Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

Hi,

I decided that this Christmas would be a good point for starting a
new army after a long time. So far I played mainly Ptolemaic and
Later Carthaginan and sometimes Myceneans and early Germans. I
decided that after these Infantrybased (ok chariotchariotbased in
case of the Myceneans) armies, I would like to try my luck with
cavalry this time. I choose 2 armies - a 15mm Mongol and a 25/28 mm
Crusader army. I choose the 1st Crusade mainly because I'm attracted
to the "epic fluff" it provides but partly also because I thought
that I could get more knights as they are still HC and therefore
cheaper in points than the later HK/EHK. (not to forget that the
knights don't wear tabards and are chainmail for the most part of the
minis which can be painted very fast and therefore enables me to take
the army to field quite fast... )
Ok, so far I neither played with nor against cavalry armies so I
would be glad about some comments about my armycomposition.

1st Crusade army 25/28mm

1 CinC HK L, Sh, True Cross S standard - 222pts
1 Subgeneral HK L, Sh, P Standard - 77pts
Crusader knights 12 x Irr B HC, L, Sh - 349pts
Crusader knights 12 x Irr B HC, L, Sh - 349pts
Sergeants 6 x Irr C MC L, Sh - 121 pts
Turcopoles 3 x Reg C LC JLS, B, Sh - 70pts
Spearmen 6 x Irr C HI JLS, Sh; 6x Irr C MI JLS, Sh - 168pts
Crossbowmen 2 x Irr C HI CB; 2x MI CB - 73pts
Crossbowmen 2 x Irr C HI CB; 2x MI CB - 73pts
Bowmen 4x Irr C MI B
Pilgrim Skirmishers 6 x Irr D LI, JLS
Total 1596 pts

My basic plan with this amy is that the skirmishers who will be
backed up by the turcopoles will try to tear a hole into the enemy
skirmishers (hence JLS instead of bows) with the support of the
missile troops. The spearmen will form a defensive line behind which
the heavy cavalry can stay in a wait position. The Sergeants and
missile troops (and if necessary the knights) will cover the flank.
(ideally one flank will be rested against a terrain feature so that
protection will be necessary on one side only. When a reasonable gap
in the enemy skirmishers appears, missile troops will try to disorder
the units behind and one of the knight units will charge under the
command of the subgeneral. The CinC stays in reserve with the other
knights either to deliver the finishing blow afterward or to cover
the retreat if the attack fails beyond any hope to continue (we like
to play campaigngames so make an orderly retreat is important if you
loose the battlefield to the enemy)
Well so far the basic plan...
What i'm not totally happy with is that the knights are in two rather
big units only. I wonder if the S standard is worth it's points or if
it might be better to skip it for a normal PA standard and use the
points for additional IRR command factors and organize the knights in
4 units of 6 elements and upgrading one unit to IRR A. This would
enable the army to attack in successive waves of knights.
As said - having no experiences with cav armies I have no idea if
this is a reasonable plan so any comments and corrections will be
received very thankful.

regards, Michael

ps: I will post the Mongol army as soon as I had time to work out an
organisation... ;o)
--
greymouse@...
http://www.fallout.de/greymouse

[Ewan McNay]

Michael -

- as has been alluded to, I'm a cruel and brutish analyser of army lists.
In this case, though, what little sense of decency I retain prevents
detailed commentary.

[Aside: Scott Holder, are we ever going to see the compiled 2005 NICT
lists?]

I would in all seriousness suggest that you play this list a couple of
times against the best opposition you can find, and pay close attention to
the reasons you lose; you'll learn a huge amount more from that than you
would from me or anyone else's commentary, likely.

I will say that among the problems I expect you to have are:

*units too big - knights (!) and spearmen
*units too small/poorly composed - generals, turcopoles, crossbowmen,
bowmen, skirmishers
* too many ultravulnerable targets - crossbowmen, bowmen, sergeants
* too little light screen, hence inability to deliver the ponderous force
to a target
* too few units - 9 (!) may be the smallest number I have ever seen for a
1600 point list proposed seriously
* too little ability to manouvre

But as I said, really: try this list, see what happens, *then* come back
for advice.

