Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[Mark Stone]

I'll send in a longer action report on my games at some later time, and I also
want to send in some comments on the view of the Theme from the umpire's chair.
First things first, though: a bit on the army I chose and why.

I almost didn't send this email in. After all, who cares about an army that
didn't even make the NICT cut on Thursday? On reflection, though, I think the
army is much stronger than I displayed on Thursday, and it is the same army
that Derek took and finished second with, so it does deserve some
consideration.

Having written the "Skirmisher Doctrine" piece, I have been thinking for about
15 months now on how to refute it. In other words, are there armies that don't
use a lot of skirmishers that are relatively impervious to an opponent's
superior skirmishers and skirmishing tactics?

I've latched onto two ideas: first, that skirmishers for the most part (LI S,Sh
being a notable exception) are relatively vulnerable to shooting; second, that
it is a characteristic of the Warrior point system that cheap archers give you
a lot of bang for your buck. This latter point requires some explanation. With
hand to hand combat, there is some variation in performance based on morale and
order: irregs roll different dice than regs, and every morale class modifies
dice somewhat differently. So when you pay to up-morale your guys you are
getting some discernable benefit in hand to hand combat. Not so with shooting.
A Middle Eastern shepherd with a leather thong on a stick and a sack full of
rocks shoots at exactly the same factor, and rolls exactly the same dice with
exactly the same modifiers, as the most highly trained and proficient English
longbowman who ever lived. So while there may be other penalties for being Irr
D, there is no _shooting_ penalty.

My first experiment was at Cold Wars, and was the logical extreme of this idea:
Shang Chinese, with 5 48 figure blocks of Irr D MI B. Something like 360
figures of bowfire on 2000 points. The results were mixed: while the bowfire
was impressive, the lack of shields on the MI prevented Alex and me from really
pushing aggressively with the battle line of the army.

So I set about pouring through Oriental Warrior looking for another list with a
lot of cheap bowfire that could be shielded. OW is rife with such armies: Later
Tang, Ming Chinese, Song Chinese, various Koreans, and Yuan Mongol. Of that lot,
I think Later Tang is the best, for reasons I've laid out here previously.
However, I settled on an entirely different army: 10 Independent States.

It has several advantages over Tang:
- Cheaper and therefore more plentiful bowmen (Irr D instead of Reg D);
- Elephants, who work well with infantry, as opposed to SHC who are hard to
coordinate with infantry;
- Firelance -- indeed, this is the first list in OW on which you can get
firelance.

On 1600 points, you can literally cover all 40 elements' of frontage (an 8 foot
table has 40 elements' frontage) with shooting arc from 4 to a stand shooters.
You can do that and still have a minimal skirmish line, a group of reserves,
and a shock contingent. And _that_ is a powerful answer to "Skirmisher
Doctrine": there simply are no flanks to envelope, and there is a dense field
of bowfire projecting out 240p in front of the entire army.

So here's the list:

Skirmish line:
4 x 2 stands Reg D LI B

Battle line:
4 x 8 stands Irr D MI LTS,B,Sh/LTS,B
4 x 8 stands Irr D MI B,Sh/B
2 x 4 stands Reg D LMI B,Sh/B

Reserve:
2 x 2 stands Reg A EHC L,B,Sh/HC L,B (one with CinC, one with Sub)
2 x 2 stands Irr A LMI JLS,Sh

Shock:
2 x 2 stands El with Irr C crew of 3 with B
1 x 4 stands Reg C HI 2HCW,B,Sh/MI 1HCW,B
1 x 4 stands Reg C HI LTS,Firelance,Sh/MI LTS,Firelance

General ideas on playing the army:
The 4 LI units are exactly enough to force march and present a "zone of control"
that extends from table edge to table edge. In other words, this is the minimum
needed to assure there is no gap your opponent can march through; the LI are
all within 480p of each other, and 240p of the table sides. This buys you some
room to move up and deploy with the rest of the army.

