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2006 NICT commentary
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Mark Stone
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PostPosted: Sat Mar 03, 2007 12:27 am    Post subject:

OK, more commentary on Ewan's commentary:

Jon Cleaves, Later Welsh

Lots to like about this list. It has simplicity, but strength: screen the enemy with quality light troops, find a place to hammer home with the knights, and do so. And 8 units of knights is a lot. Not many lists can get that much and still have decent support troops.

Some quibbles with the choice of Welsh: no regular lights, no bow-armed light cav, and a few awkward minima. Still, those are not huge complaints. Being able to have a mix of SHK, EHK, and HK is very points efficient. And if you start with a requirement that an army offer both plentiful shielded LI with B, LB, or CB, have some LC, and that the army offer a reasonable quantity of SHK, you'll find that there aren't so many lists that fulfill all of those requirements.

Ewan McNay wrote:
if I'm doing the math right, one fewer than half of each is shielded, which seems to be the worst possible use of points - huh?


OK, Jon already clarified this for Ewan, and Ewan has withdrawn his criticism. I'll just point out that throwing in that odd element of LI to skew combat results is a technique I recommended in my "Skirmisher Doctrine" article, and I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who thought of it.

Heartily concur with Ewan's rating of 8 here.

AlexandrianImperial, Matt Kollmer

Mostly I agree with Ewan's critique here. A fairly solid list, but given a choice between regular and irregular lights, regulars are general better, especially when it comes to LI and the cost is either the same or lower for regulars.

Ewan McNay wrote:
I *do* criticise only having one real pike unit, though.


Well, here's where Ewan and I disagree the most. In an open tournament format, you don't play Alex Imperials for the pike. You play it for the Hypaspists, the elephants, and the quality light troops. Take as many of those as you can, and take a minimum of the slow guys who will either never catch what they want to fight, or only fight things that can beat them (of which there are plenty).

Oddly, Ewan still gives this list an 8. I'd only give it a 7, given that it could be a 10 with properly configured lights.

Ewan McNay, Sassanid Persian

This is, of course, a really strong list and I don't have too many complaints about the way Ewan has put it together.

The LC unit that is partially elephant proof is a bit odd, but what else are you going to do with a few points left over?

My main beef is the CinC as a staff element. That's a very expensive cause of unease, when you could either bulk up an existing elephant unit or split your elephants into three units. Either of these choices substantially increases the shock power of the army, where as the staff element elephant diminishes the shock power.

Other problems are really inherent to the list itself: there simply are no rough terrain troops available, and it's difficult to assure that every battle will be fought on the open portion of the table. Still, the elephants + el-proof SHC is a potent combination. Few lists get that combination (Kushan is the only other that comes to mind), and Persians get it with a superb cast of supporting light troops.

This list has a potential of 9; i'd give Ewan's rendition an 8.

Bill Chriss (The Greek), Hellenistic Greeks

Ewan McNay wrote:
I honestly like this list, despite my (significant) worry as to what it is actually going to hunt down and kill. Give it a 7; would be an 8 if the boltshoters were traded for e.g. more pikes or more peltasts.


Well, I'd give it a 6: 5 for the actual quality of the list, and +1 because I know that there's a narrow set of lists that Bill would even consider playing.

This army has a real lack of ability to chase down the things it actually wants to kill, and that's a problem. In response to that problem that artillery is, in fact, a pretty good choice: maybe not great in its own right, but at least presents a different threat than simply more ponderous foot. So stick with the artillery, and by all means the pigs; you need every available gimmick.

Medieval Spanish – Aragon, Chris Damour

Ewan McNay wrote:
I personally came to the conclusion pretty rapidly that while almughavars are great, they don't exist in the context of a *list* that I like except maybe Italian Condotta, and the supporting cast here shows why: the LI are mediocre-to-bad, the LC ditto, and a setup requiring the basic troop line to be built around irregular LMI, some of which is D class, feels a tad fragile. On the other hand, it's got the right personality for Chris: running forward as fast as possible and smacking something is what this list is about, and he gets credit for that, raising it to maybe a 6.5. [The army design, given the list choice, seems basically good, and that should get credit also. OK, up to a 7.]


I'm less convinced that moogs are great, but I concur that this is an army very well suited to Chris' style of play.

