Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[Ewan McNay]

Running through the Biblical and Dark Age lists, I wondered what other's
thoughts on 'good' armies had been. None of the Biblical look
outstanding, although I am tempted by some of the early pike mobs (note
1 to List Ho: as the list rules stand, militia pikemen fight all four
ranks while their household compatriots fight only two. Intended?).
Midianites are as good or bad as ever, depending on one's proclivities;
after my comment about 'is there more than one way to run a Midianite?'
I have been toying with the idea of running a *lot* of LI in huge
commands, and tiring the opposition by repeated converted charges until
they're exhausted .

Anyway, moving on to Dark Age, I am very tempted by Arthurian Brits.
Lots of regular troops, some decent cav, and an optional Saxon ally
(note 2 to List Ho: Saxons as allied contingents are much more deadly
then when fighting by themselves. One gets to take just the warriors,
not the dregs, and in at least one case there are more allied warriors
available than there are available in the Saxon list . In a two list
tournament, one can take an anti-foot/El list, with all the Saxons, and
an anti-cav list with no Saxons but around 30 small, missile-armed,
manouvreable units. I think that this is the pick of the era; Russ are
still OK, both Viking and Pre-Feudal Scots are significantly worse than
in previous lists. Welsh look as though they should contain a decent
list - especially the later versions around the time of the Normans -
but I couldn't make one. Early Byzantine would be a *great* 3000 point
list, but is I think less than playable at 1600, much less 1200; the
huge minima of expensive regular cav greatly hobble it.

I am tempted to build an army around the reg LMI fire syphoneers,
though, even at 234 points for 16 LMI with no combat weapon. in
skirmish, they fire 24 guys at artillery factors - whoomph! :)

Thoughts from others?

[joncleaves]

Man, Ewan, you really are something...lol

<<> I have been toying with the idea of running a *lot* of LI in huge
> commands, and tiring the opposition by repeated converted charges until
> they're exhausted .>>

Hardly a new thought. And a heck of a lot of fun...

<<> both Viking and Pre-Feudal Scots are significantly worse than in previous
lists.>>

For the new reader, I know I can say I believe this statement to be
categorically untrue. From a history perspective, I know they are better, but
that is not where Ewan's concerns lie. And from a tourney perspective, I would
never have considered either one before, but now have given each a hard look.
Maybe the great E can give us more DETAIL on the support to his brash statement.

Ewan, have you looked at the Picts? I have written a couple lists I really like
and would love to hear your analysis. And I meant that last word literally...
:)

Byzantines are only hobbled by reg cav if the player sees no use for them.
Please tell us why those Byz cav are soooo unuseful?

<< I am tempted to build an army around the reg LMI fire syphoneers,
> though, even at 234 points for 16 LMI with no combat weapon. in
> skirmish, they fire 24 guys at artillery factors - whoomph!
> >>

And I thought *I* was a power gamer.... yikes.

All in fun, as always.
J

[Ewan McNay]

JonCleaves@... wrote:
> <<> I have been toying with the idea of running a *lot* of LI in huge
> > commands, and tiring the opposition by repeated converted charges until
> > they're exhausted .>>
>
> Hardly a new thought. And a heck of a lot of fun...

Agreed, on both counts. I'm just not quite sure that either (i) I would
have the patience to paint a thousand or so LI, or (ii) that it would
actually work :)

> <<> both Viking and Pre-Feudal Scots are significantly worse than in previous
lists.>>
>
> For the new reader, I know I can say I believe this statement to be
categorically untrue. From a history perspective, I know they are better, but
that is not > where Ewan's concerns lie. And from a tourney perspective, I
would never have considered either one before, but now have given each a hard
look. Maybe the > great E can give us more DETAIL on the support to his brash
statement.

:) OK, this is now off the top of my head (i.e. from memory, without
the actual book in front of me). I believe that the Scots have an
increased minimum on their MI LTS, Sh guys, who are the target for
almost all opponents in open tourneys; if I recall correctly, they no
longer have the option for IrrA HIghland LI, who were very useful; [this
one could be wrong?] I think that the available cav is diminished, as
one now has to take LC and HC/HK from the same pool; the allies may be
smaller/less flexible. As a tournament army, they previously had just
enough (wedging, when in mattered) HC and good LC/LI to support the main
cast of Irreg A LMI guys. That balance seems to me to now be tilted
awry, and there are more of the lowlnd guys to have to hide somewhere.

