Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[John Murphy]

2E HK L,Sh over minor water feature vs 4E LMI JLS,Sh

first bound:
HK take 4 FP for charge (2 mounted, 1 heavy, 1 impetuous)
HK is 5 @ 4 (L vs LMI) +1 (mounted charge) +2 (loose impetuous) -1
(disordered loose) -2 (fighting to cross obstacle) = 5 @ 4 = 15
LMI is 5 @ 1 (other inf v HK) +1 (JLS v HK) = 5 @ 2 = 10
HK take 10/6 = 1 CPF for 1 FP (5 tot FP)
LMI take 15/12 = 1 CPF for 2 FP (2 tot FP)
LMI recoil disordered (more and 1 CPF)
HK follow-up, disordered and tired
note that the HK 40p follow-up still does not take them clear of the
obstacle presented by the river bank

second bound:
HK is 6 @ 3 (other cav vs LMI) +1 (follow-up) +2 (mounted v
disordered foot) -1 (disordered loose) -1 (tired) -2 (fighting to
cross obstacle) = 6 @ 2 = 12
LMI is 9 @ 1 (other inf v HK) +1 (JLS v HK) -1 (disordered loose) =
9 @ 1 = 13
HK take 13/6 = 2 CPF for 2 FP (7 tot FP)
LMI take 12/12 = 1 CPF for 2 FP (4 tot FP)
HK recoil or break-off, disordered and tired
note that the HK 40p follow-up _still_ does not take them clear of
the obstacle presented by the river bank

Considering the relative cost, and that the second bound above
therefore likely includes other Guals coming in on the flank(s), and
that even with the Irr A roll-up I am not sure the Gauls would break
outright - the odds of the HK disappearing in a mass of LMI looks
likely.

And I might be missing something else even worse. For instance, does
the river bank count as higher ground? Furthermore, most of my units
(except generals) are HK/HC so the LMI actually gets another +1
second bound against the expanding element (5@1+5@2=17, almost
enough to force a waver).

After all, we played this out in the game, I do not recall having
bad luck with it either, and the HK was going to get toasted.

Am I figuring something incorrectly? Sure would like to know if so.

--- In WarriorRules@yahoogroups.com, Tim Grimmett <grimmetttim@y...>
wrote:
> when you run the numbers on J-armed foot the knights are still
hitting at 5*4 and receiving 5*0 or 5*1. Is this really
impregnable? I think the answer is more murky than what I've read so
far.

[Tim Grimmett]

John--

I think that on bound 2 the LMI no longer gets the -2 for defending an obstacle
since the LMI recoiled as a result if H2H in bound one. The obstacle is not
regarded as on higher ground (I've asked Jon this question before).

The LMI starts taking wavers on bound 2.

As I recall, I rolled even on bound one and up 2 or 3 on bound two.

John <jjmurphy@...> wrote:
2E HK L,Sh over minor water feature vs 4E LMI JLS,Sh

first bound:
HK take 4 FP for charge (2 mounted, 1 heavy, 1 impetuous)
HK is 5 @ 4 (L vs LMI) +1 (mounted charge) +2 (loose impetuous) -1
(disordered loose) -2 (fighting to cross obstacle) = 5 @ 4 = 15
LMI is 5 @ 1 (other inf v HK) +1 (JLS v HK) = 5 @ 2 = 10
HK take 10/6 = 1 CPF for 1 FP (5 tot FP)
LMI take 15/12 = 1 CPF for 2 FP (2 tot FP)
LMI recoil disordered (more and 1 CPF)
HK follow-up, disordered and tired
note that the HK 40p follow-up still does not take them clear of the
obstacle presented by the river bank

second bound:
HK is 6 @ 3 (other cav vs LMI) +1 (follow-up) +2 (mounted v
disordered foot) -1 (disordered loose) -1 (tired) -2 (fighting to
cross obstacle) = 6 @ 2 = 12
LMI is 9 @ 1 (other inf v HK) +1 (JLS v HK) -1 (disordered loose) =
9 @ 1 = 13
HK take 13/6 = 2 CPF for 2 FP (7 tot FP)
LMI take 12/12 = 1 CPF for 2 FP (4 tot FP)
HK recoil or break-off, disordered and tired
note that the HK 40p follow-up _still_ does not take them clear of
the obstacle presented by the river bank

