Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[John Murphy]

--- In WarriorRules@yahoogroups.com, Mark Stone <mark@d...> wrote:
> vastly more time studying openings

Oh, I can't disagree with that. Just look at the overwhelming amount
of literature published on the subject, and it gets published because
it sells to chess players.
But I also found this part useful and part just chasing proverbial
butterflies. Until you understand the importance of carrying a
winning pawn structure into the end-game, and how to parlay it into
victory, it sounds great to read about and study openings resulting
in certain pawn structures of that type but it is a bit lost without
a framework.
However, sure I read up on openings too just out of fun and because
to play you need to have at least some concept of them recognizing
your ideas are going to have to change when you are ready to apply
what you really learn about the later parts of the game.

So, to keep the focus on Warrior here after all, I pour over the Nike
list and all my other favorites too. And we agree probably on
approaches to some extent here because yes this is very accessible to
the beginner and a good motivational factor to continue study. And
you can't play Warrior without an army list.

Now, when it comes to Warrior I have to admit I am in no position to
elaborate further but I would guess one's needs in an army list
evolve over time as one's depth of understanding of other phases of
the game develops.

You have a good set of questions below. But how can a beginner have
the playing experience framework to really meaningfully and honestly
answer these? And are you certain terms like "prefer", "comfortable"
and "like" are appropriate to that discussion? Maybe they are, but
maybe they also produce a list that is fun to play not the most
natural to win competitions with? I don't know, having never been in
such a position myself.

But in chess if I answered these thinking it was to select an opening
to play I would cheat myself out of finding my best competition
opening and into answering in a manner I thought reflected what I
enjoyed playing the most, or had put the most work into.

Same perhaps for Warrior army lists for the same reasons.

Maybe we should have a "what color is my parachute" kind of set
questions for Warrior armies. Gosh I hate that thought - my wife is
doing those all the time and the answer always comes up the same and
we are absolutely exact opposites. And me, I always tell her we
already have heard the same answer a million times so why keep
asking. But she does. I digress, again, though.

So I will take a stab at these just to see what happens. At least it
will Mark Stone a good chuckle.

> 1. What kind of player are you? Do you like to attack, do you
prefer to defend,
> do you prefer to counter-punch?

Not defend, except when I feel hopelessly lost and have no idea what
I am doing. I would say attack pure and simple and despite my love of
maneuver and shooting warfare a la Byzantines what I - really - love
the best is putting the bow back in its case and riding herd with a
kontos over a bunch of hapless levy foot that have been pissing me
off shooting little twinkie arrows at me all day, but negative
experiences with that approach have led me to the need to screen,
time and angle attacks properly to set them up. And most of the time
they still don't work.

> 2. What troop types are you comfortable with? Do you prefer
infantry armies,
> cavalry armies, close order foot, loose order foot?

Now this is getting very much harder to answer without already being
a successful player. I'll take a shot.
I started with cavalry armies. Yes I think I like them, maybe the
best. No I do not think I like them <just> to skirmish or without a
good base of operations, meaning foot or something solid enough, to
protect them until they are ready and able to attack. I now like
having that safety to give me the leisure to try find a spot and time.
The order of the foot I am not sure about. They are a support arm,
even if a vital support arm and much much more numerous I do not want
to spend a lot of energy or attention on them. They are not the
killers - not the killers I like anyway. Not that I am unwilling to
be opportunistic to use them that way but not my preference.

So loose or close order foot in that context is a very good question
which I way way do not have the answer to and which I asked about
("missile screen tacics") a couple days ago and didn't get a
response :(

> 3. Do you like the nuances of skirmishing with light troops, or do
you see them
> as just getting in the way?

I would have to give a mixed answer here. I have never liked LI
personally except to serve as speed bumps and be force marched and
die in the middle of the board, and who cares. French peasants work
just as well in this role.

My Kavallarioi archers are a different matter entirely. They do all
that too (except the dying part) but there is also that potential
that someday they can be killers too - if two of them gang up on a
larger single enemy and get a flank charge to force the other guy to
take it a halt I really like that.

And skirmish foot like longbows are not a waste. I value them for
security reasons.

But do I _like_ skirmishing nuances, no.

My take on "winning the battle of the lights" is often to win the
battle is not to _have_ more that type of troop - it is to _kill_
more of that type of troop. A very important distinction.

That is my inner Id shining through for all to see!

> 4. Are you comfortable playing in difficult terrain, or do you
prefer to play
> out in the open?

Taken out of any context this is, of course, impossible to answer.
Give me LMI against knights and I prefer to be in a forest!

But generally I do not like to play "in" terrain. I like to use to
control frontage but fight the real battle in the open.

