Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[John Murphy]

I am looking at doing one of a few other armies.
Each has some tactical elements with which I have absolutely no familiarity, and it is quite possible to simply pass these tactics up, but perhaps to evaluate that choice properly it would be a good idea to figure out how they might work.

First - Early Burgundians (likely the Early period)
These are one of the very few armies (only?) that can have bow units with LB in front rank and CB in back rank. At first, just looking at the charts this seemed like a really great idea as double the shooters in the back rank is certainly worth one less factor and in some cases not even that. But the difference is not huge as far as I can tell against at least some matchups and there is another issue to consider. At a range of 121p-180p the rear rank longbowmen are suddenly the best rear-rank shooters around, since they retain their slightly higher factor and also do not get halved twice for both long range and rear-rank shooting. But again the difference is close, and at long range there is just not enough ooomph coming out of the unit to affect anything that a sane player is going to put against it - at least that is my impression. What is the thought on this from the tactics geniuses within the context of this terrific army (there are 144 regular loose-order long-range shooters in this army coupled with 42 SH/EH knights that dismount as 56 SH/EH foot, and that is at 1600 points)?

Second - Later Polish (likely the Late period)
I have looked at this army ad nauseum before, but I am re-examining it now with a bit different ideas. THere are a few real good options to choose from in the list I have come up with for them, and some involve using the Irreg axemen/spearmen in units with front rank 2HCW and back rank JLS, maybe even making the fronters LHI. But I am looking at the Tabor wagons, fighting transport in large quantities available. It sounds intriguing both from historical perspective as well as from the sheer novelty of it - most players (unfortunately including myself) I think would be hard-pressed to know what the fighting transport rules are without loking them up at the moment of combat. But they seem to me to be actually kind of limited to defensive missile platforms and the rules require them to be used by close-order foot. Now, I am using the archers for LI troops which they suited for and there is nothing else readily to fill this role. That leaves only the crossbowmen. So I ask (a) is it worth making some spear/axe close-order to ride them around in wagons which can not charge anyone and (b) is it worth taking usually not great close-order crossbows if they can sit in wagons and get a -4 to enemy attacks while shooting at them from above? Or is there something involving the use of the fighting transport that I am missing? The handgunners can't be close-order or that might be one option.

[John Murphy]

One thing just hit me on my way back from picking up hay.

THe Tabor wagons are not particularly an effective direct offensive tool (understatement) but where they might excel is in _protecting_ an offensive. For instance, a column of fighting transport wagons holding MI or even HI with JLS or better yet 2HCT could move along with the attack on a flank and basically nothing could come through the wagons to encircle your attackers. They would count as higher ground (-2), defended obstacle (-2) and 2HCT (-1) and be 4-figure elements of HI to boot. So even something hideous like moogs (the worst 1st-round case for this) would hit only 5@+4=15 per element frontage against 9 figs for CPF while the Tabor passengers would fight back at 4@+5=16 per element frontage against 6 figs for CPF, with no worse the next bound since they _still_ would not count shieldless in the wagons.

You really would not need them to be HI, and you really could probably just have JLS. FOr that matter, you could just have crossbows maybe and count on support shooting (no -2 because defending obstacle) and weight. The Tabor do not get cover but the crossbows would never count shieldless even when shooting. And I think they would count the -1 for being higher as a shooting target plus being 9 figures per "element" for CPF.

If I am correct about all the rules and about the math, then the only problem would be incindiaries.

So my idea is to use these without needing to be _huge_ unit for a solid flank defense or a way to cover a lot of ground defensively where I do not want to attack or do not want to _be_ attacked.

What do you think? Workable?

[Frank Gilson]

I and others have looked at the Early Burgundian with their ability to put CB behind LB.

It appears to be of only minor value. As you already note you are worse off when at 161 to 240p than all LB. You are also worse off when in skirmish formation. If you add up the 'typical' damage a LB/CB unit does in close range with all figures firing that amount of casualties doesn't seem to cross many CPF boundaries as opposed to entirely LB.

You are also required to take a unit of HC CB, which is close to wasted points. We may see some responses of how to use Irr C HC CB following this, but I think if any of us could avoid buying such a unit we would.

