Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[Mark Mallard]

The world championships at Derby were one list only up until the end as far
as i can remember (i have been using my derby list recently as i still have
photocopies lying around).

I was at most of the last few worlds.

Personally i like lots of time to play my game and 4 hours is not excessive
in my opinion especially if queries on the rules occur.

All but one of my games at derby were unfinshed although reaching atleast
move 10 - resulting in many inconclusive drawish results.

In a campaign i ran one battle lasted over 30 moves and took several sessions.

mark mallard


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

[Ewan McNay]

John Murphy wrote:
> I have decided to buckle down and make an effort to come up with good,
enjoyable and competitive tourney list-pairs for my armies for the points and
opposition typically seen at the HMGS-E cons at least. I'd like to see my
opponent be the one for a change
> who feels like my army is created just to beat his.
> Ideas or comments anyone?

I'm about (I hope) to write a shortish piece on just this, using
Seleucids as an example. Glad to know someone will be interested :)

Ewan

[John Murphy]

I suppose this really cuts across all the various NASAMW rule sets.

I have typically run a single list, no matter the rules set, at the major cons
even though everyone is allowed two list variations. Usually I show up and it
seems like every one of my opponents is using a list specifically optimised to
beat my particular
army du jour.

Recently I have tried using multiple lists but typically I do decently with the
ONE list I really came to play while I don't really have any sound strategy for
how to play my alternative "vs X" list - which is really a list I'm less
interested in putting
out anyway.

I have decided to buckle down and make an effort to come up with good, enjoyable
and competitive tourney list-pairs for my armies for the points and opposition
typically seen at the HMGS-E cons at least. I'd like to see my opponent be the
one for a change
who feels like my army is created just to beat his.

I really have no clue for a strategy to use for developing two lists.

Understanding that a suitable tactical plan and execution over the board are far
more important than list development, I am still seeking very general help with
coming up with a pair of tournament lists for each of my armies at each points
level. Not so
much the particulars of "take this number of so and so" but the general idea of
what advantages one is trying to reap from having two lists and general terms of
how successful tournement players go about doing this.

Ideas or comments anyone?

- John

[joncleaves]

In a message dated 10/21/2002 8:28:44 AM Eastern Standard Time,
jjmurphy@... writes:

> Understanding that a suitable tactical plan and execution
> over the board are far more important than list development,

Amen, brother. Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition - it's good to hear
someone say that here.

As for two lists, I think the conevntional wisdom is that what beats knights,
match-up wise, isn't necessarily good against elephants, and in open competition
you will generally see both. The idea behind two lists is to soften the impact
of the rock-paper-scissors effect of the wide variety of opponents one will meet
in opens.

I am opposed to two-list tourneys in theme events and continue to remind the
NASAMW Warrior umpire of this. He tends to make decisions based on what he
perceives the 'old-timers' will want (which includes himself), but you can't
make the r-p-s case for themes that you can for opens and one list tourneys
require traveling with less lead. Others who feel this way might want to send
him a note. Good morning, Scott. ;)

[scott holder]

Understanding that a suitable tactical plan and execution over the board
are far more important than list development,

>Only up to a point. Like you, I tend to take just one list but then if
I'm playing at that level, I take a list that pretty much acts the same
against all opponents. Plus, there's nothing wrong with leaving the
suitable tactical plan pretty vague or simple (as Ewan pointed out, when
he's playing Seleucids, it's usually not hard to see what he's trying to
do).

Not so much the particulars of "take this number of so and so" but the
general idea of what advantages one is trying to reap from having two
lists and general terms of how successful tournement players go about
doing this.

>In some ways, your list(s) need to be able to cope with three types of
opponents these being the two most likely types of armies you think
you'll meet and then everybody else. For instance, play in the NICT.
Assume you'll see a preponderance of knight armies (to beat up on all
the "classical" armies) and elephant armies (to beat up on all the
knight armies). You then take your army and optimize two lists for
those opponents. One of those two lists should also be able to do a
credible job against all the other non-knight/elephant armies you might
meet. For that matter, army selection could drive specifically what you
do, *then* optimizing the list(s) flows from there. If you guess wrong
about the tourney, and if you expected nothing but elephant and knight
armies at this year's NICT, you woulda been mistaken, then, heh heh,
you're pretty much SOL. But only up to a point.

>I have always felt that when playing at that level, what's more
important than list optimization is taking a list that you know *so*
well that you can play it in your sleep. That takes your own mistakes
totally out of the game. And if you have a list you know *that* well,
chances are you'll beat opponents that don't fall into your "I've
optimized this list to beat such-and-such types of armies" category.
Now you can tweak your lists *to* beat what you percieve as armies that
can be optimized to beat yours.