The battle line has the most vulnerable units -- the two MI B,Sh/B units -- out
on the wings, and the LTS,B guys in the middle. It lumbers forward and shoots
anything in sight. Nothing should rout any of these units at contact, so if a
rout appears to be developing there is time to contract adjacent units back so
that they are 120p away from an imminent rout.

If an opponent does attempt to gang up on one of the big Irr D units, the
reserve moves up to threaten his flanks or overlaps, and relieve pressure. The
reserve _does_ have to be able to pass waver tests, and hence is entirely A
class.

The army is slow and ponderous. That's one of its big disadvantages. In practice
prior to Historicon I found the hard way that I could not set up my shock troops
on a wing and attempt to turn an opponent's flank; the army simply lacks the
speed. Instead it must counterpunch, waiting for an opponent to commit and then
sending the shock units in response. This means the four shock units set up in
the middle of the table, behind the battle line, and march to where the
decisive point on the field will be based on opponent's committments, hopefully
arriving in position on Bound 2 or Bound 3. Given that the close order foot need
two bounds of approach moves to get to charge range this is a little problematic
(another weakness of the army), but with practice you can get pretty good at it.

A bunch of C class guys may not seem like much of a shock contingent. There is a
tendency to want higher morale from your shock troops. But keep in mind a couple
of things: these guys never charge impetuously (often the main purpose of high
morale class). And shock troops should be _causing_ waver tests, not taking
them. Finally, if you do the math on firelance-armed HI and elephants charging
together into something, you'll see that there is a very potent core here. And
hey, when all else fails you hope that your 288 bows create some disruptions to
exploit.


-Mark Stone

[joncleaves]

Sean Scott. Must be the beer talking, Jon...

-----Original Message-----
From: Jon Becker <JonBecker@...>
To: WarriorRules@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tue, 26 Jul 2005 13:22:18 -0500
Subject: RE: [WarriorRules] Historicon: 10 Independent States Considered


Hello All!

I'm too am intrigued by the 10 Independent States List and would love any
additional insights and/or copies of folks lists that they've used, etc.

Derek D - would you mind publishing a copy of your NICT list??

Similarly, anyone have any ideas, thoughts, reactions, sample lists to share
with me on Feudal French???? Jon Cleaves indicated Shawn Stone was an
experienced Feudal French player - Shawn: any lists or advice?

Thanks!

-----Original Message-----
From: WarriorRules@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:WarriorRules@yahoogroups.com]On Behalf Of Mark Stone
Sent: Tuesday, July 26, 2005 11:23 AM
To: warrior
Subject: [WarriorRules] Historicon: 10 Independent States Considered


I'll send in a longer action report on my games at some later time, and I
also
want to send in some comments on the view of the Theme from the umpire's
chair.
First things first, though: a bit on the army I chose and why.

I almost didn't send this email in. After all, who cares about an army that
didn't even make the NICT cut on Thursday? On reflection, though, I think
the
army is much stronger than I displayed on Thursday, and it is the same army
that Derek took and finished second with, so it does deserve some
consideration.

Having written the "Skirmisher Doctrine" piece, I have been thinking for
about
15 months now on how to refute it. In other words, are there armies that
don't
use a lot of skirmishers that are relatively impervious to an opponent's
superior skirmishers and skirmishing tactics?

I've latched onto two ideas: first, that skirmishers for the most part (LI
S,Sh
being a notable exception) are relatively vulnerable to shooting; second,
that
it is a characteristic of the Warrior point system that cheap archers give
you
a lot of bang for your buck. This latter point requires some explanation.
With
hand to hand combat, there is some variation in performance based on morale
and
order: irregs roll different dice than regs, and every morale class modifies
dice somewhat differently. So when you pay to up-morale your guys you are
getting some discernable benefit in hand to hand combat. Not so with
shooting.
A Middle Eastern shepherd with a leather thong on a stick and a sack full of
rocks shoots at exactly the same factor, and rolls exactly the same dice
with
exactly the same modifiers, as the most highly trained and proficient
English
longbowman who ever lived. So while there may be other penalties for being
Irr
D, there is no _shooting_ penalty.

