Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[joncleaves]

Here's my $.02

1. After Warrior basic is off to the printers, one of my follow-on projects is
to develop a mathless combat resolution for it. I know from having messed with
that table for 15 years that a quick-res system is possible and have done some
work already. It will be modular so that it can be dropped in place within the
rest of the Warrior rules (or Fast or Fantasy Warrior, which are the real
drivers for such a system considering their audience) should the players or
event organizer so choose.

2. I know from my historical readings that there are countless examples of
'better' troops losing nerve when 'lesser' troops began to leave the field. It
is possible from an historical stanpoint and improbable from a statistical one,
which Warrior reflects. Having said that, I will also be offering up x-rules on
morale after we are done with the basic rules (d10-based morale, modifiers if
the cause is a 'lesser quality' troop, etc.) Try those when we post them, or
even offer your own.

Jon

[joncleaves]

Trust me, when those or any other x-rules I generate are done, they will be
immediately placed on the web for everyone to playtest/comment on.

But not now, I am racing to the finish!

[Chris Bump]

Wanax,

History is fraught with examples of inferior troops holding their own,
repulsing and even routing superior troops. That argument is specious,
rather dripping with opinion other than fact, if someone asked me. I will
not go into the issue of math, as it seems intrinsic to the game. Anything I
can think of to address this issue sounds condesending and insulting. I will
keep my piece and continue to play as the rules are written.

Chris

[joncleaves]

Boys, boys. Go to your rooms... :)

Wanax, while I too think Chris might have been a little harsh, you did end your
original comments by indicating you expected some sort of flame in response. Be
careful what you wish for...

Chris, do me a favor and take a look at what you said in your response and see
if you might not reword it....

To all: anyone who thinks exchanges of this nature are somehow limited to "old
7th players" or are more serious than the kind of garbage that goes on on other
game egroups doesn't get around much. Having said that, I for one am
desperately (and certainly not always successfully) trying to curb my otherwise
sarcastic nature for the betterment of all. How about joining me?

Jon, buried in point cost of portable obstacles...

[Chris Bump]

Wanax,
I bow before you.

Once I read Jon's response I realized where you were going, contrary to where
I thought you were going, hence the tone of the response. Rather than waste
more prompt points trying to recall said messanger, I thought to wait and
see......... Glad I did.

but it cannot compete and will struggle to
gain new gamers due mainly to two continual
problems...

This has not been our experience, as the group down here in Texas continues
to grow and even draw players back from DBM, despite the fact that we live in
Teepees and still watch family feud.

7th was a vaible game system, which was clunky in
exicution. It also forced gamers to spend much time
in mathmatical calculation which detracted from
tactical considerations outside of this mathmatical
matching for battle. As a result, people in 25mm
ended up with just a very few armies that were
feasable and all of them relied upon JLS as the final
arbiter. Outside of Derek Downs, I never saw anyone
play an army that did not count sheilded and use JLS,
often impetous.

Here I have listed two major problems that eventually
drove many many gamers to such games as DBM and DBA.
I am not advocating these other game systems, but I
would be deluding myself as well as you all if I
didn't point them out.

No you wouldn't. Most if not all on the site are aware of the games and
their impact on what we have and are trying to do. I do not agree that the
points you have listed had anything to do with the exodus to DBA and
eventually DBM. I feel quite comfortable in making the absolute statement
that javelins and shields had little to do with the exodus. They may be
arguments used now as FHE seek to address issues that were raised when those
who left were querried, but otherwise, naw.

It seems to me in your statement above, you are advocating a simplification
of weapons factors and how they play into the fight. DBM did this with a
more generic methodology of armor and weapons used by the combatants. I do
not believe, and I at least hope that most are in agreement with me, that we
do not want to drift towards DBM type rules or troop types in an effort to
draw them back. I am not particularly intelligent, but I do not have
difficulty following the chart with all of the listed modifiers. There is no
requirement that anyone memorize them. The chart could probably be improved,
but I, for one, am opposed to simplification if it means the reduction of
weapon or armor classifications.

