Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

Ewan McNay · Posted: Fri May 05, 2006 1:59 pm Post subject: Varangians and elephants

Mark Stone has been espousing the use of Varangians (in particular, as part of a Nik Byzantine army), with their raison d'etre being in particular anti-elephant duty. So I started to wonder whether I was missing something, and ran some numbers.

The obvious example was to see what happened against my Sassanid elephants (2 JLS, 2 B crew). Assume that things are decent for the Varangians - i.e. they get to charge impetuously with no previous shooting; and let's give them a 2 El unit to fight, which should help significantly, on a 2E frontage. A 4E unit of Varangians is 97 points, and the El would be 133, so the El are a little more expensive; but this is supposed to be the ideal circumstance for the LHI. Even dice assumed throughout - both sides are IrrB so not unlikely.

Round 1: the Varangians come in with 6@7 and 3@5, which is 48 - making the elephants tired and disordered. So far, so good. The El shoot 6@-1 in support, which is 4; then in melee they have 10@3 and 4 crew at 2, for 33; total 37, so the LHI are tired and disordered also (3 cpf doubles to 6 fatigues, plus 1 for impetuous is 7; the el are on 6).

Round 2: LHI pushing the El back, but tired and disordered, have 6@4 and 3@2, for 24. El are fighting disordered foot and have 10 @ 1; crew are fighting shieldless LHI now and have 4 @ 4 and 4 @ 3 (I hope I'm getting this right!), for 37. The El win, causing a waver in the LHI and putting them on 13 fatigues; in round 3, the LHI evaporate.

So, under their best case and even against non-pike elephants, the LHI are evaporating.. what did I miss?

p.s. Where is everybody? The forum is way too quiet!

Mike Turner · Posted: Fri May 05, 2006 2:23 pm Post subject:

Ewan,
I don't usually jump into these discussions, but it has been quiet, and as a LIR player (yes, I know, not a good list Rolling Eyes

) I am also looking for Elephant/SHC solutions.

I think the Varangians are better off hitting one Elephant with their unit as opposed to hitting square (that's what I would do as a Roman). I do not have a chart with me, but if the two units are off-set so that only one base is making contact the factors are "something like" 24-18 (V vs. E) so the Elephant is pushed back and the Varangians are not disordered in the 2nd round of combat. The Varangians fight better 2nd round and the Byzantine can hit the other Elephant's front with a second unit in the following round.

"One on one" straight up, as you laid it out, you are correct, the Varangian loses. Working offset in conjunction with another Byzantine unit, the Elephant should be pushed back 1st round and losing in the following round.

Why I don't get into these discussions is because you will now state that an SHC unit is charging the Varangian's outside stand in the 2nd round of combat. So forth and so on... Wink

VR,
Mike Turner

Mark Stone · Posted: Fri May 05, 2006 3:19 pm Post subject: Re: Varangians and elephants

Ewan McNay · Posted: Fri May 05, 2006 3:48 pm Post subject:

Thanks, Mark (and Mike). Sorry that I extrapolated your recommendation beyond circumspection Sad

.

Running the Varangians in column is the kind of thing that I suspect only deepish thought produces; finding that solution over-the-table would almost certainly escape me.

I do share the thought that the Niks are a decent army, and I keep giving them good ratings, so it's something I'd like to build. I hope Scott doesn't get too mad if I morph some of the Sassanid SHC over, though Smile

.

[There's one other, utterly different, army on my 'I would like to make this work next' list. Part of the problem is of course is that I only get to play a total of maybe 15 games or so each year now - just not enough to use more than one army with any sense. I'll just have to find more time to hang out with Bill et al. Smile

]

Mark Stone · Posted: Fri May 05, 2006 4:25 pm Post subject:

Frank Gilson

A natural way to want to run irr foot in a column is that you'd like to fight with 5 figures per enemy element hit, not 9 per two elements hit.

There are some lists with irr loose foot that offer a high morale shielded contact element with cheap filler figures behind.

The main vulnerability to these types of units is lancers charging from outside 120p in the open, the resulting waver being pretty bad when the rear of the column is D morale.

As for close order foot, people should stop playing that junk Wink

. Unless it's cheap enough to efficiently cover a huge frontage, or still affordable but having a missile weapon. Nikephoran close order foot doesn't meet those criterion, nor operate particularly well with the rest of the army.

Dave Markowitz · Recruit Joined: 12 Apr 2006 Posts: 172 Location: New York

If it comes down to Varangians vs. elephants, the Byzantine player has done something very well in my book. Why? There are so many things the elephants can kill, and the Varangains are about on the bottom of that list. Moreover, one big die roll (not out of the question with Irregs), and the elephants are stampeding home -- and the Byzantines can afford to lose the Varangians a lot more than an elepant army can afford one of its money units.

As to two untits on one, all of that is great, but very dffiucult to achieve in a "live comat" situation. Just hit tontor with one unit and roll up.

Kelly Wilkinson · Posted: Wed May 10, 2006 2:55 am Post subject: Varangians Expanding

Why didn't your Varangians expand when following up on the elephant unit? Wouldn't that be the optimal thing for them to do?

Kelly

Frank Gilson · Posted: Mon May 15, 2006 11:54 pm Post subject: expand/no?

Expanding often exposes your troops to unanswerable charges by enemy units...something to consider when planning strategy. Don't rely on being able to safely expand too often.