Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

Now I see why I have such a bad track recods in tournaments.

(Aside: I fall into that class of gamers who paint very slowly, don't get to
many tournaments, and wish both the above were not true.)

I've built three ancients/medieval armies ... none of which I own any longer
because of prevoius purges of my gaming stock pile. (Franks abandoned before
fully built, but I played it using dummy counters for the incomplete bases in
friendly games.)

Spartan
Viking
Carolingian Frankish

I now own a DBM Nikephorian Byzantine army that I bought off another gamer.
(Much faster than painting but the spousal waver test is much tougher to
make.)

My failing, I think, is not thinking creatively enough about how to use the
troops on the tabletop. I tend to fall into a pretty routine set up --
infantry in the middle, cavalry on the flanks. Cavalry attacks if superior or
hangs back and tries to protect flanks of HI if weaker. Lights try to seize
and hold rough ground or delay enemy troops.

This all sounds rational, but on the table top, my record is pretty poor
against nonhistorical opponents that you face in tournaments. This, I think,
is because I get stuck thinking about how my armies fought their historical
opponents even when they are against Teutonic knights.

To use the cliche, I can't think outside the box.

An example:

Boyd said his strategy invovles having the light infantry soak up charges by
opposing cavalry/knights so he can counter charge with his IrrA HC. Of
course, I see how that could be effective, but I never would have thought
this up as a tactic. Lights screening the cavalry, yes. But intentionally
taking the stand and die waver test, no.

Elephants force marching into an ambush position is another one.

In DBM, there was a doubles team that came up with what they called the
Adrianople gambit. They put a small command with the CnC in a fortified camp
and then flank marched a huge bulk of their troops. They used Ostrogoths.

I have not doubt that created a stunning shock the first time it was used.

I'll have to keep mulling this around. I think the discussions about "How to
build a Warrior army" -- even if slightly in jest -- are very helpful to we
the great unwashed masses.

John Meunier



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

[Ewan McNay]

On Wed, 8 May 2002 scribblerjohn@... wrote:
> My failing, I think, is not thinking creatively enough about how to use the
> troops on the tabletop. I tend to fall into a pretty routine set up --
> infantry in the middle, cavalry on the flanks. Cavalry attacks if superior or
> hangs back and tries to protect flanks of HI if weaker. Lights try to seize
> and hold rough ground or delay enemy troops.

Well, this is actually all fine . BUT, a key element is to have in mind
both when designing your army *and* then when facing given oponent, how
you plan to actually win (rather than just push lead around). This
requires selection of an enemy target; a force with which to kill that
target; and a plan for getting B to A.

I think that this explains why so many of the 'boring' armies do not do
that well - I'm thinking especially of Dark Age stuff, with a lot of
JLS-armed guys. These tend to be full of medium-good, general-purpose
troops, often fairly slow-moving which is not much use when 3/4 of them
are doing nothing while the remainder is being creamed by the opponent's
specially designed task force.

It is also very true that being on the offense is several-fold better than
being on the defense. If your opponent has selected his choices for A and
B, and is even 1/3-way competent, you're unlikely to win the battle if you
agree to fight your A against his B.

Now, sure, in all cases there are times when you find that your opponent
has an army most of which kills all of your stuff. *Then* one has to
think creatively. The best example of this - and why I never won an NICT
- is that Dave Stiers managed to kill off my Seleucid with his Sicilian
knights; on paper, the matchups for my pike and elephants are great. But
he placed a minor water feature (innovation 1), sat behind it with LI to
kill off my scythed HCh which had to be on Rush (innovation 2) and then
defended behind it against my close-formation army; game won. I could
have tried to prevent this with my terrain, opr flank marched, or even not
rolled a 1 for my sub who was hence unreliable and so allowed Dave to
manouvre freely for the first several bounds (!) - but the point is to
make the other guy play on your terms.

Since this is Chris D's month, I'll note here that his wall-o'-bondi
tactic does this somewhat too: when the centre line is covered by
impetuous LMI, it's hard to put one's own plan into operation before his
is upon you!

> I'll have to keep mulling this around. I think the discussions about "How to
> build a Warrior army" -- even if slightly in jest -- are very helpful to we
> the great unwashed masses.

