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Zipped scenario

 
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Ewan McNay
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PostPosted: Thu May 27, 2004 5:37 pm    Post subject: Zipped scenario


Global comment: Tdd, once again kudos for doing this. Do you
have a complete set of element icons? If so, they'd be great to
have in the Files section for ease of making stuff like this.

Comments as I went through:

Slide 3, the (I assume) '1/2' symbols did not translate; maybe
reword as '1E IrrA HC + 1E IrrB MC'?

Same slide, the obvious initial impression is that Caesar is
foolish to seek battle as he's significantly outnumbered and
outclassed. It also feels odd that after the Slide 2 note on a
reserve legion being created, Caesar still has one fewer legion,
and there's nothing to differentiate this reserve/
cobbled-together legion.

[Oh, and of course there's no apostrophe in "Legions" for Pompey.]

Slide 4, the intended "4' " is missing the " ' " and in any case
could be written out as '4 feet'. It would also be helpful to
note the width of the river.

Same slide, the generals now appear which might be confusing to a
new player; they should probably be added to Slide 3 (along with
a note that they cannot charge unless joined to a unit).

Slide 5, we now get a (good) explanation for the fatigue and
representation of the cohort-removal; I would move this to before
or along with the troop lists. The lists could be split to two
slides to accommodate this if needed. There's no explanation of
the mounted's 2 FP (which given diagram is presumably to reflect
a force-march, the rationale for which is, ah, missing); and the
note that the reserve legion does not get the initial 1FP is at
odds with the notes ("all") on the troop-list slide.

Slide 7, the Gallic cav and CinC both have the possibility of
shooting fatigues. As do the Caesarian cav on Slide 8.

The above is all minor stuff. The bigger problem I have is
seeing how Caesar is ever supposed to win - see comment above
about why he would force battle. Pompey's LI and HC are going to
easily dispose of the MC, as per battle, but likely without the
HC ever needing to charge - the LI would be fine on their own.
That leaves Caesar with 5 legions to face 6 essentially
equivalent legions plus the HC and LI, even assuming passed
wavers (if any) for the MC rout. Just not going to happen. By
far his best bet is to never approach Pompey, achieving a draw
but great boredom!

Assume that the MC are turned around to retreat behind the
legions, and Caesar marches his legion line forward, all Pompey
has to do is stretch the HI line - either caesar's left flank
will be hit 2 on 1 and the line rolled up, or the MC will have
too try to protect the right flank and be lost as above, or both,
it seems. The straight-up HI clash is generally going to
disorder all units after contact, so that even if the better
morale of Caesar's legions tells and they win the first round, in
the second bound they're going to be fighting with 12@ 2 (HI) +1
(advancing) -2 (disordered) = 18 vs 12, for no waver test on
Pompey (although they have again some dice hope for doing twice
as many, forcing a waver, I accept; they also have the downside
that they risk being tired first due to the initial 1 FP). If
Caesar had any reasonable chance of getting into such a
head-to-head slog, he would have a reasonable chance, but I just
don't see it happening. On the gripping hand, among novice
players the chance may be somewhat higher, mitigating this.

Having criticised, what would I do? One possibility would be to
have a scenario rule placing a couple of small woods on the
Caesarian right, *and* allowing the reserve to ambush there
without disorder. A second would be to place the Pompeyan
cavalry onto Rush orders as soon as a Caesarian legion crossed
the center line, while not permitting the Pompeyan legions to
move before this time - I prefer this option. The cav on both
sides should probably be forbidden to skirmish. The Pompeyan LI
might be made a detachment of the HC (yes, added complexity) and
hence break if the HC break, also affecting army breakpoint. I'm
sure that there are other options, but something is (IMNSHO, of
course) needed.

