Slitherine

The resource sheet available on the Field of Glory (and the one we are using here in New Zealand for competition scoring) which scores a game out of 25 points has a wee flaw IMHO.

Apologies to all who understand this scoring - what follows is a brief description for those unfamiliar:

The final game score is based on portion of losses - 10 points applies if your army has broken, 5 points means you were half way to breaking. Your score is calculated by adding your remaining portion (out of 10) to the portion of you opponents losses (out of10). So, for example, ifyour army had an ACV of 40, your break point would be 20 - so, if you lost, say, 12 ACV points at game end then you would have lost 6/10 and you would gain 4 points and your opponent 6 points. If your opponents army had an ACV of 30 and they had lost 7 ACV then that would be 5/10 (of the 15 needed to break the army) and you would each get 5 points.

What happens next is the awarding of up to 5 "bonus points". If the game was concluded because one side broke the other then the winner gets all 5 bonus points. If the game wasn't decided because one side broke the other, then if either side occupied the opposing LoC they get all 5 bonus points available.

If neither of these conditions was met (ie neither army broken and no single occupied LoC) then the remaining bonus points fall as follows: 1 for the defender; 1 if you have a single unspent cav unit - 2 if you have 2 or more unspent cav units; 1 if your opponent has only 1 unspent cav unit - 2 if they have no unspent cav units.

Herewith the flaw in my view ...

Some armies are permitted only 1 or 2 cav units (and some none at all, like Tyroleans for eg). So, someone (like Brett) who uses one of these armies in a competition is automatically penalised 4 bonus points relating to unspent cav units unless they can break their opponent. And some armies (Turks for one eg; my LC horde for another) are almost automatically assured of all 4 bonus points simply because of the number of units of cav.

This seems to set up an unnecessary bias for competition scoring. For example, if you were fielding an army with just 2 cav units then you would be rightly wary of commiting either on the basis that they cough up your bonus points, whereas the cavalry in such an army are very likely to be an unimportant feature (in as much as there are so few).

I understand that the intent was to show a historic bias for conserving cavalry to ensure that any pursuit was effective. But this seems somewhat misplaced in a competition setting where it potentially adds the wrong weight to both army mix selection and to game decisions in favour of cavalry-plenty armies.

By way of a suggested change to the bonus point awards in the event that neither army is broken nor a single LoC occupied, how's about considering just 1 bonus point for having one or more unspent cavalry units and a further 1 bonus point if your opponent has none, 1 bonus point if you have broken twice as many opposing cav units as you have lost, 1 bonus point for an attacker who breaks more ACV than they lose and 1 bonus point if you have broken a complete division more of your opponent than your own complete division losses. Any remaining bonus points (of the 5 available) go to the defender.

Whaddya reckon ??

(disclaimer: most of my armies have plenty of cavalry in them !)

"I understand that the intent was to show a historic bias for conserving cavalry to ensure that any pursuit was effective. But this seems somewhat misplaced in a competition setting where it potentially adds the wrong weight to both army mix selection and to game decisions in favour of cavalry-plenty armies."


Indeed a victory without fresh cavalry to pursue was a less decisive one and a defeat while you still have fresh cavalry to cover the retreat is less hazardous. 1813 is a prime example re the French. But for comps I can see that is hard for armies less well endowed historically with cavalry . Is there a case for looking at the terrain selection - eg armies in more difficult terrain being less penalised/rewarded for having fewer/ more cavalry?

For what it is worth, my Tyroleans have no cavalry as Keith notes.

In tournament play I'm of the mindset that a draw is no good for me (opponent gets the full 4 'cavalry' points) and I'll have to go as hard as I can for the army break - even at the expense of being overly rash and getting broken myself.

While this is a disadvantage in a tournament situation, I don't really mind. It's just one of those things that you accept when you chose a particular army.