Well, OK. Roughly:
* think about what other people are likely to use - especially if in
limited/theme tournaments (my use of a foot-only Crusader in the Crusades
theme was in response to the expected - and actual - prevalence of LC/HC
opponents)
* think about what parts of your army will be your strike force, and
* about what the rest of your army will need to contain/do to allow this
strike force to do its job (another example: my Imperialists have a strike
force of SHK. They have no desire to go in against massed missile fire if
they can avoid it. So the army also contains three units of HI with
pavise, who will happily walk forward into missile fire all day while the
SHK are slightly behind them.)
* think about what parts of your army may be both compulsory and
vulnerable; this can be a sufficient liability to mandate a change of
army, or not (e.g., the IrrC MI LTS, Sh in a Pre-Feudal Scot army. This
is 200 points of junk with only a few uses; but those few (providing
support; providing a rallying point for cav; soaking up bowfire; etc) are
not so overwhelming as to be fatal, nor can it be killed so easily and
quickly as to be an instant loss. In contrast, I think that the
shieldless MI 2HCW, JLS that many Scot armies have as compulsory are
game-losers, and they're often both numerous and IrrB, so too expensive.
That makes those armies essentially unplayable if you wish to win.)

And having said all that, I think that the reason I win, when I win, is
still much more to do with dictating the battle flow than with the nuances
of whatever army I have.

Hope this is also helpful. Having written it, I quite like it .

I think considering how an army fought historically is a very good thing.
If nothing else it probably tends to take advantage of the
strengths/weaknesses of the troop types. (You just can't play an Andalusian
Army the exact same way you play a Teutonic Army)

Tournament Mis-matches will happen and some armies are better than others at
dealing with it. Warrior is a game where 'points are points' to a big
extent but there are armies that have much greater difficulty against armies
outside their own era.

An example we played a few weeks ago had a very late Burgundian army (very
small with Arty, SHK, HGs,XB, etc) square off with a Successor Wars army
almost 2000 years older. The weapons mismatches went very badly against the
later army. They were outnumbered over 2-1 and their infantry who had
abandoned shields (who needs them when you are in a world of handguns?) got
creamed by bows, slings work dandy against knights, and hordes of naked guys
don't care if you have handguns nearly as much as small units of enemy
knights would.

The Burgundian Army was very very mean and I would have hated to fight it
with a 'similar' army. They never stood a chance against those guys from 2K
years ago tho! For similarly ugly results show up with a non-bow early
greek style army against the Indians or 100 Yr War English.

I liked it that the Warrior Army lists showed historic opponents. Crossing
time periods is fine when army selection is limited, but playing +/- one
evolution in tactics/style is a lot more interesting to me.


>>This all sounds rational, but on the table top, my record is pretty poor
>>against nonhistorical opponents that you face in tournaments. This, I
think,
>>is because I get stuck thinking about how my armies fought their
historical
>>opponents even when they are against Teutonic knights.

> I now own a DBM Nikephorian Byzantine army that I
> bought off another gamer.
> (Much faster than painting but the spousal waver
> test is much tougher to
> make.)

I just didn't tell my wife I bought a painted army :o

> My failing, I think, is not thinking creatively
> enough about how to use the
> troops on the tabletop. I tend to fall into a pretty
> routine set up --
> infantry in the middle, cavalry on the flanks.
> Cavalry attacks if superior or
> hangs back and tries to protect flanks of HI if
> weaker. Lights try to seize
> and hold rough ground or delay enemy troops.

John, from my perspective the army you use must fit
your personality in some way in order to identify with
it tactically. Also the rules system being used
dictates in no small way what you will be most
effective in using. In Warrior/7th, I lean two ways:
First I'm a hyperminded sort of guy who tends to
charge in, so IrrgA Normans fit me. OTOH, I'm
innovative doctrinally, so playing Maurikian
Byzantines also fits me because of the challenge. In
DBM I'm a Middle Assyrian/Sung Chineese combination,
yet neither of these armies would work at all in
Warrior for ME. I'd get bored with my own tactics and
do something rash.

> This all sounds rational, but on the table top, my
> record is pretty poor
> against nonhistorical opponents that you face in
> tournaments. This, I think,
> is because I get stuck thinking about how my armies
> fought their historical
> opponents even when they are against Teutonic
> knights.

Everyone has this problem to some extent. But you must
be as Hannibal and set your troops to deal with the
army at hand; this is done mainly be seeing weaknesses
in the enemy force array. Nothing make me salivate
faster than to see two troop types side by side that
can't opperate together like HI P and IrrgA LC (sp and
Lh in DBM). Once you start looking at the enemy
composition instead of his history, you see something
totally different than what is presented.