The list rule enabling Alexandrian pike to charge in the face of an impetuous foot charge dramatically shifts the balance of power with respect to moogs in open tourney format. They go from being a troop type around which to build an army (how I used to think of them) to an interesting compliment if there's something else around which you want to build an army (how I think of them now). And in fact, there's no army that inclines me to take them, despite the fact that I have 36 figures painted up in both 15mm and 25mm. On Italian Condotta I'll stick to my Swiss, thanks.

However, I don't think the D-class troops here are such a problem. There's no intent to hold the whole table's frontage, meaning on the one hand there's a need to cut down frontage with terrain, and on the other hand there's a need to occupy said terrain with inexpensive troops that cannot be pried loose quickly. The two D units here fulfill that requirement reasonably (one to go in a woods, the other to go on a steep hill).

But my overall rating is the same as Ewan's: 7.

Dennis Shorthouse, Swiss

Ewan McNay wrote:
*This* is a _terrible_ list. It is a perfect example of how to lose a battle by losing only 100-odd points worth of troops: those 4 huge pike blocks are the only units that matter, and against competent opposition they are simply *never* going to fight. The supporting cast - all ten units! - is dross and can only hope to run away fast enough; unlikely because the Swiss will usually be outscouted. When 4 of them go down: bingo, that's a command and away go two of the pike blocks. Congrats, you just got your 5 point win.


This has already been re-hashed elsewhere on the forum, so I'll just summarize briefly:
    I agree it's not a very good list
    Some of the pike blocks need to be in smaller units
    I disagree that the supporting cast is all that easy to kill off
    Some lights are needed to split fire
    Some cav is needed to make things sit still instead of skirmish away

I'll rate this one a 3, apparently more generous than Ewan.

Alexandrian Imperial, Rich Kroupa

Ewan McNay wrote:
Some significant but not fatal flaws, then, and a wall of pike has some simple-minded virtue of its own. 7.5.


I played Rich, and he came perilously close to taking me down. We were headed for a 2-2 or maybe a 3-3 when my spear rolled up 3 in shooting against his pikes, disordering them and then charging and routing them. Quite a bit of luck there, although as I've said before when you shoot a dozen or more times a game with big units, you have a lot of opportunity to make your own luck.

Rich is always one of my favorite opponents: good natured, good sport, and a very capable general.

I'll note that all of the changes Ewan recommends -- more elephants, more lights, fewer pike -- would have made Rich even more vulnerable to my army in particular. And while I've said repeatedly that close order foot will never achieve the dream of pushing an opponent off the table, if our game had gone one more bound Rich would have had a unit of pikemen storming my camp.

So I'd give this one an 8: it is one direction you can go with Alex Imps, and whether it's the right direction or not depends on matchups.

Spanish Tartessian, Charles Yaw

Ewan McNay wrote:
If what you're trying to achieve is a plethora of Irr LMI with HTW, JLS, Sh then this feels like a better way to do it than any option seen thus far; I like the list a lot.... Good stuff. 9.


First off: this is one of the A-list armies; could be a 10.

I'm a little surprised Ewan rated this one so highly, however. Yes, there's good LI, those sturdy African spear, and some elephants. And yes, the HTW guys hit hard. But none of them are in larger than 12 figure units. In my opinion these are too brittle in hand to hand combat, and too vulnerable to shooting.

I give this a 7.5.

Alexandrian Imperial, Rob Turnball

Ewan McNay wrote:
Rob takes sensible amounts of pikes, silly 2E peltast units - OK, not *that* silly - and some LI-backed El with pikes; I don't think that the pike HI is merited, but that's one of only three quibbles.... 8.5


The 2E pelts do seem a little silly. But if you're going to rely on pike this much, you might as well make some of it HI: make it as capable as possible if its really what you expect to win with.

And I like the LI-backed elephants. Whenever I see someone taking elephants with no LI on the base and no detachment to go with it, I breath a big sigh of relief knowing that there's something on the table I can kill that can't run away. Diminish elephants' vulnerability to shooting and you really remove their major weakness. Granted, there is another school of thought, that you want to have a mounted approach, want to be able to roll long in pursuit, etc. But I think there's real merit to Rob's approach here.

I'm not seeing enough LI in Rob's list, which is the price you pay for having all those HI/LHI troops. This list could definitely use more LI on it, to keep the pike from simply being screened and ignored. Combine the pelts into one unit, drop some of the armor, get more LI. I give it an 8.

