Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[Cao Cao]

Over the last couple of weeks we have played a Tang Chinese v. Vikings matchup (We do a lot of "what if X invaded China" stuff). The vikings have been having a tough time. The Tang players usually take Turkish allies and Tibetans. His weaker infantry hold back and then he just pricks around with his cav until he finds some viking LMI then crushes them causing waver checks and more often than not sewing up the game.

Any suggestions?

[Ewan McNay]

If the Vikings are LMI/LHI, then Tibetan SHC is a tough opponent. Especially for the C class Bondi, who are uneasy when trying to charge SHC.

On the other hand, if you're allowing the Tang to get their allied SHC into your C class LMI, you should be expecting to lose .

There are some list choices that may help; in particular, note that you can have any or all Vikings as close order. That eliminates the waver for facing mounted in the open - although one of the weaknesses of the Tang is a lack of terrain troops, especially if they are taking LC and SHC allies/mercenaries, so you will also want to try to ensure that there are as many and as large woods on the table as you can manage.

If the SHC are coming in supported by LC, then the irregular LC can relatively easily be chased away. That gives you the choice of either absorbing the SHC charge with bondi and then planning to hit flanks, or sending in a unit of huscarls impetuously head-on and then (still) planning to hit flanks. If he's all-SHC, that's an expensive unit you should out-number; if there's a back rank of e.g. MC, then a flank charge by berserks is going to evaporate it.

If the SHC are coming in supported by the Tang close order foot, then (i) again use terrain to your advantage - nothing in the Tang list wants to come play in even brush - and (ii) you can hope to take on said foot. If you're taking e.g. Huscarl archers, close order, front rank HI, they will happily go into and through a unit of the Tang foot, and much of the Tang is likely D class so not going to want to take wavers. Viking archers - either huscarl or bondi - are also good at removing opposing LC from the scene.

If nothing else, you can take an approach popularised by Chris Damour: send out the bondi, expect to evaporate, pass the wavers with your IrrB and IrrA supporting troops if needed, then counterpunch.

That's all pretty much off the top of my head, but (granting that Viking is currently perceived as a low-power army) there are a lot of possibilities to go through which may help.

[Frank Gilson]

Yup, you'll take wavers against an enemy with cavalry...they'll look for a C morale LMI unit and kill it. So, try to make sure that no two C morale units are within 120p of each other such that only A or entirely B morale troops will be wavering for a lost C morale unit.

[caocao]

We've tried the suggestions you guys offered for the vikings but mostly this has just confirmed what most everybody said - the vikings suck.

But we've got a determined Swede here who wants to make them work.

We've started experimenting with boats and this seems to give the vikings something of an edge in maneuverability and safety before they land. However, the enemy can see them coming, then disembarking takes a whole tactical or march phase - very slow. Finally the boats cost a point per figure - it adds up.

So a possible list rule suggestion: Make viking boat travel more powerful?

REASONS
This would be historical. It would empower a now weak but historically tough army. And it would make more valuable, instead of less, anybody's viking figures.

Possible list rules that would make viking boat travel more powerful:

1) Hidden boat movement
2) no movement penalty for embarking/disembarking
3) make boats cheaper for vikings
4) make major water features easier to place for the viking player - maybe only discard on a 1 and then on the side of the player's choosing.
5) expand viking flank charge entry points to include the enemy rear zone on the table half that has the MWF.

This is not a complaint, just a suggestion on how to make the vikings a more playable army. Even without any change, boat travel makes the vikings fun to play. I'm glad we screwed around with them enough to try it.

Cao Cao