On Fri, 30 Dec 2005, Greymouse wrote:
> 1 CinC HK L, Sh, True Cross S standard - 222pts
> 1 Subgeneral HK L, Sh, P Standard - 77pts
> Crusader knights 12 x Irr B HC, L, Sh - 349pts
> Crusader knights 12 x Irr B HC, L, Sh - 349pts
> Sergeants 6 x Irr C MC L, Sh - 121 pts
> Turcopoles 3 x Reg C LC JLS, B, Sh - 70pts
> Spearmen 6 x Irr C HI JLS, Sh; 6x Irr C MI JLS, Sh - 168pts
> Crossbowmen 2 x Irr C HI CB; 2x MI CB - 73pts
> Crossbowmen 2 x Irr C HI CB; 2x MI CB - 73pts
> Bowmen 4x Irr C MI B
> Pilgrim Skirmishers 6 x Irr D LI, JLS
> Total 1596 pts
>
> My basic plan with this amy is that the skirmishers who will be
> backed up by the turcopoles will try to tear a hole into the enemy
> skirmishers (hence JLS instead of bows) with the support of the
> missile troops. The spearmen will form a defensive line behind which
> the heavy cavalry can stay in a wait position. The Sergeants and
> missile troops (and if necessary the knights) will cover the flank.
> (ideally one flank will be rested against a terrain feature so that
> protection will be necessary on one side only. When a reasonable gap
> in the enemy skirmishers appears, missile troops will try to disorder
> the units behind and one of the knight units will charge under the
> command of the subgeneral. The CinC stays in reserve with the other
> knights either to deliver the finishing blow afterward or to cover
> the retreat if the attack fails beyond any hope to continue (we like
> to play campaigngames so make an orderly retreat is important if you
> loose the battlefield to the enemy)
> Well so far the basic plan...
> What i'm not totally happy with is that the knights are in two rather
> big units only. I wonder if the S standard is worth it's points or if
> it might be better to skip it for a normal PA standard and use the
> points for additional IRR command factors and organize the knights in
> 4 units of 6 elements and upgrading one unit to IRR A. This would
> enable the army to attack in successive waves of knights.
> As said - having no experiences with cav armies I have no idea if
> this is a reasonable plan so any comments and corrections will be
> received very thankful.
>
> regards, Michael
>
> ps: I will post the Mongol army as soon as I had time to work out an
> organisation... ;o)
> --
> greymouse@...
> http://www.fallout.de/greymouse
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

[Derek Downs]

In a message dated 12/30/2005 2:58:42 PM Eastern Standard Time,
ewan.mcnay@... writes:

> Crusader knights 12 x Irr B HC, L, Sh - 349pts
> Crusader knights 12 x Irr B HC, L, Sh - 349pts



Why do these cost so much?

Derek


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[joncleaves]

In a message dated 12/31/2005 08:11:09 Central Standard Time,
greymouse@... writes:

Holy Warrior:
Crusader Knights HC Irr B HC L, Sh 27 pts x12= 324 pts +Irr
Commandfactor 25 pts= 349 pts

best, MIchael>>

Michael, the point cost in our books are for *elements* not figures.




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Hi,
>
>> > Crusader knights 12 x Irr B HC, L, Sh - 349pts
>> > Crusader knights 12 x Irr B HC, L, Sh - 349pts
> Why do these cost so much?

Holy Warrior:
Crusader Knights HC Irr B HC L, Sh 27 pts x12= 324 pts +Irr
Commandfactor 25 pts= 349 pts

best, MIchael

--
greymouse@...
http://www.fallout.de/greymouse

Hello Ewan,
>
> - as has been alluded to, I'm a cruel and brutish analyser of army
> lists.
> In this case, though, what little sense of decency I retain prevents
> detailed commentary.

why?

Thanks for listening up some oft he problems - well some of them I
exspected myselve. I know that you alwas learn most by simply playing
but you can speed up this process by exchange of information with
other players. Unfortunately there is not much opposition to play
where I live. I have one partner with whom I play who also has some
experience. You know over here in central Europe we don't have lots
of tradition in historical wargaming - playing tabletop here usually
means playing Warhammer. We were 4 who started with WRG 6th some 15
years ago. (This group broke apart when people started to work,
finished studies etc.) 2 years ago I found a fellow player who also
had played WRG years ago and we started to recruit new gamers when we
heard about Warrior and we are 6 so far.
15 years ago it was very difficult to communicat with other gamers.
There was not much reading available over here once or twice a copy
of Miniature Wargames made it to Austria.
Ok to come to a point - we had no senior players to introduce us to
the game and we are only a few players. So our learning curve is
quite slow - you often don't notice if you play suboptimal because
your opponent isn't better and can't exploit it. So This group is
great for us because we can find more information here in a month
than we were able to gather in a whole year 15 years ago. So I have
no problem if you "tear apart any of my armylists" au contraire I'll
learn from it so you are welcome to do.

