Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[Mark Stone]

Hey folks, just a quick report from Historicon while I have a moment. I'll do a lengthier report (probably more than one) when I have more time.

In response to Ewan's comment that:

[Ewan McNay]

Equally quick initial commentary. The rise-from-nowhere of the Japanese was indeed the 'secret' I alluded to; Japanese with the LEHI semi-immunity to bowfire, high morale, and 2HCT were all around. I fought only one, Dave Markowitz in round 4 of 5, and we took each other out of the competition with a 1-1 as time ran out on a very compressed-schedule day after the antics of the HMGS board meeting on Saturday morning. Other opponents were Tim Brown's Late Romans, Charles Yaw's Spanish Tartessian, Chris Damour's Medieval Spanish, and Dennis Shorthouse's Swiss; a decent variety, all with significant amounts of high-quality foot as their core.

The Condotta-Moldavian matchup in the Theme final was a difficult one for the Moldavians, whose large number of IrrA/B HK are not designed to fight pike blocks, and it was not helped by my getting terrain to anchor both flanks. I did manage to lose both of the one-unit-command subgenerals to catastrophes in the same bound, as part of a sequence of 3 successive -3 rolls with regular troops, but was lucky to mostly survive the wavers while winning elsewhere (including catching evading LC with a pike block when the LC both rolled short and had to contract from line into column around the advancing HK!).

More anon.

[scott holder]

Actually it was 3 Feudal and 2 Fujiwara.

The last NICT round pitted Dick Hurchanik against Dan Woyke, two Feudal Japanese armies. Dick had all his oriental fish tank buildings scattered around the table. And when the lines met, it looked like a Kurasawa film in 25mm, really cool.

I also want to add that several people associated with East came down Saturday night and said "wow, these are the best figures at the show". I kid you not!

Of course terrain still needs help but kudos to those who are slowly working on that angle, Todd Kaeser and Rich Kroupa being the stand outs in that regard. That being said, I realize how hard it is to make good looking and portable terrain. Gonna hafta work on another possible approach.

scott

[Mark Stone]

[Ewan McNay]

No longer quick:

A somewhat longer report…

…but not as long as it might have been. This was the first year, I think, that I have stayed on site - thanks in large number to Bill Low for the generous offer of a room share - and that greatly increased my alcohol consumption, which in turn - well, you get the picture. Fewer details than there might have been, and I might have made errors - apologies, if so, and I hope not. It was great fun to have more time for the social side, though. Who knew that Frank Gilson is a cheese addict? Or that [censored] has been known to [censored]? And of course there was the new addition to the gaming schedule, ‘Board Politics’ ™ on Saturday morning, where you get to change the rules as you go along!

OK, on to gaming. I started off the weekend with the Ivy League Grudge Match (also ™) against Bill Chriss and his - surprise - Greeks, and that was about the perfect warmup after significant rust. Thanks to Bill for getting up on Thursday morning; next time I’ll bring Scots and we’ll do the whole national-dress thing…

…and that led to the NICT, day one. All attendees bar Tim Brown were gathered, as Scott scanned the area for the absent Tim. Noon arrives - the first pairings are made - and Tim’s name is about to be struck from the lists when he appears, car still running outside from the overnight drive from Georgia. And he’s my first round opponent: his LIR against my Sassanids. The talk of the draw is the five Samurai armies; otherwise, as Mark noted previously, it’s a pretty standard mix. Tim’s army choice and list were constrained by lead on hand at his deployment site, and so the LIR is low on light troops, high on legions and auxilia; I get lucky on terrain and we end up fighting on essentially an open field, which makes things tricky for the slow-moving Roman line. Tim also has what may be the first LIR LI CB troops I have ever seen deployed. Roman LC fail an early counter and are shot to exhaustion by massed Sassanid horse archers, and that makes it difficult for the Romans to dictate matchups, so that after a few tricky and nervous moments when Tim’s shooting dice get hot, and my elephants have to waver to avoid being halted, cataphracts hit both of the Roman auxilia bow blocks on the flanks - one of whom shakes in the charge - and a legion, and it’s really just a grind of wavers for being pushed-back disordered which thankfully take their toll before the reserve Roman foot can push aside the Sassanid lights in the middle and come into the SHC flanks; one auxilia unit does make it into the flank of an expanded-out EHC back rank following-up the legion, but just in time to shake, and there are enough Roman dead for the win.

