Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[Todd Schneider]

This topic has gone of on its own tangent, but I'd be
interested in hearing from other long time players
thoughts on this:

"This is just not true. List design is a
*significant* part of the game - thankfully. Is it
enough to overcome the skill difference between novice
and expert? No. Is it enough to make the difference
between players closer in skill? Yes."

From my reading of the egroup, players tend to play
Lists they either Identify with, or have fun playing
with, or in some cases they pick something they think
they will be successful with at a Con.

During a Tournament, your going to end up with
mismatches between lists, it's inevitable in an Open
format. A Knight Army (Say Feudal French or Late
Teutonics) will meet a Foot Army with little or no
Shock troops (Say, Late Imperial Romans).

Between two players of equal skill, whats the expected
outcome of that matchup?

Todd

[Larry Essick]

> From my reading of the egroup, players tend to play
> Lists they either Identify with, or have fun playing
> with, or in some cases they pick something they think
> they will be successful with at a Con.

Todd,

I'd say that your typical player is just as you have described them. I'd also
say that very few of these rise to the championship level of play outside of
their local area.

I'm going to assume that you want to become a championship quality player
because you've referred to the NICT and what you would do if you ever got there.

To become a quality player you need to listen to people like Ewan. I don't know
any player who regularly wins at the NASAMW level -- in theme or NICT
tournaments, in TOG or Warrior -- who does not agree with Ewan.

Learning the rules and pushing troops only goes so far. Army selection, list
composition, terrain selection and deployment are so important that they cannot
be understated. It is the mark of the best players that they understand and
work these areas.

I'll use my Byzantine theme game against Derek from '93 to illustrate. Yes, it
was an up roll by Irr A Normans and crap waiver tests by Derek that won the
game. But, what set the situation up? It was my mobile terrain of 96 Norman
infantrymen that made a frontal assault too risky, my overbalancing of the
remainder of the board with better quality and quantities of mounted troops and
Derek's decision to attempt a flank march with one command behind my infantry
line.

Derek's plan worked. But it worked too well. I had a mobile reserve of two
units (both 2E HC) that I threw into the fight. It was enough to slow Derek had
he won the fights (which mathematically he should have) and let me redeploy to
meet him.

The battle was decided from the beginning because of army selection, list
composition, terrain placement and deployment.

Those are the keys.

The details of how to do that are different in 15mm than in 25mm. For some
armies the differences are inconsequential. For others they are of consequence,
but do not make the army significantly less viable in one scale or the other.
For most armies the differences are enough that you won't see good players using
them if the scale is wrong.

You happen to be playing an army that translates well into either scale.

Maybe that is why you don't yet see and understand the differences.

Larry