Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

Ewan McNay · Posted: Wed May 10, 2006 1:39 am Post subject: Close foot - what is it good for?

I've been struck by the (surface, at least) disparity between recent comments on Alexandrians (based around pike, the quintessential close foot; very highly rated) versus those on taking close foot in a Nikephorian Byzantine list (which is being panned).

Why?

Yeah, I know that this has been debated before. But I was particularly struck by Mark's recent comment that he's never even heard of someone actually managing, in a tournament game, to push a lighter army off the table with close foot. That's pretty close to my experience, too. Are all the close foot players ('all' not being a very large number!) just deluding themselves? Is taking Alex relying on opponents being reluctant to fight a no-score draw?

So: if close foot can't catch an opponent, and can't force them to fight, what good are they? Just mobile road blocks? Maybe so - and of course missile-armed close foot can at least project some force. But is there really not a way to win with non-missile close foot?

[An example would be the earlier Romans, feeding back to another thread. And note that I'm talking about being able to force a win, or at least a chance, rather than relying on cooperative opponents.]

Some simplifications, of course...

joncleaves · Moderator Joined: 29 Mar 2006 Posts: 16447

I have a plan to do this with one of the earlier romans in a future year. Still working on the details, but feel it can be done.

Note though that Patricians and Alex have won three recent NICTs...

J

Mark Stone

Mike Turner · Posted: Wed May 10, 2006 1:30 pm Post subject:

An "X"-rule has been mentioned before, and possibly should be looked at. REGULAR, close order foot being able to move 120 p in open terrain, and possibly this should be restricted to A-C level troops.

We are talking regular troops, men who soldiered for a living. This may more accurately portray the military capablity of what were seen as good troops on the battlefield, but now are poor troops in a wargame.

Mike

joncleaves · Moderator Joined: 29 Mar 2006 Posts: 16447

Indeed such an x-rule is in the works..

Bill Chriss · Centurion Joined: 12 Apr 2006 Posts: 1000 Location: Texas

As one of those rare close order foot guys, I will chime in here. I have seen, even in 15mm, some talented players (not me) forced march 7 or 8 pike units to midfield and just move straight ahead, sweeping their enemies before them (and "hearing the lamentation of their women"-Conan).

The conventional strategy in this game (Warrior), as epitomized by the tactical doctrine explained often and well by Ewan and Mark is to have a substantial mobile strike force (read cavalry, elephants, or Irr A/B foot), excellent light infantry and/or light cav to pin the opponent and delay him in several places you don't want to fight, and a reasonable number of cheap (usually close formation) foot who can shoot and hold frontage, either cooperating with the lights in delaying half or more of the oponent's line while the attack is concentrated elsewhere, or (if lucky) shooting well enough to create an opportunity for the "mobile strike force" to charge in and cause isolated carnage followed by cascading waver tests.
Ideally, use some leftover army points to buy elephants or chariots to cause unease Sad

and presto!, the classic winner Warrior army.

Now all this is fine. But there are a few wily Greeks Cool

(and others I'm sure) out there who know all this and are contrarian by nature. Mark's and Ewan's way is tried, true, and quite valid. But it is not the only way, and like all "ways," it has it's weaknesses (one hopes Embarassed

). Unfortunately, I suspect it will take a much better player than yours truly to demonstrate that hypothesis.

joncleaves · Moderator Joined: 29 Mar 2006 Posts: 16447

One must remember that this discussion of the utility of close foot has been framed in an open environment primarily by tourney players.

I am interested to see how next year's Punic theme goes at HCon. I think it will be very telling...

J

Mark Stone · Posted: Wed May 10, 2006 7:22 pm Post subject:

wargame692000 · Recruit Joined: 19 Apr 2006 Posts: 34

I believe there are; and probobly always will be certain circumstances when close formation foot will excel. They may be slow but man for man they are still the toughest foot in the game.

Playing close formation foot is like using any other troop types, they need to be correctly played and correctly supported. I.E find somthing that will allow them to get where they need to get to, when they need to get there.

Although out of vogue at the moment, only recently the warrior world was in flames over the Moog. These march the same distance as close foot and only approach 40 paces futher. They are being under-utalised if they spend their time chasing evaders. So the 40 paces movement doesn't make a great deal of difference in many situations.

Paul Collins
Devotee of MI.

Todd Schneider · Posted: Fri May 12, 2006 1:48 am Post subject:

I ran my Arauanians with a lot of LTS, B MI. You have the option to make them Irr or Reg, and I've tried both. For now I've settles on a mix. If opposes by LI I can Usually shoot them away, same with LC. I think a lot of it also has to do on the players stye of play, and how well Close Order Fits into the list. Sometimes it will only have one or two specific uses, you just have to know what those uses are.

Mark Stone · Posted: Fri May 12, 2006 5:35 am Post subject:

Todd Schneider · Posted: Fri May 12, 2006 6:33 pm Post subject:

Bill Chriss · Centurion Joined: 12 Apr 2006 Posts: 1000 Location: Texas

I wonder what all those Alexandrian players from last H'con have to say about this. Surely they cannot all have "hidden" their phalangites behind trees or somesuch Shocked

Tim Grimmett · Posted: Fri May 12, 2006 11:32 pm Post subject:

Our group plays with 480p rear zones, which seem to help.

We experimented with the 120p movement/charge for close order foot, but the group did not take to it.

John Murphy · Legate Joined: 12 Apr 2006 Posts: 1625

nothing like this should be considered in isolation...

Take any troop type in Warrior and someone, even a newbie, can come up with a viable tactical means to defeat it or reduce it to irrelevance.

Sure, LMI can evade away from CO foot all day. So what happens if the CO foot has mounted support in its gaps? Drastically changes the equation if the LMI are chicken to go into skirmish because of the prospect of being caught in a compulsory evade by a mounted charge and getting chewed up from the rear (so even LMI LTS won't help here) and broken (even if they DO pass their waver) - and that CO foot will suddenly be chewing up LMI within a couple bounds.

Just one very obvious example.

Just like knights or elephants - sure if you just hang your troops out to dry without the needed supporting combined arms then even a not very skillful player is going to make them a useless waste of points at best or an outright liability at worst.