Game 2 is against Charles Yaw, running Spanish Tartessian which looks a lot like a Carthaginian army. See map 1 in the PowerPoint file I’ll upload in a moment. The first thing that jumped out at me was that the two Numidian LC units anchoring Charles’ flank (with the rest of his army on my left, behind the two woods and the brush, and a large force of force-marched MI spearmen between the two woods) were vulnerable. My Reg D LI performed wonderfully in making counters to delay the spear/elephants advance as I hurtled forward on my right, and the Numidians duly went under. In and around the central brush, several units of Spanish LMI (IrrA-fronted, HTW/JLS/Sh, potent troops) were advancing, and one of their comrades arrived on my left on a bound 2 flank march that was a little too early: I could send over a small LC unit and a cataphract general to deal with him before the spear/elephant line (supported by yet more Spanish LMI) could get there. I got a lucky result in the middle of that flank, too: the 2E LC unit that had played a role in dealing with the flank march got off a shot at a 6-man Spanish unit, rolled up, and the IrrB Spanish failed their waver test. Combined with the loss of the LC and some LI, that put the Spanish command structure in some danger, and when we came to grips around the brush in the center I was able to survive sending in a unit of cataphracts to the brush - doing so meant that I could hit some LMI at the halt, which I thought was a worthwhile tradeoff until they rolled up a lot and pushed me back with a second disorder! Fortunately the only flank guard for the brush had been the LC, and I was able to roll up from there without having to fight the spears or elephants.

End of day 1, I was (and I still am) happy with the army list, and things had gone well.

Moving to the Saturday, we don’t get to start the first game of the day until ~10.40 because of the membership meeting morass, but when I see the matchups I realise that this is not going to be an issue as I am facing Chris Damour, possibly the fastest-to-contact of the top Warrior players. I’ve played teams with Chris, and turned around on bound 2 only to find his close foot troops over the halfway line and charging... He and I both have 10 points from the first two games, as do Dave Markowitz (Samurai) and, impressively, Dennis Shorthouse with Swiss; I think that’s it. Chris is running Aragonese, Early Medieval Spanish, so I expect - and see - massed knights and Almughavars. Terrain is largely irrelevant, with a major water feature on my left and two woods both on my side of the table, on the flanks (see Map 2; no, I don’t know why they were on my side of the table - Chris?) but I do guess correctly which side of his line I expect to see the compulsory Jinete LC who make an obvious target. (The ‘massed Sassanid LC’ don’t really start out massed, as they’re spread across commands, but the Sassanid LI screen is good enough to allow redeployment pretty easily). The biggest surprise of the army - and it shouldn’t be a surprise when Chris is running it - is the presence of 2 IrrD LMI units, one of B, Sh and one of LTS, JLS, Sh. They were immediately adjacent to the LC, with a line of Almughavars extending from them to the major water feature; all of the foot was in one command, with one knight general, while the LC were in a second command with the remainder (7 units?) of the knights, deployed behind. Chris manages to roll down on four-of-four evade moves early on to lose a couple of LI units and one of the LC on the right, while my LI again run away slowly on the centre-left. And I get not just one but *two* shaken 6-man IrrB Almughavar units from lucky potshots doing 2 cpf, one of which is between the IrrD LMI blocks and causes them to shake when it is charged and evaporated by a cataphract unit, and that puts the foot command on retreat. I was just unreasonably lucky through this battle, in catching all of the evading units and having Chris fail two wavers with eager IrrB-class troops, and it was over fast. It was probably kind of entertaining to listen to the two of us, as we both kept apologising - by Saturday, brain fry has started to set in as has lack of sleep, and Chris and I are good friends who did *not* want to annoy each other, which made the luck all the more embarrassing. [One of the topics for late-night debate on the Friday evening had been the difference between in-game and out-of-game behaviour and relationships. Of their essence, Warrior games are about trying to kill the other guy, and it can be tough to maintain friendliness and equanimity while either killing or being killed. Hugely important; I guess that’s the role of beer afterward, in part. And some folks - Bill Low springs to mind, but many others - are better than I at not getting personally involved in success or failure. I’m working on it, always..] On the plus side, on the Sunday morning Chris recognised some of his lead, in my Condotta army, that I had been trying to work out the owner of for probably ten years!