And again, kudos for the time and effort. What's your job again? :)

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joncleaves
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PostPosted: Thu May 27, 2004 5:56 pm    Post subject: Re: Zipped scenario


In a message dated 5/27/2004 10:37:46 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
ewan.mcnay@... writes:

> Having criticised, what would I do?>>

I told Todd we got no takers on actual scenario writing, but any scenario writer
would get plenty of help...lol

In any historical scenario, there will be balance issues. There is also the
challenge of taking on an uneven situation and winning - Pharsalus would be
great as an intro with the veteran taking the 'weaker' side.

As for the color element images, when i have a complete set, I will place a
whole file of them on the net. Thank Charlie Randow who is creating them for
our new rules products.

J


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Todd Schneider
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PostPosted: Thu May 27, 2004 7:50 pm    Post subject: Re: Zipped scenario


Ewan,

I am a buyer for Missouri Repertory Theatre and UMKC
Department of Theatre. Essentially, work is driving
around, picking up materials and spending other
peoples money for a living. However, Theatre is a 9
month Job usually, and the season runs from September
to May. As I am a university employee, I am employeed
year round and my my summers are, well...Boring. If I
could paint at work it would be great.

My reading on the battle is that Pompey wanted to
force a battle, relying on his superior Cav and
slingers to win the day on the right. He knew his
Newly Raised Legions weren't going to be that helpful,
so he held them back from Battle until he had to
commit them. He wanted to catch Casers legion when
they were disordered by the march, and commit his
numbers then.

Historically (In Warrior Terminology, the Battle would
go something like this).

The Pompeian Cav, followed by the Slingers, Marches
towards the Caesarian Cav. Both Charge, the Caesarian
Cav Breaks and Runs Away, the Reserve Legion passes
it's waver.

The Next Bound, the Pompeian Cav encounters the
Reserve Legion, but cannot Charge as the order to does
not reach it. It is charged by the Reserve Legion and
it broken. When It breaks the Pompeian Cav hits the
LI and Carries it away. The retreating Pompeian Cav
forces the 1 of the End Legions to shake.

The ensuing bounds, On the Right enough Caesarian
Units roll up that at least one Pomepian Unit shakes,
which causes one or more legion adjacent to shake.
Then a Pompeian Legion is broken, which causes anothe
to break, his command is demoralized and retreatets
from the field.

Historically, it was a dir roll. Caser was
outnumbered, but outguessed his opponent, and
hislegions rolled better. Depending on who/what you
read, Pompey lost anywheres from 5000-12000 men, while
Caesar lost less than 1000. Caesar was leaning on his
veteran troops, and in this battle it paid off.

Pompey apparently lead with his Mounted and kept the
LI Behind, or he charged the Caesiran mounted through
his own LI..Reports are confusing at best in that
regards.

The big issue is that as a player, you have a "God's
eye view" That Neither Caesar or Pompey had.

I'll look at the LI as a Cav detachment for the
Pompeian Mounted...

I layed this battle out on paper three time yesterday,
The resulkts were Caesar 1, Pompey 1, Mutual Break 1.
But then I am at Best an up and coming average player,
so you Better players out there would almost always
win as Pompey. The secret would be to winning as
Caesar.

Other comments at ***


Global comment: Tdd, once again kudos for doing this.
Do you have a complete set of element icons? If so,
they'd be great to have in the Files section for ease
of making stuff like this.

***Charlie Randow made them for Jon, who was generous
in letting me use them. Talk to Jon, he hasd the
fianl say on this IMO

Comments as I went through:

Slide 3, the (I assume) '1/2' symbols did not
translate; maybe
reword as '1E IrrA HC + 1E IrrB MC'?

Same slide, the obvious initial impression is that
Caesar is foolish to seek battle as he's significantly
outnumbered and outclassed. It also feels odd that
after the Slide 2 note on a reserve legion being
created, Caesar still has one fewer legion,
and there's nothing to differentiate this reserve/
cobbled-together legion.

