Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[John Murphy]

I am interested in ways to try to work terrain placement (1600 pts 6x4 table 15mm) for (a) the advantage of my army of course and (b) historical appeal.

I am shooting for lots of woods and bogs and maybe a little stream and some hills or even a little abandoned manor village and overgrown cropland to emulate my misguided concept of the wilds of medieval Ireland.

The army is Anglo-Irish the middle period with the Justiciar. Deployment certainly needs to be considered as part of this too.

I remember waaaay back Mark or someone writing an article about using streams to get a marsh placed. That would seem like a good start. Is this still valid with the since-revised terrain placement rules?

Woods are attractive because of the wealth of 2HCW or even 2HCW+JLS troops.

And both are nice to have for quasi-historical reasons too.

I am going on the presumption that leaving some area open is not going to be a problem as my opponent can be counted on to do this.

Any other ideas?

[John Murphy]

As a player who normally plays armies with 4 opens (it has been a while since my HYW days when I had to worry about coverage) this is all quite new to me.

I would guess the following four would make a suitable, placeable and varied combination. The wood with advantages to 2HCW/JLS troops is too good for any Norse-inspired army from Vikings to Irish to Russ to you-name-it to leave out. Have to check but I think none of these except the wood discard on anything but a '1'.

first off...
- minor water feature

then, in order, and all as large as permitted...
- marsh
- steep rocky hill
- wood

With some luck the first two will provide a very rough area in the central sector. Then the hill and woods would do the same more likely on the flanks. However, it is quite possible with one or two open areas the marsh placement along the minor water feature can be defeated or at least forced off to a flank. But that leaves more area on the flanks to place the hill and wood and I have just enough good-going troops to want some open area anyhow, epsecially in the rare case where I have a minor water feature where I can maybe defend the bank in the open while maybe moving forward in the wood and on the hill.

Then the question turns to deployment. The more varied the troop types, and in this army they are a bit varied, and the more terrain the more deployment becomes a whole game in and of itself. Not quite the 'mental energy conservation' I wanted to put it politely but I will consider it a learning process.

[Frank Gilson]

You want two marsh if you're using the minor water feature gambit...because Marsh can be placed on/under the minor water, so that you are much better able to fit in the marsh and cut out frontage.

Other terrain features have to abide by being place an element's distance away from your minor water...making it much harder to close off all gaps with a woods or hill.

You should go:
minor water feature, marsh, marsh, hill/woods (your choice, really, on the last pick...but I'd do a steep hill.)

PRACTICE this...roll dice a bunch of times, pretend your opponent is going with open spaces...set it up.

Frank

[Mark Stone]

John,

Here's the brief article I wrote on using terrain, including minor water features and marshes, to narrow frontage:
http://digitalpilgrim.com/play/warrior/frontage.html


-Mark Stone

[John Murphy]

Thanks Frank & Mark, you folks are always so helpful.
I thought I remembered Mark doing this article but could not find it on the Warrior website here.

I might not be so worried about front coverage as I was in my HYW days (though this has certain elements, pardon the pun, in common with a HYW army). Irregular foot is cheap and this army does not fall under the Barbarian rules, though I am looking at some cases where an irregular foot might go three deep against certain threats. So, anyway, I have what seems like a wealth of "line" troops compared to HYW.

So in this case I am pondering the terrain partly because my troops would do well operating in it even as a limited avenue of advance, as opposed to requiring table space to be denied to my opponent. I also have some close order foot and some mounted, however. And I am not sure that I want _two_ large terrain features in the center of the board or without a significant gap of clear terrain to work in between them. But I do see what you mean about the Marshes being more flexible placing around the water.

What do you think about deployment or is that really too specific an issue per army and per the exact way the terrain lays out to cover here?

[John Murphy]

One thing that strikes me about the minor water + marsh thing trying it against some opens is that _if_ the opponent gets an open right away, and he has after all one or maybe even two tries, you have pretty much telegraphed your intention with the minor water and it is very difficult to avoid having your primo spot set up for the marsh impeded in some way as to force you to put it where it is not as effective. However, you usually do not have a problem placing it _somewhere_ it is just not the best spot. And lacking the best spot sometimes it seems like another choice might work better that gives you a little more freedom of placement.

I can just see where you put the minor water down and the other guy runs a road right along his side of it 1E away!

Too bad you have to decide on the order of your terrain choices before you see what heppens. I could see otherwise doing this and _if_ the opponent blocks the prime spot for the marsh he has left somewhere else where you can plunk the woods or hill (or bog or village) before he gets another open. Then you can still come back and stick the marsh afterwards.

Maybe you could be sneaky and order them that way anyhow.

I dunno this seems like the kind of thing that has to be tried on-table with an actual army and game play over several iterations to work out together with the deployment... because without a suitable deployment the terrain might not really make any sense.

[womble_17]

Just do what we do.

Throw that super secret spy guessing junk away and pre-generate playing fields.


Then draw one at random.

I have had players design a set battle area, then later complain when it gets used.

Works well in Campaigns and especially Tournaments.
"Who designed this?" , "You did Buddy".

BUT make sure each party is happy witht he design before locking it into place, then keep it random.

Cav armies get rough, loose armies get plains - its a test of your ability, not how you can fiddle the rules to suit yourself.

[Frank Gilson]

The terrain placement rules within Warrior are something that distinguish it quite nicely from many other rules sets, and add both strategic (before the battle) and tactical (during the battle) elements to the game as it is played.

This has nothing to do with 'fiddling the rules'...but rather with organizing your army and then working to select a potential battle field which suits it.

If you are a simulationist and have the care to, you can think of it as two commanders with varying degrees of knowledge of the lay of the land jockeying for positional advantage...with random factors thrown in.

The main reason to advocate for pre-generated or pre-set terrain with random table selection is time savings...because using Warrior's terrain placement system will take at least 15 minutes, perhaps more.

If you have a pre-set terrain method that does NOT save setup time and get games started faster, fix it so that it does...or throw it out.

Frank