Vikings have compulsory Bondi axemen. Yuk. I need to look to see
whether there is any other major decrement. I wouldn't run this list
myself, in most cases, even in previous incarnation, but having to now
spend points on something I will never use again tilts the balance past
the borderline.

[Clearly, a lot of this is my own bias. LMI armed with 2HCW are not
something that I like in a dark age list - they just get so hammered in
the second round *or* if failing a waver at any point. That applies
even more so to shieldless guys who just get shot to pieces. So, troops
like the Irish 2HCW, JLS folk are not a lplus for me, despite Jamie's
imprimatur]

> Ewan, have you looked at the Picts? I have written a couple lists I really
like and would love to hear your analysis. And I meant that last word
literally...

No, not in any depth. I'll take a look.

> Byzantines are only hobbled by reg cav if the player sees no use for them.
Please tell us why those Byz cav are soooo unuseful?

No, no. That's not what I said. The cav are great - just hugely
expensive, and one has to take so many of them (something like 8 or 9
units; I think that I was at 800-odd points on just those 16-18 elements
of troops) before even looking at the rest of the list. There are lots
of good troops in the list (the skutatoi, the JLS,D loose order guys,
etc.) but by the time one has taken the compulsory HC and a sensible
number of light troops, there's too little left for my taste to build
your army around.

Bear in mind that this is coming from a guy who runs Imperialists with
knights, LI and three 16-man close foot units; I'm not wedded to the
need for vast numbers of troops. But, if I'm going to have such a tiny
army, I want it to be able to hit things .

> And I thought *I* was a power gamer.... yikes.
>
> All in fun, as always.

Oh, sure. And reflecting my personal biases in army construction, of
course. You didn't comment on my Arthurian recommendation, so there may
actually have been a hidden point of agreement .

E

[joncleaves]

Great post, Ewan, thanks - exactly what I was looking for.

<< You didn't comment on my Arthurian recommendation, so there
> may actually have been a hidden point of agreement .>>

Yup. But I don't want anyone actually catching on to the fact... :)

[Mark Stone]

Quoting WarriorRules@yahoogroups.com:

> Date: Fri, 23 Aug 2002 09:15:11 -0400
> From: Ewan <ewan.mcnay@...>
> Subject: Warrior lists thus far
>
> Running through the Biblical and Dark Age lists, I wondered what other's
> thoughts on 'good' armies had been....
>

Ewan disparages the Andalusian list in passing, but it is one I've been looking
at very closely.

To start with, it has lots of excellent skirmish troops, including my favorite,
LI with S, Sh. More bow-armed light cav would be nice, but there is some, and
plenty of LC with JLS.

It also has an abundance of troops for dealing with the bane of any knight army,
namely elephants: you can get regular loose order javelinmen, regular loose
order archers, and these can be in mixed units. For the straight ahead approach
against elephants, you've got MI LTS,JLS,Sh backed by a rear rank of archers.

Finally you can get a decent number of knights for shock troops, particularly
dealing with other cav and barbarian foot. The knights can only be HK, but I've
been doing a lot of hard thinking about whether 4 points a figure (EHK) or 7
points a figure (SHK) really buys you enough of a difference. HK may be the most
cost-efficient way to go.

This army is going to be brittle against Romans, and against the ever-present
Yuan. But it has enough skirmish/finesse troops in those matchups for
generalship to decide the outcome.

Ewan seemed to think this list was worse than the WRG Andalusians. I don't have
the old WRG list in front of me, but I don't remember as many HK on that list
(just generals, as I recall) and I don't remember regular loose order
javelinmen. To my mind those are both big pluses with the current list.

The minimums on this list are high, and it takes some creativity to come up with
a nice 1600 point combination. But for the 2000 point team tournament this could
be a really great list.


