Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[Frank Gilson]

Ok, I have played Alexandrians...if you read the list carefully, you will note that you need take NO non-missile armed close order foot.

Take one "Experimental Phalanx" and you don't have to take the normal pike troops. Equip that "Experiment" with 1/2 bow and you have a pretty good unit operating in four ranks...and only 32 close order foot...who have a point savings by not having to shield half their body.

It's hard to combine arms and properly support close order foot...they have only two march moves and an 80p tactical move...while troops you may wish to combine with them have 150% to double their movement.

It is almost as though you need to force march your close order foot, and have their supports/combines normally march up as appropriate.

Note also that in terms of density, close order foot have a lot of trouble covering substantial frontage while still leaving you with enough for skirmishers and reserves.

Close order foot have trouble with terrain and with a few of the interpenetration rules (basically they can't.)

All of this adds up to your close order foot line having a vulnerable end to it, hanging out there. Often the troops you'd like to combine with them have to instead rush to that line end.

These are serious problems...so...in open tournaments, we see close order foot as a minor support, or as mobile terrain, or as massed shooters, and not as a means to dominate the battlefield.

I'd also like to comment on Jon Cleaves statement about seeing what happens in the Punic War theme event next year...well...there's already at least one strategy that uses minimal to no close order foot, for that theme, that should destroy armies relying on close order foot.

[Dave Markowitz]

For those of you relatively new to Warrior, let me offer a different perspective (or at least second John Murphy's point). Close order foot armies can be very effective. Indeed, this decade, 4 of the 6 armies to win the NITC were armies that contained copious amounts of close foot. Several of the points made on this thread are well-taken in isolation, but do not necessarily translate into battlefield performance. For example, there is an assumption that close foot armies must be defensive. Not so: with proper terrain deployment, armies containing close foot could be played offensively. There is also an assumption that foot are simply too slow. However, big blocks of foot, particularly regular foot, have the ability to cover a lot of ground through the use of expansions and double expansions. Typically, cavalry units, which are often smaller, can’t take advantage of this type of movement.



I agree that close foot armies need a good supporting cast, but that is not really any different for any other type of army. For example, nobody analyzes knight armies assuming the army had nothing but knights. There is certainly an art to list making, and I think it is harder to make a solid close foot list that works than other types of armies. Or perhaps put better, mistakes/inefficiencies made in knight lists are going to be more forgiving than mistakes made in putting together a close foot list.

So go ahead and build that close foot army.

[Guest]

Going back to Ewan point (I believe) in the beginning is how to achieve a "5" with a predominantly close order army, or at least an army that relies on close order foot.

I play LIR (I didn't play it in "the day" when it was seen all of the time, I was playing Napoleonics then ). I use two blocks of legion troops, 2x3 with all of the bells and whistles. I have done fairly well and have achieved 5's (even against knights) but you do have to have a plan:

1. How to push the enemy's lights away, or better yet kill them and at the same time not cause a traffic jam. This takes practice and fore-thought and the Romans provide some good answers for this part of the fight.
2. The close order needs a faster friend on his flanks, I have three different units I use for this, Roman EHC, or Hun HC or a 2x2 block of Auxillia LMI B, Sh.
3. All of this is still difficult, BUT the Romans are regular/flexible; I'm not sure how I would solve some of my problems with inflexible/Irr close order.

Mike

[Mark Stone]

[Greg]

Mark ... I don't think you should "not argue" with someone about tactics, just because they have more wins, or have beaten you in the past.

Most good players I know will steal every good idea they see, no matter who comes up with it. In the advertising world, one of the most successful campaigns of all time, the Chick-Filet "Eat More Chicken" campaign, was thought up by a guy working in the mail room.

On topic, the best use of close order foot I have seen, is by players that build two thoughts into their tactic:

1. You have to clear a path for the close foot to advance. It isn't enough to just force march them. You have to place things with them that will get rid of enemy skirmishers, and give them room to advance.

2. You have to place things with the close foot that will keep the loose foot opponents in your front from forming skirmish.

