Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

Here's something I've wondered about for a while now, but the thread about the 2
army lists had me thinking about it. Why is it that a unit can not change from
Close to Loose order and vice versa? It seems to me, that the choice of order
ought to depend on circumstances. On his own initiative, or if prompted, a unit
commander might go from loose to close order when threatened by cavalry, and
perhaps back to Loose when crossing difficult ground.

Naturally, this depends a great deal upon how an army is drilled. Some armies
only drill to close order formation, and might be stuck that way. There are many
armies though, where there is a choice of MI/LMI or HI/LHI on the army list.
Perhaps armies that have the option of Close/Loose order, should be able to make
that choice upon deployment?

But then, If the unit is capable of either formation, perhaps this should be a
formation change akin to Exchanging Ranks? Perhaps it should be a cause of
cessation cured disorder, to mitigate some the very powerful advantages this
would bestow? Perhaps it requires a successful Counter? Perhaps it should only
be open to Reg trained units? Perhaps I'm on crack?

I realize this would drastically alter some of the fundamental tactics of the
game. On the other hand, throwing in a new variable usually make tings more
interesting. I'm trying to see the bright side.

Thanks for giving this some thought.

Allan Lougheed

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

--- In WarriorRules@yahoogroups.com, "Allan Lougheed"
<redcoat24@c...> wrote:
> But then, If the unit is capable of either formation, perhaps this
>should be a formation change akin to Exchanging Ranks?

definitely.

> Perhaps it should be a cause of cessation cured disorder, to
>mitigate some the very powerful advantages this would bestow?

Definitely.

> Perhaps it should only be open to Reg trained units?

DEFINITE-ly.

> Perhaps I'm on crack?

DEFINITELY!!!!!! ;->

I would also throw in the next option of "Maybe being a father
to small children has addled my brains?" To which I would reply -
"It's got to be a better explanation than crack - drugs can only
take you so far, and you've gone WAY beyond that point." ;->

It's an interesting notion, but even from the newbie/beginner
perspective, I could tell that giving ANY list that kind of tactical
flexibility WITHOUT some very significant drawbacks, would be a
little over the top.

Given the rocks/paper/scissors mentality of the game, giving
players a rock, and then handing them some scissors "just in case
that pesky paper shows up", is a BAAAAD idea.

For myself, I'd hate to see someone deploy a bunch of close order
units, put down a bunch of woods/brush, and then watch them revert
to loose order, and go merrily traipsing through all the difficult
terrain I just put down.

Seeing my friend Jevon's LEHI Samurai from his Japanese list
leads me to believe that Scott COULD point such units high enough to
achieve some kind of list balance, but it would still be yucky to
try and face.

And let's face it - if the Romans aren't doing these kind of
formation changes in their list(s), I don't see many other lists
that have the historical justification for such excellent drilling.

> Thanks for giving this some thought.

No problem - after all, the moment I read the first paragraph, my
first thought was "Is he on crack?" ;->

Hey Allan? Suggest this to Christian and Cole - I'm curious to
see what their reactions would be. ;>

Regards,
Asif Chaudhry

Hey Asif, It's nice hearing from you, hope you're well!

Yes having small children might have contributed to this.

Responding to some of your critiques, I have to say I agree this would be a
massive change. To tell you the truth though, I feel that maintaining a kind
or rock/paper/scissor balance for it's own sake is totally unimportant.
History is important,and having a realistic tactical simulation is
important. I don't have any history to back this idea up. To me the
important question is whether some ancient armies were capable of drilling
to that kind of standard, and if so, why is it not reflected in the game. I
have no evidence either way myself, but it seems so logical to adapt
dressing order to circumstance that I cant believe ancient commanders could
be so inflexible. Or did they march out of garrison at the Loose Order and
say "well I guess were stuck this way" :-)

Or if your a battlefield unit commander confronted by a field of dense
Brush, do you stay in close formation out of some sense of fair play? I
think your response depends on how well your men are drilled. If they know
how to adopt a loose formation and can do so on command then perhaps you
change formation and proceed. If not, well you probably bypass it until
troops in skirmish formation can go in and give you the all clear.

My gut feeling, is that if an army is capable of drilling to both dressing
orders, then they should not be limited to sticking to either/or. I think
Romans did not; they had a doctrine of fighting close order, but that is the
question here; does a particular army have a doctrine that restricts it to a
certain mode of fighting or is it more flexible. I welcome anyone more
knowledgeable to enlighten me.

Are you coming to Barrie in June, Asif?