So to game 4: I’m still basically very happy with the army. At this stage, I’m winning - woohoo! - as I’m the only 15-point player, Dave Markowitz having defeated Dennis 4-1 as time ran out with the Samurai descending in waves on shot-up Swiss blocks to be on 14; there are a couple of others on 14, 13, and then several 12/11 scores. I played Dave in game 4 last year also, and there are some similarities in both terrain (see map 3) and game-flow, as his foot line await the arrival of my mounted force with many more combat units but less ability to pick the point of action. My LI are superior to Dave’s IrrD LI LB, and there are quickly 3 dead Japanese LI units, aided on the right by a failed waver after delayed receipt of a retirement prompt and in the centre by a small LC unit. Said LC unit gets shot up and disordered as it pursues, and then routs off after being shot up again once it has destroyed the LI it was pursuing; no-one cares on my side. And the LI unit on my left that killed off Dave’s LI unit there and took the hill fails a counter and is rapidly disposed of by a Samurai unit, but has done its job: there is now no Samurai unit able to come down off that hill. Which is important: to the right of the left-hand hill, as I look at things, is where the action is. I’ve actually thought about this matchup, and I’m not unhappy; I have a lot of units that should be able to insert themselves as priority shooting targets, and assuming I’m not disordered, my cataphracts are a good match against his Samurai even if they’re mutually charging impetuously. So I’m manouvring, carefully, to set this up: I have the 3 SHC units in the lead, being backed up by elephants and HC lancers, against the 3 end Samurai units. Neither one of us is willing to give the other more of an opening than I we have to, of course, and we’re perhaps a bit too careful. On the penultimate bound, as it turns out, Dave waves a flag to change orders from Wait; his line is all IrrA and has thus been unable to charge. That’s important, because he also passes two counters to take Samurai units out of the range of my SHC for that turn which both avoids being caught at the halt and gives him a chance for some potshots that will make my SHC tired at contact, as he rolls up on both units he’s able to target and I can’t avoid allowing him to shoot at them one and two elements respectively, as the SHC are also shooters and hence a high-priority target, with a charge range only as long as close range for a longbow. One shot rolls a +3 but thankfully just fails to kill the general… last year, against Dave’s then-Alexandrians, it was a 1-1 battle until the last-bound cataphract charge where my general rolled -4 and died in a catastrophe. This year: in the final bound (alas; we were both expecting one more, which would have given at least one of us some points) I get to charge in with two cataphract units… one does roll -3, but with a +1 -4 roll, so no catastrophe. When I’m not facing IrrA elements in either case and Dave rolls up but not hugely he ends up winning both combats but not decisively. And then it ends, at 1-1 and realistically, that’s the end of the tournament chances for both of us. One of my SHC units is disordered and hence in trouble next bound, but Dave is going to have to take wavers with the two units in combat for mounted charges and a third SHC unit/Samurai matchup is about to happen, so points available to both of us, potentially. O well.

As it turns out, our chances at the tournament are not over. On raw score, the top players are Rob Turnball and Derek Downs, both on 17; myself and Dennis on 16; and Dave and some others on 15. Dave has beaten Derek 5-2 already, and Dennis 4-1, so he’s getting good adjusted score points. Dennis and I face off next to the Rob-Derek match, and looking over early on Rob is clearly on top: a flank march arrives perfectly, routing and shaking several Khmer units including a big elephant block, and the Alexandrian line is in good shape, but then Derek claims to out-roll (by his own statement) Rob by an average of four in every subsequent melee to pull out the 5-point win and claim yet another NICT crown. Congrats, Derek; I’m sure that there was significantly more to it even in that final game than dice .

