Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

From JonCleaves@...
Sent Friday, April 16, 2004 10:09 pm
To WarriorRules@yahoogroups.com
Cc
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Subject Re: [WarriorRules] Concerns re Imperial Warrior Lists - Tillitzki,
Newcastle


In a message dated 4/16/2004 00:58:00 Central Daylight Time,
jeff.tillitzki@... writes:
Nearly every army seems to have 'improved' - in some cases, markedly, in
terms
of playability..........<snip> - but where is the historical justification? >>

Jeff

Please bear in mind that it is FHE general list policy to include both
interpretations of a particular piece of history unless there simply is zero
justification for one of them. WRG's long standing policy is to choose one over
the
other.

We do this because the historical gamer is therefore free to choose for
himself which of the two interpretations he believes is correct from his own
research.


1. Research inevitably involves critical assessment – you can’t simply sit on
the fence and have equal regard for multiple versions; except maybe in the
situation where there appears to be equal/reasonable regard that there is
implicit ‘truth’ in each version, or indeed co-oberation for each version,
despite that they may in fact be contradictory.


The tourney gamer can, indeed, choose the one more optimal, but in a world
where Sumerians fight Vikings, that we may have been too liberal with an
interpretation is hardly an issue..lol

All list balance is done entirely in period. If a particular list would not
'perform well' in an open tourney because of a choice we made or did not make,
that will just have to be.

We also concentrate on how certain troops and weapons systems were USED, not
how they simply existed. If a cavalry troop type was used exclusively for
scouting purposes and never fought in the battle line, it might not make the
list. If a weapon is individually more dangerous than it appears in the list
but
was not optimally used by that troop in the bodies and formations in which it
actually fought, it might not show up at the level of resolution of Warrior.


2. SHC being used as an armoured shooting platform does not reflect the
battlefield purpose for which they were designed, or indeed, the manner in which
they were employed – as specialist close-combat lancers. Likewise, Roman scythe
chariots provide their player with the opportunity to cause unease on their
opponent – a situation which is never known to have been relied upon by any
Roman commander in history.


As for list maxima, that represents battlefield extremes to permit the
greatest amount of flexibility. We could have done even more of the following:

'if troop type X is used, no more than Y elements of troop type Z can be in
the army" and I mean a LOT more, but at some point you have to cut that off or
every list looks like Medieval German Princes from hell....lol


3. Lists were designed primarily for tournament play, to place some limits on
those tending to ‘gild the lily’, or those being too liberal in their
interpretations. That does not seem to be your intention here. The main
objection I have is that your formula has made possible the dramatic alteration
of army balance,in many cases what can be attested or creditably inferred from
historical evidence. In this regard, Barker’s lists contained a degree of subtly
so as to avoid such alteration. Therefore, offering up lists, in some cases 7000
pts.+, for the traditional 1200-1600 game, does not seem a wise step to take.


Hope this helps
Jon

My regards in wargaming,
Jeff

[joncleaves]

<< The main objection I have is that your formula has made possible the
dramatic alteration of army balance>>

I think this is the major point of departure. We have not 'altered army
balance' because there is nothing for us to 'alter'. The only way one could
feel
that way is to believe that some previous game set the gold standard of
balance and we somehow changed the basic truth all gamers agreed upon. This is
quite not the case. We do not hold that any set of army lists before ours set
the
standard of balance and/or had it all or mostly right and that we were
required to work within those parameters. Our lists are designed to stand on
their
own.

No one is more aware than I that this approach will not please everyone. We
have a strong and ever growing playership that includes as many opinions on
army list writing as there are individuals playing Warrior - someone somewhere
is likely to be displeased by virtually any and all decisions we make. We
regret it, but we also can't let that stop us from doing what we feel is right.

Jon


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