Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[joncleaves]

Echeloning is optional for a couple reasons - one is to prevent an opposing player from manipulating the 40p/disorder rule to his advantage unrealistically.

[browntj007]

Com'on Jon! Manipulating the rules unrealistically? You've got to be kidding. What's un-historical about trying to break up an enemy's line during his charge? Seems to me you could do it by missile fire, or manuver or some sort of obstacle? I am taking this personally - I have to given the history. You've managed to negate or minimize ANY attempts for my innovation in this game. You didn't like the fact your LHI 2HCT were disordered attacking across an camel obstacle, so you removed the disorder and amended the rules. You didn't like the liberal use of flaming arrows, so you cut down the effective distance and when we could take them. Now you're taking away a potential counter punch by allowing some BS charge that isn't a charge, yet affects all potential targets at all times as if it is. One doesn't even have to charge all targets even if you declared it, if there's a potential eschelon situation. I apologise if I don't play black and white ,and make it simple for you. Am I Frustrated? Damn right I am. It took a long time to study this tactic , then write up this and you answered way too quickly. What have we learned here?

1. You can declare a charge, force a waver check, and NOT charge if there's an eschelon situation. Talk about BS. THAT is manipulating the rules unrealistically. If you declare and write down a charge against two targets - you should be forced to try and make contact. You have IMPLICITLY decided to risk an eschelon and potential disorder by doing so. What's hard to understand, Jon? That's ultimately the key point to all this - the charger has IMPLICITLY decided - yes it WAS optional. However, when he wrote down 2 targets that require or potentially might become an eschelon he made that choice to do so. Why should he be allowed to take back that decision? WHen my LC charge yours and you evade, I don't get to suddenly decide not to fully charge just because my charge distance brings me within distance of, say elephants. You set up a situation to draw my LC in where they could be disordered. Great tactics, yet evidently a unrealistic manipulation of the rules???

2. The charger according to Jon has complete and utterly all choices about what to do in an eschelon situation. Your one answer fits all DOESN'T. Ita fita fine. Remember that? How well does that work? Remember? There's a huge difference in play between targets that start within charge reach and those moving into the path or as a result of combat results.

3. No matter what new innovative tactic I come up with, Jon is determined to squash it. Seems immature to say that, but the evidence is there. I get my ideas from reading history. Everything I've come up with I can point to a spot in history and say - "Aha - That's what they did", and then I apply it to ahistorical matchups.


4. Actually, while I was reading, I evidently don't have to move my cav at all and still have you evade - " each element is entiltled to move its maximum tactical distance in order to contact the enemy" Nothing says I HAVE to move my cav the max distance or even contact the enemy. Not under charges nor basic tactical moves. BY that wording I guess that's always optional, too. So I choose not to. This is manipulating the rules, clearly. So...there's one hole - should I find more?



I'm trying to be reasonable but this takes it. You are literally headed towards forcing everyone to simply line up and charge each other - tactics be damned. We punish people for doing stupid things in this game. We should reward smart people who find innovative historical answers to tactical problems. After all, it's not like we have a lot of Romans vs Japs historical battles to examine.

Finally, I'm not asking that you suddenly reverse your decision - it's not your style and your ego wouldn't allow it. No insult - that's just how you you are. I am asking that you take the careful time to examine the situation, ask around, and think about what I and others have said. And obviously, I had a lot to say - my apologies to all.

Tim Brown

Wading through this rules mess since '86

[joncleaves]

Ok, Tim has taken the time to write a long post, so I will spend some time breaking it down in return.

Two major things here, rules and history. I will take them in that order. Tim's post skips around among them, so this means my response will not take things in the same order he said them. But I feel it necessary to do it this way to avoid the confusion of mixing up separate and distinct issues.

I am going to ignore - this one last time - Tim's accusations that I have ever, once EVER - done anything in the rules for my own personal purposes. I have been accused of being capable of this at Cold Wars twice and now again in his post. Do it again, and you can find someone else to answer your rules questions. I am not capable of such an act and have never done it. Shame on you.

I am also going to leave out my opinion on your "innovations". You want to discuss those, write me offline. You and I have different definitions of the word "tactics" and I think it best to agree to disagree. My intent is to keep this business-like and respond to your rules and historical interpretation concerns as the author and as your friend and fellow player. Respond in kind.

Ok, let's move on....