Against the Swiss, I get to place terrain first and start with the customary Sassanid road, which seems to throw a spanner in the works of their desire to use terrain as flank protection; Dennis places 3 large woods on my side of the road while I am placing open spaces on his; see map 4 where I have left the road visible. Placing first - and getting a road - is a huge step for the Sassanids; with the changes to roads allowable, even just placing second can make a road *much* less useful if the opponent plans for it. And it’s especially key when your opponent is outscouted, as were the Swiss: the road goes ~200p into their table side and bingo, you’ve essentially got a battle-frontage of clear terrain, if you’re lucky, and an opponent pinned at the back of the table. As it happens, I miss a pick of an open space and Dennis gets to place a max wood in the table’s centre, which is kinda annoying but not terrible; I was surprised to see a wood instead of e.g. a brush where the Swiss pike would be usable. This is the final game, and the end of a long day, so I send out force-marched not only LI but also several LC units; this is also because I want to try to get to any Swiss LI before they can try to get to the woods, and that works as planned. The Swiss have what is to me a very odd structure: only 4 pike blocks, all enormous. Those are split 2-2 between two almost-identical commands, each of which has in addition two 2-element LI units, a 2-element LC CB unit, a 2-element IrrB HC unit, and a unit (2- or 4-elements) of LMI HG, for a total of 7 units per command and 14 units in total. It’s a great testament to Dennis’ skill that he managed to get this army to as good a result as he did, in my honest opinion, but I’m still not going to fight the pike if I can help it when I can make them go home by killing off 4 small units in a command. That’s helped by the Swiss deployment, with all of the pikes in the middle and the small units on the flanks, and by several failed counters and morale checks with Reg B troops; on my right, after the Swiss LI have died, the 2E unit of LMI HG also charges from skirmish into a unit of LI JLS, Sh, clearly expecting them to evade, but they stand and rout him on contact with a +3 roll; that leaves a 2E unit of LC CB as the only unit guarding that flank, and it’s trapped within 40p of the pursuing LI while LC and a unit of SHC that has marched through the wood come around the flank; exit one Swiss command. On the left, I have more cavalry - both HC and SHC - coming through the woods, much to the disgust of the Swiss (I did this in a lot of games, including the Theme; I probably know more about fighting with SHC in woods than most players…); the LC CB on that side were tempted into charging some LI who stood, broke, and lured the LC into the wood in pursuit, where they rapidly died, and the 4-element LMI HG unit decided to take a charge from SHC at the halt, quickly routing, although - as you’d expect - the pike blocks to either side did not care. I need one more unit from that command, but in the left-hand gap between woods, I get myself into a traffic-jam with a little too much impetuosity, and have to eventually charge a pike block with a unit of my elephants to buy some time for the LC to avoid being trapped between advancing, 6-element-frontage pikes and the wood. The pikes roll +2, and if I allow them to follow-up they will contact the rear of a retreating LC unit, so I am going to have to break off, but the elephants also roll +2 and lock, winning in bound 2 and pushing the pikes back disordered with more elephants and my MI block coming up (to which the CinC is attached, hiding out yet still advancing); that’s the game. I was surprised to discover just how cheap all of the support units are; Dennis told me that I only actually killed ~140 points in the right-hand command to put it on retreat and score ~550. Those big pike blocks - wow, they’re pricey. I had had time after my game against Chris to watch the battle between Dennis and Dave, and had seen that Dennis used the pikes extremely defensively, and I don’t think you can do that when you don’t have a support force capable of really engaging; the pike blocks did end up killing two units of my LI, in one case in tandem with the IrrB HC and in the second after being charged in the flank as a delaying tactic, but did nothing else. So even with all of the list rules, I don’t know whether the Swiss are yet viable in an Open environment.

I end on 21 raw score, but Derek has 22; Mark Stone I think also ended on 21 raw, and claimed second place; I don’t know how many others on 21 there were. Congrats to both Derek and Mark, and thanks to all; you’ll probably see the Sassanids again next year..

[scott holder]

Mark: While I'm not violently opposed to preset terrain in some events, I'm a big fan of our terrain choosing system. It's the best out there and offers all kinds of tactical variables to confuddle and confound not only one's opponent but one's self.