My first experiment was at Cold Wars, and was the logical extreme of this
idea:
Shang Chinese, with 5 48 figure blocks of Irr D MI B. Something like 360
figures of bowfire on 2000 points. The results were mixed: while the bowfire
was impressive, the lack of shields on the MI prevented Alex and me from
really
pushing aggressively with the battle line of the army.

So I set about pouring through Oriental Warrior looking for another list
with a
lot of cheap bowfire that could be shielded. OW is rife with such armies:
Later
Tang, Ming Chinese, Song Chinese, various Koreans, and Yuan Mongol. Of that
lot,
I think Later Tang is the best, for reasons I've laid out here previously.
However, I settled on an entirely different army: 10 Independent States.

It has several advantages over Tang:
- Cheaper and therefore more plentiful bowmen (Irr D instead of Reg D);
- Elephants, who work well with infantry, as opposed to SHC who are hard to
coordinate with infantry;
- Firelance -- indeed, this is the first list in OW on which you can get
firelance.

On 1600 points, you can literally cover all 40 elements' of frontage (an 8
foot
table has 40 elements' frontage) with shooting arc from 4 to a stand
shooters.
You can do that and still have a minimal skirmish line, a group of reserves,
and a shock contingent. And _that_ is a powerful answer to "Skirmisher
Doctrine": there simply are no flanks to envelope, and there is a dense
field
of bowfire projecting out 240p in front of the entire army.

So here's the list:

Skirmish line:
4 x 2 stands Reg D LI B

Battle line:
4 x 8 stands Irr D MI LTS,B,Sh/LTS,B
4 x 8 stands Irr D MI B,Sh/B
2 x 4 stands Reg D LMI B,Sh/B

Reserve:
2 x 2 stands Reg A EHC L,B,Sh/HC L,B (one with CinC, one with Sub)
2 x 2 stands Irr A LMI JLS,Sh

Shock:
2 x 2 stands El with Irr C crew of 3 with B
1 x 4 stands Reg C HI 2HCW,B,Sh/MI 1HCW,B
1 x 4 stands Reg C HI LTS,Firelance,Sh/MI LTS,Firelance

General ideas on playing the army:
The 4 LI units are exactly enough to force march and present a "zone of
control"
that extends from table edge to table edge. In other words, this is the
minimum
needed to assure there is no gap your opponent can march through; the LI are
all within 480p of each other, and 240p of the table sides. This buys you
some
room to move up and deploy with the rest of the army.

The battle line has the most vulnerable units -- the two MI B,Sh/B units --
out
on the wings, and the LTS,B guys in the middle. It lumbers forward and
shoots
anything in sight. Nothing should rout any of these units at contact, so if
a
rout appears to be developing there is time to contract adjacent units back
so
that they are 120p away from an imminent rout.

If an opponent does attempt to gang up on one of the big Irr D units, the
reserve moves up to threaten his flanks or overlaps, and relieve pressure.
The
reserve _does_ have to be able to pass waver tests, and hence is entirely A
class.

The army is slow and ponderous. That's one of its big disadvantages. In
practice
prior to Historicon I found the hard way that I could not set up my shock
troops
on a wing and attempt to turn an opponent's flank; the army simply lacks the
speed. Instead it must counterpunch, waiting for an opponent to commit and
then
sending the shock units in response. This means the four shock units set up
in
the middle of the table, behind the battle line, and march to where the
decisive point on the field will be based on opponent's committments,
hopefully
arriving in position on Bound 2 or Bound 3. Given that the close order foot
need
two bounds of approach moves to get to charge range this is a little
problematic
(another weakness of the army), but with practice you can get pretty good at
it.

A bunch of C class guys may not seem like much of a shock contingent. There
is a
tendency to want higher morale from your shock troops. But keep in mind a
couple
of things: these guys never charge impetuously (often the main purpose of
high
morale class). And shock troops should be _causing_ waver tests, not taking
them. Finally, if you do the math on firelance-armed HI and elephants
charging
together into something, you'll see that there is a very potent core here.
And
hey, when all else fails you hope that your 288 bows create some disruptions
to
exploit.


-Mark Stone



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