Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[John Murphy]

I hope you all will not mind my asking this question. I am looking
at two lists and trying to determine which of the two to play for an
upcoming tournament and also which to start building in 15mm, with
eventual plans to copy it in 25mm.

The original "Fury of the East" from the discussion earlier this year
Later Polish, Late Period 1454-1510 - Feudal Warrior list #19
17 units @ 1,595 points, 89 scouting points
1x Polish CinC and Polish Soltys Retainers 2E Reg A/C SHK/HK L,Sh
(PA std) @ 208
1x Polish Sub-general and Polish Soltys Retainers 2E Reg A/C SHK/HK
L,Sh (P std) @ 138
6x Polish Szlachta Knights and Polish Soltys Retainers 2E Irr B/C
SHK/HK L,Sh @ 109
1x Polish Soltys Mounted Crossbowmen 6E Irr C LC CB @ 73
1x Polish Archers 10E Irr C LI B,Sh @ 85
2x Lithuanian Mercenaries 4E Irr B LC L,JLS,Sh @ 89
1x Cuman Skirmishers 6E Irr C LC JLS,B,Sh/B @ 91
4x Tartar Cavalry 2E Reg C LC JLS,B,Sh/B @ 42
This list has seen enough ink to last a lifetime, so for me at least
it is pretty set unless supplanted by the following.

The possible new "Fury of the East" admittedly inspired by Dave
Smith's Vlad the Impaler army
Moldavian 1365-1504 - Holy Warrior list #35
19 units @ 1,600 points, 116 scouting points
1x CinC and Boyars 2E Irr A/B HK/HC L,Sh (PA std.) @ 166
2x Sub-general and Boyars 2E Irr A/B HK/HC L,Sh (P std.) @ 106
3x Boyars 2E Irr A/B HK/HC L,Sh @ 88
4x Viteji 6E Irr C LC JLS,B,Sh @ 109 (list rule fight 1.5 ranks
charging, counter-charging or pursuing)
1x Roumanian Foot 4E Irr C LMI JLS,Sh @ 61
2x Roumanian Bowmen 6E Irr C LI B,Sh/B @ 55
1x Crimean Tartar Ally-general and Cavalry 2E Reg B/C HC L,B,Sh/L,B
(P std) @ 141
5x Crimean Tartar Cavalry 2E Reg C LC JLS,B,Sh/B @ 42
There are some options for improvement here, even that I see. Having
the Boyar rear-rankers upgraded to HK would be nice though not
essential. I fiddled with the idea of making all-Irr-B and all-Irr-A
units rather than half-half but decided against it. I could see
dropping one of the Tartar units or dropping one of the subs to just
a Boyar unit. This could either pay for upghrading to all-HK or
could buy me another good LI archer unit - wish I could get
something like 2x10E and 2x8E of these in fact but that would likely
require dumping all the Tartars and I do not think going that far
would be good. Similarly, adding Hungarian allies to give me 2 SHK
units would be great but that would also require enough points to
probably preclude using the Tartars.

Anyhow, I guess the essential question at this point is which army
to play and start building. I think the Moldavians are a better
list. The LC are so much better and the LI more numerous
(potentially at least) and a tad more efficient. There are no LC CB.
They get the joy of Irreg A knights. On the downside they are
saddled with a unit of LMI but that could potentially be used in
terrain or against halted Elephants or simply as a rope-a-dope unit
so it is not entirely without merit. More significantly for me, they
are missing the usefulness of the Polish SHK, both as a more
powerful mano-y-mano unit and as something with a dismount
capability. And in numbers as well, the Polish list has 8 nice rush
units while the Moldavians have only 7 lancers which, particularly
the HC ally (while adding yet another dimension), require much
greater care.

Figures-wise I admit I was hoping to use winged hussars for the
Poles which would have been cool if un-historical. Probably for the
Moldavians it would be even worse. While the Vlad Old Glory range
has some nice looking Moldavian stuff in 25mm I am not so certain
there are any very attractive 15mm figures for the army.

Other than my asking, is there anything simply ridiculous here and
can you give me a clue as to which of the two armies to examine
further?

Let 'er rip I only got a couple days to decide for the tourney
(though the army building project is obviously a much more
monumental choice).