Scott

[joncleaves]

> I have always felt that when playing at that level, what's more important than
list optimization is taking a list that you know *so* well that you can play it
in your sleep>>

Wow. It is pretty damn early on a monday to be agreeing with Scott, but I am
compelled to do so. That is easily the smartest thing I have heard said on this
list for a long time.

[Ewan McNay]

"Holder, Scott " wrote:
> >Another idea behind it is that some lists can't really "compete" in an
> open environment with only one list. Thus, so goes the theory, by
> having two lists, more armies are viable, which has traditionally been
> seen as a good thing. Nonetheless, I've played in other one-list
> tourneys (it's been a while tho) and those also add a different dynamic
> that challenges players.

More to the point, many more lists cannot compete in a *two* list
environment. I think that in serious competition, the two-list approach
really reduces the viable armies to those that can have two different
incarnations (LIR, Inca, Hohenstaufen, whatever) , plus those that are
able to survive on one really good list (e.g. Aztecs). My sleazeball
Seleucids are a killer example of the former: one list all elephants,
one list all SHC. Silly. Making the competitions one-list would
greatly increase the number of viable armies and greatly decrease the
list-manipulation to the benefit of actual gaming skill. The NICT
should *NOT* allow more than one list!

But you've heard me say this before, too......

E

[scott holder]

The idea behind two lists is to soften the impact of the
rock-paper-scissors effect of the wide variety of opponents one will
meet in opens.

>Another idea behind it is that some lists can't really "compete" in an
open environment with only one list. Thus, so goes the theory, by
having two lists, more armies are viable, which has traditionally been
seen as a good thing. Nonetheless, I've played in other one-list
tourneys (it's been a while tho) and those also add a different dynamic
that challenges players.

I am opposed to two-list tourneys in theme events and continue to remind
the NASAMW Warrior umpire of this.

>In the words of Enron executives "I have no recollection of that
event". Seriously, this is the first time I've heard your suggest this
wrinkle. More on that in a minute.

He tends to make decisions based on what he perceives the 'old-timers'
will want (which includes himself), but you can't make the r-p-s case
for themes that you can for opens and one list tourneys require
traveling with less lead. Others who feel this way might want to send
him a note. Good morning, Scott. ;)

>Another quote: "I fart in your general direction" Actually,
since this is the first I've heard of this, I'm very intrigued by it and
only hurl a minor fart in your general direction:) I'm a big
proponent of theme stuff and a one list tourney sounds pretty reasonable
to me. Since most people don't have tons of lead, particularly in 25mm,
to devote to the subtle nuances of let's say Late Hebrews or Early
Syrians, a one list requirement does level the playing field so to
speak. I've gone with two lists per tourney mainly because of inertia.

>If anybody else likes this idea, as Jon suggested, post that here. I'm
inclined to give it a try at Historicon (assuming we end up going with a
Crusades theme although even if we stick with a Roman theme, which I
doubt, we can still go with one list).

Scott
Ump Ho

[joncleaves]

You know Scott, if you'd stop drinking beer with fruit in it, you'd both
remember what I've told you and fart less....

So, I suppose now you are going to tell me that you've never heard me tell you 4
hours is too long and you've never told me you were going to keep it because
certain old timers liked it? :)

[scott holder]

> I have always felt that when playing at that level, what's more
important than list optimization is taking a list that you know *so*
well that you can play it in your sleep>>
Wow. It is pretty damn early on a monday to be agreeing with Scott, but
I am compelled to do so. That is easily the smartest thing I have heard
said on this list for a long time.

>Incredible! I'm on a roll. First it was "CinC as Returning
Adventurer" (Halfing list for FanWar) and now this! *beams*

>Actually, this is something that "second tier" players such as myself
and Scott McDonald adopted years ago. I'll be the first to admit that I
don't approach this game the way Ewan or Dave Stier do, hence, I need to
find a way to eliminate any cerebral advantage they might have over me.
So, I play an army, and play it and play it and play it, until I know
*everything* there is to know about that army. *And* I play it against
as many varied opponents (army wise) as I possibly can. That way, when
I show up at a tourney and have probably already played in 1-2 days of
other tournaments and am brain dead, it doesn't make any difference. I
can run said army almost by rote. So when Ewan tosses out his pike
blocks to channel my stuff into his elephants, I theoretically know what
to do in response with the one specific army I've practiced with once a
week for a year.

>When I went to Derby to play in the "world" championships in 1990, I
did exactly as above, I played 15mm Spanish (the "old" WRG list since
the new cheeseball list wasn't out) for the better part of a year so
that I wouldn't hafta think. Sure enough, by simply showing up and
moving lead while on autopilot, I crushed two opponents who had armies
designed to kill mine (elephants and knights), had godawful dice against
a third (JD MacNeil with Seleucids who eventually won the entire tourney
but didn't outplay me fwiw) and drew with a LIR who I shoulda beat on
paper but he was the best *player* I met the entire weekend. And if
memory serves, the "world" championship was a 1 list tournament. Ewan,
you'd probably remember this better than me. If it was a 2 list
tourney, I only used one list since with Spanish in 1990, one list
pretty much worked against everybody.

