Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[Frank Gilson]

Here's a sample Han list from my perspective. I'll give a little reasoning and then you can all add your comments.

CinC CB w/PA in Reg A 4hHCh 2HCT & Reg B 4hHCh CB/2HCT
Sub similar
Sub similar
Sub similar
unit of 2 Reg A/B 4hLCh B
8E Reg D(1E C) MI LTS,Sh/CB (required)
4 units of 4E Reg B(1E A) LHI 2HCT,CB (the reason to run the list)
3 units of 2E Reg B LI JLS,Sh
2E Reg B LI B
2 units of 6E Reg D LI B
4E Reg B LMI JLS,B,Sh/JLS,B
10E Irr C LC B
18 units, 4 commands, 42 scouting

First question you might ask is why so many generals. Well, generals in HCh units are pretty cheap, each Sub is only 104 points. You then get to deploy the majority of your army after the opponent as the first two commands you place are single unit Sub commands (with Wait orders), then a 'smallish' skirmisher command with the force marching Reg B LI, and lastly the CinC command with the 'meat' of the army.

There's a decent blob of high morale shooters (80 figures, 4 to a stand.)

The army will cause unease almost all along your opponent's frontage.

It's greatest flaw, perhaps, is the total lack of shock troops. HCh don't really count, as they rarely rout anything at contact, needing to win and get all the horses rolling in a follow up. 2HCT helps them 'not lose'.

So, it seems that the army needs to soften the enemy with shooting, pass some waver for loose order shooters evading mounted charges, and then send in the HCh followed by the 2HCT,CB infantry.

Can that be fast enough?

[joncleaves]

I play and own this list and variations in both scales. I concur with your analysis.

I don't know about you, but at least one of those loose wavers is always a '1'.

It has some trouble with Alex Imperial.

[wargame692000]

I think that this army is flawed. The combination of troops required to make it usable are way too expensive. There are no good combined arms pairs and there are not enough B/CB troops to be an effective shooting army. The 4 units of LHI, 2HCT, CB are REALLY expensive and will not often win a tussle by themselves. The support troops such as the RB, LMI, JLS, B, SH guys are also really expensive. In the end, they are just 16 guys with B who fight poorly.
I believe these Chinese armies need more cheap troops. For that reason I use Chin. You can have nearly all the same troops but have access to 3 units of HC, L, B; some Irregular As and a combination of regular and irregular LC.

Paul Collins.

[Kelly Wilkinson]

Before I can agree with any such statement that an army is flawed, I would wonder how it does against it's historical opponents. Has anyone who uses this army extensively tested this?

Kel

[Frank Gilson]

[John Garlic]

Hi All,

Really enjoying this discussion. Han was the first army I ever tried and first I ever painted and I still like them. I'll admit I certainly haven't mastered them, but it is probably my love of chariots which makes me take too many and not get the other proportions right. I do agree they take finesse and time - two things I always seem to be lacking. I have never tried them giving the 2HCT, CB the more important role, but perhaps I'll do a relook next time I am playing.

I still think there has to be a way to use the chariots. I've tried units of 2E HCh with a 2e detachment of LCh. I have used it for more staying power, plus breaking into two separate bodies when necessary. Any thoughts on a better way?

John Garlic

[Ewan McNay]

I'm a big fan of LCh, mostly - perhaps really only - the 4h kind. Uniquely, they can charge anything and evade from anything; they are the single best answer to MesoAm armies, because you just keep charging in - and then breaking off - and wait until someone fails their uneasy waver test . So I would not have a single HCh that I didn't have to, because *those* are excellent targets for your opponent to kill. Having the LCh as generals (I don't have the list to hand to see whether this is OK) would allow self-prompted charging, too, and as Frank notes is cheap.

Other than that, I'd take out the irreg LC from Frank's list, a troop type that I hate, and focus on regularity; if I wanted something irregular it would be the IrrA LMI with 2HCT, probably.

[Mark Stone]

Chariots can be very powerful, but they take patience and the right configuration to use. Forget all the Biblical Warrior chariot armies. If your chariots don't have either LTS or 2HCT for the crew, then they aren't going to be effective enough.

And unfortunately, the Han are not the best chariot army in Oriental. One possibility is to play Zhou with Irr B LMI JLS detachments attached behind the chariots. This gives you 7 1/2 figures fighting per element of frontage at contact. Granted, you fight at fairly modest factors, but so does your opponent generally. And you're pretty much impervious to shooting.

The other chariot army to consider it Shang, because it is so point-optimized and so flexible. You can get basically any combination of 2 horse, 4 horse, light, or heavy chariots. So your light chariot units can be 4 horse in front and 2 horse in back. And given that the 2 horse heavy chariots can skirmish, you actually have a reason to take some.