How do you find the Tyrolean army to use? It was one of my obsessions among others to get it in and I keep toying with the idea of a big investment with Eureka who do them in 28mm- supplementing my Austrian Landwehr and Jaegers.

MikeHorah wrote:How do you find the Tyrolean army to use? It was one of my obsessions among others to get it in and I keep toying with the idea of a big investment with Eureka who do them in 28mm- supplementing my Austrian Landwehr and Jaegers.

It's definately a challenge, but by no means a lame duck in my view - & those Eureka figures are pretty nice... maybe you can try to do a deal with Nik at Eureka and get them a little cheaper?
I did mine in 15mm. The old glory figures are good as well.

My 800 point list took the maximum Austrians (already had them painted), all 3 units of small Superior Drilled LI, the 2 Average Drilled Line (with rifle and artillery attachments), with the remainder of points being used for a BC and a horde of compulsory skirmisher units.

That gave a 'strike' force of 7 excellent units (5 formed Tyrolean, the Austrian Jaeger and Austrian artillery) that between them can thow out 34 medium range dice - or 28 dice if cavalry are around. An Austrian line unit hoveed behind 2 of the Tyrolean superior LI units to give rear support in combat, while the other Austrian line unit guarded the LOC. Then add in a horde (about 6) small compulsory skirmisher units.

My idea is to get the 3 superior LI units in front of enemy foot, throw a heap of medium range dice at them for a turn (or two, perhaps) then charge. I had two of the superiors in one command (one unit with a BC attached) with the 3rd superior unit in a neighbouring division. The idea is that all 3 units fight side by side with commander attached, giving 4+ CMTs to charge home and rerolling 1&2's in combat. The Austrian Jaeger and Artillery provided fire support to each flank of the block of superiors.

Hopefully they break the enemy in front and the ripple effect of this can break the enemy army.
That's the theory anyway...

In my initial playtest games I had 3 skirmisher units on each flank without any formed support - the idea being for them to 'tie up' larger numbers of enemy units. This usually ended up with skirmishers being herded to the edge of the table and dying, usually almost breaking the army morale. The skirmishers had to evade when charged and hardly got to shoot (if you move into 6MU to get a shot, the opponent just charges you)

So I pulled the 2 Tyrolean tooled-up line units out of my 'strike force' and gave 1 unit to each wing to support the skirmishers - much better. Opponents were more hestitant in charging as they would also run into a unit with 6 defensive-fire (attached artillery) dice. This allowed the skirmishers some time to snap off some shots without being chased away.

Enemy cavalry was a less scary than I thought. The number of dice you can throw out at medium range gives you a reasonable chance to keep enemy mounted disordered.

Southern Europe helps. Need those steep hills, ideally 'fingered' in towards the centre of the table, to break up solid enemy lines and allow you to run skirmishers on them.
We also play a house rule that cavalry cannot assault infantry in difficult terrain. Without this, I suspect the army would be in deep trouble as enemy LC would slaughter you in difficult terrain.

Lastly, and most importantly, I got to field a Priest (Haspinger) with some chaps carrying a cross -complete with Jesus hanging thereon - as a DC, and also a group of lads playing Mountain horns & singing the hills are alive with the sound of ... for my LOC marker.

I wouldn't recommend Tyrloleans as a first army, but for something a little different it's fun and does ok. Won as many as I lost at Battlecry, which is about par for me.

Cheers
Brett

BrettPT wrote:

MikeHorah wrote:How do you find the Tyrolean army to use? It was one of my obsessions among others to get it in and I keep toying with the idea of a big investment with Eureka who do them in 28mm- supplementing my Austrian Landwehr and Jaegers.

It's definately a challenge, but by no means a lame duck in my view - & those Eureka figures are pretty nice... maybe you can try to do a deal with Nik at Eureka and get them a little cheaper?
I did mine in 15mm. The old glory figures are good as well.

My 800 point list took the maximum Austrians (already had them painted), all 3 units of small Superior Drilled LI, the 2 Average Drilled Line (with rifle and artillery attachments), with the remainder of points being used for a BC and a horde of compulsory skirmisher units.

