Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[John Murphy]

I am looking at some units which are MI front rank 2HCT,Sh back rank just B for an army. The can be a mix of Reg D with 1E of C class.

The army is mostly lancers with good light troops and I am wondering if the foot mentioned above (which is very cheap), in small quantities, is a worthwhile addition to provide something with sticking power to combine with the other troops.

I can also have LTS instead of 2HCT which is a bit cheaper - normally a good choice for a sticking unit - but I think not very useful in a mixed unit like this as it does not improve matters against anything of relevance.

But as I look at it it almost seems like the points are just better spent on something else, even more LI (of which I already have plenty).

[Frank Gilson]

Chinese have very flexible infantry...it sounds like you're building out one such list.

Anyway, MI 2HCT,Sh/B is pretty terrible. That's your short answer.

Why? They're a compromise troop type between fighting and shooting that does neither particularly well. Many opposing units will defeat/destroy such a unit.

What's the purpose of an inexpensive dense infantry unit? There are two, shooting and not-routing.

Think about what various opposing bodies (typically armored lancers or foot designed for shock) would do to your unit before deciding how to purchase it.

I believe you'll find being MI B,Sh/B much more productive.

Frank

[Mark Stone]

I concur with Frank's assessment here. SHK, SHC, and El will all walk over these guys. So if your opponent has any reasonable shock mounted these guys are in big trouble.

Frank's thinking Chinese for these. My guess is Hussite. John, care to clue us in?


-Mark Stone

[John Murphy]

Yeah, you guys are kind of confirming what I started thinking as I was in the middle of writing that post. Which is a good thing, now if I can develop an equivalent skill over the table (and deployment) I will be in much better shape.

I am looking at Xianbei and late period Xiongnu, which are almost the same army - but Xianbei get some of their SHC/HC can be Irreg A (my kind of thing, both you probably loathe the idea), can shield their LI and even have some LI JLS guys, and are an army I kind of like having played them in a different rule set, whereas Xiongnu can leave the back rankers of the SHC as MC and more importantly can upgrade a good chunk of their LC to Irreg B and have a historical interest all their own albeit much better known.

For someone used to looking at SHK armies the SHC are not optimal, but they are suprisingly cheap for what you get and it is nice they can trade shooting well and I figure what the heck sometimes you just gotta declare charges and roll dice and it makes up for doing a lot of dumb stuff.

However, my immediate overwhelming area of interest is getting the Anglo-Irish mid-period Justiciary army going (starting playing it at H-con against Tim Grimmett's Late Feudal French and I need to buy a bunch of figs for it to use while I get the army painted for real from scratch) and figuring out how not to get absolutely crushed with them - I was just fiddling with these 'Chinese' (really more Northern Barbarian and proud of it - kind of like Custer and Sheridan) lists to stash something away for some future time when I run out of all the other armies I want to play.