Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[Mark Stone]

--- On August 25 Jon Cleaves said: ---
------ On August 25 John said: ------

>> Personally, except that it is a major change, I think Jon should
>> consider for the new rulebook re-doing rear zones to be measred in
>> paces from the centerline which would also eliminate the difference
>> between scales.
>
> Funny you should say that. I am currently working on 14.0 and the standard
> competition scenario. I would be VERY interested to hear what others thought
> about John's suggestion above....
>
> J

The 5 elements' width difference matters some, but not a lot.

The table depth difference matters more, in a couple of different ways.

There's a psychological difference: people believe a deeper table makes
skirmishing/mounted/light troops more effective. I'm not convinced this is true
-- I side with Jon here -- but it does give the 15mm game a different character
because people tend to pick different armies.

Here's a more significant difference: I started as a 15mm player and moved to
25mm. What I found was that I had _horrible_ setup habits from learning in
15mm; I was in the habit of assuming that whatever setup mistakes I made could
be corrected in march moves. In fact, 25mm is _much_ less forgiving in this
respect. If you set up poorly, you pay for it all game long. So I've had to
really work to clean up my setup; took me years, and I still don't always get
it right.

So there are some subtle differences between scales, some real and some
"cultural". Overall that's a good thing; I like the variety that results.

Having said all that, I don't think in principle that there are armies viable in
one scale that are not viable in the other, nor do I think there are players who
excel in one scale who would not also excel in the other.

There are two considerations I think warrant some changes in section 14.

First, I want to be as reasonably assured of getting a decisive result in under
4 hours as I can be. A deeper table makes this harder. Maybe not a lot, but it
does make it harder. If 1 out of 20 games fails to get to a decisive result
within time limits because of table depth, then that's an unacceptable outcome.

My recommendation: make the 15mm rear zone 360p.

Second, we all know that it is gimmicky and unrealistic to use the table edge as
a terrain feature. The rules do little to discourage this kind of behavior right
now. I'm always going to play to the limit of what the rules allow me to do, so
if I can gain an advantage by lining up against the table edge I'll continue to
do so, but I don't like it. This problem can't completely be eliminated, but we
can do more to mitigate it.

My recommendation: add the following paragraph to Section 14.43, "Army
deployment", at the end of that section just above the Example:

"Troops deployed in the rear zone or as force marchers not in ambush must deploy
at least 240p from the table edge."

That would give us less of the table edge as terrain feature behavior, and
diminish the effect of the 5 element difference between 15mm and 25mm.


-Mark Stone

[joncleaves]

First, I want to be as reasonably assured of getting a decisive result in under
4 hours as I can be.>>

Mark, I agree with this in principle, but I got to tell you that Scott and I
talk round length all the time. And I am of the opinion there are just some
players who expand to fill the time alloted and my recent experience at HCon is
proof positive. There are just some guys who take for-frickin'-ever to make
even the most minor decision. For me, it is maddening. Four hours to me is a
crazy amount of time to play a 1600 point game, but Scott is right that there
are players who want it all and given their rate of movement - need it all.

My counter to him (and to you) is that we need an enforcement mechanism on
stalling, or we might as well just leave it. A shallower table is not going to
make these guys play at a reasonable pace.

Jon

[Ewan McNay]

JonCleaves@... wrote:

> First, I want to be as reasonably assured of getting a decisive
> result in under 4 hours as I can be.>>
>
> Mark, I agree with this in principle, but I got to tell you that
> Scott and I talk round length all the time. And I am of the
> opinion there are just some players who expand to fill the time
> alloted and my recent experience at HCon is proof positive. There
> are just some guys who take for-frickin'-ever to make even the most
> minor decision. For me, it is maddening. Four hours to me is a
> crazy amount of time to play a 1600 point game, but Scott is right
> that there are players who want it all and given their rate of
> movement - need it all.
>
> My counter to him (and to you) is that we need an enforcement
> mechanism on stalling, or we might as well just leave it. A
> shallower table is not going to make these guys play at a
> reasonable pace.

A shallower table, no. However, there are few if any slow, *good*
players. So, allowing one to get into contact can help give a result
even against someone very slow.

I do think that a player should be able to request that the umpire
watch/time each side's moves, or put the game on a clock. I have
already bitched about my first round NICT game having only *4* bounds.

Also, I disagree about expanding to fill time allotted. I think that
usually, it is incompetence rather than malice - only usually - and so
games as long as possible are desirable.

E

p.s. This from a guy who grew up playing 2.5 - 3 hour games, and
almost never not getting a result. But, even the game against Derek,
last round of NICT, did not get us to a result in 4 hours, and no-one
was moving slowly. It happpens.

[joncleaves]

Someone remind me why chess clocks would not be a good idea. It would add
a much needed air of sophistication to our unneessarily slovenly
appearance. Indeed, I would not oppose the mandatory wearing of ascots and
smoking jackets particularly in the meat locker we play in at H'Con.>>

Meat locker? geez, we spent all those years trying to get the AC fixed and now
its *bad*? lol I for one thought it was superb this year... :)

[Ewan McNay]

I'd support tuxedos.

