Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[Greg Regets]

From Paul>

A note for Scott who poo-poohed my suggestion a few months ago when I said my
Parthian light cavalry often get shot to pieces by Regular LMI with Jls. Well, I
played FW Parthians vs Hellenistic Greeks and it happened again. The trick is
you cannot afford to be caught not in skirmishers and that will last for one
move at long range. Next turn they will close you down and then it's 50/50
whether you can counter the hell out of there. If you don't chances are you will
be badly shot up. That said what I ended up doing was trading off a couple of
badly shot up lights to enable the cataphracts to get into position to deliver
their of charges and fortunately the LMI failed their wavers in the open.
Any ideas out there on how to use the Cataphract/Light combo better?
Many thanks and now off to do Spanish vs Hellenistics.

>>>GREG>>> I played this type of army for years, meaning light cavalry and
shock. The key, in my opinion, is to divide your light cavalry into two groups.
The first group is expendable, with a sole aim of pinning the enemy and getting
a few enemy units shooting tired. Take note that this is sometimes/most times
only possible by allowing him to shoot you to bits. With 1600 points, spend
about 400 points on this group. Buy your cheapest guys and leave nice gaps
between units. Give the enemy all the good shots he wants. If he can get two
units shooting at your one, thats good for you, as he has expended one good shot
from each unit. When you start seeing a combined fatigue/shooting fatigue of
four, you are in business to move your shock stuff up. His prep shot will take
him to five and his support shot will be shooting tired. The bound after your
shock stuff hits, you second group of light cav, which should be in small units,
will approach, looking for disordered and shaken things to charge.

This might sound like a screwy tactic, or something out of the movie, "They Were
Expendable" but I won quite a few games this way using an army of light cavalry
and knights, back when my knights didn't get 1.5 ranks. There are a few other
factors:

With this sort of army, you should be outscouting quite a few armies. Use this
to your advantage.

You need to play quickly, as you need the battle to last about ten bounds.

You need at least three generals, as you will need to prompt your shock group at
just the right time, and you will not know exactly what that time is until the
last minute. I have tried using wait orders with my main shock group, but it is
not even close to as effective as having prompt control.

You need to practice march with your shock group so that you can spread them
out, so as to hide your intent from the enemy, but be able to concentrate them
when need be. You need to know where and how many shock units you can get to
each spot on the table, so as to take advantage of the fluid natire of your
plan.

You need to make sure you leave lanes for your first wave to run away through.
This is hugely important and plays along with the above point.

As the enemy chases your front line, take note if he crosses the center of the
table. If he does, his orders indicate that a command must advance, etc ... You
must MAKE your enemy obey his orders. Some armies want to come to grips with
you, but others want to hang back and shoot you at long range, all the wile
fearing your shock element. Make sure that if he has a requirement to advance
with a command, he does exactly that. I usually make it perfectly clear the
moment a unit crosses the center, that I now know the requirements of that
command and will hold him to it.

Lastly, I will leave you with a bit of a thought. While it is true that your
light cavalry can't do much to steady foot and things of that nature, it is also
true that from his point of view, he can't kill what he can't catch. This can
work to your advantage against less experienced players. Frustration has caused
more generals to do more silly things throughout history, than perhaps any other
single factor. WARRIOR simulates that very, very, very well, in my opinion!

Take care and Light Cavalry rules!

Greg


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