1. Math detracts from tactical concerns.

It may. But as a commander we all have the benefit of the 1000 ft point of
view and our actual contemporaries would not. So the trade off is of small
concern.

If Warrior could in some way consume much of the math via a
matrix, then this would end much of the confusion. An
example would be perhaps some way to incorporate
weapons modifiers without relying upon the gamer. Do
we need to constantly rememeber tactical modifiers
like charging, LTS armed chariot crew, or 1/5
elephant? can't these sort of things be absorbed in a
more user friendly tactical matrix? Not a DBA type of
"roll a 6" matrix, but something in between that and
the sliderule math for impet HC charging downhill with
lance, JLS, sh with a general, shooting tired, tired,
disordered passing through friendly foot, facing Pk
armed, shielded, disordered tired HI?

And tiredness; it is important to add this layer of
complexity to a situation in which everyone can be
assumed tired from bound four on?
Almost 99% of all cheating takes place with tiredness, so let us just
factor tiredness in and let it go.
One suggestion might be to simply give all shooting and charging in
the first 5 bounds a +1. Afterward, everyone is tired
anyway from nerves.

99%! Wow. The fatigue rules are so plainly written that we don't seem to
have a lot of cheating issues in that area. Our biggest problem seems to be
more based around the methods of moving and angles and how they play into
what we are trying to do to each others troops. Again though, not our
experience. What of troops kept in reserve? or don't you do that? Do they
get the same penalty for doing nothing through turn 5? What of troops in
ambush who never get to spring said ambush and eventually leave to join the
battle. Are they to be tired or lose the proposed bonus because turn 5 has
elapsed or because they in fact maintained their patience and are able to
spring the ambush late in the game? And what of troops who do infact take a
beating and then must face fresh troops after turn 5? Are they to be
considered on even footing?

2. Cascading army morale checks. This for me was
always the most irratating part of 7th.

Irritating, perhaps, but not A-Historical, in fact one of the flavors of 6th,
7th and Warrior that is quite appreciated, anticipated and used by most I
know who play.

It forces players to use armies unhistorically, and it also
causes players to develop armies that do not
prepresent the historical model very well.

NO it does not. Players who are looking to win regardless of historical
tactics may follow this route, and certainly in tournament play this may be
the case, but tournaments that typically match knights against Romans and or
Assyrians are by their very nature fantasy and thus historical model and
historical use of the army ceases to be of primary concern. IF a historical
battle is being fought with accurate opponents, it has been our humble
experience that historical tactics and use of the army works well, and
cascading morale allows for the Macedonian rout of 120, 000 Persians and
allys with 40,000 Macedonians. No cascading morale and I believe you see an
escalation of more troops on the table and this can just as easily detract
from Historical army composition as players scramble to get the most cheap
troops on the board and leave those Varangians and Prateorians behind because
their cost is just too prohibitive.
It is just unsupportable that a unit of close order class D would
cause Macedonian Companions to waver test; more likely
they would ride them down in an effort to pass through
and impact upon the pursuing enemy.

Assuming that you are using Companions as an example and not an absolute,
this is not unsupportable. I do not disagree that they might charge through
them to try and impact the pursuing enemy, but could also be terribly
impacted by the sight of a mass of fleeing friends.

Terribly sorry if you understood me to be saying kiss my Assyrians.

Chris

Speaking of counters!!!! Does not the Big D group owe someone in SA some of those cool counters? David " Counterless " Beeson

[Chris Bump]

In a message dated 09/04/2001 9:31:56 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
vercengetorix@... writes:

<< by the end of round two of a tournament, one's head
hurts so much from the math that one doesn't realize
what was marked down for who. Cheating is a strong
word, so I'll agree in is records mismanagement :)

Everyone knows what I'm talking about, too. Marking
shooting on the wrong LI/b, marking down 1 too few for
impet charging. just little things that hold victory
in the balance.