And once again, we're out of time. I'll try to finish up my comments on Ewan's comments on Monday.


-Mark Stone
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 05, 2007 11:54 pm    Post subject:

... And, we're back for one last round.


Marc Cribbs, Mountain Indian

What Ewan said. I'm in complete agreement here.

By the way, I do admire Marc's willingness to make creative army list choices. He played me in the finals of the 2005 Open running Saitic Egyptian, of all things, and firmly controlled the battle from start to finish, walking away with a 5-1 win. There's a good lesson there to not read too much into army list choice; good players find a way to win.

Late Teutonic, Bob Liebl

Ewan McNay wrote:
A Teutonic with only 3 knight units? Why bother?


I give this a 3, compared to Ewan's 2. To be fair, it's more like 5 knight units as the staff element generals can easily join to the two units of sergeants (but then why not just buy them that way?...).

Teutonics is one of those frustrating lists: clearly there are a lot of good troops on the list, but getting them in the right configuration and right numbers is pretty much impossible.

I will say it does give the army a very historical feel: a fierce core with a lot of interesting but very brittle support troops who will be asked to do more than they really can in most battles.

Knights of St. John, Todd Kaeser

Ewan gives this a 9, and I concur. Todd was my first round opponent last year, and beat me 4-2. I had visions of once again failing to make the cut and playing in the Open.

In open tournament format, I've concluded that Knights of Saint John is clearly the cadillac of knight armies; I now have it in both 15mm and 25mm. The trick, of course, is that it isn't really a knight army. It's an infantry army posing as a knight army. So Ewan't mild criticism of "not enough knights" somewhat misses the point. You want to win battles with the Marinarii, much the way Alexandrian Imperials wants to win battles with the Hypaspists. The whole rest of the army is designed to deliver the Marinarii where they want to be, when they want to be there, with the right supporting troops around them.

Todd did that very well in his game against me, by the way.

My only complaint is with the Oarsmen. I don't see those guys as serving any real purpose on this list. I put it together with 16 figures of LMI handgunners instead, on the theory that they can hold down rough terrain just fine, and will sometimes get a chance to team up with other shooters and deal rude damage to some hapless close order foot unit.

But really those are minor complaints. Great list, well put together, and I expect Todd will only get better with it (a scary thought) as he gets more practice.

Khmer, Derek Downs

Ewan McNay wrote:
I know this won, I just don't see how: it should have been easy enough to either (i) shoot up the Els to oblivion, (ii) kill everything that is not an elephant and make it all go home, or (iii) kill one of the huge elephant units and declare victory. I would have thought that of the prevalent armies, Alexandrian would have done (ii) and (iii), Samurai would have done (i) and (iii), and something like Mongol would do (ii). Shows how much I know. I still don't like it, though. 5 for mass of elephants.


Wow. Shows just how much Ewan and I can disagree.

Derek is the one top player in Warrior that I have never faced; perhaps one Historicon that will change. I've observed quite a few of his games over the years, however, and he is obviously a very skilled player at the table.

What I admire most, though, is his list-writing ability. I think he writes lists better than any of the rest of us, and it pains me to say that given that I pride myself on my list-writing ability.

Now, I have to qualify this a bit. If I had to enter a tournament using a list someone else wrote for me, I'd be much more likely to pick Ewan, Frank, Dave Markowitz, or Todd Kaesar to write my list for me. Derek's lists are always... exotic. I look at them, scratch my head, and I'm not sure how to play them. But if you watch what he actually does, it all starts to make sense. In other words, not only does he write lists very well, but he writes lists that are particularly suited to his own idiosynchratic playing style.

This one impresses me especially. For years I've looked at elephant lists and considered the merits of putting LI on the base or giving the elephants LI detachments as a way of bolstering their resistance to shooting. All that time I've stared at the Khmer line that allows elephants to be detachments of foot and never made the same connection. Leave it to Derek to stand the list on its head and come up with this approach.