Light chariots are awesome because of the flexibility Ewan mentions and because they are so hard to get rid of with just shooting (remember, chariots count shielded when skirmishing, so they get the full -2 benefit of being in skirmish).

Heavy chariots can be very tough against most opponents with a little help. They need their opponent to be tired, disordered, or both, and they need two or three bounds in hand to hand combat to get a decisive result. So you need patience to wait for the right opportunity (and the right supporting troops to create opportunities), and then you need time to exploit the opportunity.

So they're a workable shock troop type, but a tricky one to use. Their main advantage is that they're cheap. I have a variant of Shang on 1600 points that uses 22 chariots and has abundant support troops. By contrast, try to come up with any knight army that has 22 stands of knights and abundant support troops. Anglo Norman can come close (you can probably field 20 stands of HK and still have adequate support troops); otherwise, forget it.

I've yet to have great tournament success with my Shang, but I'll keep trying. I'm convinced a chariot army can be viable, and I'm convinced the early Chinese lists (as in pre-Han) offer the best chariot armies.

-Mark Stone

[wargame692000]

Chariots are a very interesting and under-represented troop type in comps. (here anyway). Ewan makes some good points on the use of light chariots. They are a cheap cause of unease, very maneuverable and can charge loose formation foot all day. However, they are light troops and therefore break off if they lose.

I agree with Mark, LTS or 2HCT armed chariots are the best. 6 man Indian chariots can also pack an unexpected punch in 2nd and subsequent rounds of combat

[Adrian Williams]

Shang can be a very difficult opponent to deal with. My brother Martin has a large 15mm Shang army with all the chariots you are allowed and it is just so hard to kill - you can be winning somewhere, but still be totally surrounded by fresh hordes of cheap spearmen and chariots.

Adrian

[Noel White]

I've always found LCh horribly vulnerable to LC. We have/had a Han player up here. My limited successes against this player were usually due to my JLS LC making contact with the LCh.

LC who are close enough are very likely to catch evading LCh.
When the chariots lose, and they likely will, there is no escape.
Being a cause of unease helps a little with impetuous charges, but generally any LC out there is 1.5 ranks or double armed or Irr B, or something else good.

There must be some ways around this, but I'd be a little nervous sending them out there.

Noel.

[Ewan McNay]

History in action: yes, LCh should and do lose to LC. [Huh? Was that *Ewan* talking about history? That must be at least the fifth seal.] Fortunately, they usually have plenty of friends to face off the LC.

[Mark Stone]

[Frank Gilson]

Let's look a little closer.

The traditional old light chariots we'd see were two horse. Those are only any good if regular and high morale so they can counter away from threats, and generally only useful as causes of unease. Poor Egyptians.

Shang LCh have LTS,B and the forward chariots are four horse. All Qin and Han LCh are four horse, but don't have LTS.

4 Shang LCh, half four horse half two horse cost 101 points and is the right size unit for various reasons.

Therefore we get to have the LC be 12 Irr C LC JLS,B,Sh/JLS,B fighting 1.5 ranks at 97 points, very close in points.

The Shang LCh get into skirmish. The LC get very close to them (but not in skirmish.) Prep shooting is LCh 6 @ 2 for 12 casualties needing a +3 to do 2 CPF, highly unlikely. The LC are 12 @ 1 for 18 casualties which is not a CPF, any + die roll leads to only one CPF.

If the LC have gotten 'close enough' then the LCh will have to declare an impetuous charge. The LC probably can't be impetuous given that the LCh are a cause of unease, but maybe you got your general within 240p and advancing...so we'll look at both cases.

The LC are 6 figures at 6 for 30 casualties. The LCh are 8 horses at 5 for 32 (already beating the LC) and 2 crew at 2 for 4 more which is 36 total, inflicting 3 CPF on the LC and winning. Sure, die rolls could take it either way but the LCh here are Irr B while the LC are only Irr C.

Note that if the LC ARE able to be impetuous then they would inflict 45 and win and likely catch the breaking off LCh and rout them...so the LCh player does need to be careful.

As Mark says, though, the LC that can beat Shang LCh need to be impetuous and armed with JLS and fight in 1.5 ranks!

Note that the LTS on the Shang matters a great deal too...so Qin and Han LCh are much worse off here.

Frank

[Noel White]

Hmmmm... these sound different than the chariots I faced.
I think that LCh being Irr and having an LTS changes the numbers somewhat.
I was also using 1.5R LC at the time, reg and Irr.

Looks like it makes some difference, too.
Nice analysis guys.

Noel.