Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[Greg Regets]

I really fee this whole issue on the value of things like chariots has a lot
to do with playing style. Its human nature that your own tactics will tend
to mimic those players that have success against you on a regular basis. In
our area, before we became a NASAMW chapter, we tended to go towards a very
small strike force of elite troops mixed into an army consisting of a large
body of light troops whose primary function is shoot up the enemy and set up
a good kill.

When we joined the NASAMW as the Southwest region, players like past NICT
Champion John Green, and Chris Bump started attending our tournaments. They
came with a completely different style, one centering around a veritable
wall of infantry and very little in the way of light troops. We also noticed
a tendency towards very large units, something that was not all that popular
in this region. Having sent several players to Historicon last year, one of
the things our guys came back with was the thought that most of the players
used a tactic revolving around a VERY high percentage of shock troops mixed
in with a smattering of lights.

Recently I have been corresponding with Ewan about a Seleucid army. I had
heard he was a good Seleucid player and wanted to get his input on the army.
While we agreed for the most part on many things, a few of the statements he
made struck me as almost too funny to pass on. One was how he detested
Irregular LC and would only buy it of forced (paraphrasing). What struck me
as so funny is that I love Irregular LC and as a matter of fact have played
several armies where the tactic revolved around the pinning, shooting,
maneuver and potential killing power of the light cavalrymen. Of course
there was always a small body of shock troops, just enough to find the enemy
at the right time, when he tires from playing "fast break" ancients for two
hours.

Where is all this going .... Its going to the point that using the wall of
infantry tactic, I have no doubt that the chariot is not that good a buy,
but if you are using the tactic of making a small strike force and buying a
lot of light troops to set up a kill, chariots are CHEAP, ULTRA CHEAP for
their potential fire power against softened up enemies. I painted up a 15mm
Qin Chinese army for a friend and played it a few times. That army gets two
chariot units with a general for 104 points and a two chariot unit without a
general for 78 points. SEVENTY EIGHT points for a unit that if used against
a softened up opponent is a sure kill. If you combine a few of these with a
few 16 figure HI,P,Sh units, you get a strike force that can be awesome, but
of course you have to have enough light troops, meaning a LOT, to pin the
enemy across his line and isolate what you want to kill.

I'm not going to make commentary on which tactic is the best. As of right
now, in our region, I would say its about 50/50. John Green won the 1999
Southwest Region Championship using the same Alexander's Conquest army he
won the NICT's with and this year I was lucky enough to win it with a
Knights of St.John army featuring 68 Light infantrymen and 16 Light
Cavalrymen. I will say this though, watching the two rather diverse styles
of play coming together in our region is about the most fun I have had
playing ancients in years, and right now I'm busy as a bee putting together
a 25mm wall of infantry and elephants army, so I can try the other style of
play for myself. I also know that John is adding more light troops to his
army right now so he doesn't have to spend the entire battle watching half
his army dance with LI/LC. What a blast!!!!!!

Greg

Great post. Thanks for taking the time, Greg.

John Meunier

On Thu, 6 Jul 2000, Greg Regets wrote:

