Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[Mark Stone]

Frank Gilson and I had a chance to do some play testing last night of the proposed barbarian foot rules in a historical matchup. Frank played Maccabean Jews, and I played Marian Romans. (The Jews earned their liberty with a tough 4-1 victory).

There are several points that seemed unsatisfactory about the way the proposed barbarian rules work.

Game play/game mechanics. The proposed rules strongly encourage you to run your barbarians in ranks 4 deep. Frank had 3x4 blocks. This felt clunky and restrictive from a purely game play perspective, as if going with this kind of army really restricted you to a particular tactical approach. There may be other reasons why that's desirable, but it really felt like a negative purely from the perspective of game play.

Historical realism. We know that historically it was very difficult to develop systems that used deep formations to enhance to combat effectiveness of troops. The Hoplites are really the first ones to really master this approach, and it was perfected by the Macedonian Phalangite. It seems odd and unrealistic that random, thoroughly undisciplined barbarians should get some combat benefit out of deep formations. I understand the desire to encourage barbarian foot to flight in large unit sizes (8-12 stands), but just don't think coupling this to a deep formation mechanic feels right historically.

Game balance. Since the advent of Imperial Warrior, Warrior has had a very important and attractive game balance feature: barbarians cannot win; the Romans have to lose. Here's what I mean: unless Romans roll down, 4 stands of barbarian foot could not rout a 4 stand Roman unit at contact. HTW vs. MI / HI / LMI / LHI is a 5, charging is a 6, and 12@6=60. The barbarians have 9 guys fighting, and even at more the most they can do is 108, which is not twice as many.

This always seemed like a really cool feature to me, and seemed to capture something essentially right about the Romans. Pay the points to upgrade your legions to B class, and you pretty much guarantee that while they may be driven back by barbarian foot, they will never simply rout. This seemed to give the Romans some previously lacking game balance, and also seemed to support the historical fact that barbarians could not beat Romans by trying to run over them frontally. As the barbarian general, you will need some strategem or tactical success to win the battle.

Now with the proposed barbarian rules, the barbarian player can get more than 9 guys fighting on 2 elements' frontage, and thus can top out the chart far enough to simply rout the Romans at contact. This feels like it is taking game balance in the wrong direction.

That said, the proposed barbarian rules still do not seem to change things enough to make barbarian armies an attractive choice, even in a historical themed tournament. I expect that will be reflected at Historicon's theme event this summer. I concede this is a real game designer's dilemma, and it isn't like I know what to propose. I'm just reporting on some perceived problems with the current proposal.

By the way, I'm happy to post my Marian Roman list if anyone's interested, and I'm sure Frank would do the same with his Maccabean Jews.


-Mark Stone

[Frank Gilson]

CinC in 2E unit Reg A/B HC L
commanding
5 units of 12E of Irr C(1E A) LMI JLS,Sh(5E)/JLS(7E)
3 units of 2E of Reg B LC JLS,B
2 units of 12E of Irr E LI S
3 units of 8E of Irr E LMI B
4E Reg B MI P,Sh

Sub in 2E unit Reg A/B HC L
commanding
2E Reg B HC L
5 units of 2E Reg B LMI LTS,JLS,Sh

22 units, 2 commands, 36 scouting

Generally the barbarian units are run 3E wide, 4E deep, with shields in front and down three ranks of the left flank. The Sub has units on the baseline in a reserve, to fill gaps, attack enemy flanks, and otherwise follow up the barbarian/skirmisher line. The Sub's little peltast units do NOT want to be primary engagers or suffer significant shooting.

[wargame692000]

Firstly very interesting M.Jewish list. 5 bodies of E grade troops that can fill lots of space. Coupled with large impetuous units and small regular 2nd hitters/gap fillers. A very nice combination indeed.

In response to Mark's thoughts, I think it is important to remember that Republic and Early Imperial Legions are arguable the toughest foot in the game. Using them as the yardstick for measuring barbarian foot may not be the best approach. The vast majority of foot troops in warrior would have no chance against these warbands.

Considering that the 12 element units are only of average equipment standard and morale grade, should they be able to routinly dish up solid regular foot like longspear etc?

Paul Collins.

[Frank Gilson]

Let's imagine a barbarian unit such as the Maccabean herein listed against a 32 figure Reg C MI LTS,Sh unit of hoplites, that fight in two full ranks.

Without die rolls, the initial combat is as follows:
Maccabeans are 14 at 5 and 6 at 4 for 74 casualties.
Hoplites are 24 at 4 (they get to charge) for 72 casualties.

That's 2 CPF to each body. Maccabean unit takes 4 fatigue, plus the 1 for impetuous charge renders them tired. The barbarians expand and follow up. Let's assume they're able to expand two elements without their overlap being threatened (big assumption.)

Bound 2:
Maccabeans are 23 at 4 for 69.
Hoplites are 32 at 3 for 80.

So, on the average Hoplites beat barbarians (but not HTW equipped Spanish, of course) as they should...without a dramatic die roll difference.

Frank

[Bill Chriss]

[Bill Chriss]

[quote="Bill Chriss
Next bound if disordered, the hoplites will break and only do one cpf more.
[/quote]

oops. Not. Actually, the hoplites recoil disordered again and test waver I think (almost as bad). I haven't played since HCon, so the charts are not well remembered anymore.

[Frank Gilson]

It's not that bad for the Greeks, even with HTW foot.

First off, if HTW AND JLS, no additional rear ranks of guys benefit the Spanish...so, let's look at the two cases, 12 Irr C LMI HTW,JLS,Sh hitting 32 Reg C MI LTS,Sh as you have, and 27 Irr C LMI HTW,Sh(12)/JLS,Sh(15) hitting 32 Reg C MI LTS,Sh.

12 Iberians fully armed are 9 at 9 for 86. Hoplites are 16 at 4 for 48. The main issue for the Greeks is a plus result from the Iberians without such on the Greek dice, which results in a Greek rout. If the Iberians don't get that plus, the best they can do is Bound 2 the Iberians are 11 at 2 for 22 (not a CPF) while the Hoplites are 24 at 3 for 60. Thus a 32 figure Reg C MI LTS,Sh hoplite unit defeats the 12 man Iberian unit without a die roll discrepancy. As you'd expect for 73 pts of Iberians against 138 pts of Greeks.

Now, the 27 man unit of Iberians all single armed in the specified manner, at 106 pts.

Bound 1 the Iberians are 9 at 8 plus 4 at 4 for 79 against the 48 of the hoplites. An unanswered plus here for the Iberians again results in a rout of Greeks. If that doesn't happen, the Hoplites recoil in good order. Bound 2 at best the Iberians are 9 at a 3 plus 5 at a 4 for 38 while the Greeks respond with 24 at a 3 for 60...it gets worse for the Spanish from there.

So, you want to break up and difuse barbarian charges as best you can, and hope they don't out-plus you in hth if they hit you fresh...but otherwise you grind them down and win...seems like the right results.

Frank

[Bill Chriss]

Of course, you are quite right, Frank. I thought this over last night before even reading this. No wonder I am such a confused general sometimes I've got to get more practice to build my army's confidence!