*** Just the Fatigue Points.


Slide 4, the intended "4' " is missing the " ' " and
in any case could be written out as '4 feet'. It
would also be helpful to note the width of the river.

*** That's a Powerpoint thing. It's in there
somewheres. River Width Noted.

Same slide, the generals now appear which might be
confusing to a new player; they should probably be
added to Slide 3 (along with a note that they cannot
charge unless joined to a unit).

*** Point taken

Slide 5, we now get a (good) explanation for the
fatigue and representation of the cohort-removal; I
would move this to before or along with the troop
lists. The lists could be split to two slides to
accommodate this if needed. There's no explanation of

the mounted's 2 FP (which given diagram is presumably
to reflect a force-march, the rationale for which is,
ah, missing); and the note that the reserve legion
does not get the initial 1FP is at odds with the notes
("all") on the troop-list slide.

***All the Maps I have seen have the Caesarian Cav
placed well forward, which to me is a force march.

Slide 7, the Gallic cav and CinC both have the
possibility of shooting fatigues. As do the Caesarian
cav on Slide 8.

The above is all minor stuff. The bigger problem I
have is seeing how Caesar is ever supposed to win -
see comment above about why he would force battle.
Pompey's LI and HC are going to easily dispose of the
MC, as per battle, but likely without the HC ever
needing to charge - the LI would be fine on their own.

That leaves Caesar with 5 legions to face 6
essentially
equivalent legions plus the HC and LI, even assuming
passed wavers (if any) for the MC rout. Just not
going to happen. By far his best bet is to never
approach Pompey, achieving a draw but great boredom!

Assume that the MC are turned around to retreat behind
the legions, and Caesar marches his legion line
forward, all Pompey has to do is stretch the HI line -
either caesar's left flank will be hit 2 on 1 and the
line rolled up, or the MC will have too try to protect
the right flank and be lost as above, or both,
it seems. The straight-up HI clash is generally going
to disorder all units after contact, so that even if
the better morale of Caesar's legions tells and they
win the first round, in the second bound they're going
to be fighting with 12@ 2 (HI) +1 (advancing) -2
(disordered) = 18 vs 12, for no waver test on Pompey
(although they have again some dice hope for doing
twice as many, forcing a waver, I accept; they also
have the downside that they risk being tired first due
to the initial 1 FP). If Caesar had any reasonable
chance of getting into such a head-to-head slog, he
would have a reasonable chance, but I just
don't see it happening. On the gripping hand, among
novice players the chance may be somewhat higher,
mitigating this.

Having criticised, what would I do? One possibility
would be to have a scenario rule placing a couple of
small woods on the Caesarian right, *and* allowing the
reserve to ambush there without disorder.

***I looked at this, but given the scale of the battle
involved, this would be hard to justify to "purists"

A second would be to place the Pompeyan
cavalry onto Rush orders as soon as a Caesarian legion
crossed the center line, while not permitting the
Pompeyan legions to move before this time - I prefer
this option. The cav on both sides should probably be
forbidden to skirmish. The Pompeyan LI might be made
a detachment of the HC (yes, added complexity) and
hence break if the HC break, also affecting army
breakpoint. I'm sure that there are other options,
but something is (IMNSHO, of course) needed.

***I agree on the non-skirmish Cavalry issue. Given
the scale of the battle, thismakes the most sense to
me. The detachment does as well, but I don't want to
turn away newer players...

Next up, Vindibona!!!

Todd

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Ewan McNay
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PostPosted: Thu May 27, 2004 8:03 pm    Post subject: Re: Zipped scenario


Todd Schneider wrote:
> I am a buyer for Missouri Repertory Theatre and UMKC
> Department of Theatre. Essentially, work is driving
> around, picking up materials and spending other
> peoples money for a living. However, Theatre is a 9
> month Job usually, and the season runs from September
> to May. As I am a university employee, I am employeed
> year round and my my summers are, well...Boring. If I
> could paint at work it would be great.