> I really fee this whole issue on the value of things like chariots has a lot
> to do with playing style. Its human nature that your own tactics will tend
> to mimic those players that have success against you on a regular basis. In
> our area, before we became a NASAMW chapter, we tended to go towards a very
> small strike force of elite troops mixed into an army consisting of a large
> body of light troops whose primary function is shoot up the enemy and set up
> a good kill.
>
> When we joined the NASAMW as the Southwest region, players like past NICT
> Champion John Green, and Chris Bump started attending our tournaments. They
> came with a completely different style, one centering around a veritable
> wall of infantry and very little in the way of light troops. We also noticed
> a tendency towards very large units, something that was not all that popular
> in this region. Having sent several players to Historicon last year, one of
> the things our guys came back with was the thought that most of the players
> used a tactic revolving around a VERY high percentage of shock troops mixed
> in with a smattering of lights.
>
> Recently I have been corresponding with Ewan about a Seleucid army. I had
> heard he was a good Seleucid player and wanted to get his input on the army.
> While we agreed for the most part on many things, a few of the statements he
> made struck me as almost too funny to pass on. One was how he detested
> Irregular LC and would only buy it of forced (paraphrasing). What struck me
> as so funny is that I love Irregular LC and as a matter of fact have played
> several armies where the tactic revolved around the pinning, shooting,
> maneuver and potential killing power of the light cavalrymen. Of course
> there was always a small body of shock troops, just enough to find the enemy
> at the right time, when he tires from playing "fast break" ancients for two
> hours.
>
> Where is all this going .... Its going to the point that using the wall of
> infantry tactic, I have no doubt that the chariot is not that good a buy,
> but if you are using the tactic of making a small strike force and buying a
> lot of light troops to set up a kill, chariots are CHEAP, ULTRA CHEAP for
> their potential fire power against softened up enemies. I painted up a 15mm
> Qin Chinese army for a friend and played it a few times. That army gets two
> chariot units with a general for 104 points and a two chariot unit without a
> general for 78 points. SEVENTY EIGHT points for a unit that if used against
> a softened up opponent is a sure kill. If you combine a few of these with a
> few 16 figure HI,P,Sh units, you get a strike force that can be awesome, but
> of course you have to have enough light troops, meaning a LOT, to pin the
> enemy across his line and isolate what you want to kill.
>
> I'm not going to make commentary on which tactic is the best. As of right
> now, in our region, I would say its about 50/50. John Green won the 1999
> Southwest Region Championship using the same Alexander's Conquest army he
> won the NICT's with and this year I was lucky enough to win it with a
> Knights of St.John army featuring 68 Light infantrymen and 16 Light
> Cavalrymen. I will say this though, watching the two rather diverse styles
> of play coming together in our region is about the most fun I have had
> playing ancients in years, and right now I'm busy as a bee putting together
> a 25mm wall of infantry and elephants army, so I can try the other style of
> play for myself. I also know that John is adding more light troops to his
> army right now so he doesn't have to spend the entire battle watching half
> his army dance with LI/LC. What a blast!!!!!!
>
> Greg
>
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[Ewan McNay]

On Thu, 6 Jul 2000, Greg Regets wrote:
> Recently I have been corresponding with Ewan about a Seleucid army. I had
> heard he was a good Seleucid player and wanted to get his input on the army.

Yep. I hope those three units of 4 Irreg D camels, plus the 32-man SHC
unit do it for you...

> While we agreed for the most part on many things, a few of the statements he
> made struck me as almost too funny to pass on. One was how he detested
> Irregular LC and would only buy it of forced (paraphrasing). What struck me
> as so funny is that I love Irregular LC and as a matter of fact have played
> several armies where the tactic revolved around the pinning, shooting,
> maneuver and potential killing power of the light cavalrymen. Of course
> there was always a small body of shock troops, just enough to find the enemy
> at the right time, when he tires from playing "fast break" ancients for two
> hours.

I've played (a long time ago now) 'knockout' tourneys - where you won by
killing more than the other guy, no matter how little. [I've even played
them under 6th, and won by killing 1 figure of Irreg D MI B - but I
digress] They get annoying pretty fast, and are simply less fun: sure, I
*can* spend 4 hours playing games with 4-man LC units, but do I want to?
[And anyway, Rob Turnbull does it better than me ]

NASAMW - or at least Scott - seems to agree with me: the 5-pt scoring
system is designed to encourage killing stuff vs. winning by 1 point. The
two goals do require different armies, I think. For a couple of years in
the World Champoionships, the Belgian team turned up all using Mongol
armies - lots (LOTS!) of 4-man LC B units, all pirouetting. But that kind
of approach relies on your opponent making a mistake and giving you a
flank, essentially; not to mention that using Aztecs, I was able to line
across the board and just walk forwards, as could many other infantry
armies. The manouvre of lights is fun, but (hey, I'm agreeing with Fish!)
shouldn't be the main focus.

