Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[joncleaves]

In a message dated 6/19/2003 12:50:00 Central Daylight Time,
ewan.mcnay@... writes:

> EM: Chris D has chided me in the past for taking Seleucids, on the basis
> that they are just *too* tough and so induce people to not fight against
> me, making it difficult to get 5-pt wins. There's some truth to that;
> but it hasn't yet stopped me. We'll see .
>

Man, Ewan, you are too much. I'll fight ya. And I'll buy you a beer for
having the balls to say something like that...lol

Great exchange between you and Frank, though. Thanks.


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

[Ewan McNay]

Frank poses some good Qs, and I'll try to be equally effective.

From: "FrankGilson" <franktrevorgilson@...>

FG: You need at least two, possibly three or four units you can force
march. These would be small Reg B LC units, or regular LI, or a 24 to
48 figure spear unit, or a throwaway unit of Irr D missile armed LI
(probably to 16 to 24 figures). This pins a large portion of the
enemy's forces on their table side, freeing the rest of your skirmish
screen to orient itself appropriately.

EM: Absolutely. In the K / LI version of the Imperialists that we've
been talking about, there are 7 units of Reg LI. It has been my
experience that this is enough to hold up a large portion of the table
for the entirety of a 4-hour game (without any need to play slowly,
something I'm not sure that I am capable of even if desired). I think
the Reg status is a huge plus, as Frank notes. Plus, they're very, very
few points per unit, something that is also key. Using Irreg or larger
or more expensive troops are all negatives from this p.o.v., although
large units of Irreg D LI B are also effective - the disadvantage
chiefly then is that they have much more trouble getting away from enemy
and hence are more easily pushed aside (plus taking double hth fatigues,
although that's rarely an issue if your screen actually gets caught!)

EM: Reg LC are even better. I just don't know of a good knight army
that gets them and doesn't have downsides. Plus, they have the key
disadvantage of forcing wavers if routed. You're going to want to use
them to clear away enemy LI, but then something charges you through
those LI, and now you rout, and your side is taking wavers.

FG: You will often find that your proper use of skirmishers will earn
you
some points also, in addition to your eventual knight charges.

EM: Agreed again. Rarely many, especially in the case of my HG-armed
LI, who can't fight anything in hth. But they *are* great for shooting
if they can get to range, even against relatively large units, and I've
had many successes from such. Nothing like routing a pike block from
shooting alone . You want your lights to have at least *some* cases
in which they are useful.

EM: To some extent there's a cycle here. Having lots of lights is bad
if your opponent has lots of better lights, because that's a lot of
points that he's getting from you before the battle really 'starts' and
a lot of commands in potential trouble. But, having too few lights
concedes the initiative, and having too many if your opponent has few
means that he has more and better shock troops - which at some stage
will start to beat up on your lights. Plus, in a tournament setting it
*can* be difficult to win with light-intensive (I was going to say
'light-heavy' but decided it was too confusing armies in the time
available, especially against slow opponents or against dense close foot
types (or Aztecs, or lots of missiles, or...). You will (should) rarely
lose playing Mongol, but may not be able to win enough of the 5-point
wins to get to the top of the heap.

FG: How does this contrast with an army of 10 or 11 units of SHK with
the
rest various LI units (reg/irr, 4 to 16 figures)? Such a knight heavy
army force marches certain "expendable" LI units (typically 4 figure
reg D). It uses other LI units as a temporary screen, along with
appropriate terrain, to buy time. The knights all pick places to go
and charge in a couple of waves...as soon as possible, because your
LI will not hold out that long. The idea is to quickly break a big
chunk of the enemy army, causing lots of wavers and demoralizing a
command (or two, hopefully!)

FG: The problems? Well, I really don't see how you beat a dedicated
Elephant army this way...or Seleucids...or clouds of missile armed LI
and LC backed up by lancers. However, perhaps players familiar with
such large numbers of knights will chime in.

EM: Seleucids *are* a dedicated El army . And the worst - relatively
few loose order targets, often. Against most El armies (Khmer, Burmese,
Vietnamese, whatever) you pick on the loose order troops while screening
El with LI. Meanwhile he tries to get to the K with El and the LI with
LH/MI. The one of you who best achieves all this wins . Seleucids
are very, very tough and I've related previously how this was handled by
Dave S using K against me with Seleucids - essentially, refuse battle
and rely on the other guy to make a game of it; will only work with some
opponents . I think that there are a couple of other chances but
would prefer not to reveal them in case I end up having to do this .
Clouds of lights w/ HC (?) backup are actually not that difficult, I
think; you just pick a section of the table to kill and march/charge
forward as needed, converting charge when available after you catch
something. With that many K and charges, you *will* catch things, and
then usually keep catching things as you convert into the LI which
evaded through the LC which evaded through the HC... and so on. Your K
(at least, some of them) get exhausted, but even exhausted SHK are
pretty good against HC, by that time you hope for the opponent's side of
the table to be in tatters. The LI not acting as screen (and admittedly
here the screen may not last very long - it's a race) are used to soak
up shooting before initial charges, or to go around flanks, or
eventually to take their own shots on opposing loose cav. This is one
of the cases in which in a two-list tourney I would take the pavisiers;
they're essentially immune to this type of opponent, and so can march
forward happily taking fire while the K shelter in their wake.

EM: Chris D has chided me in the past for taking Seleucids, on the basis
that they are just *too* tough and so induce people to not fight against
me, making it difficult to get 5-pt wins. There's some truth to that;
but it hasn't yet stopped me. We'll see .

[scott holder]

EM: Reg LC are even better. I just don't know of a good knight army
that gets them and doesn't have downsides. Plus, they have the key
disadvantage of forcing wavers if routed. You're going to want to use
them to clear away enemy LI, but then something charges you through
those LI, and now you rout, and your side is taking wavers.

>Later Hungarians get them in decent numbers although the potential "downsides"
are the LMI you must have if you go the Irr A HC route or a potential
Ally-general you buy if you go the L Pole route. Both routes are designed to
get you additional shock units (Irr A HC L, B, Sh or Irr B EHK) and also lotsa
nice Irr C LC JLS, B, Sh. I just played 4 games running L Hungarians against Ed
Bernhard (more on that in a later post). I played 25mm vs Seleucid, Free
Company and Qin and played 15mm vs Islamic Persian. I had fits with the Free
Company. While I lost to the Seleucid, I had my shots (to coin a phrase by Rob
Turnball). Basically, I used my LC to completely pin Ed, blow away his LI and
LC (mine is better), then select where I'm going to go with all the SHK and Irr
A HC. The El weren't a factor until later when my shots didn't work:):)