Hmm. Yale Rep is pretty good - I'm sure you could need to take a
trip out here for some reason Smile.

> My reading on the battle is that Pompey wanted to
> force a battle, relying on his superior Cav and
> slingers to win the day on the right. He knew his
> Newly Raised Legions weren't going to be that helpful,
> so he held them back from Battle until he had to
> commit them. He wanted to catch Casers legion when
> they were disordered by the march, and commit his
> numbers then.

Yes, agree on all of this. There's no mechanism for the expected
march-disorder in Warrior, but the Hold order shuld simulate fine
the effect of Caesar taking the time to redress his lines.

> Historically (In Warrior Terminology, the Battle would
> go something like this).
>
> The Pompeian Cav, followed by the Slingers, Marches
> towards the Caesarian Cav. Both Charge, the Caesarian
> Cav Breaks and Runs Away, the Reserve Legion passes
> it's waver.

And we've already hit the key point. Yes, I agree with what
would happen in Warrior to simulate the actual battle; the
difficulty is in persuading even a novice Pompey that it is a
good idea to charge in with the HC before shooting up the MC
mercilessly with the LI. Hence my preferred suggestion of Rush
orders for the HC.

> The Next Bound, the Pompeian Cav encounters the
> Reserve Legion, but cannot Charge as the order to does
> not reach it. It is charged by the Reserve Legion and
> it broken. When It breaks the Pompeian Cav hits the
> LI and Carries it away. The retreating Pompeian Cav
> forces the 1 of the End Legions to shake.

Note that the LI would not be swept away, as they are legally
interpenetrated. However they may shake, then rout if charged.

> The ensuing bounds, On the Right enough Caesarian
> Units roll up that at least one Pomepian Unit shakes,
> which causes one or more legion adjacent to shake.
> Then a Pompeian Legion is broken, which causes anothe
> to break, his command is demoralized and retreatets
> from the field.

Again, I agree with what we would say *actually* happened. But,
given the walls of HI, it's going to take a *minimum* of three
bounds of combat for a legion to rout and cause wavers on
Pompey's side (note that shaking does not cause the guy next to
you to risk shaking). In that time, the extra Pompey legion is
very likely to have routed a caesarian legion.

To avoid this, Caesar is going to want to attack in echelon (not
what happened historically, really) and hope to delay the overlap
from getting into play in time. And so Caesar has not only to
win on his right flank, which takes some doing, but then to pull
off a perfect HI attack *and* get some decent dice.

Now, sure, all of this is possible, and giving Pompey to a novice
against a veteran Caesar makes sense. But I was trying to get
things to a stage where two novices could play the scenario
without one feeling that his head was on a platter at game start.

> I layed this battle out on paper three time yesterday,
> The resulkts were Caesar 1, Pompey 1, Mutual Break 1.
> But then I am at Best an up and coming average player,
> so you Better players out there would almost always
> win as Pompey. The secret would be to winning as
> Caesar.

And what happened to allow this in your refight?

E

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Todd Schneider
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PostPosted: Thu May 27, 2004 8:37 pm    Post subject: Re: Zipped scenario


The routing Pompeian Cav made One Legion fail a waver,
then the Pompeian Legions rolled down in a couple of
combats when their Caesairan counterparts rolled up.
One Legion failed a waver after being shaken and
broke, which led to a cascade effect down the line.

Todd

--- Ewan McNay <ewan.mcnay@...> wrote:-----

And what happened to allow this in your refight?

E


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Doug
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PostPosted: Fri May 28, 2004 5:29 am    Post subject: Re: Zipped scenario


>Slide 3, the (I assume) '1/2' symbols did not translate


IMO this is a generic problem with Microshaft software. They seem to
use some funky key code to represent fractions. Always best to type
numberal one, slash, numberal two (or whatever the denomenator is)
AND make sure any "automatic feature" that changes these three
characters into a single fraction symbol is turned off.

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