Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[Steve]

Hello All,

In my ceaseless, nay obsessive, quest to turn my mini metal mountain into an all-conquering Sumerian army I have, quite naturally given some thought as to how to best use my battlecarts.

So, being neither expert historian nor expert Warrior player (yet) I was turning over the germ of an idea. It blends my limited understanding of ancient warfare with my equally limited understanding of Warrior and so is part proposal, part X-Rule and part history (hence the 'hopefully' humorous Subject.)

The following concerns chariot elements which have taken the option to use the LI figures on the same base as the chariot.

As currently written, the rules don't differentiate in anyway between elephants and chariots who do this.

My proposal is that where clearly identified in the Biblical Warrior Lists as runners/escorts, the LI figures so based, and JLS armed, can fight at halfeffect in h-t-h combat as the sole exception to Rule 9.23 (LI on Model Base).

Having just written a somewhat lengthy post on this subject only to then see it vanish into the ether I will submit this now and follow up with the reasoning in a separate post.

To be continued...

Steve

Ste

[Steve]

To back-up my proposal, here is the reasoning behind it.

As I understand it, the main reason for elephant-based LI is to dilute the effect of prep shooting and so avoid the combat result listed in Rule 11.1

It seems to me, from reading both my limited library and the far more erudite Classical Warrior lists that those 'Classical' armies who used elephants generally equipped their escorts with missile weapons. This seems to have been for the primary purpose of 'shooting the elephants themselves onto the objective' in a manner similar to modern-day suppressive fire. Thus they don't themselves contribute to h-t-h.

As such figures can shoot both in prep shooting and, if B armed in support shooting (if I read 8.81 correctly) for them to cause the body as a whole to take 2 CPF from h-t-h can be more readily justified.

However, chariots are not similarly effected by this rule. Also, their runners/escorts seemed to be equipped more to perform the role of close-support infantry, and although not physically mounted on the chariots themselves, function tactically in similar fashion to modern-day motorised/armoured infantry.

As they more often are/or have the option to be, JLS-armed they can usually shoot neither in prep or support. This is because B-armed chariots seek to maintain distance and JLS-armed chariots seek to charge home.

For them to then also not be able to fight in the ensuing h-t-h, despite being equipped for it, while still suffering the effects of 2 CPF seems much less easy to justify.

Finally;
1) The rules themselves classify such figures as being in a second rank.
2) The h-t-h rules allow JLS-armed figures to fight in a second rank from behind chariots.
3) The Lists do clearly differentiate those armies whose chariot escorts operate in a close escort fashion.

So, blending all these together, I came up with my proposal.
Any thoughts?

Thanks for your patience, Steve