Slitherine

I must be blind. I haven't found a common army size as yet. Is there a number of points or a number of BGs that people play as a standard?

In 15mm 800 points is a common army size for a 6x4 table. For a doubles game (2 players per side) 900 or 1000 pts is used.

For 25mm on 6x4 table 650 is being used in the UK, but in the US they're looking at 800 pts on a larger table (8x5).

The number of BGs does vary, but at 800 pts 12-13 is typical. 11 is probably the minimum you want to use. Some armies can make 15 - especially skirmish or cheap troops type armies.

If learning the rules, then 600 starter armies are useful, or if composing your own army try 650 APs until you've got the hang of the rules.

Thank you, Neil. Very much appreciated. Off to Essex to see what I need.

GVose wrote:Off to Essex to see what I need.

What army are you going for?

I've got Swords and Scimitars. I'm planning on two opposing post 1100 AD forces. I'd like to do a military orders force and I am still debating on the opposition. I'll sit down with my books. It's been a few years since my Crusades course.

The Military Order are good troops, but are expensive. So you tend to need to bulk them out with non-military order. At 800AP try and get to 12 BGs. If you stick with predominantly military order you'll probably only get to 11 BGs.

Thank you. I'll look into that and try to come up with a 12 BG list. Is non-military order foot the way to go on that?

Yes, probably - they're alot cheaper than the military order foot. You may want to use a military order foot BG on the end of the line to strengthen it.

If you don't have to manoeuver too much undrilled troops are fine - and basically you probably want to keep the crusaders in 2 - 3 battle lines, with a general which will help.

The problem with the crusaders is what to use to protect the flanks? The undrilled foot don't manouvuer too well, but if you use military order knights there is a lot of points tied up in chasing off LH or skirmishing cav.

You either need terrain, or an ally - poss Bedouin or Saracen?

Probably 3 BG of knights is sufficient. More than that and you chew up too many points, less and you have no strike troops.
If using an ally you may want to drop to 2 BGs of Kn and an BG of Cv as well as the foot and allied LH.