One idea is something Jon's tossed out to me before, that being we acquire (donations, purchase, etc) terrain. It's not as if we'd need to get every piece of terrain allowed in Warrior, I mean when was the last time somebody wanted a ridge? Or an orchard? Thus, we'd only have to obtain a goodly amount of the most likely used terrain. Anyone wanting to deploy a piece of terrain we don't carry, said terrain would have to pass muster and I have no problem being the terrain police to go along with all my other duties that require a certain amount of nastiness to enforce.

As an example, woods. We should have smaller pieces of something nice that could be formed into larger sections that would then allow for flexibility in sizing. Then provide actual trees to put on the piece of something nice.

I'd love to find a fabric that I could simply cut up into 6x4 and 8x5 ground cloths and then have a boatload of them available.

Then, we simply store all this stuff somewhere. That's an issue as is who goes and picks up the stuff and hauls it to the show(s).

I think people can bring their own clear:) And stakes and TFs, again, these would need to be okayed by the terrain police.

Just some thoughts. We had *great* looking lead that was showcased to a certain extent this year. Now we just need decent looking terrain to go along with it. Again, what Dick Hurchanik has done with fairly cheap fish tank buildings for his Asian lists is something that goes a long way to make an impression, bring people in closer and thus, have em look at the figures AND the game as well.

scott

[Paul Leuschen]

Ewan

Swiss did take 2nd in the 15mm mini on Thursday.

[Mark Stone]

[Ewan McNay]

Mark, what are you doing awake at this hour?

Apologies for omitting you - I probably missed others, too - Jon, perhaps? - and should have noted 'plus others I didn't have time to notice' in there.

It's been an interesting quirk that score after day 1 has been a poor indicator of eventual position over the past couple of years. Last year, Dave M had 7 after day 1, just as Derek did this year; with the minimum advancing score at 6, that suggests that the goal for that first day is just to avoid elimination rather than need to be at the top. I think that the four (?) players with 10 points from their first two games ended up on 17, 17, 20, and 21 from 5 games, so - as indeed it transpired - anyone with 3 big wins on day 2 passed all of them. Hmm .

**

Swiss doing well in a *mini*? Wow. I would have thought that might be even less likely.

[Mark Stone]

[scott holder]

[Guest]

The attendance and games were great.

I was a touch unhappy to face Mongol-Mongol on Thursday in the NICT, given my Alexandrians have little to no shooting and can't go get anything in those Mongol armies. My thinking on the Mongol army is that it is extremely difficult to play...and you will have many more actions and units/movements to contemplate than your opponent, every game. Lots of practice required.

Swiss can be effective...but without enough attacking units I don't think they're a big factor. My strategy against the few-pike-blocks, lots-of-lights Swiss would be as Ewan did, screen/avoid the blocks and kill the lights.

Therefore, a Swiss army needs to be more like:
CinC in element of Reg A LHI P
Ally Gen in element of Reg A LHI P
5 units of 3 elements Reg A/B/B LHI/LMI/LMI P/P/2HCT
5 units of 6 elements Reg A/B/B/B/A/B LHI/LMI/LMI/LMI/LHI/LMI P/P/P/P/2HCT/2HCT
(phew)
2 units of 4 Reg B LC CB
10 units of 4 Reg B LI CB
22 units, 2 bodies, 2 commands, 22 scouting
The main focus of the LI are to draw enemy shooting away from the pike columns, which almost always remain and operate in column. As the pike columns are not shooters, but the LI are, this should be pretty 'easy' if the LI are next to the pike columns.

The six element pike columns are the primary attackers, with the three element units as reinforcements or emergency use or flank attackers. Note that there's a lot of armor and morale upgrades...you can experiment with running less of that.

Frank

[joncleaves]

Ewan, I was a 16 going into the last round. But I apparently had asked too much of the grand charge of the Welsh to get away with it one more time against Mark's excellent army and ability. I also suffered in a couple of matchups with respect to adjusted score (see how much I fell off at the end....lol), so I am aware that my 16 was not like other's 16's. But it felt good for that brief 20 minutes I had it...

Now that the rule book is done, I resolve to actually *play* this damn game this year....

Congrats to all on a very successful and very well-played series of events, esp. Paul, our new Warrior Overlord of KC....

Jon