Considering the relative cost, and that the second bound above
therefore likely includes other Guals coming in on the flank(s), and
that even with the Irr A roll-up I am not sure the Gauls would break
outright - the odds of the HK disappearing in a mass of LMI looks
likely.

And I might be missing something else even worse. For instance, does
the river bank count as higher ground? Furthermore, most of my units
(except generals) are HK/HC so the LMI actually gets another +1
second bound against the expanding element (5@1+5@2=17, almost
enough to force a waver).

After all, we played this out in the game, I do not recall having
bad luck with it either, and the HK was going to get toasted.

Am I figuring something incorrectly? Sure would like to know if so.

--- In WarriorRules@yahoogroups.com, Tim Grimmett <grimmetttim@y...>
wrote:
> when you run the numbers on J-armed foot the knights are still
hitting at 5*4 and receiving 5*0 or 5*1. Is this really
impregnable? I think the answer is more murky than what I've read so
far.





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[joncleaves]

In a message dated 7/2/2005 10:59:50 Central Standard Time,
mark@... writes:

Why, exactly, is a 16 man unit recoiling from having taken 15 casualties?
Last
time I checked, that didn't add up to a CPF.



I think the example LMI are Gauls in a 4E unit. 12 figs.

Jon


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

[John Murphy]

Changes a lot then doesn't it!

Well, my mistake in our game I must admit I do not see now why I did
not just come pouring across over 2-3 bounds. I do not remember enough
of what I was thinking at the time except that I was left with the
idea the barrier was much more substantial - enough so to leave me
questing for entirely alternative tactics to cover its presence. Odd
my apparent faint-heartedness didn't come up in the post-game too.

Perhaps the issue still has to do with the numbers involved. Without a
clearer advantage more likely to produce a quicker break maybe I was
just overwhelmed by the number of units you had on hand since my LC
can't charge you frontally unless you disorder or shake.

--- In WarriorRules@yahoogroups.com, Tim Grimmett <grimmetttim@y...>
wrote:
> on bound 2 the LMI no longer gets the -2 for defending an obstacle
since the LMI recoiled as a result if H2H in bound one. The obstacle
is not regarded as on higher ground
> The LMI starts taking wavers on bound 2

[Mark Stone]

--- On July 1 John Murphy said: ---

> 2E HK L,Sh over minor water feature vs 4E LMI JLS,Sh
>
> first bound:
> HK take 4 FP for charge (2 mounted, 1 heavy, 1 impetuous)
> HK is 5 @ 4 (L vs LMI) +1 (mounted charge) +2 (loose impetuous) -1
> (disordered loose) -2 (fighting to cross obstacle) = 5 @ 4 = 15...
> ... LMI recoil disordered (more and 1 CPF)
> HK follow-up, disordered and tired

Why, exactly, is a 16 man unit recoiling from having taken 15 casualties? Last
time I checked, that didn't add up to a CPF.


-Mark Stone

[John Murphy]

Well, if it really matters better check again, then, Mark. I believe
that was a 12-figure unit.

