Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[scott holder]

Open

1-Todd Kaeser, E Byz, 14
2-Dave Dietrich, Macc Jewish, 13
3-Dan Woyke, Med French, 12 (34)
4-Rob Turnball, Han, 11
5-Rich Kroupa, E Hebrew, 10
6-Scott Holder, Samnite, 9 (26)
7-Don Carter, Armenian, 9 (22)
8-Fred Stratton, Alex Imp, 8
9-Tom Barkus, Nike Byz, 7 (31)
10-Keith Stratton, LIR, 7 (22)
11-Scott McDonald, Mongol, 7 (20)
12- Bill Low, L Carthaginian, 3

(Numbers in parenthesis represent the tie break, I didn't plug these into the spreadsheet).

Mini

I don't have Mini scores because I left the damn score sheets in our terrain boxes. Rich found the Open one but can't find the Mini. I'll actually be back there in about 10 days and will go thru the boxes again. Short answer: Todd won.

I'll have more on how things went a bit later.

scott

[Ewan McNay]

"Todd won" seems to be happening a lot recently

[scott holder]

Fall In was great! Plenty of room, great lighting, cooperative weather. 6 folks in the Mini (results someday) and a fantastic 12 in the Open! I setup 6 tables, including the winter table (I somehow stuck Todd on there 4 times over the course of 2 days, oops).

I got to play 8 games: 3 in each event and Rich and I played both a Mini and Open game on Thursday. That was important because we tested a chess clock timed setup. I guess I’ll start there.

Rich and I started our 1200pt game with 10 minutes for each player. Didn’t need it. I then stuck with 10 minutes for our 1600pt game and we did just fine. I then decided we’d go with 10 minutes for both days to see how it worked.

I know the chess clock timed setup wasn’t unanimously praised but the vast majority of folks liked it. As expected, each Mini setup took each player maybe 5-6 minutes. At 1600pts, it was typically 7-8 minutes. What was supremely gratifying to see was that 30 minutes into every game on Saturday, players were well into Bound 1. The time element really focused people. Or, as Tom Barkus said after our 3rd round game on Saturday “I actually did better with this by just putting stuff out there instead of agonizing over each unit.”

Sooooo, timed deployment will be in effect in 2025. 10 minutes at 1200/1600pts. I’m not sure about Doubles. It’ll be more but I’m not sure by how much given it’s a different deployment beast. Furthermore, I’m seriously considering doing Doubles at 1800pts and not 2000. That’s something Dave Stier posted here back in 2017. I only half-jokingly told people that for Doubles I’d set it at 11 minutes, not 10. 😝

Deployment. This was another good thing that might have sped up deployment a bit. Expect it to be in place as a tourney rule for 2025. If nothing else, it eliminated any questions players had about what unit was in what command at the start.

Shooting. One thing that came up was a catastrophe that’s outlined in the Special General Rules we use at Fall In every year (the “Bleeder” general). I said no, it won’t count per the 6th Edition random factor rules. However, going forward, it will. Basically, the up or down end result will remain 1 but if the roll would cause “something bad” to happen when doing the shooting rules normally, then that “bad” thing would still happen. In the case of the “Bleeder”, the catastrophe triggered by a 2CPF result on a +2 or higher roll would still occur although the impact on the unit for actual assigned CPF would still be based on the max +1 roll.

Do I feel this shooting rule is worth broader usage? Not yet, maybe not ever. I remain of the opinion that 7th/Warrior is still too shooting heavy and while this approach seems to “work” on one level, I don’t feel it’s a long-term fix. Instead, it’s something people can choose to do for an event and that will continue to be the case at Fall in.

Flank Charges. Taking the Fast Warrior approach and not allowing Case 2 flank charges was another thing that greatly sped up games. I still have an issue with how people can charge some tiny-assed bit of a unit if your tiny-assed bit of a unit starts behind its flank, it’s never been something I’ve liked in the game. I had a discussion with Todd on this but didn’t come to any conclusions. One thing I might do for next Fall In is fully implement the old “British National House Rule” where flank charges could only happen if an *entire* element started behind the flank. I’ve got tons of time to mull that one over.

Is this another “something” I want to apply across the board? Not yet and like shooting, maybe not ever. But again, it’s another tweak somebody can use at a tourney and will definitely be part of Fall In 25.

The Loose/Open “roll up” rule was also well received. There was one instance where a LI unit caught a LC unit but that was during a break-off move and while we might argue the historical accuracy of that, I was okay with it. So, expect this to be a tourney rule in 2025.

As you can see from the results, I did bring Samnites and the no -2 didn’t screw up things. In fact, it made the army a decent enough counter to Varangians (which I played against in the 3rd round of the Open). So, when we finally get around to redoing Classical Warrior, that List Rule will go away. In the meantime, anybody wanting to use them, the List Rule won’t apply.