That gave a 'strike' force of 7 excellent units (5 formed Tyrolean, the Austrian Jaeger and Austrian artillery) that between them can thow out 34 medium range dice - or 28 dice if cavalry are around. An Austrian line unit hoveed behind 2 of the Tyrolean superior LI units to give rear support in combat, while the other Austrian line unit guarded the LOC. Then add in a horde (about 6) small compulsory skirmisher units.

My idea is to get the 3 superior LI units in front of enemy foot, throw a heap of medium range dice at them for a turn (or two, perhaps) then charge. I had two of the superiors in one command (one unit with a BC attached) with the 3rd superior unit in a neighbouring division. The idea is that all 3 units fight side by side with commander attached, giving 4+ CMTs to charge home and rerolling 1&2's in combat. The Austrian Jaeger and Artillery provided fire support to each flank of the block of superiors.

Hopefully they break the enemy in front and the ripple effect of this can break the enemy army.
That's the theory anyway...

In my initial playtest games I had 3 skirmisher units on each flank without any formed support - the idea being for them to 'tie up' larger numbers of enemy units. This usually ended up with skirmishers being herded to the edge of the table and dying, usually almost breaking the army morale. The skirmishers had to evade when charged and hardly got to shoot (if you move into 6MU to get a shot, the opponent just charges you)

So I pulled the 2 Tyrolean tooled-up line units out of my 'strike force' and gave 1 unit to each wing to support the skirmishers - much better. Opponents were more hestitant in charging as they would also run into a unit with 6 defensive-fire (attached artillery) dice. This allowed the skirmishers some time to snap off some shots without being chased away.

Enemy cavalry was a less scary than I thought. The number of dice you can throw out at medium range gives you a reasonable chance to keep enemy mounted disordered.

Southern Europe helps. Need those steep hills, ideally 'fingered' in towards the centre of the table, to break up solid enemy lines and allow you to run skirmishers on them.
We also play a house rule that cavalry cannot assault infantry in difficult terrain. Without this, I suspect the army would be in deep trouble as enemy LC would slaughter you in difficult terrain.

Lastly, and most importantly, I got to field a Priest (Haspinger) with some chaps carrying a cross -complete with Jesus hanging thereon - as a DC, and also a group of lads playing Mountain horns & singing the hills are alive with the sound of ... for my LOC marker.

I wouldn't recommend Tyrloleans as a first army, but for something a little different it's fun and does ok. Won as many as I lost at Battlecry, which is about par for me.

Cheers
Brett

Thanks that's really helpful and very kind. I am going to take a look at the Eureka 28mm's at SALUTE before investing when I pick up some of their almughavars for my Catalan Grand Company . Has to be that scale as my only 15mm's in this era are for the 1790s' and I have so many 28mm's including Bavarians. I would mainly want to use them for scenarios.

Indeed a victory without fresh cavalry to pursue was a less decisive one and a defeat while you still have fresh cavalry to cover the retreat is less hazardous. 1813 is a prime example re the French. But for comps I can see that is hard for armies less well endowed historically with cavalry . Is there a case for looking at the terrain selection - eg armies in more difficult terrain being less penalised/rewarded for having fewer/ more cavalry?

It was the amount of fresh cavalry available to pursue that converted a small victory into something bigger.
The fact that an army doesn't start with much cavalry doesn't change that.
It does mean that if you have an army with little cavalry you need to go for the big win.
It seems that big wins are more likely in FOGN - At the 'Challenge' 80% of the games ended with armies breaking - mostly on the 30% rule.

terrys wrote: It seems that big wins are more likely in FOGN - At the 'Challenge' 80% of the games ended with armies breaking - mostly on the 30% rule.

Do you know how many of these wins were by the defender?

Breakdown was:
Attacker wins: 7
Defender wins: 5
Draws: 3