Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

In actual play how long do battles between units tend to last. From
reading battle reports form the Cons, it sounds like once contact is
made, a unit is generally routing within a bound or two.

Is my inference correct? Does this hold generally?

Or are we only hearing about the decisive clash of the "strike"
troops that seem to be necessary to win a tournament battle?

My underlying reason for asking is because it seems like ancient
battle accounts talk about battles taking much time. We all know that
units could stay in direct contact for hours, but I get the
impression from battle reports (and my hazy memory of TOG) that once
troops come to grips, the battle is usually over pretty quickly.

John Meunier

[Ewan McNay]

On Tue, 22 Oct 2002, scribblerm wrote:
> In actual play how long do battles between units tend to last. From
> reading battle reports form the Cons, it sounds like once contact is
> made, a unit is generally routing within a bound or two.

I think that this is accurate. In part - in large part - this is because
in many cases, each player seeks to avoid combat unless they have a
locally decisive advantage, rather than being willing to trust in dice.

It is also pretty rare for both sides to have large numbers of close foot
*and* both be willing to get them into combat against each other, which is
one of the few times that combats can continue for many bounds without
either exhaustion or several wavers ensuing.

Combine the two factors, as well as the pressure to get a result in a
limited time frame, and you have armies designed to win rather than not to
lose (as would perhaps be the consequence of many historical armies, with
massive units of dense foot, but I'm speculating here), with elements of
each army optimised to kill certain other troops rather than to be
generally medium-useful.

In a tournament setting, getting a small win each time will get you
nowhere. It is necessary in most cases to win all, or minimally
all-but-one, of your games decisively.

E

[joncleaves]

In a message dated 10/22/2002 4:21:27 PM Eastern Standard Time,
ewan.mcnay@... writes:

> In a tournament setting, getting a small win each time will get you
> nowhere. It is necessary in most cases to win all, or
> minimally
> all-but-one, of your games decisively.>>

I am in complete agreement with Ewan on the above. And I would add that I am in
that minority (?) that thinks 4 bounds is way too long. Those decisive wins
come quickly.
Armies made not to lose (Sung Chinese, are you listening?...lol) can make a game
go 4 hours, but aren't any more likely to get the 5 points a game you need to be
in contention.

[joncleaves]

Oops. I meant four HOURS is too long, not four bounds.

But, on reflection, 4 bounds might have been right in the first place.....lol

[Mark Mallard]

i had an elephant unit recoiling some ehc for about 6+ bounds before it broke

close order foot v other close order foot can last quite a few bounds as can
similarly armed hc or ehc or shc.

mark mallard


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

[Ewan McNay]

markmallard77@... wrote:
>
> i had an elephant unit recoiling some ehc for about 6+ bounds before it broke

This one surprises me - off the top of my head, per element frontage the
elephant should be 5@4 plus crew, so it's going to be close to a rout
every turn - only ever needing a +1 - as well as wavers on the cav every
turn.

> close order foot v other close order foot can last quite a few bounds as can
> similarly armed hc or ehc or shc.

Yes; the close foot is the most common one that I noted. I agree on the
similar-cav possibility, but (i) random dice fluctuations will tend to
lead to a rapidish result, in most cases (e.g. one side becomes
disordered in the first bound, while the other wins, and is now
following up with possible expansion) and (ii) I think I would still
expect such battles to be fairly rare, as both sides aim to fight
battles at an advantage (e.g. getting your (expensive) SHC into opposing
loose foot, or legions, or some better target - I recognise that players
of similar skill may neutralise such plans and and up facing off similar
troops.

On a different note, how is Warrior doing in the UK? When the big DBM
switch hit, a lot of players told me that they still preferred 7th but
'no-one else is playing it'. I'd be interested to see how much interest
one can generate for a Warrior tourney (and for FHE, the UK market is
probably as big as, or bigger than, the US, I would guess.)

E

[Mark Mallard]

In a message dated 10/23/02 4:06:25 PM GMT Daylight Time, ewan.mcnay@...
writes:

yes the elephant was in collumn and disordered and the guy with the cav kept
passing his wavers.

On the subject of Warrior in the UK - i would love to run a tourney in the
UK. I have offered already on these boards i believe. If there is no official
UK tourney already we will do one if given approval.


> markmallard77@... wrote:
> >
> > i had an elephant unit recoiling some ehc for about 6+ bounds before it
> broke
>
> This one surprises me - off the top of my head, per element frontage the
> elephant should be 5@4 plus crew, so it's going to be close to a rout
> every turn - only ever needing a +1 - as well as wavers on the cav every
> turn.
>
> > close order foot v other close order foot can last quite a few bounds as
> can
> > similarly armed hc or ehc or shc.
>
> Yes; the close foot is the most common one that I noted. I agree on the
> similar-cav possibility, but (i) random dice fluctuations will tend to
> lead to a rapidish result, in most cases (e.g. one side becomes
> disordered in the first bound, while the other wins, and is now
> following up with possible expansion) and (ii) I think I would still
> expect such battles to be fairly rare, as both sides aim to fight
> battles at an advantage (e.g. getting your (expensive) SHC into opposing
> loose foot, or legions, or some better target - I recognise that players
> of similar skill may neutralise such plans and and up facing off similar
> troops.
>
> On a different note, how is Warrior doing in the UK? When the big DBM
> switch hit, a lot of players told me that they still preferred 7th but
> 'no-one else is playing it'. I'd be interested to see how much interest
> one can generate for a Warrior tourney (and for FHE, the UK market is
> probably as big as, or bigger than, the US, I would guess.)
>
> E
>




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