Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

And now the longer question. Army balance. I am generally new to
historical gaming so I don't have stockpiles of painted lead
around
to build warrior armies out of (my only 15mm's are a DBA army of
Numidians which I found out was roughly half a fast warrior army). I
am looking into collecting some new ones. Now I understand you
should select and army whose background, look and flavor wets your
appetite and research more to really get into your army. This is
something that has appealed to me in historical gaming. I just
don't
want to invest the time and money into collecting and painting an
entire new army and find out they play extremely boringly or just
get boringly mauled over and over again. I have no problem losing as
long as it's an exciting loss…same as I wouldn't want to
win the
exact same way over and over again. In other games (non historical)
I've had some measure of faith in the game designers to balance
everything out in an effort to sell all the armies that company
sells, in historicals it strikes me that it could be different.

In a fantasy game they can make the skeletons equal to the orks in a
whole army sense just by designing it that way (even though it
doesn't always work). In historicals it seems there is history to
contend with. No matter how neat the idea of an all conquering
Medieval Welsh horde is, the fact of the matter is they didn't
actually conquer much of anything and therefore it isn't going to
happen. If the army historically was filled with certain troop
types, then that is how the lists get written, and balance between
the armies might not always come out square. I'm sure a lot of
the
balance comes from the points system but it seems there would still
be some issues. I figure this is just how historical out of period
gaming goes and enjoy it anyways but I was wondering how people much
more experienced in this thought of it. This is in no way an attack
against the author and so far I am really looking forward to playing
more of the game...It was just an inquiry.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not at all looking for a killer army.
I've
looked into 3-4 armies that I really like the idea, history, look
and period of and I am just seeing what the general consensus is on
army balance throughout warrior. Should I just pick what I like and
trust that with some skill and patience I can bring out good fun
battles, or does it work differently than that?

For completeness sake these are the armies I was currently
interested in.

Anglo Danish - Hastings and Stamford Bridge have captured my
imagination recently.
Normans - The other side in Hastings.
Hussites – I just recently started reading about them and they
seem
very interesting. I like their unique solution on how peasant armies
can defeat heavy horse. Just a full of character army.
Later Crusader – Always been an interest since I saw Ivanhoe as a
kid.
Selucid – Seem like a very fun combined arms army.
Welsh – Not sure what period yet but interested due to family.

[Ewan McNay]

First - welcome.

Second - kudos for having about the most sensible 'newbie' Qs I've seen in
a long time .

Third - I have exactly zero official status here..

On Thu, 9 Jun 2005, fifiwoohoo wrote:
> No matter how neat the idea of an all conquering
> Medieval Welsh horde is, the fact of the matter is they didn't
> actually conquer much of anything and therefore it isn't going to
> happen. If the army historically was filled with certain troop
> types, then that is how the lists get written, and balance between
> the armies might not always come out square.

This is certainly true. However, getting everyone to *agree* on which
armies, exactly, are killers, is tricky. Which is not to say that there
would not be some very common entries in 'best of' and 'worst of' army
list lists.

> Anglo Danish - Hastings and Stamford Bridge have captured my
> imagination recently.

Tricky. Irregular, and not much shock power. Pretty resilient, though,
but that's not enough to win. Your opponent would pick on a small section
and win there.

> Normans - The other side in Hastings.

More shock, less resilience .

> Hussites – I just recently started reading about them and they
> seem
> very interesting. I like their unique solution on how peasant armies
> can defeat heavy horse. Just a full of character army.

Agreed, but almost certainly *not* something to be a first army. It's
just *so* unique, and it'll likely get you a lot of confused games.

> Later Crusader – Always been an interest since I saw Ivanhoe as a
> kid.

Adds decent shock to some resilient foot. Not a killer, but likely to be
a good choice and provide a good learning curve.

> Selucid – Seem like a very fun combined arms army.

And a certified killer. Tough to get to the killer stage, but also
provides a good range of different options and troop types to learn about.
This plus the Crusaders would make an excellent pair.

All in my NSHO, of course..

Greetings Brinton,
Well looking at what I have available to use I think I can do a fair
number of the armies that intrest you. I can lend you a Selucid,
Crusader, Anglo Danish and perhaps Norman. If you have some free time
in the next few weeks we can get together and see which army suits you
best.

-- In WarriorRules@yahoogroups.com, "fifiwoohoo"
<brinton.williams@p...> wrote:
> And now the longer question. Army balance. I am generally new to
> historical gaming so I don't have stockpiles of painted lead
> around
> to build warrior armies out of (my only 15mm's are a DBA army of
> Numidians which I found out was roughly half a fast warrior army). I
> am looking into collecting some new ones. Now I understand you
> should select and army whose background, look and flavor wets your
> appetite and research more to really get into your army. This is
> something that has appealed to me in historical gaming. I just
> don't
> want to invest the time and money into collecting and painting an
> entire new army and find out they play extremely boringly or just
> get boringly mauled over and over again. I have no problem losing as
> long as it's an exciting loss…same as I wouldn't want to
> win the
> exact same way over and over again. In other games (non historical)
> I've had some measure of faith in the game designers to balance
> everything out in an effort to sell all the armies that company
> sells, in historicals it strikes me that it could be different.
>
<large choping edit tool of doom>
>
> Anglo Danish - Hastings and Stamford Bridge have captured my
> imagination recently.
> Normans - The other side in Hastings.
> Hussites – I just recently started reading about them and they
> seem
> very interesting. I like their unique solution on how peasant armies
> can defeat heavy horse. Just a full of character army.
> Later Crusader – Always been an interest since I saw Ivanhoe as a
> kid.
> Selucid – Seem like a very fun combined arms army.
> Welsh – Not sure what period yet but interested due to family.