Rules

I never once said anything about voluntarily *not charging* once a charge is declared - or voluntarily canceling one's own charge. This keeps coming up - but not from me. A charger, whose charge is not canceled, has to charge. You and others on this thread have said repeatedly something or other about not having to charge and/or voluntarily canceling a charge - neither is possible, I have said so and you have neither listened nor cited a rule that permits such.

Once that charger has made contact, it *may* echelon to contact additional targets - which will by definition be valid targets because if they can be reached by the echelon they were in the charge path and therefore counted as having the charge declared on them - whether it was originally formally declared against them by the player or not. Why does a player bother to declare against both, then? Because indeed the first guy *may* not be there for some reason when it comes time to resolve the charge move - the player may not make any assumptions about this, so is covering his bases by doing so, since the far guy *could* be reached by echelon if both stood. But such a declaration does not *require* an ecehlon move as in fact NOTHING in Warrior requires an echelon move.

6.163G and 6.18 both clearly permit the OPTION of echeloning. 6.163H makes it clear that other targets in the path MAY be contacted. Nothing in 6.164 says an impetuous charge must be continued into a further target after contact by mandatory echelon. Nothing about 6.163 requires that a charge make contact - only that it charge. It MUST charge if the charge is legal and is not canceled. But once it makes contact, a further echelon into another target - whether one originally declared upon or not is not required - it is optional. Warrior has never contained such a rule.

6.165A states

"For those charges that result in charging troops contacting one or more
stationary targets, the charging troops are moved into contact with the target."

This takes care of the notion - obviously incorrect - that a charger does not have to move into contact when the target is stationary.

6.166B makes it clear that a charge against targets that are not stationary is a variable move and 6.112 tells a player how long a variable move is. This takes care of the notion that a charger does not have to move when the target is not stationary.

That takes care of the rules, now onto the history.

What is happening when a body hits another body and elements of the charger are "sticking out"? On the ground, they are turning inwards to wrap around the flank of the enemy body. Some games actually move figures into that position. Warrior, using elements and already being a complex game, does NOT permit the physical in-game movement of figures from one body to wrap around another. This effect is handled by the close combat overlap mechanic from rule 9.2.

Ok, so what about a body that has an element "sticking out" that could either turn in on the flank of the first body contacted OR continue flowing forward to reach an enemy body beyond? Well, back in the day of Warrior's development in 2000-2001, we were faced with the choice of making it optional to wrap or flow on or to make one or the other mandatory. The negative side of giving the charger the option is the amount of control the player is getting over a tactical formation. The positive side is that the defender cannot control which would happen - meaning the defender cannot manipulate unrealistically the choice that would be made by the captain or chieftain of the charging guys on the ground. Choose one way and the attacker has more control than maybe he should. Choose the other and the defender has more control. The third option - that of writing further rules to take the control out of either player's hands was too much to add.

We chose to side with the attacker. The evidence that a small unit leader - centurion, warband chief, file leader - would make the best choice on average outweighed the fact that no defending general of record had that sort of control over the enemy's charges. Sure, a guy could goad a battle line of undisciplined troops into a mass charge but distracting fractional pieces of cohesive bands didn't happen anywhere near as often as a low level attacker making the right choice, even when "impetuous."
This also melded with our philosophy of when in doubt - favor the aggressor. Many things about Warrior - approach/counter when surrounded, flank charges, waver tests, optional echeloning, 50% demoralization, etc. - deliberately favor the "attacker". This is because the game already has a lot in it; stall tactics and defensive weasling were not something we needed the rules to encourage.

As an aside, this is not the same as the comparable rule in WRG 7th edition and is deliberately not the same. Don't know if that has anything to do with the angst over this discussion, but thought I'd throw it out in case it helped.

Bottom line: Echeloning is optional.

Jon

[Ewan McNay]

I've been trying to work out how to respond to this thread.

On the one hand: Tim is the single best finder-of-minutiae-around-which-to-build-an-army that we posess; I happen to think that such should be highly rewarded. I've *very* much enjoyed watching him read so carefully, find a line, work out what it means, and astound the rest of us - several times over. It's glorious art, even when I'm on the receiving end.

On the second, it's an approach I share - and hence unsurprisingly, think is correct. Remember the '2E LC calmly walking through a 40p gap in the enemy lines' fracas? Same thing: read what the rules say, play that way, watch as everyone is astounded .

