Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[joncleaves]

My Historicon AAR

I had not intended to write this and thus do not have detailed maps or notes to
go from, so if I am remembering any of this incorrectly, I apologize in advance
to my opponents. This is also all just one guy’s opinion and not a call for
point-counterpoint, which everyone knows I am not into..lol

This year’s army for me in the NICT was the Medieval Spanish, list 34 in
Feudal Warrior. My list consisted of:

1x CINC Irr B SHK/EHK
2x Sub General Irr B SHK/EHK
2x Irr B SHK/EHK
2x 6E Almughavars
1x 6E Irr C LI CB
1x 6E Irr C LI S ½ Sh
1x 6E Irr C LC JLS Sh
2x 2E Reg C LMI B, Sh
1x Ally Reg B SHK/HK
2x 4E Reg C LMI LB ½ 2HCW Sh
2x 2E Reg C LMI LB ½ 2HCW Sh

After my first two years of Warrior NICTs finishing halfway or lower, I took a
hard look last year at what was keeping me from achieving a higher finish. It
came down to the fact that I simply wasn’t playing enough Warrior. I was
coaching Warrior, recruiting people into Warrior, playing Fast Warrior and even
Fantasy Warrior, but I was not concentrating on getting better myself at 1200+
points of straight up competitive games of ‘normal’ Warrior. In addition, I
was playing many different armies, including Fantasy Warrior armies, and not a
single army consistently.
I therefore spent some time last summer selecting one army I thought suited my
style and in whose history I had an interest. Once I had chosen the MS, I
collected the figures and painted it in both scales. Then I played it
consistently all year including a Fast Warrior 100YW theme tournament, a 1200
point open and at 2000 points in the team event at Cold Wars.
There is no question that this strategy worked for me….

The Spanish SHK/EHK is the primary strike arm. The two subgenerals were always
in commands of one both for flexibility and to cause the other player to deploy
first even if he had more scouting points. The Almughavars’ task is to break
pike and beat elephants. I know some folks take them at 2E like Viking
berserks, but I have found enough times that I need to face down a shooter who
can do 2 CPF to me but not disorder me so I can take the waver and charge in.
The light troops are all minima (in fact the only minima that are not K).
They’re not optimal, but I felt with a lot of play their deficiencies could be
overcome, and I was generally right, although I will not miss that LI CB unit
this year…lol
My style of play does not concern itself with a ‘battle of the lights’. To
me, the other guy’s light troops are an easy way to break commands. I am not
concerned with being outscouted because at 24 scouting, you have to take a
fairly heavy load of lights to outscout me and I am comfortable killing a light
screen with the forces I had taken while still having the ability to concentrate
shock troops at the proper point.
The 2 Granadine archers were the unsung heroes of the list. I had already taken
all the LB I could get and having just these two small archer units in addition
really made a difference in many cases as to how much shooting I could put on a
single enemy unit or when I needed to split his fire. IMO such units are better
than light troops for the ‘light battle’ not the least because they chase
off LC with ease.
The English allied command gave me one regular K unit and of course superb
archers to support either the Spanish K or ‘moogs’ as the situation
warranted.
As far as any changes I might make to the list, that will have to wait as I am
not playing these this year, but I will say the first things I will look at are
more regular K (although without a general I am reluctant to take more than one
such, if that) and one or more archer/LB units at 6E vice 4E.

Game 1: Charles Yaw, Sassanids

My first opponent was Charles Yaw, a wonderful gamer and excellent
competitor whom I had recruited into Warrior. Scott said as he drew names for
the first round that it was to be 100% random, even if he drew two players who
played each other every week. Two draws later, he picked Charles and me.
Charles and I have fought many battles, Warrior and otherwise, often in
competition. He is a truly tough opponent and we had recently fought exactly
this matchup to a 2-2. Against most opponents, but esp. Sassanids, I take hill
terrain and given his road and open spaces I feel I did pretty well in the
terrain I wanted – two small steep hills on my right in the flank sector and a
major hill cutting the table in half. As expected he deployed to either side of
the central hill on which he positioned an LI JLS unit and I sought to fight on
the side with the least elephants to make things simple on myself – in this
case my left side. On my right in and amongst the two steep hills I placed the
Granadines who can use such terrain to delay all day. However, Charles created
a minor traffic jam on my right consisting of his 6E close order archer block,
some HC and a small LC unit. I leapt on it with the Granadines (who were
surprised at their new role of attack infantry) and was able to get some kills
there while the main battle also went generally my way. Charles was clearly
having an off game as he knows better than to create such traffic problems and
he played so well in the Open. This was a 5-1 to me.