Chess clocks are tricky, and have a high acceptance threshold. But a
mechanisms for umpire monitoring/awarding of win to non-slow players
is needed.

E

hrisikos@... wrote:

>> First, I want to be as reasonably assured of getting a decisive result
>>in under
>> 4 hours as I can be.>>
>>
>> Mark, I agree with this in principle, but I got to tell you that Scott
>>and I talk round length all the time. And I am of the opinion there are
>>just some players who expand to fill the time alloted and my recent
>>experience at HCon is proof positive. There are just some guys who take
>>for-frickin'-ever to make even the most minor decision. For me, it is
>>maddening. Four hours to me is a crazy amount of time to play a 1600
>>point game, but Scott is right that there are players who want it all and
>>given their rate of movement - need it all.
>>
>> My counter to him (and to you) is that we need an enforcement mechanism
>>on stalling, or we might as well just leave it. A shallower table is not
>>going to make these guys play at a reasonable pace.
>>
>> Jon
>>
>
>
>
> Someone remind me why chess clocks would not be a good idea. It would add
> a much needed air of sophistication to our unneessarily slovenly
> appearance. Indeed, I would not oppose the mandatory wearing of ascots and
> smoking jackets particularly in the meat locker we play in at H'Con. No
> complaints mind you...A South Texan like me always appreciates air
> conditioning!! but really, why not clocks?
>
>
> greek
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>

[Bill Chriss]

> First, I want to be as reasonably assured of getting a decisive result
> in under
> 4 hours as I can be.>>
>
> Mark, I agree with this in principle, but I got to tell you that Scott
> and I talk round length all the time. And I am of the opinion there are
> just some players who expand to fill the time alloted and my recent
> experience at HCon is proof positive. There are just some guys who take
> for-frickin'-ever to make even the most minor decision. For me, it is
> maddening. Four hours to me is a crazy amount of time to play a 1600
> point game, but Scott is right that there are players who want it all and
> given their rate of movement - need it all.
>
> My counter to him (and to you) is that we need an enforcement mechanism
> on stalling, or we might as well just leave it. A shallower table is not
> going to make these guys play at a reasonable pace.
>
> Jon
>


Someone remind me why chess clocks would not be a good idea. It would add
a much needed air of sophistication to our unneessarily slovenly
appearance. Indeed, I would not oppose the mandatory wearing of ascots and
smoking jackets particularly in the meat locker we play in at H'Con. No
complaints mind you...A South Texan like me always appreciates air
conditioning!! but really, why not clocks?


greek

[Mark Mallard]

In a message dated 8/25/2004 9:03:22 PM GMT Daylight Time,
JonCleaves@... writes:

First, I want to be as reasonably assured of getting a decisive result in
under
4 hours as I can be.>>

Mark, I agree with this in principle, but I got to tell you that Scott and I
talk round length all the time. And I am of the opinion there are just some
players who expand to fill the time alloted and my recent experience at HCon
is proof positive. There are just some guys who take for-frickin'-ever to
make even the most minor decision. For me, it is maddening. Four hours to me
is a crazy amount of time to play a 1600 point game, but Scott is right that
there are players who want it all and given their rate of movement - need it
all.

My counter to him (and to you) is that we need an enforcement mechanism on
stalling, or we might as well just leave it. A shallower table is not going
to make these guys play at a reasonable pace.

Jon



** For us(our group in the UK) 4 hours is never enough - we enjoy the game
and dont like to rush, 30 minutes a bound is about normal. A deeper deployment
zone could make our games take less time tho. The close order foot could be
in action a bound earlier and hence cut 30 minutes off our game time.

In reality battles may have taken less than 4 hours, but the generals did
not have all the rules to think about etc. We do not play slowly deliberately,
it is generally inexperience of one or both players. Often a crucial rule look
up could waste a good 20 minutes before being resolved.

Just our/my opinion of how increasing the depth of the deployment zone could
help speed up the game.

mark mallard


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

[Ewan McNay]

markmallard7@... wrote:
> ** For us(our group in the UK) 4 hours is never enough - we enjoy the game
> and dont like to rush, 30 minutes a bound is about normal. A deeper
deployment
> zone could make our games take less time tho. The close order foot could be
> in action a bound earlier and hence cut 30 minutes off our game time.

Mark - I am delighted at the clearly unintentional irony of this post.

30 min/bound would be fine. That gives 8 bounds in a game, enough in
most cases for a result if not always a complete victory for one side.

It's when bounds take an hour, with the ratio between the two sides
being 55 min: 5 min that there's a problem!

Deployment zones are not, I think, a major element of this. Even
close foot get to 240p in two march bounds from baseline - so give
them 3 more bounds to get into combat, and three bounds of combat to
get a result, and that's the 8 bounds which should be just fine.

In boardgaming competitions, we have some games which should take 4-5
hours but can be stretched to 6 or more by slow play (one final took a
mindnumbing 9 hours. Aaaaaaagh). What worked there was to penalise
any table taking more than 5 hours, and give an extra penalty to thhe
last-finishing table. Something similar might work in comp Warrior,
but the problem is that there's only one (putatively) innocent party
per table to apply pressure. It's much easier to chivvy a slowster if
ther other 4-5 players are all doing so.