Regards,

MIchael
--
greymouse@...
http://www.fallout.de/greymouse

[Derek Downs]

In a message dated 12/31/2005 9:11:10 AM Eastern Standard Time,
greymouse@... writes:
>> > Crusader knights 12 x Irr B HC, L, Sh - 349pts
>> > Crusader knights 12 x Irr B HC, L, Sh - 349pts
> Why do these cost so much?

Holy Warrior:
Crusader Knights HC Irr B HC L, Sh 27 pts x12= 324 pts +Irr
Commandfactor 25 pts= 349 pts

best, MIchael
Oh. Don't run unit that big. Especially mounted.

Derek


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[Ewan McNay]

Sidenote: Jon/Derek, I'm pretty sure that the use of elements and costing was
done correctly. Michael, the reason they're confused is that 12 *figures* - 4
elements - would be a much more normal size for a HC unit. You were perfectly
clear, but ran into some expectations and a numerical coincidence .

OK, I'll try a little more: a basic tenet of Warrior is that - for want of
better terminology - units are quantal. In a large number of situations, a
given unit is opposed by, and opposes, one enemy unit. This is nothing that's
in the rules, it just seems to be an emergent property.

Now, you have, what, 9 units? On a basic level, then, I would expect to be able
tooccupy those 9 units with 9 units of my own. I might lose those battles in
the long run, but as long as I don't try something really silly in terms of
matchups - say trying to use a unit of MI JLS, Sh to oppose one of your 12E
knight units - I can essentially tie up your whole army with ~ 9 units of mine.
Given that my average Warrior 1600 point list has ~18 units, that means that I
have 9 spare units to hit you in flanks, rear, gang up where I wish, and in
general give a ton of tactical flexibility your list cannot oppose. I would
expect, for instance, that your 12E knight units are going to find themselves
opposed by something like a 2E unit of reg LC. My 34 points just took your 349
almost completely out of the battle, while my 'spare' 300 points is more than
enough to form a strike unit of my own that you have no troops left to oppose.

Now, all things being equal, a bigger unit *is* generally better than a smaller
one. So your HC lancers, for instance, could certainly afford to be in 4E
units vs. the 2E that heavier knights would almost always use, because they are
cheap(er). [And less effective, but that's a different issue].

The second major point is to try to work out what you're aiming to kill in an
opponent's army, and what units of your are vulnerable (and how). Your 4E
units of close formation shooters, for example: here's a case where the only
thing that might save them would be to be 12E and avoid getting too many cpf.
Otherwise, look at the factorrs they put out versus those they receive: they
cannot win in melee, they cannot win in a shooting battle, they cannot run
away, and they cannot use terrain. They're simply routs waiting to happen.
Was that blunt enough? Third, following up from that, is to consider how
you are planning to deliver whatever you think is your strike force to whatever
you think is the enemy's target. Your lack of light troops and/or terrain
troops means that you will:

* likely be outscouted, hence forced back in terms of deployment and manouvre
room and have an opponent who can set up optimally against your deployment
* be unable to screen any of your strike troops, so that again your opponent
will be able to chose matchups (i.e. the 2E unit of LC in front of your 12E
knight blocks)
* be greatly hampered by anything other than an entirely open table, but your
small number of units and hence frontage** will mean that on an open table
you'll be swarmed
{{**frontage: what amount of space your army would like to fight across
in your ideal world. If this is less than the width of the table, you need to
have a plan for how to avoid fighting eelsewhere. If this ia the width of the
table, you need to have a plan on how to cope with an opponent focussing on one
small section of your battle line.}}

That should give you enough to go along with. I have very carefully avoided
giving prescriptions - e.g. 'always put your irregular LI in 2E units' -
because while there are ways to address the thought processes above that are
more common, at least in the US, it really will be a lot more beneficial for
you to play with unit sizes and mixes yourself. Honest.

Finally - check out www.bhgs.co.uk . It's UK centred, but there is a pretty
active Euro DBM scene that you should be able to get to through them, and
likely that will find you some current or convertable Warrior players .
Certainly when I was in the UK we had regular tournaments against Belgians,
French, Italians and Germans.