Game 2: Scott McDonald, Medieval Spanish

Scott and I go back to the days 15 years ago when I was originally playing
7th. He and I also share professions both being intelligence analysts and get
along very well. His Spanish were slightly different from mine in that his
English command was larger with at least two Reg HK units and 6E LB blocks as
well as taking his ‘moogs’ in 2E units. The key point of that game was the
charge of my K into his LB. My theory is that even if they pass their waver
tests I will still do more in HTH and thus hold them in place to be hit by a
second K or an Almughavar. Also, I will charge as many loose order foot in one
bound as possible so that I get the most chances for failed wavers as well as
preventing any possible repositioning out of trouble of these units on the
second bound of combat. In this specific case, I hit both 6E LB on the same
bound and one failed its charge waver and the other shook when the first broke.
All downhill from there…. 5-1 or 2.

Game 3: Frank Gilson, Seleucid

Frank has my number…lol. I had this one 4-2 or so and let it go out of
being sloppy – don’t get me wrong, he played very well, but in my opinion,
it was mine to win until the last bound. He has already gone over his use of
UBAs which really hurt me when I lost track of the fact that I knew he still had
1-2 units not on the table and they appeared late to stick the fork in me.
Also, I knew I was starting with 96 points from his expendable chariots, but my
poor LI and some minor mistakes meant he got some points from them as well. I
got 330 or so points from him, but his last ambushing unit appeared at the same
time an over-committed moog and his uninspired K battle buddy failed B wavers.
2-5 Frank.
My lessons from this game are:
-take a look at the use and denial of UBAs more closely. He uses them to good
effect and now more players will be looking into them as well and I need a
better plan for them than I have.
-keep better track when I know the other player still has unrevealed units, but
it is a late bound and things are intense and I am likely to forget
-when you have a great player at a slight point disadvantage, take a deep breath
before going for a larger point advantage. In retrospect I did not need to get
into that fight with my moogs in the center of the table – I should have been
dancing at that point.

As a side note, we are redoing 14.0 for the new rulebook and I can tell you that
there will not be more than one UBA allowed on the table. This is not in
reaction to Frank using them, but this also isn’t Street Warrior….

Game 4: Rob Turnbull, Alex Imperial

Game 4 and yet another great opponent who is fun to game against. The 2
against Frank took me out of the leader’s circle, which is a mixed bag. I
want to play Ewan because we have not played yet and I want to play Derek
because he is the obvious gatekeeper to winning this tourney, but I absolutely
cannot complain about the quality of the guys I did get to play.
Rob and I have met twice before and I had not beaten him yet. He is a great
player with a superb killer instinct. So superb, he focuses very intently on
his critical point and sometimes, again in my opinion, loses a little focus on
the meta game. I tried to use that to my advantage. I felt that we could easily
go 2-2 or 3-3 but given we each had one low score already that would not help
either of us. I had no issue with him getting a 3 if I could get a 4 or a 5, so
I took a major risk and dangled some juicy points on my left (that would not
break any of my commands) while planning to fight the battle on my right and
ignoring his center pike. One thing for sure, whether my plan worked or not,
this was not going to be a draw. As it turned out, a high morale peltast failed
its counter on bound two allowing me a moog charge that should have been
cancelled by his cav. This turned my ‘point dangle’ into an active battle
that I actually came out ahead in while I was also able to reach and kill his
skirmishing troops on my right where I intended to actually get my points.
Although this gave me a 5-2, it also means I will never know if my plan would
have worked…lol. I ended up losing the moog and the K unit on the left that
I planned on feeding to him but due to the failed counter I actually got some
not insignificant points from that fight. No fault of Rob’s - he did
everything right there and again, a superb sport and a great guy to game with.
Especially with a cheap card game and some beers after the events of the day are
over!

