Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[Ewan McNay]

My comments interspersed, preceded by **.

From: "Frank Gilson" <franktrevorgilson@...>
Subject: Army Classifications

Rather than thinking about specific army lists, and what to play.
I decided to try to break some qualities about armies off and
then rate a few lists by those qualities.

What I came up with:
Shock Capability : Can this army hit hard with a relatively
unavoidable attack?

**For tournament purposes, this is probably the most critical -
necessary, even if not sufficient. There are exceptions to
everything, of course - Inca would be an excellent exmple of an
army with relatively few, if any, 'hard--hitting' troops that is
nonetheless more than viable.

Skirmish Capability : Basically, does the army get decent lights?

**And for me, this is almost as critical, although it depends to
some extent on style. I like to play in the enemy's half of the
table - and for that, good lights are essential. I think that
*unless* one is running a missile-based army (in which case you
have a different mechanism of clearing space), this is also
necessary. Hence my previous comments on e.g. the Patrician
Roman army selection.

Missile Fire : Are concentrated missile troops on the list?

**I suppose I think about this, but not very hard. A weakness of
mine. I tend not to take very many pure missile troops, again
*unless* they're the whole basis of the army - and I can't think
of such an army I'd likely run (Derek's Silla are a prime example
of such an army). What I do look for, a lot, is troops that can
give out missile fire while also being hth capable. HYW
longbowmen with stakes qualify here, as do Incas/Aztecs, as do
peltasts (albeit not as good at missiles, but better in hth). I
see a lot of armies including such troops - legions/auxilia are
excellent examples; so are Yuan Korean spear/bow blocks; so are
bow-heavy elephants, although a somewhat different flavour. A
common feature of tournament troops? Usually more efficient as
infantry than cav, because of the relative gain per point spent.

Battle Line : Can the army get efficient, usually close order, foot?

**This I rarely care about per se. What I care about is 'space
filling' troops. A good example comes from Frank/my game in the
last NICT: my seleucid pikemen - as noted, line troops par
excellence - were largely faced by large clouds of Indian LI.
Both prevented the otherr from using that space; neither had any
real impact; both were not desired opponents for the enemy. Now,
the pikes are probably more my style - they can at least kill
some things in hth, if they can get to them - but both can work.
So as long as it is hard to kill, for whatever reason, while
the strike force does its work, I don't care what is sitting in
those large portions of the army (an overstatement, but mostly
true). Even LC en masse can fill this role (e.g. in horse archer
armies). Some of this may be what Frank was getting at with
'efficient' - not sure.


Terrain Operations : Can the army deal with bad terrain situations?

**I definitely care about this; it has been the biggest focus of
my tweaking to the Seleucid list over the past couple of
iterations. I expect that - at least in that context - I will
continue to have to face woods placed by my opponents to at least
some extent. Think about what you're trying to achieve, though.
It is very difficult to force through e.g. woods against
opposing regular LI; you can likely take the terrain, but may not
markedly affect the battle in so doing. So in some cases, being
able to occupy - but not really fight for - the terrain is all
that is needed. Again, though, to win a tournament the odds are
fairly high that if you are an army most at home in the open, at
least one game will see you on a high-terrain-density table.

Then there would be some "special abilities" like temporary
fortifications,
obstacles, gimmicks.

If I rate a few armies as poor/average/good on the above...what
do I get?

First off, 100 Years War English, which Dave Stier and I were
able to win the Team Warrior event at Cold Wars with:
Shock : Good - Regular and Irregular Super Heavy Knights
Skirmish Capability : Poor - no efficient light cavalry, very
little efficient light infantry

**but see above; as a missile-based army, not such a big deal.

**Also, homogenous armies - which HYW is largely - may not need
to worry so much about huge numbers of lights either. If you are
going to be using the same troops all along the line, the
abillity to shift troops within that line is much less important.

**I didn't see the CW tourney. Frank, what - if anything - did
you generally force march? My completely uninformed guess would
be either some close-order bowmen or maybe some looseorder given
their stakes... but I'm probably wrong. It may be nothing, see
above.

