Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[Mark Stone]

I finally read through Ewan's analysis of the NICT armies. This is great reading
for anyone, especially those relatively new to Warrior trying to understand some
of the nuances that go into army list construction. And there's not a lot here
that Ewan says that I'll disagree with. I am going to nitpick on a couple of
points though.

Nikophoran Byzantine (HW#2):
As Ewan says, this is a very well balanced list with good skirmishers, a lot of
shooting, solid line troops, and a variety of shock threats. The latter can be a
bit deceptive, though. Lance-armed HC are servicable, but hardly overwhelming
shock troops, and the "faux Romans" (MI HTW,JLS,D,Sh) will spend most of the
game just trying to reach something they can hurt. The best all around shock
troop type in this list is the Varangians, and only one such unit is taken. More
perplexing is the decision to take 18 figures of Irr C LMI JLS,Sh. These guys
are, frankly, a waste of points. They do nothing particularly well. As terrain
holders they don't put out a lot of shooting, they're hard to get into skirmish,
and they are prone to rolling short on evades. If they manage an impetuous
charge, they are brittle, since they're only LMI, and it is hard to get them
impetous since they're C class. A better choice would be to take 2 units of 12
figure Varangians rather than an 18 figure unit of Varangians and and 18 figure
unit of Irr C guys. That's my only major beef with the list. My personal choice
would be to take less HC and get a unit of SHC, and I avoid close order foot
like the plague, but the latter is mainly a matter of playing style. The main
thing is to max out on the Varangians, as they are the best shock this army has.
As configured, I'd rate this as about a 7/10. The list itself has potential to
be 8/10 or maybe even 9/10.

Late Romans:
Ewan says, "Late Romans come pretty much to a pattern in the US...." I'm not
disagreeing, I'm just really curious what that means. Is there another paradigm
for Late Romans worth considering? If so, I'd like to hear about it.

Gupta:
I don't necessarily disagree with the analysis here, but I do think it rates
more than a 5. The elephants are not optimized for fighting other elephants or
certain anti-elephant troops types, but they will still roll over all cav and a
lot of foot. The EHC also do an excellent job of pinning barbarian trash foot by
charging them and maybe winning or at least not routing so the elephants can
come in next bound and clean up. If you're comfortable fighting knight/cav
armies, and you're comfortable fighting barbarian foot armies, and you have
chances against other armies, that sounds like more than a 5/10 to me. Give it a
7/10. Oh, and one more subtle point: don't underestimate the value of Irr B LI.
These guys hold ground better than other LI because you really can afford, in
the right situation, to suck up 2 or more CPF from prep and take the waver test
rather than opt for the recall move. I've caught more than one opponent off
guard by having light troops stick around that he assumed would be rallying back
behind my line.

Italian Condotta:
This is a fascinating example of fitting a list to a playing style. In the hands
of anyone other than Sean, I'd rate this no more than a 6/10: this army has no
real strategy against elephants, or massed missile fire (100YW, Derek's Koreans,
Midianites), or large amounts of pike-armed infantry. The higher rating Ewan
gives here really reflects Sean's playing style and comfort with the list.
There's enough screen of good enough quality for Sean to fill the flanks with
screen that will last long enough for him to launch the knights at his intended
point of attack. Any time I play Sean, I know I'll be rolling large numbers of
hand to hand dice in Bound 2. I must say it is ironic to see what is arguably
_the_ most complex list in _any_ book boiled down to such elegant simplicity.
Me, I look at this list and get hung up trying to figure out how to get the
pikemen, the Almughuvars, the 2HCT, the skirmishers, and all the knights I want
on 1600 points.

Later Hungarian:
Again, I just can't see this being an 8/10. The only foot unit is Irr C LMI
JLS,Sh. Against elephants, massed shooting, or massed pikes that's just a recipe
for disaster. There are 5 units of LC, but without LI for them to coordinate
with they are prone to getting shot up in the skirmisher phase and then left
rallying disordered in a must rally situation in front of the rest of the army.
LC get dramatically better in the company of LI. This army can deal a lot of
punishment to some enemies, but there is a wide range of common opponents where
it becomes too one dimensional. I'd give it 5/10, maybe 6/10.

Overall, an enjoyable exercise, and I really appreciate the time Ewan put into
this.


-Mark Stone

[John Garlic]

Hi All,

I am biased in the question, but I often hear of benefits of elephants, pike,
philum, and knights. What is it about Chariots that everyone dislikes, or
makes them ineffective. Personally, I like them, but don't have enough
experience with Warrior to judge their effect.

John

> I finally read through Ewan's analysis of the NICT armies. This is great
> reading
> for anyone, especially those relatively new to Warrior trying to understand
> some
> of the nuances that go into army list construction. And there's not a lot
> here
> that Ewan says that I'll disagree with. I am going to nitpick on a couple of
> points though.



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

Hi,

I also am a bit of a chariot lover. Here in Oz when we played 7th
without lance getting a rank a half chariots could even ride over SHK
(especially an Indian 4 horse six man chariot)!! Even now i still
consider them a very points effective option. your average unit of 2
four horse heavy chariots generally costs between 60-100 points (i
wouldn't bother with two horse chariots) and yet suffers casualties
as 10 EHC who are always shielded. This combines very nicely with
their extra break through options to allow them to sometimes give
people a nasty surprise. I suppose the reason they are less popular
is they dont have quite the same impact as lance armed cavalary, are
a little slower and clumsy to manouver and cant enter rough terrain.
I also suspect many people probably only bother to work out the first
round results when number crunching cavalry versus chariots. In a
fight gainst lancers chariots can often afford to loose the first
round and still come out on top. As an example my chin chinese 4HHCH
with 1 lts and 1 BW can fight even 6 SHK and leave them tired and
disordered after the first round (the horses alone inflict 20 on
evens if i'm impetuos). Sure on evens I loose (just) but its in the
latter rounds as he tries to struggle to get a cpf that the fun often
begins. IN the second round on evens the SHK gets 6 at 0 (tired,
disordered and facing longspear). This leaves them needing an up 2
just to get a cpf. As long as he doesnt do three times as many as my
crew manage (which would allow him to break through) I can break
through him (causing a waver test). Given the relative cheapness of
chariots I think they can be a very effective way of fighting enemy
mounted. They often do particularly well in exchanges of firepower
with mounted opponents (depending on how your crew is armed) as even
if you shoot you are still shielded EHC. Chariot armies are often
weak more because of their poor support troops. The best of them are
probably the chinese and to a lesser extent Indian ones


martin

[Tim Grimmett]

I also enjoyed Ewan's analysis and since he has throughly trounced me the two
times we've played it helps to get inside his thought process.

That said, matchups and player style are critical in this enterprise. My 6/10
Illyrians ran into a SHK/Mog buzzsaw in the first round and HTW Roman nightmare
in the second round. Never even saw an elephant that I gambled people would
show up with.....it was a long day.





---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Small Business $15K Web Design Giveaway - Enter today

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

--- In WarriorRules@yahoogroups.com, Tim Grimmett <grimmetttim@y...>
wrote:
Never even saw an elephant that I gambled people would show up
with.....it was a long day.

HAH! Tim this is the irony of playing the cycle. For me, the cycle
is like switching checkout lanes at the supermarket. As soon as I do
it, it becomes obvious that I made a bad move. I just ignore the
cycle and always build an army to face "all" opponants.

Perhaps this is why I prefer armies with much close order, as they
really don't care if it is an elephant or a SHK or a barbarian LMI,
they just plod forward and soak up the CPF. :)

I feel your pain
Wanax