See you soon I hope

Allan

----- Original Message -----
From: "shahadet_99" <shahadet_99@...>
To: <WarriorRules@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, May 16, 2005 12:00 PM
Subject: [WarriorRules] Re: Close/loose order question


> --- In WarriorRules@yahoogroups.com, "Allan Lougheed"
> <redcoat24@c...> wrote:
>> But then, If the unit is capable of either formation, perhaps this
>>should be a formation change akin to Exchanging Ranks?
>
> definitely.
>
>> Perhaps it should be a cause of cessation cured disorder, to
>>mitigate some the very powerful advantages this would bestow?
>
> Definitely.
>
>> Perhaps it should only be open to Reg trained units?
>
> DEFINITE-ly.
>
>> Perhaps I'm on crack?
>
> DEFINITELY!!!!!! ;->
>
> I would also throw in the next option of "Maybe being a father
> to small children has addled my brains?" To which I would reply -
> "It's got to be a better explanation than crack - drugs can only
> take you so far, and you've gone WAY beyond that point." ;->
>
> It's an interesting notion, but even from the newbie/beginner
> perspective, I could tell that giving ANY list that kind of tactical
> flexibility WITHOUT some very significant drawbacks, would be a
> little over the top.
>
> Given the rocks/paper/scissors mentality of the game, giving
> players a rock, and then handing them some scissors "just in case
> that pesky paper shows up", is a BAAAAD idea.
>
> For myself, I'd hate to see someone deploy a bunch of close order
> units, put down a bunch of woods/brush, and then watch them revert
> to loose order, and go merrily traipsing through all the difficult
> terrain I just put down.
>
> Seeing my friend Jevon's LEHI Samurai from his Japanese list
> leads me to believe that Scott COULD point such units high enough to
> achieve some kind of list balance, but it would still be yucky to
> try and face.
>
> And let's face it - if the Romans aren't doing these kind of
> formation changes in their list(s), I don't see many other lists
> that have the historical justification for such excellent drilling.
>
>> Thanks for giving this some thought.
>
> No problem - after all, the moment I read the first paragraph, my
> first thought was "Is he on crack?" ;->
>
> Hey Allan? Suggest this to Christian and Cole - I'm curious to
> see what their reactions would be. ;>
>
> Regards,
> Asif Chaudhry
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>

[Mark Stone]

OK, I've been trying to bite my tongue on this one, but I have to chime in here.

This strikes me as just a bad idea all around, for a variety of reasons:
(1) While we play a historical game, we are not _just_ a bunch of historians; we
are also tournament gamers to whom play balance matters, and this sort of change
would be terribly destabilizing to play balance. Make an x-rule of this if you
must (though more on that below), but don't contemplate making it part of the
main gaming system.

(2) Since the army lists are not written with this possibility in mind, it is at
present impossible to distinguish between a troop type that has the option of
being either loose or close order because both were utilized, and a troop type
that has the option of being either because either the historical record is
unclear, or because the game designers were of two minds about which best
simulates the troop type's historical behavior. In the future one can imagine
the case where history or its adaptation to the game is unclear being covered
by requiring "all close or all loose" for such troops, but I don't think the
army lists are consistently in this state at present, since this was an
unenvisioned possibility at the time of list writing.

(3) It's entirely possible that a given unit capable of either close or loose
formation would leave camp that morning with different equipment depending on
which role its commander intended for it that day, thus precluding the option
of switching between formations on the fly.

(4) To the extent that the historical record does warrant this type of behavior,
FHE is making efforts to account for it, as evidenced by the Classical Warrior
x-rules that will be in play for the Theme Tournament (see
http://www.fourhorsemenenterprises.com/xrules.htm), specifically the rule
concerning Ekdromoi. Let's give FHE, who know the rules and their plans for
them better than anyone else, a chance to work out how they think such
contingencies might be handled. They seem to be doing a reasonable job on this
particular issue so far.


-Mark Stone

Hi Mark,

Thanks for the reply. No need to bite your tongue. Points #2 and #4 are well
taken. I agree that changing a core rule after the lists have all been
written to work within the existing system would be unfair. I suppose it is
a design consideration and I think Jon has already said in the past that he
prefers to not field questions about game design.

Is the record really that sparse on tactical manoeuvring? I'm not really
even expecting an X-rule to come out of this but I do still wonder if this
aspect of the rules really reflects our understanding of ancient tactics. It
could be that ancient units did not change order during battle. It seems
inflexible but it is entirely possible.



Allan

[joncleaves]

By questions about game design, you mean 'why' questions. Indeed, I do those on
a case by case basis.

First, see the last part of Mark Stone's mail on this issue. He is dead on....

I can't begin to do optional/scenario/theme rules like this until the main book
is revised. It has ALL of my design time. Discussions like this I monitor and
will get back to these ideas when I can. For right now, I cannot do optional
rules for two reasons - revised book consumes time, and I have no main rulebook
to base the options on until I am done anyway....

But - keep those thoughts coming. We do listen...

J

-----Original Message-----
From: Allan Lougheed <redcoat24@...>
To: WarriorRules@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Mon, 16 May 2005 20:30:24 -0400
Subject: Re: [WarriorRules] Re: Close/loose order question


Hi Mark,

Thanks for the reply. No need to bite your tongue. Points #2 and #4 are well
taken. I agree that changing a core rule after the lists have all been
written to work within the existing system would be unfair. I suppose it is
a design consideration and I think Jon has already said in the past that he
prefers to not field questions about game design.

Is the record really that sparse on tactical manoeuvring? I'm not really
even expecting an X-rule to come out of this but I do still wonder if this
aspect of the rules really reflects our understanding of ancient tactics. It
could be that ancient units did not change order during battle. It seems
inflexible but it is entirely possible.



Allan





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