--- In WarriorRules@yahoogroups.com, Mark Stone <mark@d...> wrote:
> --- On July 1 John Murphy said: ---
>
> > 2E HK L,Sh over minor water feature vs 4E LMI JLS,Sh
> >
> > first bound:
> > HK take 4 FP for charge (2 mounted, 1 heavy, 1 impetuous)
> > HK is 5 @ 4 (L vs LMI) +1 (mounted charge) +2 (loose impetuous) -
1
> > (disordered loose) -2 (fighting to cross obstacle) = 5 @ 4 =
15...
> > ... LMI recoil disordered (more and 1 CPF)
> > HK follow-up, disordered and tired
>
> Why, exactly, is a 16 man unit recoiling from having taken 15
casualties? Last
> time I checked, that didn't add up to a CPF.
>
>
> -Mark Stone

[Bill Chriss]

> Changes a lot then doesn't it!
>
> Well, my mistake in our game I must admit I do not see now why I did
> not just come pouring across over 2-3 bounds. I do not remember enough
> of what I was thinking at the time except that I was left with the
> idea the barrier was much more substantial - enough so to leave me
> questing for entirely alternative tactics to cover its presence. Odd
> my apparent faint-heartedness didn't come up in the post-game too.
>


I think this is both wonderfully self-revealing and informative. It plays
into much of what I have been saying about terrain and strategems. It is
the PSYCHOLOGICAL effect that is just as important as the actual math. If
you really sit down and analyze it, sitting behind a river is just not all
it's cracked up to be. It's just that we see it so seldom that it strikes
us as bizarre and intimidating. The same can be said for almost every
other personal bugaboo people (including me) grouse about. The truth is
that the game really is very well balanced, and its beauty lies in the
wide range of tools and weapons available to the player, a variety wide
enough to make it impossible to comletely anticipate every counter
strategy. Another welcome level of complexity is added by the fact that
since no one can completely analyze every countermove...some strategies
actually freak people out (including me) and cause them to lose nerve,
react badly, or whatever, and this actually affects outcomes a lot. This,
I would argue, merely adds to the realism and enjoyment of the
game...That's what happened in real life, too.


-Greek

[Tim Grimmett]

A mitigating factor, from your perspective, was that I was 2 wide and 5 deep.
You needed 2 knight units to ensure I would recoil and that meant there was no
room for the LC to charge the disordered foot. There was a couple of units in
wider formation that I thought you would pick as the point of attack in which
the LC could exploit the HK's charge but I had expanded in points where the HK s
weren't.

There *were* a lot of shoulder to shoulder Gauls out there.

John <jjmurphy@...> wrote:
Changes a lot then doesn't it!

Well, my mistake in our game I must admit I do not see now why I did
not just come pouring across over 2-3 bounds. I do not remember enough
of what I was thinking at the time except that I was left with the
idea the barrier was much more substantial - enough so to leave me
questing for entirely alternative tactics to cover its presence. Odd
my apparent faint-heartedness didn't come up in the post-game too.

Perhaps the issue still has to do with the numbers involved. Without a
clearer advantage more likely to produce a quicker break maybe I was
just overwhelmed by the number of units you had on hand since my LC
can't charge you frontally unless you disorder or shake.

--- In WarriorRules@yahoogroups.com, Tim Grimmett <grimmetttim@y...>
wrote:
> on bound 2 the LMI no longer gets the -2 for defending an obstacle
since the LMI recoiled as a result if H2H in bound one. The obstacle
is not regarded as on higher ground
> The LMI starts taking wavers on bound 2





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

[Mark Stone]

--- On July 2 Greek said: ---

> I think this is both wonderfully self-revealing and informative. It plays
> into much of what I have been saying about terrain and strategems. It is
> the PSYCHOLOGICAL effect that is just as important as the actual math....
> This, I would argue, merely adds to the realism and enjoyment of the
> game...That's what happened in real life, too.

This is really an excellent point. There is definitely such a thing as a
"personal morale check", and I've seen players fail it time and again. And I'll
freely admit to having lost that personal check once or twice myself.

Part of this has to do with not knowing the numbers in unfamiliar situations.
But a larger part of it -- and this harks back to Jon's comment a couple of
days ago about the limited value of sterile, one case examples -- is not
knowing the
larger set of interactions and combined arms issues in unfamiliar situations.

A number of years ago I had a really instructive tournament game. This was 15mm,
and my opponent was playing Burmese. I was playing one of my absolute favorite
15mm armies, Post Mongol Russian. The PM Russians ain't the highest quality
army out there, but they can get more loose order mounted bow than just about
anyone else, and they are an absolute blast to play. But they really, really
don't like facing Burmese.