>>
Definitely see where you are going here, and you are quite correct. We find
ourselves reminding our opponent quite often what his fatigue should be.
There are many many book keeping errors in tournament games. Don in
particular will annotate what each of his units put out as well as what they
take to insure against such errors. I laugh at myself now because I am in
complete agreement with your premise now that I know where you are heading.

Chris

Gentlemen,

I do not usually comment on this list, but I feel I
must make a statement about WRG7th and it's successor
Warrior. I will begin by saying I still play 7th, and
I enjoy it; but it cannot compete and will struggle to
gain new gamers due mainly to two continual
problems...

7th was a vaible game system, which was clunky in
exicution. It also forced gamers to spend much time
in mathmatical calculation which detracted from
tactical considerations outside of this mathmatical
matching for battle. As a result, people in 25mm
ended up with just a very few armies that were
feasable and all of them relied upon JLS as the final
arbiter. Outside of Derek Downs, I never saw anyone
play an army that did not count sheilded and use JLS,
often impetous.

Here I have listed two major problems that eventually
drove many many gamers to such games as DBM and DBA.
I am not advocating these other game systems, but I
would be deluding myself as well as you all if I
didn't point them out.

1. Math detracts from tactical concerns. If Warrior
could in some way consume much of the math via a
matrix, then this would end much of the confusion. An
example would be perhaps some way to incorporate
weapons modifiers without relying upon the gamer. Do
we need to constantly rememeber tactical modifiers
like charging, LTS armed chariot crew, or 1/5
elephant? can't these sort of things be absorbed in a
more user friendly tactical matrix? Not a DBA type of
"roll a 6" matrix, but something in between that and
the sliderule math for impet HC charging downhill with
lance, JLS, sh with a general, shooting tired, tired,
disordered passing through friendly foot, facing Pk
armed, shielded, disordered tired HI?

And tiredness; it is important to add this layer of
complexity to a situation in which everyone can be
assumed tired from bound four on? Almost 99% of all
cheating takes place with tiredness, so let us just
factor tiredness in and let it go. One suggestion
might be to simply give all shooting and charging in
the first 5 bounds a +1. Afterward, everyone is tired
anyway from nerves.

2. Cascading army morale checks. This for me was
always the most irratating part of 7th. It forces
players to use armies unhistorically, and it also
causes players to develop armies that do not
prepresent the historical model very well. It is just
unsupportable that a unit of close order class D would
cause Macedonian Companions to waver test; more likely
they would ride them down in an effort to pass through
and impact upon the pursuing enemy.

Just some thoughts to see if anyone is open to new
ideas.

Ok, flame retardent suit in place, pleae respond.

Wanax

=====
Wake up and smell the Assyrians

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--- JonCleaves@... wrote:
> Here's my $.02
>
> 1. After Warrior basic is off to the printers, one
> of my follow-on projects is to develop a mathless
> combat resolution for it. I know from having messed
> with that table for 15 years that a quick-res system
> is possible and have done some work already. It
> will be modular so that it can be dropped in place
> within the rest of the Warrior rules (or Fast or
> Fantasy Warrior, which are the real drivers for such
> a system considering their audience) should the
> players or event organizer so choose.

I'd by happy to help you playtest it. Just email it
to me as an attachement, and I'll game around with it.
Sounds fantastic.

>
> 2. I know from my historical readings that there
> are countless examples of 'better' troops losing
> nerve when 'lesser' troops began to leave the field.

I'm not debating that this does occur, but it occurs
more in 7th than it did in real life, so gamers being
gamers they compensate tactically to avoid the
situation entirely. The grand poobah would have sent
the close order scum into battle to absorb the punch
of the enemy knights, then send in his knights to
finish them off. Hastings comes to mind. As a gamer,
I know one of my favorite Norman tactics involved
wedges with ablative 12 man LI units as screens, but I
can find no historical reference to this; I left the
fyrd on the baseline for fear of their morale.

