Slitherine

In a number of threads in a number of places it has been suggested that armies composed of a large number of small sized BG of drilled MF may have discovered an imbalance in the rules and therefore be the killer army. While some are unconvinced (and certainly I do not believe that UNDRILLED MF perform as well as their historical counterparts, due to the terrain rules) if it turns out that Graham's 19 BF at 800 points Dominate Roman has found a flaw in the rules, I think that there are two ways of fixing this.

1, change the PoA interactions against MF in the open to make them worse. This has risk in that it might unbalance other interactions so would need a lot of playtesting.

2, adopt something from the old style WRG rules and have a point cost per BG. For example, if the point cost was 2 per BG, other than for allies where it would be one point, the standard 12 BG army would have 14 more troop points than the 19 BG version. Not saying that the points cost per BG is right (it might need to be 3 and 2, or 10 and 5 to make a real difference) but it might solve the problem.

I do not think there is a flaw in the rules. I do think Graham is a good player.
If the competitions become dominated by this particular army type, then there may be grounds to suggest a flaw in the rules. So far we have had the knights are too good phase, the light horse are too good period. If we are now entering the MF are too good era, I think we should wait until later this year when the "heavy chariots are too good" complaints start. They will sort out the MF quite nicely anyway.

While Graham has done very well at several tournaments using such a plan nobody else has yet repeated the feat in the UK at least. If after some more tournaments we find that the vast majority of the top places go to people using Graham's army makeup and plan then there may be an argument to change the rules.

If you look back through the past of the forum you will find threads that say that shooty cavalry are all powerful and others that say knights are too good. Granted we have yet to see a thread saying that poor unprotected camels are over powered but there is IMO still a bit to go before concluding there is an issue with the rules because Graham is a good player.

At the moment I am told by the WFB players in my club that there is one army that is badly broken in that game. The evidence they have is a touch more comclusive, things like 90% of the players qualifying for the main national competition using the same army and said army being almost unbeatable by any other army regardless of who plays it.

I do agree that perhaps a cots per BG might be a good idea but there are significant benefits to large BGs as well as small ones. Just try using 2 BGs of 4 LF bow against one BG of 8 and see what happens.

try using 2 BGs of 4 LF bow against one BG of 8 and see what happens.

Depends how much room you have to move. With enough room the 2 x 4 should win, head to head the 8 will win. Yet again swings and roundabouts.

All

Hence my thread title and the comment 'While some are unconvinced'. I have stated in other places that the issue is the Grahamness not the MFness of this army and I still believe that.

I agree that we give it another 6-9 months and see. I should have added words to that effect to my original post.

I was not trying to suggest changing the rules now, rather I was floating the idea for consideration, should it be required.

Regards
Tim

I think Roger makes the key point here - we have 1 player doing very well with the army and he is a very good player indeed. This gives us a very skewed set of results from which to draw conclusions. When we see what Joe Spod is doing with the army we will have a better idea - and I suspect the main advantage he will get from it is that at 19BGs it is hard to break (shades of various DBM armies like the Patsies here).

Of course declaring that troop type X or army Y is the all singing all dancing uber troop/army based on limited (or less) information is an integral part of wargaming so I am not surprised that FoG gets it as well

Nik

You KNOW I am not in the 'MF are super troops in FoG camp' and nor did I complain that. We still have an unresolved discussion in another place about Undrilled MF being a poor troop vs their histroical counterparts.

Regards
Tim

timmy1 wrote:Nik

You KNOW I am not in the 'MF are super troops in FoG camp' and nor did I complain that. We still have an unresolved discussion in another place about Undrilled MF being a poor troop vs their histroical counterparts.

Regards
Tim

Well my Welsh army of undrilled and mostly unprotected medium foot was something of a shock to its opponents the last time it took to the field

Lots of people on this forum seem to think cataphracts are rubbish, odd when you compare the army choice of the better players in periods where there are cataphracts but no knights. Yes cataphracts are not particularly good value against knights but that seems reasonable to me.

Hammy

Sorry you are right, I had forgotten about your Welsh. I was more concerned with the Illyrians.
Regards
Tim

I do agree that in time-limited games, which tournaments are, there is a definite advantage to playing with an army with a higher number of battle groups, especially if these are manouverable. On the offensive, which you need to do to win games and comps, these armies will likely find it easier to work flanks; if things go wrong, it's easier to get/stay out of trouble and not lose outright, saving you points and preventing the opposition getting the bonus score.
For this reason, that numbers of BGs matter, I do think there should be a point cost for exceeding a given no. of BGs for each size of game common in comps.
For consideration.....at 600-650 pts, more than 12 BGs
.....at 800 pts, more than 15 BGs
.....at 900-1000 pts, more than 18 BGs

Difficult to weight what each additional BG might be worth; for simplicity, 10pts per extra BG?