>Okay, do I *do* any of this in reality these days? Not really. When
it comes to Warrior, I have a bad case of "Short Attention Span Theater"
in that I love playing all kinds of different armies and thus have
trouble getting into a groove with one particular army. The only
exception to that would be Khmer and even then, I still didn't play it
enough to have tweaked the list in such a way that it had no weak spots
in an open tourney.

>So, I'll be coming back to FI with 25mm Burgundian Ordonnance, one
list, no optimizing for a specific opponent. I'll count on my ability
to counter-punch and do a little ad-hoc planning to overcome the obvious
limitations of the list (few light troops) against most opponents and
it's vulnerability against elephant armies. But, it's probably the only
other list I have that I can run almost in my sleep and that'll do for
the weekend. And if it doesn't, I'll simply hafta fall back on my usual
tactical approach to the game "Move Unit A to Point B and roll up 4".

Scott

[scott holder]

You know Scott, if you'd stop drinking beer with fruit in it, you'd both
remember what I've told you and fart less....

>I tend to do that so that people won't ask me questions at
tournaments:):)

So, I suppose now you are going to tell me that you've never heard me
tell you 4 hours is too long and you've never told me you were going to
keep it because certain old timers liked it? :)

>You specifically? Not that I recall. However, some people have
commented on the 4 hour time limit being too long. At one level, I
agree and it certainly dictates a certain playing style in order to have
any realistic chance at 1600 points to win a game. OTOH, not everybody
is wired to approach the game in a way that makes 3.5 hour rounds
altogether doable and I've felt the "extra" half hour isn't all that big
a deal. I *might* try this at Fall In and see what kinda of reaction I
get. But, I've also never had any outpouring of "oh Scott, cut the
games to 3.5 hours" so I've not been inclined to do so. I will be the
first to admit that I ask our "core customer base" for feeback before
anybody else because, our core customer base has stuck with us for a
long time and are the ones buying our products (note to core customer
base, go buy our products if you haven't done so already which means
place an order for Holy Warrior on the web site).

>I mean right now, we play 1200 pt games in 3 hours which, to me, is an
ideal format and time frame. By adding 400 points to a game, an extra
half hour doesn't mean much. OTOH, many players with 400 points like
that buy all the "fluff" troops that actually make the game last another
hour. Flopping back, if players knew they only had 3.5 hours to play a
game, much of those 1600 points wouldn't go towards "fluff". And we've
taken steps to alleviate that somewhat with the 50% break rule.

>As everybody can tell, I've dwelled on the whole relationship with
points and time in tournaments for oh, 15 years now and still haven't
come up with a definitive answer. Some armies simply need more time to
develop their game (ie the recently mentioned "I can't get my 15mm COF
into contact in 4 hours"). Of course, and Ewan can attest to this, 3.5
hour games at Derby didn't stop Belgian players running Mongols from
getting into contact early.

scott

[scott holder]

More to the point, many more lists cannot compete in a *two* list
environment. I think that in serious competition, the two-list approach
really reduces the viable armies to those that can have two different
incarnations (LIR, Inca, Hohenstaufen, whatever) , plus those that are
able to survive on one really good list (e.g. Aztecs). My sleazeball
Seleucids are a killer example of the former: one list all elephants,
one list all SHC. Silly. Making the competitions one-list would
greatly increase the number of viable armies and greatly decrease the
list-manipulation to the benefit of actual gaming skill. The NICT
should *NOT* allow more than one list!

But you've heard me say this before, too......

>Yes, you I remember nagging me about this:) Again, I've seen both
sides of this and am not deaf to the issue. Players don't like change
although I must say that the Warrior group has turned into the GREATEST
GROUP OF PLAYERS!!!!!!!! when it comes to experimenting with what we
here in the USofA would perceive as an "alternate tournament format".
In fact, I'd probably say that there is more of a "sure, that's okay"
reaction to limiting tourneys to one list than there is cutting down a
1600 pt tourney to 3.5 hour rounds.

>Perhaps next year will be a year of such experimentation since I'll
have more time to devote to this as an umpire. As I mentioned earlier,
I'll see about shoving a 3.5 hour time limit on the Open players at FI.
And for the teams (2000 points) at Cold Wars, we can stick at 4 hour
games but perhaps go with just one list. That'll give me some feedback
on two issues and we can then see how/if we wanna adopt any of them for
Hcon.

scott