I feel that one way to solve the morale problem is to
base the morale upon % of command;s troop class.

general = 3 morale points
Class A/B = 2 morale points per unit
Class C/D = 1 "
Class E = 0 "
All LI = 0 "
round up

For example: A typical command has a subgeneral, two
12 Class C LI/B, three 6 man Class A/B milites, one
unit of class D fyrd. The morale is 16 morale points
/ 8 units = 2. This command can loose two units
before any morale tests.

This is an example only, and I'm sure someone can come
up with an easier system to reflect the same thing.



=====
Wake up and smell the Assyrians

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> Wanax,
> History is fraught with examples of inferior troops
> holding their own,
> repulsing and even routing superior troops.

Which has nothing to do with the topic, nor does it
relate in any way to my original emphasis. Please
read carefully before jumping in. Thank you.

That
> argument is specious,
> rather dripping with opinion other than fact, if
> someone asked me.

Which no one did ask you, and I can't even tell what
you are commenting on as it is out of context.


I will
> not go into the issue of math, as it seems intrinsic
> to the game. Anything I
> can think of to address this issue sounds
> condesending and insulting. I will
> keep my piece and continue to play as the rules are
> written.
> Chris

This aserbic response is precisley how 7th gamers
repreatedly turn new gamers off. Here is some news
for you Chris, telling me to "kiss your a__" will not
bring fresh meat into this game system. And you
certainly did NOT keep your peice by enguaging in a
flame attack on my opinion. I can't speak for anyone
else, but I'm not in favor of playing the same game
against the same guys with the same armies for the
rest of my life. If I wanted to run every potential
Warrior gamer into the DBM camp, I'd respond to new
ideas and questions just as you've done to me, and I'm
your ally in this system.

I do play the rules as written, but that does not
prohibit me, or you, from making valid suggestions
based upon opinion. You have yours, but I've yet to
pooh pooh it have I?


=====
Wake up and smell the Assyrians

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[Patrick Byrne]

Well, I see Chris and Wanax have hit it off well.

Anyways, regarding the math thing. A recommendation that
we've put in place is to make counters. These are not the
colored pipe cleaners but actual counters. The counters include
clearly indicate the minus in combat.
So a unit that was Tired and Disordered has 2 counters behind
their body, each reading the effects of their predicament. It
makes for simple accounting and is a great reminder. Simply
add the minus' while adjudicating the factors.

With this, I would say that although the counters help, a
simplified chart would be even easier (ie. less complex). This
may help draw in more gamers, even the younger -soon to be -
commanders.

In the meantime, if you would like some counters, you may want
to get with Don as he is the contact for the counters.

P.S. I believe that most people don't cheat - I'm so trusting. They
just forget to account for stuff. If forgeting is cheating, then color
me Cheatus Maximus. ---- I just can't wait until they come out
with a RAM upgrade for my brain.
-PB


--- In WarriorRules@y..., Wanax Andron <vercengetorix@y...>
wrote:
> Gentlemen,
>
> 1. Math detracts from tactical concerns. If Warrior
> could in some way consume much of the math via a
> matrix, then this would end much of the confusion. An
> example would be perhaps some way to incorporate
> weapons modifiers without relying upon the gamer. Do
> we need to constantly rememeber tactical modifiers
> like charging, LTS armed chariot crew, or 1/5
> elephant? can't these sort of things be absorbed in a
> more user friendly tactical matrix? Not a DBA type of
> "roll a 6" matrix, but something in between that and
> the sliderule math for impet HC charging downhill with
> lance, JLS, sh with a general, shooting tired, tired,
> disordered passing through friendly foot, facing Pk
> armed, shielded, disordered tired HI?
>
> And tiredness; it is important to add this layer of
> complexity to a situation in which everyone can be
> assumed tired from bound four on? Almost 99% of all
> cheating takes place with tiredness, so let us just
> factor tiredness in and let it go. One suggestion
> might be to simply give all shooting and charging in
> the first 5 bounds a +1. Afterward, everyone is tired
> anyway from nerves.
>
> =====
> Wake up and smell the Assyrians
>
>
__________________________________________________
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> Get email alerts & NEW webcam video instant messaging with
Yahoo! Messenger
> http://im.yahoo.com

[Greg Regets]

Remember that old expression, "Want some, get some!" If you ask for opinions, don't be surprised if you get them :-)

I agree with most of the things Wanax said, but to not agree with his conclusions.