Martin

In the Northern League there is a system in use that defines the 'class' of an army. There are three classes 1,2 and 3 (surprise surprise). What class an army falls in to is determined by the number of restricted troops in the army and modified by the size of the army in BGs.

Restricted troops are any elite or superiors troops and inspired commanders.

Armies are 900 points
A class 3 army cannot have more than 200 points of restricted troops
Class 2 is 201 to 450
Class 3 is more than 450

Additionally if an army has more than 15 BGs it counts a class higher.

It is amazing how many armies in the Northern League have 15 BGs.

This could be taken as a sign that the players don't really want more than 15 BGs that much they are willing to pay an extra class for the priviledge, it could just be that most 900 point armies tend to have about that many BGs anyway.

The army I am intending taking to Burton (900 point doubles) is 19 BGs so I suppose that will give me a good idea of how thingd go with lots of BGs.

timmy1 wrote:Hammy

Sorry you are right, I had forgotten about your Welsh. I was more concerned with the Illyrians.
Regards
Tim

Didn't Phil Powell find the Picts to be OK with lots of the spearmen which would be similar?

Nik

The difference is that the Early Picts can have at least 10-25 LH/LCh so have a chance of getting initiative, Illyrians have max 6 LH. Makes it a much worse army IMO.

Regards
Tim

timmy1 wrote:Nik

The difference is that the Early Picts can have at least 10-25 LH/LCh so have a chance of getting initiative, Illyrians have max 6 LH. Makes it a much worse army IMO.

Regards
Tim

What is the big advantage of winning the intiative? Even if you put terrain down, your non-MF opponent is hardly going to fight in it.

Lawrence

If you had Illryians under FoG, how would you model the trouble that they gave the Late Roman Republic and the early Principiate? In that the Romans HAD to fight them in the nasty stuff. The initiative allows to Roman player to have almost no nasty stuff. If the Illyrian has initiative he can ensure that the maximum amount of nasty stuff ends up on the table and can use that to break up the Roman lines and finds some flanks, should the Roman choose to ignore the nasty stuff.

With no meaningful terrain, the Illyrians have to take on the Romans frontally and I only see one winner there.

Deliberately chose a known historical example. I would be interested if you see another way for FoG to model the Illyrians' victories over the Romans.

Regards
Tim

As part of a campaign where the Romans are trying to occupy Illyria

Can the Late Roman Republic and the early Principiate get more than 24 bases of LH/Cav/LCh ?

I don't know anything about the Romans' campaigns in Illyria.

I do know that if I go to a tournament with the idea of sitting in terrain and waiting for the enemy to attack me, then I'm probably not going to have a very interesting time.

I've just played a tournament with Ancient Britons (with 74 bases of MF/LF) and won the initiative in 3 out of 4 games, but I only fought three combats in terrain (and they were all with my mounted troops).

Early Picts can have at least 10-25 LH/LCh so have a chance of getting initiative, Illyrians have max 6 LH.

Taking more than 12 Lh is a waste for the Picts as it dilutes the Spearmen. But 12 does give +1 PBI. I would still rate Illyrians against Romans, more especially MF versions of Romans. The problem the Illyrians have against Romans is they waste 1 point per base being protected. With 64 bases of MF offensive spear this is 2x8 BG of LF jav. Why the Picts are better against the Romans, but Illyrians would crush Picts being POA up in all the melees. SAR.

It also crosses my mind that with their troops so much cheaper than the Romans the Illyrians have more opportunity to get an IC to improve their PBI if they are concerned about dictating terrain. In my experience Roman armies rarely have more than +2 for PBI so on that basis the Illyrians would be 50:50 for who gets it.

Lawrence makes a very good point as well in game terms - if you do get loads of terrain and sit in it why should the Romans attack. Historically they had to at times because of their political/campaign goals but they do not apply in a normal one off wargame.

Lawrence

Agree re a tourney and sitting in nasty stuff. However a historical model should allow that interaction to be recreated. Even in a comp, if the MF want to hurt the Armoured skilled swordsmen Romans, it is easier if you have terrain to break up the battle and to avoid the Roman Cav.

Both LRR and Principiate get to 12 LH/Cav easy (without any allies).

Nik

Maybe I am wasting 30 points on the IC for the Principiate Romans. With it, every one of my PR lists end up with initiatve +3.

Phil

I would chose to avoid Picts in any event (but that is a different story). All round vs Romans, Picts look a better bet than Illyrians but the PR still look favourite to me.