Game 5: Mark Hissam, Late Imperial Roman

Five games, five great guys. Sure I wanted Derek or Ewan, but Derek had 20
raw and Ewan’s low score was a 3 vice my 2. So, I resolved to play as hard as
I could in case they fought to a low draw. Drawing Mark made it five for five
on fun opponents, so all good in any case. Although I will say that Mark is
slightly ‘quieter’ than I am, which I think is a good thing...lol
Three of us in KC have Late Roman armies, so I see and play them frequently.
Mark approached me as a line of foot anchored on my left with a steep hill and
on my right with his major water. The auxilia were interspersed with the
legions and I would guess his anti-K strategy was to turn in with the close
after the K hit his loose and finish them off. The issue with that is twofold
– first, even B’s fail wavers and second, this does not take into account
the K player’s second line, which in my case is 1-2 more K, moogs and
attacking LB (when the opponent is right). I think his strategy would have
worked better with some small light units to come out through the gaps and
address my second line which would allow the close to turn in and kill my K the
bound before the second line hit. But his line was solid alternating
legion/auxilia with no lights to hold me off. I hit four auxilia and a legion I
needed to pin on bound two, with two auxilia failing waver tests. The third
bound saw my moogs, other K and LB either flirting with or hitting the unfought
infantry. This kept my K in contact with unshaken auxilia from being attacked in
the flank until the aux eventually failed a second disorder waver. I am fairly
certain I did not lose a unit in this one, and I would guess Mark’s normal
opponents do not play as fast or as aggressively as I like to play. 5-0 (maybe
5-1) me.

General Observations

1. Terrain was better this year, but we still have a long way to go to have the
pretty tables we ought to have.

2. IMO, there was too much proxying. Our recruits come from game systems where
it is expected that the figures on the table are painted and equipped correctly.
Some armies were gorgeous, but some were simply heinous collections of jumbled
figures often with figures missing from stands, missing weapons (or heads!)
and/or not even in the right time period as the troops they are supposed to
represent. I feel this has a negative impact on recruiting and is a disservice
to guys like Mike Bard and Charles Yaw who work fiendishly hard to get beautiful
and accurate figures on the table.

3. What is up with copies of the WRG 7th charts still in use? Come on guys –
this is Warrior. Let it go….

4. Scott’s right – please, please, please bring a rulebook and download the
clarifications. It would make his job easier and save valuable playing time.

5. Hammer your NASAMW rep about a Warrior Best Painted Army award and a Best
Camp award. Not for the whole society, not for 30 figures you can’t afford to
give up to the judging table because you need them to play, but an award for the
work that is going into these armies.


Ok, enough. Time for me to hit the books and pick next year’s army…

Jon

[John Murphy]

--- In WarriorRules@yahoogroups.com, JonCleaves@a... wrote:
> 2x 4E Reg C LMI LB ½ 2HCW Sh
> 2x 2E Reg C LMI LB ½ 2HCW Sh

An interesting choice after all that discussion about not giving
attack weapons to support troops! And in an army with Moogs no less!

Hard to argue with success, though, which is definitely what you had
and it sounds like you definitely got some use out of them. Helps
that you know what you can and can not put them up against I guess.

A really terrific concise AAR and analysis. I can only wish I was
aware of the nuances of my games as you have captured in writing for
yours.

A note on proxying, aside from my own army, all my opponents were
pretty exact in terms of figure depictions, at least up to the first
weapon and maybe shields in some cases. Even considering 25's are
not cheap or easy to transport around, and folks seem to fiddle with
weapons and and troops right up to the start of the event, I didn't
really see where this got to be a problem. On the contrary I saw a
lot of really nicely done armies.

[joncleaves]

>--- In WarriorRules@yahoogroups.com, JonCleaves@a... wrote:
>> 2x 4E Reg C LMI LB ½ 2HCW Sh
>> 2x 2E Reg C LMI LB ½ 2HCW Sh
>
>An interesting choice after all that discussion about not giving
>attack weapons to support troops! And in an army with Moogs no less!>>

Yes, some guys here commented on that as well....lol I had stopped taking 2HCW
at 1200 points, but put them back in my 1600 after a proper amount of time
learning when NOT to use archers as attack troops. Also I found the second
bound in after a K hit a foot, these guys could polish them off at 8@6 where 8@3
or 4 didn't do it.

J