Danish list states, under bases per BG, for Select Levy Heavy Foot, 1/2 or all and for Medium Foot 1/2 or none. I would interpret this to mean for each BG. Therefore since a total of 12-24 total bases are listed for Select levy, with 6-8 bases per BG, I would assume that you could have one BG with 4 HF and 4 MF and another BG with 8 HF and no MF.

Is this correct?

I believe so. I don't have the book in front of me, but other lists have comments like "If blah is blah then all must be so", therefore, if that is missing (and I believe it is, the. What you say is correct.

mceochaidh wrote:I have a question about mixed units in general. The Med Danish list states, under bases per BG, for Select Levy Heavy Foot, 1/2 or all and for Medium Foot 1/2 or none. I would interpret this to mean for each BG. Therefore since a total of 12-24 total bases are listed for Select levy, with 6-8 bases per BG, I would assume that you could have one BG with 4 HF and 4 MF and another BG with 8 HF and no MF.

Is this correct?

Yes

dugroz wrote: Now that V.2 is here, it seems like the arguments FOR mixed units, such as HW in the front, Xbow in the back, are only improved now. For example, these two rules:
- "Heavy weapon capability no longer cancelled by skilled swordsmen or skirmishers."
- "Support shooting no longer on a - POA."

Does anyone agree or disagree? Please give me your opinion, if these mixed units have improved or not!

Mixed foot units with close combat in front and shooters behind have improved a little. Plus, crossbows now have a POA shooting at all double rank cavalry. So these types have improved a bit.

They still have issues though. Against tough foot (say armoured spear) yes the support shooting might help at impact but once you start losing HW bases the crossbowmen struggle. They don't put out that much missile fire. And they are still quite vulnerable to a knightly charge. Certainly better than they were though and good enough to take to a competition I think.

In my experience, the mixed BGs are useful. But when things start to go wrong they go very wrong very quickly.

Marc

grahambriggs wrote:

dugroz wrote: Now that V.2 is here, it seems like the arguments FOR mixed units, such as HW in the front, Xbow in the back, are only improved now. For example, these two rules:
- "Heavy weapon capability no longer cancelled by skilled swordsmen or skirmishers."
- "Support shooting no longer on a - POA."

Does anyone agree or disagree? Please give me your opinion, if these mixed units have improved or not!

Mixed foot units with close combat in front and shooters behind have improved a little. Plus, crossbows now have a POA shooting at all double rank cavalry. So these types have improved a bit.

They still have issues though. Against tough foot (say armoured spear) yes the support shooting might help at impact but once you start losing HW bases the crossbowmen struggle. They don't put out that much missile fire. And they are still quite vulnerable to a knightly charge. Certainly better than they were though and good enough to take to a competition I think.

The crossbow are MI armored swordsmen, so not that bad.
Perhaps they are somewhat vulnerable to knights, but they can have their own knights and mercenary pikemen.

So how do you guys use them?

Seems like they are quite good against non-knightly mounted units (and maybe not all that bad vs. knights). Is that the only valid role?

Well, I first have to say, I'm not a top player. Far from it! However I took this list to the US Open.

The citizen levy is SUPPOSED to have 1 rank of heavy weapons and a back rank of crossbow. So, in your example, you would have 4 HF and 4 MF per battle group.

Now game play? The infantry is an anvil and your knights are the hammer. In ideal setups, (and I only pulled it off 2 times out of 5 games) you encourage the enemy to charge your foot. These guys are certainly better at being an anvil than defensive spear!

Also, the mounted crossbow are near essential. They are your "skirmishers", however being undrilled hurts them in a BIG way. I find it funny that the foot have become much stronger, but your cavalry are a bit weaker. Meh... The benefits outweigh the loss.

At the tourney, I did take 2 BGs of pike. They worked well to intimidate the enemy cavalry, and give me more time to shoot with my crossbows. However, I'm not entirely certain if they were as strong as additional citizen levy. After all, those 2 files reduce your shooting potential...

Finally, if you can take protected light foot, then try to take them. That protected status could have made the difference when enemy LF tried to shoot away my screens.

Curious, why do you think protected LF is better against shooting than unprotected? LF suffers no penalty from shooting when unprotected. Now, should your protected LF get caught in melee, then it would possibly give them an advantage against unprotected LF. But with only 6 stands of handgunners in the army, it's probably not worth it unless you have a few points to waste. The general levy can be used to bulk up the army a little, but they are very vulnerable, so you need to find a good place to hide them.

Say that to some Roman, protected, jav, Light Spear LF.

When staring down enemy LF, you get out-shot most times as you only have a 2" range. Meanwhile, melee could get rid of this problem. However, without protected armor, the fight becomes straight 4s. You only get 1 BG of LF and in an open tourney setting you can easily go up against 2 - 3 enemy BGs... Protected gives you some edge...