Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[Aubrey Hopkins]

To any who enjoy fielding and/or opposing the/any and all Skythian variants, please attach any past lists posted and commentary available apropo these sorts. I have done the search but, have found no lists. I have found a bit of commentary but, it is not especially helpful to a new player.

A friendly debate would be nice, with those having veteran credentials perhaps addressing their favored horse archer army and why.

Eg: Skythians, Parthians, Magyars etc.
Which of the thundering herds has had the best success and what is the theory re: why??
Cheers,
Hop

[Ed Kollmer]

Yo Hop
Well my credenials are questionable at best. My skill is even more doubtful. However, when you mentioned Parthians, I figured I should put in my half a penny's worth. I will also put forth that I am not a good player , but I have played Parthians for which I have recieved the title of Ed the Rash parthian. My son Matt has also played them and he is a better player than I. Now that the intro is over, to the point.
I won't bother with a list since it is basically, SHC and LC. When I feel fluid, I play the Parthians. I also love my EHCm or SHCm. However, they are really not good to use. Since I play them as IrregA. My opponents like to bait them and they wind up charging impetuously and being shot up and dead. My basic strategy is to flow around with the LC since I must outscount the enemy and pick what I deem the weak point for my SHC and hopefully the SHCm and pound away.
My son tends to like mixing units of SHC and EHC , saves points, He also likes to go with some Seleucid pike and peltasts. He says it gives him more punch and lines from which his SHC can punch out from. He never uses SHCm. But his grew up playing pike , Alexandrian armies so he is partial to them.
I hope this gives others more capable then I some fodder to shot at.
Ed the Rash Parthian revisited.

[Peter Celella]

[Aubrey Hopkins]

Hi Peter,
I will not be around for the game on the 28th. It's been a real hit and miss year for ancients.
If there is something going for the weekend of the 10th of July, that would most probably work.
As a short notice shot in the dark, I will be in Boston on the 26th if anyone will be at the H Bunker let me know and perhaps a game is a possibility. I could most certainly use the practice.
I will probably do some variant on Irr HC L, Sh for the Sat game at H-con, I can only make the one game.

HOWEVER, back to the original question/area of inquiry ---to those with a Horse Archer past, please keep the cards and letters coming in.

Re: the game that will not be mentioned:
I am hoping to make the MA/CT event in Sept.

Cheers,
Hop

[scott holder]

The one person I know with significant Skythian experience is Dave Dietrich. He's probably got a Skythian list or three floating around.

I'm a lousy cav-army player so my specific list comments aren't likely to be helpful.

But I can speak in bland generalities with the best of em.

Skythian

Late Period for a variety of reasons. Getting lance and bow-armed cav is the main reason. You can also get decent woods or rough-terrain troops with the Greek Peltasts and Thracians although care should be given to not get too many (or any) of these. You also get hordes of cheap Irr D LI B.

As cav armies go, for a beginner, this one's not bad to start with because it has fewer moving parts. Basically you're attempting to work out the spacing and coordination between the LI, the LC and the HC.

Others can talk more to the cost/benefits of shield purchase and additional weapons (for the LC for example).

LC gets the 1.5 ranks rule.

Parthian

First, there's a school of thought that feels SHC is costed too much in Warrior. We've experimented with lowering the cost per element by 8 pts and that's something I need to revisit later this year. Not that that really helps in the near term.....

As Ed indicated, cataphract units need to be in 2E units, 1E of SHC, 1E of EHC. The biggest drawback in a Warrior context to this list is the fact that the cats are single-armed in the Early Period and only half-armed in the Late Period.

Plenty of cheap LC and Arab LI B means like the Skythians, you can learn a cav list with few moving parts. That being said, the art of cataphract useage ain't easy and the pros here will tell you it's not the best strike unit in the game.

Hunnic

Ewan ran this at the Mini at Cold Wars 07. Perhaps he could share his list with us. As I look at the list in the book, this isn't unlike the Skythians so there must be a subtlety that's alluding me.

