Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[jamiepwhite]

The Oracle was kibitzing while Dereckus and I were experimenting with Sassanid Persian and Anglo-Irish. As expected, the one knight army that likes to face elephants wasn't really impressed by the Sassanid elephants. At one point though, the not so tough Sassanid elephants had flanked the large blob of Galloglaich who promptly went into orb. Dereckus and I weren't paying too much attention to going into orb and just thought that 4 figs fighting on the front was reasonable. The Oracle chided us and I actually did read the rule section later. Apparently Dereckus and I have bad habits left over from earlier versions of WRG and Warrior. But, no more sloppily turning elements into triangles and squares on the table for us, as we have read the rule section once more and now are armed and dangerouser, or something.

I made the chart below based on the rules as written in section 6.44. 1x1 and 4x4 are theoretically possible and I'll put at the end of the post how to get the two formations


Formation exterior interior......... Front element ......... Flank
........................... .................. fighting .................. fighting
1x1..........4......... 0.........1.........1

1x2 ......... 8 ......... 0 ......... 2 ......... 2

1x3 ......... 10 ......... 2 ......... 3 ......... 3

1x4 ......... 12 ......... 4 ......... 4 ......... 2

2x2 ......... 16 ......... 0 ......... 2 ......... 4

2x3 ......... 18 ......... 6 ......... 3 ......... 6

2x4 ......... 20 ......... 12 ......... 4 ......... 4

2x5 ......... 22 ......... 18 ......... 5 ......... 5

3x3 ......... 26 ......... 10 ......... 3 ......... 9

3x4 ......... 28 ......... 20 ......... 4 ......... 6

4x4 ......... 34 ......... 18 ......... 3 ......... 6

Normal sloppy orb habits (darn those 6th edition habits) would be like this

2 elements back to back - 2 per side
3 or 6 elements in a triangle - 4 or 8 per side depending on weapons
4 or 8 elements in a square, 4 or 8 per side depending on weapons
10 or 12 elements, some sort of rectangle with 4 or 8 figs per frontage


Doing it per the book and sloppy seem to work about the same most of the time, until you get to the larger units defending on the flank. It seems unintended that larger units fight much better to the flank in orb than they do normally. My question to various readers is mostly am I reading the book right and applying the rule as written correctly?

1x1 would come from dismounting 2 cavalry elements. 4x4 is trickier, but could be accomplished by a twelve element irregular foot unit with a close order foot general element joined to it. There would only be one element in the final rank.

[Ed Kollmer]

OK
Being the unintelligent person I am.
How do you read the chart??
1x1 4....0....1....1 what does that mean.??
I use that as an example but I don't get the rest either.
Ed the Ignorant

[jamiepwhite]

The table looked much better in notepad, oh well.

The first column is the permitted formation, the second column was exterior figs, the third column was interior figs, the fourth column was figs fighting per front element width, and the fifth column was figs fighting per flank element width. I was assuming pike when figuring how many fought to each side, the numbers would be slightly different for other weapons.

Permitted...............Exterior .....Interior......Front..........Flank
formation...............figs............figs............fighting......fighting
...............................................................figs............figs

Does that work better?

[Ed Kollmer]

OK
I see what you are saying.
But the column about fighting figs.
I am looking at the 4x4
it says 3. Is that 3 figs. Why so
few. I am thinking 4figs.
also the fifth column about the
flank. I thought there was no flanks in
orb.
Edk

[jamiepwhite]

4 wide elements, 3 full three ranks deep plus a partial 4 th rank from a joining general's element.

32 exterior figs from the front and rear facing elements. Two more exterior figs from the middle rank of elements, although that could be three if the partial element was on the end. I was thinking of it being in the middle but that's not really right. Either way, that leaves 18 or 17 interior figs.

13 figs fight to each of the four sides.
Front fights across 4 element widths, flank fights across one or two elements widths depending on where the partial element is located.

So front and rear element widths fight 3 figs per frontage and the side widths fight 7 or 13 depending where you put the partial element.

I'm just thinking that the rule as written isn't working as expected for the larger units of close order infantry.

[Ed Kollmer]

I will have to read the rule and actually place the figs.
But I see what you are saying.
Haven't played Orb much but Have done with with my
Byzantines. I will place out the figs.
Thanks
EdK