Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[Doug]

> The list rules for the Mongols are the first thing I have seen that
>reflects the ability of mobile armies to chose where they want to
>fight. In many
>games I have played if it was a real battle I would have simply rode off and
>looted the general's home town while he hid it the woods. Instead, my
>cavalry army with three times the scouting points is forced to
>fight in the Black
>Forest.

Hmmm... Nothing requires you to actually deploy your entire army in
the first place. So you deploy nothing but your cheapest unit, on
your own baseline, facing away, and on the first bound march off the
board.

You give up 1 VP for "scoring at least 1" and +1 VP for "scoring
twice as many" so you lose 2-0.

Since strategically you blundered onto the edge of the Black Forest
and had to withdraw, that sounds like a reasonably fair points score.

[Mark Stone]

--- On March 27, responding to Mike, Jon said: ---

> Complaints that tables are too closed means you are choosing to use 14.3 as
> written with an all cav army. I don't think that is a good idea.
>
> If you want to take an all-cav army to HCon and 14.3 isn't helping you -
> make your suggestions here. In the end, we will have to go with the majority
> for the baseline, but every good idea we get will be in the book as an option.

Over the years I have played armies where the vast majority of units are mounted
and/or light troops. Generally if I have less than 24 light cav and 30 lancers I
feel out of my element. Playing armies of that composition in 25mm, I have
_never_ felt hampered by terrain.

That's not to say that things always work out to my advantage. Dave Markowitz
will recall a game in the 2002 NICT when his 100YWE enjoyed some particularly
constricting terrain against my Serbians. But even then, I didn't feel like the
terrain took me out of the game. I just had to work harder (and in that case,
without success).

Yes, there is an element of chance in terrain picks. There's also an element of
chance in combat die rolls and waver tests. The point of the game is to play
with sufficient skill to minimize the chances of an adverse die roll, and to
minimize impact of an adverse die roll should one occur.

The point is you absolutely can have an open table most of the time, on all of
the table that matters, if you opt for the right 4 picks, and know where to
place them if you get them. On anything within a standard deviation of average
die rolls, you should have a table that is largely open, even if you're not in
your home climate (and you're up against some tropical, terrain loving opponent
who is _always_ in his home climate).

If you ask me, the current terrain system disadvantages armies that want to
fight in bad terrain and/or on a narrow frontage. For tourney players looking
to play such armies, that's too bad. But from the point of view of history,
that seems to square with how most battles in our period were fought. And as a
guy who typically likes open terrain, I'm _very_ happy with how the current
system works.


-Mark Stone