Missile Fire : Good - More longbowmen than you actually want to run
Battle Line : Average - Brigans qualify here, and there are
enough of them to matter
Terrain Operations : Good - heavily armored, axe wielding longbowmen

**Hmm. If they're trying to contest woods against any JLS, Sh
LMI they're going to lose. So they'd better not try - in which
case they're basically expensive LI fighting a delaying action.
Better off in brush because they can then at least have impact
via shooting, and they're pretty good brush troops for that
reason - regular counters, ability to skirmish, and so on.
Still, I would rate them as average at best.

Special Abilities : Stakes for some longbowmen, Ditches that can
go in forward zone

**These are actually important - especially the stakes.

**I think one thing that is missing here is an assessment of
ability to deal with particular opponents. Knights, elephants,
missiles, maybe wall of close foot, good impetuous LMI, and so
on. Here you are clearly able to deal happpily with knights and
LMI, reasonably happy at ability to focus on punching through a
wall of foot. Possible vulnerable to swarms of lights, as Frank
notes - although that's not a common tournament opponent. And
the defense against elephants has to be either Brigans or
reliance on missile fire, neither of which is ideal. So I would
assess that as the vulnerability, rather than thinking of a
deficit in skirmishing.

**Which is not to say that there is not such a deficit - as
above, I actually think that it's maybe worse than suggested
given terrain vulnerability. Just that if there's an inability
to win in terrain, but you can still kill every likely opponent
in the open, then maybe you shouldn't worry about that inability
too much.

**Continuing to worry about possible opponents, then, I would
spend some time thinking about Incas etc. They outshooot the
longbowmen - who will likely be unable to fire most of the time
for fear of being shieldless - and so the question is about
combat vs SHK in the open; sure, the knights can win, but the
slings can do significant damage and if they get the knights
tired and/or disordered, ouch. This falls into the category of a
missile opponent, which maybe would not have been something that
was worried about under Frank's initial categories?

Next, Seleucid:
Shock : Average - I'm trying to fit the Elephants, and shieldless
Lancers in this category

**As I've said previously, I would rate the elephants as higher
than this. Which may just be my familiarity with them, but I
just think they work well and kill things.

Skirmish Capability : Good - some useful light cav, and plenty of
useful light infantry
Missile Fire : Poor - very little massed fire is available, and
it's vulnerable

**Agreed. Basically only the Arab MI bow block(s), which - as
Frank says - are a huge target for many opponents. That can be
useful, of course .

Battle Line : Good - Pikemen definitely count
Terrain Operations : Poor - you want to give peltasts LTS, which
makes them do poorly in the woods

**Well, true for the LTS in woods. So don't fight in the woods
. Peltasts are just great in brush, though, which is often
placed by enemies trying to use it as an attack route.

**You also get Thracians, who can be regular, and are
good-if-vulnerable terrain troops, including woods; you can even
take Cappodocians and such if the terrain vulnerability is a
genuine concern; but more likely any woods will just contain some
LI who will run away all day.

**I think that the vulnerability to terrain is not so much
inability to fight in it, as restrictions on your line/movement.
Your pikes and elephants simply cannot enter any form of
terrain; this is a big restriction

Special Abilities : Scythed Chariots, and the elephants have pikes

You can use Elephants and Pike to counter enemy shock units, or
absorb them and counterpunch, but are weak against concentrated
enemy missile fire. Lack of ability to operate well in terrain is
a minor additional weakness. Elephants are hard to classify (some
shoot, some just charge, some have pike, most don't).

**Truly massed missiles may cause a few worries, but mostly not -
the pikes, skirmishing peltasts, LI, and so on generally are
sufficiently resilient. Terrain restrictions are a big weakness;
lack of own missile fire a little so; slow movement a problem.
General vulnerability to good barbarian foot is an increasing
worry with the increase in HTW, JLS types.

**So why do I play the army? I guess I just like the difficulty
. The strengths are good ability to get big wins against
suitable opponents, excellent cohesion between the various arms -
elephants are wonderful to run with foot, especially pikes and
peltasts - and resistance to loss: there are few target units.
Plus the troops are generally cheap and you can get a lot of
small regular light units which I like.

**This is all about two armies, of course; the more important
issue is how to approach army selection in general, and so I've
tried to slant commentary that way. Doing it for too many more
armies wuld take more time than I have!

**Next up? :)