[Runnin' out of hands] On the third, I share much of Tim's reading of, and reaction to, Jon's approach to such scrimshaw: the 'if it's odd, kill it!" mentality. As I noted in that same LC movement thread, next time I find some such tactic, I'm certainly not going to inform anyone ahead of using it! Jon - really, some recognition that Tim is being both meticulous and imaginative, not abusive, would help here. You *want* people to read the rules closely, right? [After all, what else is there to do down at Ft Bragg? ] Otherwise, I think Tim's entirely right: the game is being pushed (less time, less manouvre, more powerful weaponry) slowly toward 'line up and roll marbles' - and that would be BAD BAD BAD.

On the fourth: the whole 'charges that choose not to hit a target can still affect that target' thing - and indeed exactly what one charges, be it path or unit(s) - are still nonintuitive, and I would have come down on the same resolution as Tim and Tom did, fwiw.

Finally, though, I suspect that in this case, Jon is correct - I have seen the 'echeloning is always optional' discussion before, I think. Oh, well.

[joncleaves]

Two separate things going on here.

One is the reading of the rules to read them correctly. Reading that echeloning is not optional in some case is incorrect.

The other is the thing you two try and do with the rules. I have my personal opinion on it and I don't think its useful to go into my opinion on it, except to say that I do not use that opinion to clarify rules or my intent when the text of the rules does not match my intent through some grammatical or structural error. Stated differently - I do not use my position as rules author to manipulate my "rulings" against you due to my opinion on what you guys do. I just read the rule back to clarify or I clarify what my intent was in the case of a poorly written rule and then fix the poorly written rule with errata - same as any other rules author on the planet. My opinion on any other issue isn't relevant to an objective clarification and none interfere. I find the suggestion that I would do otherwise in terribly poor taste and completely unfounded. I have been as patient with that as I am going to be - the next person who does it can be assured not to get any further responses from me.

[joncleaves]

Having said that - a separate note...

Down on the ground, the men of what we call an LMI unit are watching some distant enemy cavalry body begin charging them. Without precise measuring instruments, these men do not know that a friendly cavalry unit off to their left will reach the enemy in time to prevent them crashing into their own line. A test of their manliness ensues. Perhaps the enemy cavalry actually reach them, perhaps not - but they take a waver test because at their level, it sure looks to *them* like the cav are coming...

This how Warrior is written - as much as possible with the idea of how things are happening down at a level below the player-general's control. The die roll to make a counter is another example - the player may realize from his bird's eye view that the unit is in trouble, but does the centurion? And is he and his unit well trained enough to take some response? The result of the die roll based on the unit's training tells us the answer instead of the general having perfect control at his level.

The option to echelon and the choices involved in some variable move results are an outgrowth of this.

All of these things have been the same way since Warrior day one. I didn't change them along the way. Some are the same as the comparable mechanic in 7th and some are not - depends on our philosophy here at FHE which ones are different and which are not.

[Mark Stone]

The way the rule is supposed to be read is clear to me now; I'll not debate that further, nor debate whether the wording is clear. This is a complex rules system, and "clarity" is to some extent subjective.

I do want to suggest a historical perspective, and then I'm done with this topic.

Keep in mind that my original case is different from Tim's. The case I was concerned about was one in which an irregular foot body declared an impetuous charge on a single target, nothing prevented it from reaching that single target, but another body came into the path of the charge and so reaching the intended target would require an echelon.

To flesh out the context a bit, I'll note that impetuous chargers must rally forward, and may not make a recall move. Impetuous chargers must also add any optional distance in pursuits. Everything in the rules suggests a headlong and unavoidable rush forward, a situation where once the "trigger" is pulled on the charge, the body just goes all out.

So here's this body of irregular foot spread out along a broad frontage, but with a clear target in front of it at one end of its line. The chieftan of this particular warband signals the charge. He is no doubt standing within the body at the point closest to the intended target, and signaling the charge by, among other things, personal example of hurtling himself forward full speed. It's an impetuous charge, so the full ferocity he can muster from himself and those around him goes into the charge.

The sprint for the enemy begins.

Now, moments later, somewhere down at the far end of the line for this body, ermerging out of the murk and dust -- it was beyond the shoulders of two other bodies -- is an enemy cavalry unit charging.

I really doubt the chieftan is even going to notice. I say he and those around him plunge forward into their intended target, oblivious to, and not even reacting to, something happening 300 feet away at the other end of their unit (hence, for example, the historical justification for taking no waver test in this situation).

And I guess that's my problem. If this impetuous charge has one and only one target, and instead stops when it meets cavalry who were not a target of the charge, then in realism terms -- not rules terms -- the chargers are responding to the cavalry charge. If they are not responding, then -- again in realism terms -- they plunge forward, echelon or not, into their intended target.