E



Quoting Greymouse <greymouse@...>:

>
> Hello Ewan,
> >
> > - as has been alluded to, I'm a cruel and brutish analyser of army
> > lists.
> > In this case, though, what little sense of decency I retain prevents
> > detailed commentary.
>
> why?
>
> Thanks for listening up some oft he problems - well some of them I
> exspected myselve. I know that you alwas learn most by simply playing
> but you can speed up this process by exchange of information with
> other players. Unfortunately there is not much opposition to play
> where I live. I have one partner with whom I play who also has some
> experience. You know over here in central Europe we don't have lots
> of tradition in historical wargaming - playing tabletop here usually
> means playing Warhammer. We were 4 who started with WRG 6th some 15
> years ago. (This group broke apart when people started to work,
> finished studies etc.) 2 years ago I found a fellow player who also
> had played WRG years ago and we started to recruit new gamers when we
> heard about Warrior and we are 6 so far.
> 15 years ago it was very difficult to communicat with other gamers.
> There was not much reading available over here once or twice a copy
> of Miniature Wargames made it to Austria.
> Ok to come to a point - we had no senior players to introduce us to
> the game and we are only a few players. So our learning curve is
> quite slow - you often don't notice if you play suboptimal because
> your opponent isn't better and can't exploit it. So This group is
> great for us because we can find more information here in a month
> than we were able to gather in a whole year 15 years ago. So I have
> no problem if you "tear apart any of my armylists" au contraire I'll
> learn from it so you are welcome to do.
>
> Regards,
>
> MIchael
> --
> greymouse@...
> http://www.fallout.de/greymouse
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

[Derek Downs]

In a message dated 1/1/2006 3:11:58 PM Eastern Standard Time,
ewan.mcnay@... writes:

And on a totally different note, welcome to 2006, all. The year in which
I finally win the NICT .
I think Dave M. will have something to say about that. :)

Derekcus


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[Mark Stone]

Michael,

You're talking about one of my favorite armies with 1st Crusade. It is not a
strong tournament army, but it is at least competitive, and it is a lot of fun
to play. It has strong historical appeal for me as well. One of the unique
things about this army is that they fought 7 major battles in a period of about
18 months. You'd be hard-pressed to find any other medieval army that was that
busy in such a short period of time.

Colorful, playable, fun, historically interesting... these guys have it all.

I have some comments for you to think about. Some are specific to 1st Crusade,
some are general army list construction comments.

First the general comments.

You'll make a good start by conceiving of any army as two lines, one in front of
the other. The front line consists of skirmishers, light troops, and main battle
line troops. Typical examples of "main battle line" would be close order foot in
largish blocks, armed with something like pike or LTS. The second line consists
of "strike" units: units that can deal out significant damage and _more_ damage
than their opponents if you can get the right matchups.

Front line units should typically be six or eight elements in size. There is
also some value to having some regular LI and/or some regular LC in smaller two
stand units. The function of front line units is to pin your opponent in place,
or to absorb the first wave of your opponent's attack or to deliver a first
wave attack of your own. The most important thing front line units can do is
not rout quickly. Actually winning is good, but that's a bonus. The main thing
is to not rout.

Front line units also have to keep your army from getting enveloped. That means
you have to understand how much frontage your front line covers, and how you
are going defend against the area your front line doesn't cover. A standard
25mm table is 40 elements' wide, and a standard 15mm table is 45 elements'
wide. Few armies can fill up all of that frontage. Light troops can be
stretched pretty thin to cover frontage, and you can also anchor your line
against a difficult terrain feature (woods, steep hill, or marsh) with a unit
or two of light troops to occupy the terrain feature. In any case, make sure
you understand how far your front line stretches, and what you plan to do about
its "end points".

Second line units should typically be two or four elements. These units need to
be able to fit between gaps in your front line units, and/or take advantage of
small flank openings your opponent might leave you. They often need to be able
to attack "tag team" style, with one unit hitting one bound and another unit
hitting an exposed overlap of an enemy unit in the next bound. When your front
line and your opponent's front line have engaged, your second line will look
for disruptions to exploit that have been created by the interaction of the
opposing front lines. This might be enemy units that have become tired or
disordered from shooting, or an exposed enemy flank, or simply a juicy matchup
for your strike units that your opponent is unable to prevent.

If you attempt to apply these principles to the 1st Crusade army, you'll see
some places where the principles match up well with the army, and other places
where they do not. Lance-armed cavalry make very servicable second line units,
particularly if some can be upgraded to a heavier shock cavalry type like HK.
You get quite a bit of light troops on 1st Crusade, and these guys make decent
front line troops.

