Slitherine

Polearms are too good.

Chinese foot are happy to charge out of terrain and hit the enemy that their own records said they were unable to stand against in the open. Bow Cavalry.

The fix is easy. Alter the POA that says it does not count when charging shock mounted by deleting the word shock. It doesn't count when charging any mounted. It's not multiple ranks of spear. There is no shower of lighter spears during the charge. And it makes the troops that use them act more historically.

Polearms are too good.

Chinese foot are happy to charge out of terrain and hit the enemy that their own records said they were unable to stand against in the open. Bow Cavalry.

> A high proportion of Chinese infantry were conscripts and therefore poor. We don't force players to use poor troops in most armies - because players would never use that army. Commanders of historical armies didn't have that choice.
The mix of poor troops, their vulnerability to bow fire , and lack of training in close formation meant that they couldn't stand up to mounted in the open.

However, the average ones probably do perform better than they did historically - against bow-armed cavalry, but that's mainly because most competitions so far have been either 800pts on a restricted table, or 900pts (or more) on a 6x4 table. We need to have more single competitions played at 800pts on a 6x4 table before we can make a judgement on this.

Roll call will be interesting, because it will be 800pts with armies from book2 - Where most of the Chinese armies are.
>>NB. I think that the period should be restricted to "up to 1000 AD" - because there are a few armies at the end of the book that can have knights after that date. (or a 'no-knights' restriction should be added)

Knights are now way too expensive. Don't think I'd worry about them with the preponderance of foot now. Unless I was a bow cavalry army

We need to have more single competitions played at 800pts on a 6x4 table before we can make a judgement on this.

The BHGS Challenge will be entirely open - 800 AP on a 6 x 4 table. Last year's was similar but I don't recall a single Han Chinese - just lots and lots of Elephants.

Quite right Pete.

I think Polearms should be reduced in points.

.Knights are now way too expensive. Don't think I'd worry about them with the preponderance of foot now. Unless I was a bow cavalry army

Polearms and 3 dice on impact have contributed to the virtual disappearance of lancer armies such as Bosporan, etc. The typical 4-base unit is much more likely to suffer a damaging -1 on CTs.

To redress the imbalance and perhaps introduce a bit more variety in army choices, what about a +1 on casualty rolls for all lancers (and light spear cavalry) at impact?

Polearms and 3 dice on impact have contributed to the virtual disappearance of lancer armies such as Bosporan, etc. The typical 4-base unit is much more likely to suffer a damaging -1 on CTs.

You can't blame Pole Arms on the disappearance of lancer armies - All of the Pole arm armies in books 1 and 2 are Chinese ones - and I haven't seen a Chinese army used in competition as yet.
3 Dice at impact has had an effect on lancer armies ..... It certainly is more risky to take them in 4's.
One of the things you need to take into account is that a lot of competitions so far have still used either 900 or more points or have been played on a small tables. These formats were introduce so that HF had a better chance against mounted armies. That and the introduction of a 4 inch move for HF combine to make the "wall of foot" armies much more effective.
However, when (I hope) we revert to the standard 800 pts on a 6x4 table cavalry armies will perform better (Although a cavalry army won at Britcon last year - and my Ottomans came 4th).

Players need to accept that armies containing 10 or 11 BGs are perfectly usable.
The alternative is to use more average troops. For example 6 average knights are only 4 pts more than 4 superior knights.