So: just my opinion. But. Either the chargers respond to the cavalry, or they don't. Capturing this from history into rules, it would seem to me that if they respond (by halting their charge and not echeloning), then they should waver. If they do not respond, then they dont' waver, but they should echelon forward to meet their intended target.

The rules appear to let the chargers have it both ways, which puzzles me some, and clearly bugs Tim a lot. Echoing Ewan here, I think Tim has done a superb job over the years of both reading the letter of the rules in detail, and seeing tangible, concrete, historical exploits that the rules enable him to adopt into his own tactics. The history seems entirely on Tim's side in the case, but I grant that the rules are not.


-Mark Stone

[joncleaves]

I won't debate it, but I disagree 1000% with your last paragraph, Mark.

But let's get one thing clear. If we did in fact make a hard and fast rule concerning impetuous chargers and echeloning, it would probably be that they could not. On the ground, if we use the logic that they go after the closest target and hit it as hard as they can, they would wrap around and get into it with the "flank" of the body they hit and not go off after some distant guy. Down at the level of the impetuously charging soldier in the overhanging element, the "edge" of what he just hit would be a much more immediate and more lucrative target than something facing front off in the distance.

[scott holder]

Weighing in carefully. We'll see how careful I end up being.

I hope that Jon's explanation on how the entire charge/charge target/echelon explains what is, to some, a counter intuitive situation--it sure did for me! It's another example of how the game tries to simulate local effects on a battleline, something that we with our eagle's eye view of the battle can never hope to duplicate.

As for the philisophical issues here, nothing, lemme repeat that, nothing Jon's "gone back and tweaked" after a tourney has been anything but fully supported by FHE. Each and every one of these quirks that have happened to him (and others) are simply because he plays the game and they occurred during said play. If said quirks had been brought to my attention as an ump by somebody else, I would have been the first one to go back to Jon and say "this needs lookin' at" and move forward from there. Thus, any accusation that he's doing this as some reflexive response to things that have happened to him as an active player is well, hoeeeeeey.

That differs in how FHE, and Jon specifically as the game designer of the Warrior engine, "reflexively" goes back and changes things as a result of game play--they are two entirely different things, player vs game designer. In some ways, it's good that he plays as much as he does, it's bad because it gives rise to the very issue we're discussing. In some ways as an umpire, I don't get hit with that. However, since I don't play the game enough, I'd get hit with other spears and javelins should I attempt to dabble more in game design w/o a lot of requisite experience on the table to back it up. I suppose it's a cost of doing business but not one we collectively bear with the best of grace during threads like this one.

Ewan, I'm sorry but I disagree completely with your implication that Jon's "if it's odd, kill it!" mentality is a bad thing. In fact, it's another one of those guiding principles (unspoken mostly) when FHE started work on Warrior. It's akin to list rules. To me, the whole "if it's odd, let's exploit it" is one of the worst things that have bedeviled ancients rules systems since the day I picked up WRG 5th in 1976 and started playing.

And what's worse, from an ump's standpoint, is having this stuff sprung on me at tournaments, and typically during the last 30 minutes of some high stress game. As Jon painfully is aware of, if I'm umping, intent be damned. If the rules don't cover something or because they're worded in such a way as to allow things beyond the original ken of the author (Jon) or close collaborators (the rest of FHE), then I'll go with that no matter how "ugh, I don't want this to happen" I feel about it. But then I'll be leading the charge once the event is over to "kill that oddity". I do this with lists all the time. Again, sorry if that's a philisophical approach people don't particularly like but it's one that's been with Warrior from the start. I've got the scars from playing 5th and 6th edition, particularly 5th, under those conditions and had no desire to continue that unfortunate aspect of our "player culture".

Tim, yes, you are fantastic at parsing this stuff but I don't subscribe to your view that a) a lot of these quirks are historically justified, and b) Jon's got some active-gamer's interest in furthering his own competitive "career" (or however you want to call it). As long as you keep coming up with this stuff, and springing it on me, or anybody else, in the future at tourneys, the FHE reaction is going to be the same, namely, irked, piqued and likely to "clarify" what you've found at our earliest possible convienience. It has nothing to do with thwarting you at all and everything to do with making Warrior the cleanest system possible. I've asked you in the past to run these things by me ahead of time and I've always trod a fine line between "giving away cool competitive tricks" to other potential adversaries to "this is clearly screwed up, lemme get back to you on it". That way, we have better tourneys and in the long run, a better system.

scott