A useful offshoot of these thoughts, is that they often give you uses for troops you may have to buy, but may not really want. David Beeson, our local Carthaginian guy, matches his required LI JLS Sh and HC JLS Sh with his spearmen. They do good work in this configuration and the spearmen do a nice job protecting his mounted from more combat effective mounted lancers.

[Ambrose Coddington]

I think close foot also reward a more aggressive player. If you want to sit back and wait for the counter punch you want regular loose order foot so that you can maneuver quickly and respond. If you want to set up and hammer a section of the field the close foot can be devastating. (Just support them. I've seen many a close foot unit disappear into a cloud of dust and die) I also like my close foot to be irregular. The main two reasons for this are the ability to go impetuous and the fact that they die quickly.
Before you scoff at the ability to go impetuous, I have charged many almughavars with colonist /brigand type troops with a simple pin then advance. It takes some setting up but it can be done. I have also killed quite a few elephants with the same tactic.
The importance of having units die quickly can be huge too. If you have a support unit far enough behind or off to the side of the sacrificial unit they can capitalize on the killing units subsequent disorder and usual tiredness. (Close foot usually does a lot of damage)
Of course a lot of my success with close foot simply comes from the fact that I seem to roll up 4 with them an amazing amount of times. It’s easy to win then!

[lilroblis]

I have played Alexandrian Imperial two years in a row, and quite frankly love my pike. As an example in getting my head handed to me by 16 elephants, the elepahnat ran over my pike, up rolls will do that, but in 5 games every unit of pike fought (or routed) in all of them (now maybe in a couple I only had 2 get into the fight), but they are very effective tough troops, and as Todd Kaeser can verify, given any discernment on set up I will push your army right off the table.

However the army relies on the foot being a tar baby and using otehr stuff to counterpunch. If you isolate my pike, and fight it unsupported I die. If I combine forces I win
Robert

[QBeamus]

I've thought about this issue for some time, but the (relatively) recent book by Victor D. Hanson really got me thinking about it again. If you believe Hanson--and his work is pretty thorough and thoughtful--the military success of virtually every culture in history before gunpowder was closely linked to the quality of it's close order foot.

His discussion of the conflicts between the Greeks and the Persians is a pretty representative of the issue, and would, I think, match the experience in game of anyone who's pitted those armies against each other. But, more interesting is his discussion of the conflicts between Islamic cav-based armies and Eurpean foot-based armies. Basically, the Muslims were strategically strong, and beat up on zillions of weak little principalities with their superior numbers and strategic mobility. But when they got as far into Europe as to encounter properly motivated close-order foot--as, for example, at Poitiers--they never won a battle. Not once.

My theory is that the real problem in the game isn't the quality of the match-up between the troop types. Perhaps the most important way in which the WRG system more realisticly represents reality than most competing systems is the fact that a direct frontal assualt with mounted troops against close order foot is generally a bad idea. Even if you've got a reasonable chance of success, it's rarely points-efficient. No, the real problem is the way that winners and losers are determined in the tournament format. That system is designed to make games go quickly, so it rewards aggressive play, and fast, decisive outcomes. Which means that players who can avoid losing battles end up big losers in the tournament format.

Which means players are presented with a set of motivations that are almost completely alien to those of their historical counterparts. "Victory," in historical events, meant destroying your opponent's force in being. If it included close-order foot, it wasn't enough to wipe up some auxiliaries and call it a day. On the other hand, in friendly games, where we without any formal victory conditions, until an obvious winner develops, the close-order foot play a much more historical role.

I'm not sure what the ideal solution is, but I do think it will require chucking the present victory system in its entirety. Perhaps instead of scoring points for the number of enemy bodies destroyed, you should score points for the number of fresh bodies you have left on the table. Better still, you should score points for fresh bodies in the center area. That would give a more historical imperative to control the battlefield, rather than just evading off into the sunset.

[Rhoxolani]

I see no need to create a rule for close foot to be able to move 120 paces. I think the problem is that everybody seems to orientated on playing tournaments. I don't think the rules are written to play tournaments. They are written to play a wargame.

Creating more exception rules because some units will not work in an tournament is not the way to go. Close foot has limitations but they are the backbone of any army. In history and in Warrior