To respond to Ewan's criticisms:
    * Shoot up the Els. Not going to happen. A 3 model elephant detachment attached in front of a 24 figure parent body counds as a 33 figure unit. What exactly is going to shoot that up? Alternatively you can go after the Burmese, but they put out such dense shooting themselves that it's difficult for your own shooters to survive the experience.
    * Kill everything that is not an elephant. Possible, but difficult. The elephants themselves are numerous and exert a broad "zone of control" over the table. Most of the vulnerable units live within that zone of control, making them difficult to kill.
    * Kill one of the big elephant units. Sure. But with what? Ewan intimates that Alexandrians should be able to do this, and I assume he means by something like sending in pike unit A on bound 1 and then pike unit B on bound 2. The problem is these elephants are generally going to beat 8 figures of pikemen, and don't necesarily live in fear of 12 figures of pikemen either. And there's way more frontage of elephants than there is frontage of pikemen. The Japanese should fair somewhat better, and that's the one game Derek lost (to Dave Markowitz).


Ewan gives this a 5; he is totally smoking crack on that one. I give it a 9.

Alex Imp, Frank Gilson

Well, I helped Frank with advice on this list, so I don't think I can fairly respond here. I'll make a few points, though:
    * Frank doesn't play Alexandrian Imperials for the pike; his opinion of pike is about the same as mine. So he's going to focus on elephants, Hypaspists, and light troops to get them to the right place at the right time. This list does that pretty well.
    * The artillery were something of an experiment. I wouldn't expect Frank to take them again, but he was looking for a different dimension in terms of threats offered.
    * The single biggest problem with this list is that it drew Mongols in both of the first two rounds.



10 Independent States Chinese, Mark Stone

I've commented extensively on my own list elsewhere, but I appreciate the high marks from Ewan.

Sultanate of Delhi, Greg Hauser

Ewan McNay wrote:
I'd struggle to find something that I would like about this, really: can't really fight well enough to justify the cost, can't manouvre, can't shoot, spends vast amounts on artillery, is *tiny*…well, you get the picture. 1.5 only because that Swiss horror deserves to be unmatched at the bottom.


I'm going to be somewhat more charitable than Ewan.

This is a counter-punching army, designed to make you fight the elephants. By making the cav elephant-proof you can interleave it with the elephants, and use the cav to chase of annoyances (light infantry) that the elphants don't want to fight. The artillery is there to create "fire alleys" the enemy would prefer to avoid, thus further channeling the battle towards the elephants.

There are some problems with this approach. First, it's very terrain-dependent: you need to both cut down the frontage with rough terrain and leave yourself an open space in which the cav and elephants can operate. Lots of games will end up with more awkard terrain placements.

Second, the terrain-anchoring troops aren't great. You've got the one Irr B LMI unit, but a couple of peltast units will happily face off against it. You've got some LI, but you will need some of that in front of your main army. So you can anchor a flank somewhat, but not as decisively as you'd like.

Finally, the elephants just ain't all that great. They don't have JLS, and they don't have elephant pike. They are Irr B, but don't have any base-mounted LI or detachments to bulk them up. So a number of opponents (say, Japanese) will happily fight you head on.

I give this a 4 overall.

And that's all, folks. Looking forward to seeing everyone in Lancaster in about a week and a half.


-Mark Stone
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Ewan McNay
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PostPosted: Wed Mar 07, 2007 2:45 am    Post subject:

Mark:
Quote:

I'd also be happy to reverse the roles after Historicon this summer, and provide the lead analysis with which Ewan will undoubtedly disagree.


Sounds good. Although thanks, folks, for the egoboo in appreciating the effort. Sure, Mark, go ahead and take a crack this year, while I prepare the peanuts.

Quote:
Later Carthaginian - 1st Punic War, Bill Low

Ack! I hate this version of the list (sorry, Bill). Ewan rates it a 6; I'd give it about a 3.

Several problems: the use of peltasts on this list strikes me as silly, and a waste of points. If you want to operate in the open, use the very servicable Africans who fight in two ranks, and don't waver for being charged by mounted. If you want to operate in the rough, use Spanish. The pelts give you the worst of both worlds, not the best.


I (reasonably violently) disagree here. Peltasts are just good troops: able to fight in the open, god-like in brush, and with the key abilities of manouvre and skirmish ability. (I think Mark had an unpleasant encounter with a peltast unit at a young age, or something.) Facing any shooting army, you want to be peltasts - not spearmen and not Spanish. That includes such contenders as Han, anything MesoAmerican, most Chinese, possibly Khmer/Burmese etc. And while it would be nice to guarantee the terrain desired, peltasts do sufficiently well in booth that I would feel happy throwing brush and not worrying if more open came up. Which fits with the Spanish…

Quote:
What is the obsession with Irr A Spanish?? These guys are a siren song to disaster. They roll down just as a capably as Ds, give you a false sense of security based on their prospect of rolling up, and have to be impetuous in situations where you might not want to be (since impetuous troops cannot recall from a charge without contact). Take Irr B over Irr A.

