Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[John Murphy]

I have gotten my arms around the Moldavians and feel pretty
comfortable now with the prospect of playing them. There is a wealth
of possiblities here even against good opposition I think, although
some of it can be tricky to implement so I will have a learning
curve working a few items out. What seems doable shuffling paper
squares around is less clear when the other guy has a mind of his
own.

Anyhow I offer the following for critique. Always nice to know if I
am on the right track though I suppose the only real test of that
will come in the games. Sorry for the length, but I've behaved and
haven't done this in a while so I figure what the heck. I'm happy to
take this offline too if needed. Thanks all for your patience.

The idea is to begin the battle by removing enemy light troops using
the Irr and Reg LC units with LI to the degree required or able.
This should permit access to enemy missile units. These can be worn
down by the LI which should now be unmolested by enemy lights, or in
the best of circumstances the LC can use their manueverability to
gang up on and take out some missile targets of opportunity (I
worked ways to do this on paper but takes some careful handling).
Without enemy lights to concern them, the LI can also screen off
enemy elephants and try to wear them down. Once the enemy is tired,
halted or whatever, the LMI may be able to be used against elephants
while the LC can take on any disordered enemy missile units which
are not too tough. When the time is right the HK picks a bunch of
enemy units which are sufficiently worn out or disordered to
preclude serious support shooting and charge home hoping to tip the
scales. The HK can also dismount as 2E A/B EHI JLS,Sh but I am not
really seeing that as desirable unless some weird emergency.
Possibly the LMI unit might also be used as bait but I am not
certain I am ready to try something like that yet - without being
careful it would probably lead to a mess of waver test failures so
the HK are probably what would have to be in position to close the
trap.

Without further ado here is the list as I constructed it for the
tournament.

Moldavian (Holy Warrior list #35)
1,602 total points (106 total scouting points)
1 CinC 2E Irr A/B HK L,Sh PA @172
1 Sub-gen 2E Irr A/B HK L,Sh P @112
4 Boyars 2E Irr A/B HK L,Sh @97
4 Viteji 6E Irr C LC JLS,B,Sh @109 (see list rule)
1 Roumanian Foot 4E Irr C LMI JLS,Sh @61
2 Roumanian Bowmen 8E Irr C LI B,Sh/B @65
1 Crimean Tartar Ally-gen 2E Reg B/C HC/MC L,B,Sh/L,B P @135
4 Crimean Tartar Cavalry 2E Reg C LC JLS,B,Sh/B @42

I would likely split the 4 Boyar units off under the CinC, the
Tartars in their own command, and all the Irreg LC/LI under the Sub.
The LMI unit would be with either the CinC or Sub depending on what
makes sense at that moment of set-up. This will permit me to probe
with the lights and keep the kniggits on wait.

I think this list will be a lot of fun to play, even more so that
the Late Poles. Irreg A HK are actually a very good if dicey HtH
shock unit that should be fun to use and there is a wealth of light
troops in the army to provide some initiative. It is also an army
that should look pretty colorful painted up.

All that said there are a few weaknesses that still concern me with
these. The HK are vulnerable to shooting and need to handled
carefully in any case because they can be triggered inadvertently
into impetuous charges and their are not very many of them to allow
that to happen. The large Irreg LC units could become unweildy if
not supported closely by the Reg LC. The required LMI might be
useless in many battles as it is simply just not quite good enough
at anything against a unit designed for a particular job. I am not
sure the LI are numerous enough to support the rest of the army or
to manage to screen elephants which could otherwise wreak havoc.
Finally the Ally general is hugely expensive (required for the Reg
LC) and while providing a 7th lancer unit which can double as a
skirmisher the MC rear rank might make this a bit problematic for
all those points. The 2E Reg LC may be too small if they get caught
away from the larger Irreg LC units. Given more numerous LI, some
SHK units and fixes for some of these issues this would be a great
1,600 point list - but that would be about 2,500 points! Still,
except for the HK and LMI this is not a list that offers a bunch of
easy targets to the other guy - so the ball is in my court if I can
manage things well.

Perhaps if the list doesn't mind I could submit after-action reports
of the games and folks could see and comment on how this all played
out over the table.