[Mark Stone]

--- On June 8 Brinton said: ---

>
> For completeness sake these are the armies I was currently
> interested in.
>

The best armies have some kind of mounted shock troops, which in our system
basically means knights, elephants, or super heavy cataphracts (SHC). Such
armies should also have a balance of light troops vs. line troops, and open
terrain troops vs. rough terrain troops.

> Anglo Danish - Hastings and Stamford Bridge have captured my
> imagination recently.

Slow, brittle, and expensive. Lacks good mounted and good light troops.

> Normans - The other side in Hastings.

The mounted just aren't tough enough as shock troops, being HC rather than
knights. They are cheap and plentiful, but that doesn't really compensate
enough. The infantry are generally mediocre; adequate, but nothing that really
strengthens the army.

> Hussites – I just recently started reading about them and they
> seem
> very interesting. I like their unique solution on how peasant armies
> can defeat heavy horse. Just a full of character army.

A wonderful and fascinating army, one I never get tired of looking at. However,
as Jon said, also an extremely complicated army that entangles you in some of
the rules areas players have least experience with, making it a tough army with
which to learn the system.

> Later Crusader – Always been an interest since I saw Ivanhoe as a
> kid.

Later Crusader would be an excellent choice. Decent knights, a wide mix of foot
troop types, can handle open or rough terrain, very high quality light cavalry,
and decent light infantry. An army you can play in a simple, straightforward way
and do fine, but an army that allows a lot of nuance as your understanding of
the rules and your game play gets more sophisticated.

> Selucid – Seem like a very fun combined arms army.

Seleucids is one of the "killer" armies. All the other armies listed here are in
the knight vintage of shock mounted. Seleucid, by contrast is an elephant army.
Very powerful, but a very different style of play. This army has excellent
light infantry, adequate light cavalry, and some of the very best regular foot
you'll find, for both open and rough terrain.

> Welsh – Not sure what period yet but interested due to family.
>

I think this could actually be quite a good beginner army. It's fairly one
dimensional: high morale irregular foot backed by lance armed cavalry, probably
mostly heavy knights (HK: much cheaper than, but not as effective as EHK or
SHK). No light cav worth bothering with, adequate light infantry, probably best
as a rough terrain army. You could actually do this with an eye to supplementing
it with additional figures later to have a Later Crusader army. Welsh would give
you a decent, straightforward army to learn with, and you could migrate to Later
Crusader when you're ready to "take the training wheels off".


-Mark Stone

--- In WarriorRules@yahoogroups.com, "Terry Dix" <notalent@p...>
wrote:
> Greetings Brinton,
> Well looking at what I have available to use I think I can do a
fair
> number of the armies that intrest you. I can lend you a Selucid,
> Crusader, Anglo Danish and perhaps Norman. If you have some free
time
> in the next few weeks we can get together and see which army suits
you
> best.

I am definitely up for a practice game or two before the con as my
work schedule permits. I'm moving to Los Angeles in the next month
or so but before that we might be able to set something up before or
after the move.

Thanks for the help Terry.

I'll start with Crusaders and Hussites probably. Crusaders as a
strong foundation and learning army and Hussites because they really
are fun (any 15mm hussite figure recommendations). At the rate I
finish armies I'll probably have been playing warrior for a while
before I can actually field the Hussites so by then I should have
learned what I need.

It's to bad the anglo Danish are sounding a little neutered but I'll
probably get to them eventually.

The more people say Selucids can be a killer army the less appealing
they get to me. Is that strange? I really just liked them from a kid
in a candy store position. You want elephants, we got them. You want
heavily armored cavalry, pike blocks, scythed chariots we got all
those too. Something ridiculous in me likes the idea of a spiky
chariot just ramming into formed units.

Greetings Brinton,
I wouldnt give up so quickly on the armies that interest you. The
only one I would suggest caution with is the Hussites, I wouldnt even
have an idea about figs for them. Since I have the extra lead we can
try out the various armies and see what works out best for you. The
flexibilaty of the Seclucids are nice, but up until CW came out I felt
the Bactrians had an overall better list. I will call you and see if
we can set up a time to play in the near future.
Terry Dix

> I am definitely up for a practice game or two before the con as my
> work schedule permits. I'm moving to Los Angeles in the next month
> or so but before that we might be able to set something up before or
> after the move.
>
> Thanks for the help Terry.
>
> I'll start with Crusaders and Hussites probably. Crusaders as a
> strong foundation and learning army and Hussites because they really
> are fun (any 15mm hussite figure recommendations). At the rate I
> finish armies I'll probably have been playing warrior for a while
> before I can actually field the Hussites so by then I should have
> learned what I need.
>
> It's to bad the anglo Danish are sounding a little neutered but I'll
> probably get to them eventually.
>
> The more people say Selucids can be a killer army the less appealing
> they get to me. Is that strange? I really just liked them from a kid
> in a candy store position. You want elephants, we got them. You want
> heavily armored cavalry, pike blocks, scythed chariots we got all
> those too. Something ridiculous in me likes the idea of a spiky
> chariot just ramming into formed units.