And 12 figure units are brittle. 18 is a better size. Make one unit 2/3 HTW,JLS and another unit 1/3 HTW,JLS. That way you always hit hard, and hit with more durability.


…and I disagree (less violently) here, too: the point has to be to mix these with peltasts, and only hit where the target is a good one; at that point, you can almost not worry about durability because your target should be imploding on impact. I can see the argument for IrrB - your factors are so big to start with, usually - but the unit size I would still argue for. IrrA is what you want against elephants, too, and that's a decent rationale, even if I agree with Mark on balance, probably.

(In later comments on Charles' Tartessian, Mark suggests that 4E Spanish are too vulnerable to shooting. Honestly, no. If you're allowing your opponent to shoot at Spanish instead of (skirmishing) peltasts, that's your mistake, not an army list flaw.)

***

I liked Mark's comments/thoughts on the use of Mongol detachments when dismounting. I'd be interested to know whether dismounting was much used.

Tim on Samurai:

Quote:
*I remain convinced 8E is the way to go; any smaller and a single KN unit can recoil me disordered on even dice.

Really? You're going to prep shoot, but even ignoring that and assuming SHK you're going to get a min of 12@0 in support, *worst* case. That takes that incoming K unit down to 5@7 - 2 (shooting CPF) - 1 (facing 2HCT) = 5@4 = 15. So even in worst case, a 6E unit is enough, and hence I'm still a 6E fan.

[I noted also John G's comment on 8 Welsh knight units coming in boot-to-boot. OK, so that costs you at most 3 Samurai units; that's why you buy the army as A/B, so you pass the wavers and slaughter the mass of tired, disordered knights Smile. I don't yet understand how Jon's army was such a Samurai killer. O well…]
Quote:

* I think Late Feudal are better; the HK upgrade makes this army work.


Huh? You're planning to fight mounted??

***

Back to Mark:
Quote:
Ewan McNay, Sassanid Persian

The LC unit that is partially elephant proof is a bit odd, but what else are you going to do with a few points left over?


Right; and if you think about distances, it's actually pretty rare that you need *all* of a LC unit upgraded. Usually too tricky to keep track of, but when the points are tight…

Quote:
My main beef is the CinC as a staff element. That's a very expensive cause of unease, when you could either bulk up an existing elephant unit or split your elephants into three units. Either of these choices substantially increases the shock power of the army, where as the staff element elephant diminishes the shock power.


Obviously, I disagree Smile. The CinC cannot have more than one crewman, *and* has to go in the front rank of any mounted unit - so you can't really use him as a shock unit in to many cases. Adding him to the 2E elephant unit would actually *diminish* their shock ability. And I lose way too many generals as it is. Plus, honestly, there are a *lot* of cases where either all I need is a cause of unease, or a single elephant to disorder opposing LC, or a staff element to join the MI, or… well, anyway, I have been very happy running the boss by himself. If I wanted to buy all 6 of the elephants available on-list, I'd have to sacrifice some lights; I started out buying the list this way, but ended up needing more LI far more often than I need a 6th elephant.

Quote:
Other problems are really inherent to the list itself: there simply are no rough terrain troops available, and it's difficult to assure that every battle will be fought on the open portion of the table. Still, the elephants + el-proof SHC is a potent combination. Few lists get that combination (Kushan is the only other that comes to mind), and Persians get it with a superb cast of supporting light troops.


The LI have always done - and have *had* to do - a great job of at least contesting terrain. I've fought in some jungles, and Mark is right that against a good terrain force, I can't really fight there (my battle in the woods against Bill's Cathaginian notwithstanding… when an SHC general dies in the wood, at least no-one can see….). However, they're pretty rare, and it's a *very* rare enemy that both gets massed terrain and wants to place their whole army there, refusing to come out. The closest might actually be Dennis trying to hide behind several max-size woods. This has been less of an issue than I initially feared, although it would of course be nice to have the Dailami mercenaries that the army may have used Wink.

Quote:
This list has a potential of 9; i'd give Ewan's rendition an 8.


Fair enough.

Quote:
(Not really) On Rob's Alexandrians:
I like the LI-backed elephants. Whenever I see someone taking elephants with no LI on the base and no detachment to go with it, I breath a big sigh of relief knowing that there's something on the table I can kill that can't run away.