-Mark Stone

[Ewan McNay]

On Tue, 27 Aug 2002, Mark Stone wrote:

[Sensible stuff on Andalusian]

> To start with, it has lots of excellent skirmish troops, including my
favorite,
> LI with S, Sh. More bow-armed light cav would be nice, but there is some, and
> plenty of LC with JLS.

I agree that the regular Negro LI are good. Having all the LC as Irreg is
a pain, though. {Another List Ho nit - Scott, are you actually reading
these? -is that as I read the list, the Christian Guard crossbowmen are
deemed unusable, as they 'would have to be in a unit with a CinC of the
same type' but there is no such costing available for the CinC. I suspect
that they're allowed if one takes the Christian guard HK, but that's not
what's stated.}

> Finally you can get a decent number of knights for shock troops, particularly
> dealing with other cav and barbarian foot. The knights can only be HK, but
I've
> been doing a lot of hard thinking about whether 4 points a figure (EHK) or 7
> points a figure (SHK) really buys you enough of a difference. HK may be the
most
> cost-efficient way to go.

Agreed. Certainly against opposing cav, maybe against barbarian foot.
But suffers against missiles (inc LC, opposing L,B HC) and other foot.
Still, I agree that the HK are good; they're going to be very brittle,
though, as there is nothing else that can be taken in the same commend.

Plus, I just hate having to put all the troops that I am hoping to win the
game with in one place, and under an Ally-General at that!

> Ewan seemed to think this list was worse than the WRG Andalusians. I don't
have
> the old WRG list in front of me, but I don't remember as many HK on that list
> (just generals, as I recall) and I don't remember regular loose order
> javelinmen. To my mind those are both big pluses with the current list.

Granted in both cases; the LMI bowmen are perhaps more of a plus to me in
this army then the JLS guys.

> The minimums on this list are high, and it takes some creativity to come up
with
> a nice 1600 point combination. But for the 2000 point team tournament this
could
> be a really great list.

This actually seemed a smaller issue on this list than others; if one
assumes that the Berbers will never be taken (who needs yet more LC JLS,
Sh?) then there are only Andalusian archers of troops that I wouldn't want
to take anyway, I think.

E

[Mark Stone]

Oh, and I forgot to mention the best reason to play Andalusian:

You can get El Cid as your C-in-C.

People from my circle of wargaming (Dave Stier, Frank Gilson, etc) are often
looking for a way to get the punch of knights with the skrimishing of Muslims.
There are several armies that put this combination together effectively:
Sicilian Hohenstaufen, Medieval Portugese, Comnenan Byzantine come to mind.

But where's the historical interest, the heroic appeal, in that? Frederick of
Hohenstaufen, John of Gaunt, and Alexis Commenus are all interesting figures,
but hardly with the kind of charisma and heroic appeal of, say, Alexander the
Great, Julius Caesar, or Richard the Lion-hearted. Further, playing an army like
Sicilian Hohenstaufen requires that you play a-historically: take as many Arabs
as possible, take as few European foot as possible. I _really_ doubt that this
configuration looks like or plays like the army Frederick took on crusade.

In terms of historical interest the Andalusians are perfect. El Cid is just the
kind of "larger than life" personality that gives an army tremendous appeal,
both for the person playing it and -- perhaps more imporantly -- those on the
outside watching, and trying to decide if they want to get into Warrior. At
Historicon or Cold Wars inevitably the first question I get asked by a passer-by
is what army I'm playing. If my answer is something like "Seleucids" or
"Rajputs" they have no idea who those guys are, they lose interest, and they
wander off. What a difference if you can say instead "this is the army of El
Cid".

Finally, El Cid really was someone who lived in and had sympathy for both the
Muslim and Christian world (wouldn't it be nice if we had more of that today?).
His armies and his tactics genuinely were an integration of both worlds. No real
list tweaking is required here. Play the army in the proportions suggested by
the list requirements, and you're playing a pretty decent army, with a great
hero as your C-in-C, and you're playing it using pretty much the historical
tactics and proportions. That's a combination we could use more of in Warrior.


-Mark Stone

[joncleaves]

[joncleaves]

Mark

That was an awesome post.

Jon