> 5. How do you cover your flanks? By filling the table? By anchoring
against
> terrain? With the use of light troops? Some combination of these?

Depends on the army. My armies do not have all these options and they
differ from army to army.

For Byzantines this is just never a problem as you have such a horde
of light troops that you fight the entire battle on the opposite 1/3
of the board wherever you like. In fact their problem often is trying
to spread all that stuff out instead of picking a single spot with
the killer types and really hammering it.

For Hundred Years War gosh it is my biggest problem. I employ terrain
and try to anchor on it. But I am not a very good "anchorer" (!) and
when I play I goa bit too far and things get a little mixed up and
hairy. Sometimes a flank seems to be turned but reserves come over to
crush to the flankers. That makes for a gratifying and very
complicated battle where you never know what will happen until the
last move. But then more often maybe this is how I lose too because I
was not careful enough.

> I'm willing to bet, though it may take many bounds for the
consequences to play
> out, that most Warrior games are won and lost by the end of the
second bound.

I do not think this is true at all. I have not even set up my attack
by the second bound. Maybe because being drubbed as an outright
attacker has caused me to move more towards being a counter-puncher,
or at least an attacker-of-opportunity which is a better distinction
for me.

> 1. How many scouting points do you end up with?
> 2. How much frontage does your army cover?
> 3. What sort of terrain do you need to be fighting in?
> 4. How many total figures do you have?
> 5. How many total figures of shooters do you have?
> 6. How many units do you have?
> Answer those 6 questions with, say, 3 different ways of buying the
army, and
> keep in mind your earlier answers about what you're comfortable
with. If you
> can do that, you should have a pretty good starting point for a
list.

Yes this all looks pretty much like I how I do this. Except I do not
count figures except when figuring out how many to buy or paint.
Which is a factor for me in choosing an army too.

I also ask, do I have enough troops to force-march to the center and
control board space, and if not how will I deal with playing on my
own side of the board? Not structly the same as the frontage of line
question which has to be answered as well.

> Once you have the list, you need to think about terrain picks.
Picking terrain
> _is_ a strategy
Show up at
> a competition game already knowing what your terrain picks will be
against a
> range of common opponents.

Oh yeah, you are preaching to the choir here. Amen, brother Mark!

> Work out general deployment.

Pretty much do that too.

> At this point you'll want to start putting figures down on the
table just to get
> a good visualization of what happens.

I don't always have the space to set out an 8x5 25mm table. But
sometimes I try to work it out on paper. Still I probably do not do
this except for lists I know I am going to play a lot.

And you make agood point about enemy reactions here. But how in the
world do you know what things to look at? The possiblities are
endless?

> By the end of Bound 2 your army should pretty much be in the
position it is
> going to fight from.

I snipped a lot of good stuff on this. But the problem is once again
you can know where you are going to be but how do you know what you
will up against and that obviously makes a big difference in how you
will plan.

> What you'll find, as you think all this through, is that Warrior
has a number of
> "openings", and a handful of "opening styles" just as chess does.

Oh I had no doubt, although I must say you have done an excellent job
of annunciating it here and drawing the analogies to something I have
been more successful in than Warrior (though, like you, it has been a
very very long time). And thanks for the effort to go through and put
this together. Yet another quality post from Mark Stone!

> Mastering them will also speed up
> your play, making 4 hours seem more like ample time to get to a
decisive
> result.

This is an interesting thought. Care to elaborate a bit?

[joncleaves]

In a message dated 4/20/2004 2:35:11 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
jjmurphy@... writes:

> > I'm willing to bet, though it may take many bounds for the
> consequences to play
> > out, that most Warrior games are won and lost by the end
> of the
> second bound.>>

Mark, I would have agreed with you a couple years ago. But I am finding now
that players are getting better at keeping a reserve through bound 2 and it is
taking to bound 3 to force them to commit it and then do the real killing.

J

[Mark Mallard]

In a message dated 4/20/04 7:46:37 PM GMT Daylight Time, JonCleaves@...
writes:

> >>I'm willing to bet, though it may take many bounds for the
> >consequences to play
> >>out, that most Warrior games are won and lost by the end
> >of the
> >second bound.>>
>
> Mark, I would have agreed with you a couple years ago. But I am finding now
> that players are getting better at keeping a reserve through bound 2 and it
> is taking to bound 3 to force them to commit it and then do the real killing.
>
> J
>

You guys sure play different in the US, my reserves are still uncommitted
until maybe bound 6 on average. thats why all our games take 3 to 7 hours

I look forward to playing you guys online one day.

mark mallard (UK)


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