The problem is figuring out what to do with the close order foot. Some of it
must be JLS,Sh and some of it must be shieldless missile troops. Neither of
these is a very good front line troop type. You can get some guys with LTS, and
they can serve on the front line, but you might prefer to keep them in reserve
as part of your strike force, along with the knights.

What I didn't see in your version is much in the way of pilgrims. The pilgrims
are _the_ reason to play this army, and you should buy _all_ of them. My
preference is for 12 stand units that are 2 elements wide and 6 deep. The front
rank is LMI JLS,Sh, the next rank LMI JLS, and the remaining ranks LMI with IPW.
Three of the first four elements are Irr A, the fourth is Irr C, and the
remaining 8 stands are Irr D.

I think (sorry, I'm doing this all from memory) you can get three such units.
They have the advantage of hitting very hard, since they can always be
impetuous, and they have the potential for a big up roll with all those Irr As.
And they avoid the main disadvantage of irregular foot, namely taking CPF too
quickly because irregular foot take 2 CPF for every 1 in hand to hand. The
reason this isn't such a problem with the pilgrims is because in that 2x6
formation they count as a 24 figure unit on only 2 elements' frontage. That
makes it pretty tough to do a large number of CPF to these units.

Furthermore, the pilgrims give you something that can operate in any terrain,
thus diminishing the problem Ewan pointed out of close order foot and cav being
highly dependent on fighting in the open.

When I play this army I have a battle line of light troops and LMI pilgrims. The
light troops try and pin my opponent, and the pilgrims launch a first wave
attack. I keep knights and LTS foot in reserve. I take all the required close
order shooters and close order JLS,Sh guys and jam them together into one big
unit (40 figures, as I recall). This starts in reserve, but then slides into
the
line somewhere where it is out of harm's way as much as possible. Use it to
fend off enemy LC on a wing, for example.

Those are a few ideas. Ewan is right, though. There's no substitute for play.
One thing I did years ago when I had no nearby opponents for practice was this:
get some heavy stock paper or posterboard, and cut out a bunch of "counters"
corresponding to large numbers of open order, loose order, and close order
bases. I'd then make two mock armies using these "elements", and play against
myself at least through the first two or three bounds. That will get you some
experience with setup, terrain picks, initial march moves, and closing to
battle. Many nuances require an actual opponent to go beyond that, but you can
give yourself a bit of a head start this way. Think of it as analagous to
practicing your serve in tennis by yourself. It doesn't require an opponent,
and while it doesn't give you practice with every aspect of the game it's still
helpful.

Hope this helps. Good luck, and I hope you find or recruit some opponents.


-Mark Stone

[Ewan McNay]

Mark Stone wrote:

> What I didn't see in your version is much in the way of pilgrims. The pilgrims
> are _the_ reason to play this army, and you should buy _all_ of them. My
> preference is for 12 stand units that are 2 elements wide and 6 deep. The
front
> rank is LMI JLS,Sh, the next rank LMI JLS, and the remaining ranks LMI with
IPW.
> Three of the first four elements are Irr A, the fourth is Irr C, and the
> remaining 8 stands are Irr D.

> One thing I did years ago when I had no nearby opponents for practice was
this:
> get some heavy stock paper or posterboard, and cut out a bunch of "counters"
> corresponding to large numbers of open order, loose order, and close order
> bases. I'd then make two mock armies using these "elements", and play against
> myself at least through the first two or three bounds. That will get you some
> experience with setup, terrain picks, initial march moves, and closing to
> battle. Many nuances require an actual opponent to go beyond that, but you can
> give yourself a bit of a head start this way. Think of it as analagous to
> practicing your serve in tennis by yourself. It doesn't require an opponent,
> and while it doesn't give you practice with every aspect of the game it's
still
> helpful.

Just a comment that 6-deep units are something that would especially
benefit from such practice .

Also - Mark didn't point it out very specifically, but Crusader armies can
combine their required close-order missile troops with close-order
non-missile guys. This gives you unit(s) that can neither fight nor shhot
particularly well, but *can* avoid dieing for a little while (and are
impervious to some things; they're a mobile terrain feature to enemy light
or medium mounted, for example, because even the limited firepower is good
against such vulnerable targets, and the cave can't hurt you at all).

And on a totally different note, welcome to 2006, all. The year in which
I finally win the NICT .

[joncleaves]

In a message dated 1/1/2006 14:12:11 Central Standard Time,
ewan.mcnay@... writes:

The year in which
I finally win the NICT .



Skip the pizza before bed. It is causing you to dream wildly....

J


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]