The only other items, JLS-cav and the revised approach to costing Sacred Standards, also didn’t generate any uproar so expect them in 2025.

To reiterate, Fall In has turned into a great event.

scott

[Todd Kaeser]

AAR and thoughts

E. Byzantine was a lot of work to play quite frankly - 21 units, all regular and small-ish and none that hit really hard hitting. Also considering the lack of type 2 flank charges made it even more challenging. Scott and I did have a chat and I expect more on the ability to have a case 1 flank charge in the future. I am more open to grey areas personally It does make foot armies a lot more playable IMO.

The shooting was tough (especially with an army where every unit could shoot). The +1/even/-1 option makes any catastrophe almost impossible and I think take out the flavor of O' Sugar Honey Ice-Tea moments.

In a funny twist Scott did bring a "Power" army in the mini - Seleucid and I faced it with my Catalans and there were a LOT of elephants and pike.

Dave D's Maccabee army was beautiful and well handled throughout the tournament (faced him twice - yes, on the winter board each time :.

I'm working on some neat ideas for Fall-In next year (and Council of 5 Nations) - "fun" armies that have a lot of flavor.

Faced Danny's Med French with the Byzantines and it was really tough trying to do enough damage and running from SHK and EHK - even losing a HC unit that finally got a W on a frozen lake in pursuit.

Rich's burning bush camp is always a pleasure to see. AND Robert made it here as well running Hoplites and Han Chinese in mini and open.

Samnite HTW is cool - love to see it. Jls armed cav taking out foot is also a great idea AND it opens up a few other units that are required in armies.

The LI/LMI rolling long didn't affect me but is a great idea to keep going forward.

I am fine with experimental shooting rules, but don't want to see a change in major events.

Thanks to Scott for umping and Rich for terrain - lots of work for sure.

Todd

[scott holder]

Some thoughts on Todd's thoughts.

The shooting rule does allow for catastrophes as I outlined above. I simply didn't connect the dots in your specific case as that was with the special general's rule. It should have counted based on the die roll. The fact that the actual modifier for calculating shooting would remain at -1/0/+1 is different.

Lemme repeat that I don't see either the shooting rule (as it stands now) or the flank charge rule being a fundamental change in the rules.

I will say that every former (or lapsed) Warrior player I talk to all say that getting rid of Case II flank charges would be a great thing.

One thing I failed to mention was that Rich ran EIR in the Mini using *all* the X rules (as allowed in the original tourney posting). I know the one that causes people to squirm is the +1 to waver tests for certain troops in certain lists like EIR. Never factored into Rich's games and to be honest, so what? EIR lists aren't gonna suddenly "flood the zone" as it were so again, any tourney I run, all those rules will be in play.

I evidently tossed the results sheet for the Mini so I don't know placement other than "Todd Won". I'm trying to think of the armies of the six players:

Me: Seleucid (power gaming at 1200 pts!)
Todd: Early Byz
Dave D: Maccabean Jewish
Rob: L Hoplite (Spartans)
Rich: EIR
Bill: I don't remember

[Todd Kaeser]

Bill ran Granadine I believe.

Note: Scott's powergamer choice of army

The catastrophe roll is fine, BUT without the actual numbers being higher than +1 it is much, much harder to inflict the casualties necessary to get the result.

My opinion: If you get rid of case 2 flank charges you can't restrict case 1 flank charges - it would make flank charges a very little part of the game in which historically they were significant time and time again. Just my 2 cents.


Seeing Romans was outstanding to see AND Robert rolled out a Hoplite army - when have we seen that outside of a theme????

Planning a colorful and different choice for Fall In next year.

Todd

[theblackprince]

I don't think Case 2 flank charges are really a big problem. The charger has to fully fit in, which is much harder than for case 1. Over time, list rules have tended to increase the power of foot (Romans, circulating Mesos, Greek pike, Swiss, to name a few) so that only the very best shock cavalry can threaten top shelf foot frontally. Double armed Reg B LMI are broadly more common these days also and are very powerful even without list rules. Maintaining Case 2 flank charges helps to balance this out by forcing strong foot to at least cover their flanks. For an historical example, Greek HC were never conceived to defeat Hoplites frontally, they existed in large part to threaten flanks. To reasonably do that in Warrior, you need case 2 flank charges. Case 1 flank charges rarely come up until units are already in combat with something else, which is not the dynamic that I am speaking to.

On the Bill-con question, this particular spring is not great for me to take time off, but I would vote for Billcon over Gettysburg.

Thanks,

Dave

[scott holder]

A reminder, please go over to the BillCon/Cold Wars post and opine on where you'd prefer to go.

Okay, I said this:

[Frank Gilson]