[All the more kudos of course to John for getting his pikes to an NICT
victory. Pretty impressive.]
--
Dr. Ewan McNay - Behavioral Neuroscience, Yale University.
(203) 432-7005

[Greg Regets]

Yep. I hope those three units of 4 Irreg D camels, plus the 32-man SHC
unit do it for you...

>>>>GREG>>>> Almost fell out of my chair laughing .... your a funny guy
Ewan. We did have a guy once that played with 2x16 figure SHC Tibetan units,
of course they had bows. I was pretty shocked to see it, but he made it work
for him.



I've played (a long time ago now) 'knockout' tourneys - where you won by
killing more than the other guy, no matter how little. [I've even played
them under 6th, and won by killing 1 figure of Irreg D MI B - but I
digress] They get annoying pretty fast, and are simply less fun: sure, I
*can* spend 4 hours playing games with 4-man LC units, but do I want to?
[And anyway, Rob Turnbull does it better than me ]

NASAMW - or at least Scott - seems to agree with me: the 5-pt scoring
system is designed to encourage killing stuff vs. winning by 1 point. The
two goals do require different armies, I think. For a couple of years in
the World Champoionships, the Belgian team turned up all using Mongol
armies - lots (LOTS!) of 4-man LC B units, all pirouetting. But that kind
of approach relies on your opponent making a mistake and giving you a
flank, essentially; not to mention that using Aztecs, I was able to line
across the board and just walk forwards, as could many other infantry
armies. The manouvre of lights is fun, but (hey, I'm agreeing with Fish!)
shouldn't be the main focus.

>>>>GREG>>>> I think the base tactic illustrated here fits somewhere in
between a wall of infantry and a Mongal army of 4 figure LC units, and does
not fit into the "kill one unit" example at all. I played Comnenan
Byzantines for years with three units of EHK and two of HC. This made a
reasonably substantial strike force when triggered against units that were
shot up or shooting tired. If you go about your business and set up enough
good shots, eventually your dice will allow you to make a "missile mess" of
an enemy unit or two so that your shock elements can dive in. This is FAR
from boring in my opinion. The timing it takes to anticipate when to attack
with your shock units is very difficult to pull off and requires a lot of
practice. If you attack too soon, you will fall upon an enemy not yet
properly softened up, not good for you at all .... and if your too late, you
will not have time to score points once you have blown that hole in the
enemy line. As far as scoring lots of points, if you make a nice hole and
have good stuff to dive on the flanks of the units on either side of the
hole (8 Figure IRR,B,LC,JLS,B,Sh Turks leap to mind) you can score quite a
few points that way. You also tend to give your opponent nothing in return,
making your margine bigger.

>>>>GREG>>>> Take note that all these tactics assume 15mm armies. I'm pretty
confident you could never pull this off in 25mm, must be why I'm doing a
Seleucid 25mm army, . I might also add that until very rescently, we were
still using 1500 points in this neck of the wooods. Having said that, my
beloved Comnenans now get a lance and a half for the mounted .... you can
bet I will be dusting those guys off some time soon, :-)

Greg ~ernstwhile SelEwan pupil~

[Ewan McNay]

On Thu, 6 Jul 2000, Greg Regets wrote:
> Yep. I hope those three units of 4 Irreg D camels, plus the 32-man SHC
> unit do it for you...
>
> >>>>GREG>>>> Almost fell out of my chair laughing .... your a funny guy
> Ewan. We did have a guy once that played with 2x16 figure SHC Tibetan units,
> of course they had bows. I was pretty shocked to see it, but he made it work
> for him.

Now, what is *really* funny is that after I wrote that last email, it
triggered ponderings about Tibetians in my head, and I sat down to pencil
out a list based around 3x16 SHC...

...and no, it didn't work out. Too bad. I'm still looking for an NICT
army, y'all - anyone want to offer me lead?...

--
Dr. Ewan McNay - Behavioral Neuroscience, Yale University.
(203) 432-7005