Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

In a message dated 1/29/2001 4:08:57 PM Pacific Standard Time,
WarriorRules@yahoogroups.com writes:

<< not this throwback to 5th edition where you'd find players who
had units with shields on the left arm of half the figures and on the right
arm of half the figures, all because "it doesn't say anywhere I can't." >>
Hi Scott;
My turn to rant!! What about armies (Chinese!!!!) that historically DID
do this??
The large clay figures dug up in China? Asgard 15mm Han spearmen , of which
I have a couple pounds in my garage? No, I started with 6th.
I wrote to Spearpoint years ago about this, letter wasn't published. Got a
letter back from someone that "rule so and so says you can't do it so even if
the Chinese DID do it, you can't".
Didn't require a new rule. Just a note on the army lists that (Tang, Han,
and earlier) this armie's spear, pike, and halberd units could do so. Adds a
bit of HISTORICAL flavor to these armies. No worse than many other
exceptions and special rules in the army lists.

Chuck Duggie

"What? Me worry ?"

[Chris Bump]

Chuck,

I am not the historian that you are and for all I know you may simply be
venting, however if you are advocating a change in the rules set I would at
least on the surface tend to disagree. I would ask that in a rule set that
tries to bridge 2 centuries can you imagine the encyclopedia we would have if
all of the quirks or experiments of all of the armies through out antiquity
were accounted for? or all gimmick tactics? I believe for the sake of
playability many things within the game are "smoothed out" Shouldn't bigger
horses with stirrups have an easier time against smaller ones without? What
of armor classes? The Light infantryman of Papal Rome was far better
equipped than his Numidian counterpart of 1000 years earlier, but which do
you think performs better in a Warrior match up?

Just some thoughts,

Chris

[scott holder]

I would ask that in a rule set that
tries to bridge 2 centuries can you imagine the encyclopedia we would have if
all of the quirks or experiments of all of the armies through out antiquity
were accounted for? or all gimmick tactics? I believe for the sake of
playability many things within the game are "smoothed out" Shouldn't bigger
horses with stirrups have an easier time against smaller ones without? What
of armor classes? The Light infantryman of Papal Rome was far better
equipped than his Numidian counterpart of 1000 years earlier, but which do
you think performs better in a Warrior match up?

>I'm sure that I was the one who answered Chuck's letter many years ago.
"List rules", if applicable, will be used to cover the rare times when
"smoothing out" just seems to not capture the historical flavor of an army.
And list rules will cover those items that simply cannot be covered in a set
of rules like Warrior. Therefore, no "stirrup rule" (which I've argued as
specious in the first place). As I've mentioned before, list rules will be
rare things. As for the Chinese experience, I'm very aware of some of the
archeological evidence of the ole "left-armed/right-armed" shields in Han/Qin
China. However, I'm unaware of any widespread
use of such a tactic. Moreoever, a study of hoplite formations in Greece
would suggest that taking one and flipping the shields from left to right
within a single unit probably wouldn't work "well" because of the instinctive
tendency of the infantryman to drift in the direction of his "open" side.
That would mean everyone trying bunch up in the middle and woe to the two
columns of men in the middle:) But again, who knows. Now it's possible
should some good material come out of China, that entire units were
"right-handed" when it came to shields. But again, I'm unaware of any
widespread use of such a formation and it's "widespread" that I'm looking for
before I consider a list rule to cover it.

>You have about 2 years to provide detailed material since Oriental Warrior
will either be the last or next to the last army list book to be completed.

Scott
List Horseman