Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

So thanks Terry to giving me my second game of Warrior. The battle
itself lasted a very short amount of time with my poor Crusaders
becoming Seljuk Turk target practice. Now I figured out on the spot a
couple things I did wrong but being new to Warrior and historical
gaming I had a general strategy question. I don't have any WRG
experience to draw upon.

How do you catch bow armed cavalry with other cavalry? If they are 80
paces away (good bow range), and you declare your charge, they evade.
Now if they roll down and you roll up you can catch them but if you
don't you get filled with another set of shooting and gain
fatigue
from the CPF'S and the charge…while the horse only gain
fatigue for
the shooting. Is there any other thing I am missing? Just a general
question on how to beat light horse armies I'm sure to face in
the
future.

Greetings Brinton,
The best way to deal with LC is some of your own. In our game you did about as
good as you could have with a limited force. I would say more terrain on your
flanks would have been better. You probably should have placed that hill on the
flank and defined it as steep. I would say that you will want some dry ditch,
which can be deployed in your forward zone. When you know you're going to have
to catch your foe force marching will keep your enemy to his half of the table.
That gives him less room to manuver.
Terry Dix

WarriorRules@yahoogroups.com, "Brinton" <brwilliams@a...> wrote:
> So thanks Terry to giving me my second game of Warrior. The battle
> itself lasted a very short amount of time with my poor Crusaders
> becoming Seljuk Turk target practice. Now I figured out on the spot a
> couple things I did wrong but being new to Warrior and historical
> gaming I had a general strategy question. I don't have any WRG
> experience to draw upon.
>
> How do you catch bow armed cavalry with other cavalry? If they are 80
> paces away (good bow range), and you declare your charge, they evade.
> Now if they roll down and you roll up you can catch them but if you
> don't you get filled with another set of shooting and gain
> fatigue
> from the CPF'S and the charge…while the horse only gain
> fatigue for
> the shooting. Is there any other thing I am missing? Just a general
> question on how to beat light horse armies I'm sure to face in
> the
> future.

[Mark Stone]

--- On June 20 Brinton said: ---

> How do you catch bow armed cavalry with other cavalry? If they are 80
> paces away (good bow range), and you declare your charge, they evade.
> Now if they roll down and you roll up you can catch them but if you
> don't you get filled with another set of shooting and gain
> fatigue from the CPF'S and the charge…while the horse only gain
> fatigue for the shooting. Is there any other thing I am missing? Just a
general
> question on how to beat light horse armies I'm sure to face in
> the future.

The best way to catch evading cavalry is with arrows.

In a historical matchup like Seljuqs vs. Crusaders, it actually makes sense for
the Crusaders to use historical tactics, and pay attention to historical
vulnerabilities.

Cavalry's main weakness is its vulnerability to missile fire. While knights are
somewhat less vulnerable to missile fire, they also take extra fatigue, and so
can ill afford repeated charges at an evading foe. Knights therefore need to be
shielded from missile fire by a screen of light troops or a sturdy battle line.

This is not to say there are no situations in which knights should be charging
light cavalry. But the right time is very situationnal: being able to peel a
light cav away from the flank of another unit, thus leaving it exposed, for
example. But the dynamic here is tricky. To avoid having to close with the
enemy cav too early you may want to be under Probe orders. Under Probe,
however, you can only go long in pursuit if impetuous. If impetuous, however,
you must rally forward rather than make a recall move back to (roughly) your
original position. So you really have to pick the right charge at the right
time.

Better to deal with bow-armed cavalry with your foot troops. The Crusaders can
get a fair amount of LI armed with bow, which in the long run will out-shoot
the bow-armed cavalry as LI is at a pretty low factor when shot at by bow. You
can also get foot units of all crossbow, or front rank LTS,Sh backed by
crossbow. These should be effective at either shooting away enemy cavalry or
charging it off (the Seljuqs have nothing that's a real threat to LTS-armed
foot).

In this situation your knights play a support role, guarding the flanks of your
close order foot, or supporting the rear of your light infantry. Your foot
drives steadily forward, forcing him to respond, and your knights lurk in
reserve ready to jump in once your opponent commits himself to hand to hand
combat.