My only comment here is the same as in response to the 'Spanish 4E units are vulnerabls to shooting,' which is 'only if you get to shoot at them!' My Sassanid elephants have no LI, and I would never take it even if available (which it may be, I haven't checked); I want to move as mounted, thankyou. I've never had a problem having them shot up. Alexandrians should likewise have no trouble diverting shooting.

Quote:
Khmer, Derek Downs

Ewan McNay wrote:
I know this won, I just don't see how: it should have been easy enough to either (i) shoot up the Els to oblivion, (ii) kill everything that is not an elephant and make it all go home, or (iii) kill one of the huge elephant units and declare victory. I would have thought that of the prevalent armies, Alexandrian would have done (ii) and (iii), Samurai would have done (i) and (iii), and something like Mongol would do (ii). Shows how much I know. I still don't like it, though. 5 for mass of elephants.

Wow. Shows just how much Ewan and I can disagree.


Quote:
To respond to Ewan's criticisms:

* Shoot up the Els. Not going to happen. A 3 model elephant detachment attached in front of a 24 figure parent body counds as a 33 figure unit. What exactly is going to shoot that up? Alternatively you can go after the Burmese, but they put out such dense shooting themselves that it's difficult for your own shooters to survive the experience.


Why pick on the biggest unit in the army? There are lots of 2E elephant units, and smaller parent bodies. I actually agree that this approach is rareish, but then lots of armies are built around shooting.

Quote:
* Kill everything that is not an elephant. Possible, but difficult. The elephants themselves are numerous and exert a broad "zone of control" over the table. Most of the vulnerable units live within that zone of control, making them difficult to kill.


Mmm… maybe. The morale of the army is not great; the elephants are moving as foot, and taking wavers if a mounted opponent can charge their parent LMI - which is often D class - and are both ponderous and irregular. The foot is uniformly poor, the LC are vulnerable, there are lots of commands and hence lots of ability to make things go home without fighting them. I'm still taking this option (and the one below).

Quote:
* Kill one of the big elephant units. Sure. But with what? Ewan intimates that Alexandrians should be able to do this, and I assume he means by something like sending in pike unit A on bound 1 and then pike unit B on bound 2. The problem is these elephants are generally going to beat 8 figures of pikemen, and don't necesarily live in fear of 12 figures of pikemen either. And there's way more frontage of elephants than there is frontage of pikemen. The Japanese should fair somewhat better, and that's the one game Derek lost (to Dave Markowitz).


There are 15 elements' frontage of elephants (also a problem, I think - that's only about 3' of an 8' table). You get to pick and choose your battles, because the Khmer sure are not dancing. So, hit them - and it'll be the smaller units - with IrrA Spanish, or deep pike, or peltasts (risky on morale), or Sassnid Paighan spearmen, or Samurai, or… and bear in mind that you only need to *not lose* frontally, because you then get to hit the side of the unit which means you're fighting shieldless LMI. Yum.

Quote:
Ewan gives this a 5; he is totally smoking crack on that one. I give it a 9.


I didn't get to fight this, of course, but I *did* fight a (better) Khmer under Derek a couple of years back, and am happy with my drug-addled rating opun further consideration. Plus, Mark's rating is mentioned in one of Libby's briefs to Cheney, and was found in Mark Foley's briefing material for pages. Who ya gonna trust?

Quote:
And that's all, folks. Looking forward to seeing everyone in Lancaster in about a week and a half.


Indeed. I'm playing teams with Todd. We're not running Khmer.
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joncleaves
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PostPosted: Wed Mar 07, 2007 2:59 pm    Post subject:

Charge 6 IrrA loose order in the open with K, one fails. Sometimes more than one.

Charge 6 C-morale Japanese Irr loose order and two fail.

This is to say nothing of the combats themselves, the wavers that follow the troops that break, or the inability to break even a tired K who is eating shaken, shieldless LMI. I call it Welsh Math. Works on Japanese, but not so well on the Great Wall of China...

John, it only looked like 8 K charging at once.....

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Tim Grimmett
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 08, 2007 12:28 am    Post subject:

Ewan--

My reasoning follows:

Quote:
Really? You're going to prep shoot, but even ignoring that and assuming SHK you're going to get a min of 12@0 in support, *worst* case. That takes that incoming K unit down to 5@7 - 2 (shooting CPF) - 1 (facing 2HCT) = 5@4 = 15. So even in worst case, a 6E unit is enough, and hence I'm still a 6E fan.