Lights screening the cavalry,
> yes. But intentionally
> taking the stand and die waver test, no.

It works best if they fail the waver test. Average LI
unit cost 49p, while the average 2E HC or 6E LC unit
is double that. I love to have their charge bursted
through tired and disordered HC However, you'd be
surprized at how many times the enemy mounted have
stuck on the LI that didn't shake. Then my
personality must be held in check or I'll do something
stupid like displace in combat with the IrrgA
k-niggits. Then I'm disordered :(

>
> Elephants force marching into an ambush position is
> another one.

There are always elephants in ambush :)

Here is one I've actually used in competition. Steep
Hill with disordered boltshooters on it. A magnet for
enemy LMI right? Well, I roll bolders on them, then
bring LI J/sh from behind the hill to charge them
prompted. Boulders if they hit are vicious. Who would
think boltshooters (Byzantine at that) would bring
bolders to the battlefield?

And don't forget that turk player who forcemarch those
IrrD LMI B guys and then drop stakes after you've set
all of your mounted to sweep them off the board.
Can't remember who used to do that all the
time...Think it was Derek.

>
> In DBM, there was a doubles team that came up with
> what they called the
> Adrianople gambit. They put a small command with the
> CnC in a fortified camp
> and then flank marched a huge bulk of their troops.
> They used Ostrogoths.

that was a guy named Jeff Hady.

> I have not doubt that created a stunning shock the
> first time it was used.

He also played an army one year that was almost
entirely Ax(s), but when facing my Minoan army, he had
to form human pyramids in the brush to avoid the
chariots ;D

>
> I'll have to keep mulling this around. I think the
> discussions about "How to
> build a Warrior army" -- even if slightly in jest --
> are very helpful to we
> the great unwashed masses.

it is always fun to see how others are thinking.

boyd

=====
Wake up and smell the Assyrians

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[scott holder]

An example we played a few weeks ago had a very late Burgundian army
(very small with Arty, SHK, HGs,XB, etc) square off with a Successor
Wars army almost 2000 years older. The weapons mismatches went very
badly against the later army. They were outnumbered over 2-1 and their
infantry who had abandoned shields (who needs them when you are in a
world of handguns?) got creamed by bows, slings work dandy against
knights, and hordes of naked guys don't care if you have handguns nearly
as much as small units of enemy knights would.

>Without knowing the specific army compositions, it's hard to comment
although it appears that this is a classic case of having to tailor
Burgundians against a pike trash army. Not all together hard actually.
Yes, the NASAMW list has the generally worthless 2HCT HI so you're
somewhat "wasting" points there, but it also has Reg B LHI longbowmen
who, if played patiently, are quite good. And of course you have great
SHK.

The Burgundian Army was very very mean and I would have hated to fight
it
with a 'similar' army. They never stood a chance against those guys
from 2K
years ago tho! For similarly ugly results show up with a non-bow early
greek style army against the Indians or 100 Yr War English.

>I must disagree. Yes, fighting Burgundian Ordonnance vs Seleucids
poses some challenges but, if you attempt to work terrain to your
advantage (read, cut down the board with woods) and purchase the army
"correctly", you have a chance. This is one of two 25mm lists I can run
somewhat intelligently against just about any opponent. Actually it
would be the "shooting foot" armies, LIR and Aztecs, who pose bigger
problems to the Burgundians since the standard "cut down the board with
terrain" tactic doesn't work (they have plenty of stuff to move thru),
you can't skirmish in front of their main troops like you can against
pike trash because those main troops shoot back *harder* because you're
shieldless LHI, and the old "crash knights into them hoping they tank
the waver test(s)" is somewhat problematic since you don't have all that
many knights to crash around with.

Scott
List Ho

[Ewan McNay]

"Holder, Scott " wrote:
> >I must disagree. Yes, fighting Burgundian Ordonnance vs Seleucids
> poses some challenges but, if you attempt to work terrain to your
> advantage (read, cut down the board with woods) and purchase the army
> "correctly", you have a chance.

OK, so you can cur down some of the board with woods - in which my
Thorakitoi and Thracians will happily play with your LHI! - but across
the rest of the board, you're facing pike/elephant/scythed chariot (and
boy are the Burgundians a primo chariot target!) and what ya gonna do?

> This is one of two 25mm lists I can run
> somewhat intelligently against just about any opponent.

Hey, now there's a challenge to bring me out of retirement .