This is actually one of the hardest things to learn about playing a knight army:
knights themselves are not attack troops; they are counter-punching troops. You
have to respond rather than lead with your knights. You can still be
aggressive, but aggression on your part has to be initiated with your battle
line of foot troops.


-Mark Stone

[Mark Mallard]

In a message dated 21/06/2005 12:03:27 GMT Standard Time,
jjmurphy@... writes:

My understanding is... if the LC are at effective range (80p) by
definition you can catch them by rolling long even if they do not
roll short (as long as they do not roll long, and your orders allow,
and the angles are not messing you up, etcetera). So with irregulars
a good 1/3 chance to catch them. Not ideal but better than them
having to also roll short - and in a pinch with enough units
sometimes this has to make do.



A third chance of rolling long, yes but the evaders could roll long too.

Chance to catch @ 80 paces would be.

Irregular chasing irregular 2/9

Irregular chasing regular 5/18

Regular chasing regular 5/36

Regular chasing irregular 4/36 or 1/9

It helps if you can get into 40p of course. Chances to catch increase. And
to charge with more than one unit or at more than one unit.

I never forget the game i played at the worlds in the 80s where i only had a
2 element REG HC L cavalry unit to face off two flank marching REG LC. I
expanded out closed to one inch took some heavy missile fire and then charged
both.

The other guy was gutted when i caught and routed both straight back off the
board. I was hoping to catch one.

10/36 chance to catch unit A 27.77%
10/36 chance to catch unit B 27.77%
20/1296 to catch both or just over 1.5%
to catch either ? my math escapes me but it must be around 34%

so it was not a completely futile gesture.

i hope the math i have done is correct.

hope it gives you some ideas.

mark mallard


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[John Murphy]

--- In WarriorRules@yahoogroups.com, Mark Stone <mark@d...> wrote:
> --- On June 20 Brinton said: ---
> > If they are 80
> > paces away (good bow range), and you declare your charge, they
evade.
> > Now if they roll down and you roll up you can catch them

My understanding is... if the LC are at effective range (80p) by
definition you can catch them by rolling long even if they do not
roll short (as long as they do not roll long, and your orders allow,
and the angles are not messing you up, etcetera). So with irregulars
a good 1/3 chance to catch them. Not ideal but better than them
having to also roll short - and in a pinch with enough units
sometimes this has to make do.

Also as stated the crusaders have very good LC of their own in the
form of the "full-service" turcoples both as Irregs and Regs. Me, I
love taking a ton of these guys in my crusader army.

But, as always, Mark Stone has a good point in that historically the
crusaders (when they won) used their foot as mobile missile-armed
terrain and counter-punched. And in Warrior this is a much better
way to deal with bow-armed LC unless/until you can get it backed up
against something that prevents its escaping - like a gap-less line
of heavier enemy cav (until Mongols), very rough terrain or possibly
the board edge.

Greetigns John,
That math only works when its LC vs LC, with other cav even rolling
long wont do the trick if my LC are at 80p your rolling long will net
you 240p of movement my base is 200p. I start 80p away and end 40p if
you roll long and I roll even.

--- In WarriorRules@yahoogroups.com, "John" <jjmurphy@s...> wrote:
>
> My understanding is... if the LC are at effective range (80p) by
> definition you can catch them by rolling long even if they do not
> roll short (as long as they do not roll long, and your orders allow,
> and the angles are not messing you up, etcetera).

Thats what I thought was required. Turkopoles and foot troops will be
brought in greater supply next time.


--- In WarriorRules@yahoogroups.com, "Terry Dix" <notalent@p...> wrote:
> Greetigns John,
> That math only works when its LC vs LC, with other cav even rolling
> long wont do the trick if my LC are at 80p your rolling long will net
> you 240p of movement my base is 200p. I start 80p away and end 40p if
> you roll long and I roll even.
>
> --- In WarriorRules@yahoogroups.com, "John" <jjmurphy@s...> wrote:
> >
> > My understanding is... if the LC are at effective range (80p) by
> > definition you can catch them by rolling long even if they do not
> > roll short (as long as they do not roll long, and your orders
allow,
> > and the angles are not messing you up, etcetera).