Of some interest is the later period in which you can take Swiss troops, one of only two armies that can combine SHK with shooters and Swiss.

Still, the best army of this overall type appears to be Knights of St. John. You can argue that the knights there are 'worse', but that is not necessarily true. KOSJ shooters are overall organized much better than choices like 100 Years War English or Early Burgundian.

As for wagons, I can't comment much as I don't use them and don't have plans to. I believe they are worth experimenting with as you describe, and we'd all love to hear your results. However, you will likely want to 'mock' them up and not buy/paint miniatures for your first few test battles as such wagons don't have general purposes across a great number of lists, can be expensive, and you may find they don't work out well in practice.

Frank

[Frank Gilson]

One note, however, if your desire is to 'refuse' an area of frontage, light troops, especially LI in a terrain feature, often are more cost effective than anything else.

[John Murphy]

I agree re LI but unfortunately the Polish only decent LI option appears to be the bowmen/archers and I plan on using all 18E in the open in front of my attack (generally). That still only covers 2 feet or so at 15mm which is probably about right for an attack screen. But anyhow there is not much left for area-denial. ALso, the terrain can not move to keep pace with the attack and also it serves to channel the oppositions best defensive troops (or best counter to my attackers) into the same area of the board.

My hope is that that the fighting Tr, while a bit expensive, will avoid these pitfalls and be able to operate that way without telegraphinh my intention right from the terrain picks. But first I need to figure out a way to permit the army to deal with, or prevent, incindiaries being brought to bear against the Tr.

[Frank Gilson]

You make absolutely valid points and illustrate clearly the need for playtesting .

I'm opening a small can of worms here, but why do you want to screen your attack with any kind of wide placement of LI?

Especially irregulars...

Frank

[John Murphy]

okay, I've tried twice now in the past fifteen minutes, only to have IE7 crash after doing 3-4-5 paragraphs. Not going to keep trying.

Frank, tell me why you would _not_ want a little bit of LI B,Sh out in front of your SHK with good LC on the flanks?

[Mark Stone]

[John Murphy]

deleted

[John Murphy]

deleted

[John Murphy]

note for Scott -
by the way you can see from the above that further errata may be needed to cover the points cost of bowmen upgrade to Reg with _and_ without Sh.

[Frank Gilson]

Here's how I'd do Later Polish, with some reasoning:
CinC w/PA in Reg A/B SHK L,Sh
Sub similar
6 Irr B SHK L,Sh
2 units of 6 Irr C HK L,Sh
6 Reg C HK L,Sh
16 Irr C LC CB
12 Irr C LC JLS,B,Sh (these are moldavian/wallachian and the list notes should state that they fight in 1.5 ranks I think, errata?)
3 units of 12 Irr C LI B,Sh/B
8 Reg C LC B (Mongol rules)
2 units of 4 Reg C LC JLS,B,Sh/JLS,B (Mongol rules)
16 Irr C MI 2HCT in 4 Fighting Tr
16 Reg C MI 2HCT in 4 Fighting Tr
this is 16 units in 2 commands with 75 scouting on 1599 pts

This configuration permits you to test out the Wagons and combines a decent combo of LI w/ LC and knight backup. It keeps the morale segregated on the knight units.

[Frank Gilson]

Forgot that the MI 2HCT also have shields...need to come up with the 32 points. Luckily I also made a pointing mistake in the list with the Irr C LC CB unit...drop that unit to 12 figures and add shields to all the MI and it's 1595 pts with two good units with which to test the idea of fighting transports.

[John Murphy]

deleted

[John Murphy]

Here is the thing (well, one thing) with these, when I get the rest of my Moldavians done in 25mm (have the figs bagged and ready for maybe a year now, need to save up to send to Sri Lanka without better half noticing) I will already have the Tartars and Lithuanians as well as the foot archers.

So at that point I will only need the Polish knights (42 even including the generals) and 4 stinkin mounted crossbowmen to do this army in 25mm, plus whatever that leftover 43/46 points buys. My real intention as I think it will look fantastic in 25mm.

Then to convince Tim to work in more 25mm events in DC. We did one a while back but mostly the local action is 15mm even though folks have 25mm armies (cause the turkeys all qualify for the NICT by beating me in succession!).