I too agree that the factoring system is too cumbersome. I favor a much larger basic chart that takes most factors into consideration.
I think his fatigue idea might have some merit. That is the first time I have ever heard that idea suggested.

Wanax's comments about JLS armed troops, in my opinion, are RIGHT ON BASE! We see far too many armies based around loose order, high moral foot armed with JLS, operating in the open, skirmishing, countering from bad situations, and to top it all off, CHARGING as soon as the whim hits them. Mix these with some good shock troops and you have a killer army that only marginally represents historical models. If you ask me (and you didn't, haha) the charge out of skirmish for infantry has hurt the purity of this system.
Having said all that, I completely disagree with Wanax's assumptions about the future of this game. 7th Edition, even in its current unreadable form, is starting to make a comeback. We are seeing this in our area, piggy-backing on the Warrior label.
Warrior will prosper, because it is still the best system, and now its even readable!

Greg

> Wanax,you did end your original comments by
> indicating you expected some sort of flame in
> response. Be careful what you wish for...

expecting and wishing for are often different :)

i expected a less than mature response exactly because
of the types of responses people get on these lists
all the time. It is unfortunate.

> I for one am desperately (and certainly
> not always successfully) trying to curb my otherwise
> sarcastic nature for the betterment of all. How
> about joining me?

My reference to 7th gamers being retaliatory is more a
harkening back to the devicive days when DBM first
made inroads into 7ths NASAMW arena. There was much
heated, personal and often reactionary commentary from
both sides over gaming systems. I found it pointless,
and it hurt 7th more than dBM in the long run.

As for curbing assology, i'm all for it :)

Wanax

=====
Wake up and smell the Assyrians

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--- cuan@... wrote:
> Well, I see Chris and Wanax have hit it off well.
>
> Anyways, regarding the math thing. A recommendation
> that
> we've put in place is to make counters.

I have used counters often, but they have two serious
drawbacks. One is that they are transfered
accidentally during feirce meles from one unit to
another, esp. shooting counters. The other is that
they clutter the board. There used to be a guy named
Joe Sarafini who had a box of dice blanks of different
colors. 2/3 of the way through the game, it looked as
though the figures were fighting amongst a destroyed
toys r us wearhouse.

> With this, I would say that although the counters
> help, a
> simplified chart would be even easier (ie. less
> complex). This
> may help draw in more gamers, even the younger -soon
> to be -
> commanders.

my suggestion that the chart absorb some of the layers
of math is still my main point. Rather than develop
coping methods to the rules, the rules should reflect
the needs of the gamer. For example, just by
incorporating the tired/shooting tired layer of the
current model into a simple +1 for first five bounds,
we have done away with half the record keeping of the
game.


> P.S. I believe that most people don't cheat - I'm
> so trusting. They
> just forget to account for stuff. If forgeting is
> cheating, then color
> me Cheatus Maximus.

by the end of round two of a tournament, one's head
hurts so much from the math that one doesn't realize
what was marked down for who. Cheating is a strong
word, so I'll agree in is records mismanagement :)

Everyone knows what I'm talking about, too. Marking
shooting on the wrong LI/b, marking down 1 too few for
impet charging. just little things that hold victory
in the balance.


=====
Wake up and smell the Assyrians

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[scott holder]

Having said all that, I completely disagree with Wanax's assumptions about
the future of this game. 7th Edition, even in its current unreadable form,
is starting to make a comeback. We are seeing this in our area,
piggy-backing on the Warrior label.

>Wanax is Boyd Bruce, former President of NASAMW. I like people to know who
people are. And I've also received emails from another part of the country
where they're now playing the July playtest copy, all 20 players! So I'm
optimistic about the system. Terry Gore has shown the efficacy of another
ancient/medieval system and we will too.

Scott
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