I take them as LB, so the support shot is 9@0, so it is likely to be -1 for 2HCT and -1 for support shot which reaches the magic 5@5=20. This assumes competent light play.

[
*
Quote:
I think Late Feudal are better; the HK upgrade makes this army work.

Huh? You're planning to fight mounted??


Most likely not, but they will dismount as LEHI, which in my mind is crucial, and the mounted may prevent loose order infantry--I'm thinking Incas and 100YWE foot from skirmishing away from the Samurai foot.

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Ewan McNay
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 08, 2007 4:54 pm    Post subject:

Quote:
Tim:

I take them as LB, so the support shot is 9@0, so it is likely to be -1 for 2HCT and -1 for support shot which reaches the magic 5@5=20. This assumes competent light play.


Oh, duh. How did I manage to forget the 1.5 ranks for LB instead of 2 ranks? Mea culpa. OK, worst case you could indeed get recoiled on even dice, I agree.
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Todd Kaeser
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 6:24 pm    Post subject:

Quote:
*** Not clear to me exactly what is detached to what, but I think it's all rear-rank stuff for elephant units, with the elephants actually being the detachments. So, that gives 6 elephant units, two of which are Burmese, a bunch of tiny reg LI units, and a couple of others. I know this won, I just don't see how: it should have been easy enough to either (i) shoot up the Els to oblivion, (ii) kill everything that is not an elephant and make it all go home, or (iii) kill one of the huge elephant units and declare victory. I would have thought that of the prevalent armies, Alexandrian would have done (ii) and (iii), Samurai would have done (i) and (iii), and something like Mongol would do (ii). Shows how much I know. I still don't like it, though. 5 for mass of elephants.


If this was already stated I appologize... Derek's list was designed to take the massive shooting that has been seen in the NICT over the past few years. Almost all of the elephants are detachments or have detachments - thereby making them very difficult to shoot up. Having 15 elephants is nothing to sniff at - w/ the exception of Samurai or maybe Mark's chinese, there is not too much to fear out there.

Derek still pulled one out against one Samurai and lost another. Markowitz was able to take out the support troops

4RD LMI B 32 10
4RD/4RC LHI/LMI JLS SH 68 10
4RD LMI B 32 10
4RD LMI JLS B SH 64 10

This and a break of elephants or two cost Derek a few commands.

The Burmese contingent was neutralized by a large, steep hill. Derek was forced to go up it once his army went south.

Todd

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Bill Chriss
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PostPosted: Sat Mar 10, 2007 5:43 am    Post subject:

Ewan McNay wrote:
[I (reasonably violently) disagree here. Peltasts are just good troops: able to fight in the open, god-like in brush, and with the key abilities of manouvre and skirmish ability. (I think Mark had an unpleasant encounter with a peltast unit at a young age, or something.) Facing any shooting army, you want to be peltasts - not spearmen and not Spanish. That includes such contenders as Han, anything MesoAmerican, most Chinese, possibly Khmer/Burmese etc. And while it would be nice to guarantee the terrain desired, peltasts do sufficiently well in booth that I would feel happy throwing brush and not worrying if more open came up.


I agree with Ewan here. This is one reason I really love peltasts, particularly those that have high morale and are upgradabale to LHI. I HATE shooting, as I think I have made clear, and I cast about looking for the troop type most impervious to it that was also durable, versatile, and a good match for all but the hardiest HTH opponents. I came up with eliet peltasts/thureophoroi, although I admit to not searching any but the politically correct Greek-type sublists. Any loose order foot have their drawbacks, but at least mine will usually pass their wavers when charged by mounted in the open, are relatively impervious to shootinig even given my usual clumsy play, and have long pointy sticks to make mounted pay when we roll decent on the waver test. They also move as fast or faster than anything but Knights and Cav, and they love difficult terrain. Now if only I were a better general Confused

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Todd Kaeser
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PostPosted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 5:47 pm    Post subject:

Greek,

Don't you worry none - you're pretty darn good.

I too love the peltasts and hope to have a full Greek/macedonian army someday - both hoplites and pike. Now if I only had the time...

Todd K

Maybe we'll lock horns again someday.

Got to get a pic of that awesome camp of yours.

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