Now, the Burmese player was understandably concerned about holding frontage,
given that the Burmese are fairly dense and given that this was 15mm. So he
rolled two marshes, one on either flank of his rear zone, and set up between
them.

I force marched two bombards to the center of the table, flanked by a unit of LI
behind wagons on either side of the bombards. The result, given how he deployed,
was that he wasn't going to be able to get his elephants anywhere useful without
passing through the arc of fire for my bombards. This just completely freaked
out my opponent. He absolutely refused to bring his elephants out. I ended up
winning the game with medium cav and light cav hunting down Burmese LI 40p at a
time in the marsh.

I was a bit stunned. I had done the math, and realized that his elephants were
going to just walk all over the bombards if he just shoved the elephants down
my throat. I set up the way I did out of desperation. And I honestly don't know
what he was afraid of. Two bomards, even at close range, is going to do 16@3=40
to a unit of elephants. Fine. Suppose it's a two elephant unit. It halts,
disordered, but not before returning 7@3 on the bombards. That leaves the
bombards very nearly tired for shooting after just one bound, and if the
elephants roll up it's a waver test for the bombards. And suffice it to say
there were a _lot_ more than two elephants.

No, the combination of wagons and bombards just caused my opponent to fail his
personal morale check. He was afraid, and at a loss for what to do.

Since then I've given a lot more thought to the psychological value as well as
the numerical value of various tactics. Uncertainty, if not outright unease, is
a good thing to engender in your opponents. A further example: I actually think
this is one of the big values of an army like Midianite Arabs. The army has
plenty of weaknesses, but it's so unorthodox that it takes some patience and
effort to think through how to successfully exploit those weaknesses. The person
playing Midianites has an inherent advantage because he's studied the army's
oddities much more than his opponents have. To extend the analogy a bit: it's
like coming up against a left-handed boxer or tennis player, or a knuckle ball
pitcher. Nothing is insurmountable in any of those situations, but it throws
you off of your own routine, and you have to think on your feet more than your
opponent does.

And making your opponent think on his feet is a good thing.


-Mark Stone

[John Murphy]

Ah, now I start to remember. Thanks.

So your units opposite my HK were 30-fig counting as 21-fig for CPF. I
think I went in with only 1 unit and rolled up (1?) with Irr A/B HK/HC
to push you back first bound then rolled even and failed to do a CPF
(while you were rolling up 2 or 3 and hammering me, with other units
poised to join in the fun) second bound.

And to get another knight unit in (which would still be charging
across some water so while not subject to the -2 obstacle would not
cause a waver test - still maybe the thing to do) I had to be within
80p of your recoiled position because of my reduced move thru the
water which was something like 160p across - which meant moving into
the water the same bound I charged with the first unit, with no
reasonable assurance of success and a lot more of your guys than mine
in the area. Maybe a way to do it but in a four-hour game if I spend a
half an hour or more figuring it out on the spot... (that being part
of why experience is soooo valuable and why I do not mind at all
playing double slots in these tournaments since most of you NoVa'ers
have been playing since, well, since before dirt)

And if I recall your flanking terrain was pretty secure too with a
couple woods and only a little 1E gap so you could afford to mass in
the area you selected.

Anyhow, thanks, at least the memory of the game is a bit clearer in my
head now and I am not left wondering why.

--- In WarriorRules@yahoogroups.com, Tim Grimmett <grimmetttim@y...>
wrote:
> A mitigating factor, from your perspective, was that I was 2 wide
and 5 deep. You needed 2 knight units to ensure I would recoil and
that meant there was no room for the LC to charge the disordered
foot. There was a couple of units in wider formation that I thought
you would pick as the point of attack in which the LC could exploit
the HK's charge but I had expanded in points where the HK s weren't.
> There *were* a lot of shoulder to shoulder Gauls out there.