Tibetan

I love this list although I can't run it worth a crap. See above about price of SHC. Same thing from above applies here: run the units as 1E of SHC, 1E of EHC. All are lance and bow armed so that's a good thing. I think the last time I ran this, I had (in 15mm) a total of 7 such SHC/EHC units, tons of LC and probably Arab LI B and the Mountain Tribesman. I've also run the list with the Khamba ally but I'm guessing that's not the best move. I do it cuz I like little Irr A HC rockets flying all over the place.

Again, a list with few moveable parts but SHC requires finesse to play.

Mongol

List rules baby. That being said, I can't run Regular cav armies since they require actual thought to play.

Timuridl

Search in here, there's been some intersesting discussions over the years on Timurids. In fact, there's some NICT list commentary on at least one Timurid list as well as Mongols.

Don't hesitate to post a list and have people pick it apart.

scott

[Aubrey Hopkins]

Scott, thank you very much for this little synopsis. If you could ask the referenced AHA players if I might have an e-mail address for each , I will proceed to write to and aggravate the h--l out of them for a week or two. What is great about this community is the general willingness to share info and experiences and ( r u sh--ing me ??!!) army lists. A unique recognition that a general appreciation for and exposure to lists is one of the better ways to grow educated responses from those actively interested re: their historical and competitive utility and accuracy. And, in addition, a receptiveness to investigate and consider modification of the rules when by a percieved consensus --- it seems reasonable.

What's wrong with you guys?

[scott holder]

Poke around in the NICT list commentary threads. In there, you'll find two years where Ewan commented on all the NICT lists. It's handy because the actual list is there along with his critique. In both years, you'll find Mongols.

Bear in mind those are 25mm lists. 15mm, particularly with cav armies, is an entirely different ball game.

Ewan's 1200 pt Hunnic list would also be something interesting to see.

Finally, for a number of years Eric Turner ran some kind of Visigothic list and had quite a bit of success with it.

scott

[scott holder]

In part, here's what Dave D sent me ala a Skythian list:

x2 6E LI 1/2 B, Sh, 1/2 B, 1E is Irr C, rest Irr D (Peasants)
x3 6E LC Irr C 1/2 JLS, B, Sh, 1/2 B (Skirmishers)
x1 2E HC Irr B L, B (Nobles)
x1 2E HC Irr B L, B (Sub General)

531 points cost, 64 SP

Think of that as a "pod". Dave has two such "pods" each commanded by a Sub. The CinC's "pod" is slightly different:

x1 6E LI Irr C 1/2 JLS, B, Sh, 1/2 JLS, B (Javelinmen)
x2 6E MI Reg C LTS, Sh (Merc Hoplites)
x1 6E LMI Irr B 1/2 2HCW, JLS, Sh, 1/2 JLS, Sh (Thracians)
x1 2E HC Irr B L, B (CinC)

I'm guessing that the Hoplites provide a close order foot component for rallying purposes while the Thracians are woods troops. I'm not so sure (in 15mm) I'd take this approach and would probably prefer to go with 3 "pods" that are all comprised of HC, LC and LI but again, that's purely playing style.

So, you can take this template and for the most part apply it practically any Irr cav-based list. You mentioned Magyars earlier, same deal except you don't have hordes of LI (even with the Slavs) and no list rule for the LC. The idea here would be to build "pods" around just HC and LC. The Slavs would provide some LI and the single LMI unit keeps your opponent "honest" in terms of terrain.

scott

[Ewan McNay]

Here's the Hun mini list:
CinC in 2E IrrB HC L, B, Sh 150 150
Sub in 4E IrrB LC JLS, B, 1/2 Sh 88 238
Sub ditto 88 326
Sub ditto but 6E 108 434

4E HC 145 579
4E HC 145 724

7E IrrD LC JLS, B, Sh/JLS, B; 1E IrrC 93 817
7E IrrD LC JLS, B, Sh/B; 1E IrrC 87 904
7E IrrD LC B; 1E IrrC 69 973

9E IrrD LC B 79 1052
9E IrrD LC B 79 1131
8E IrrD LC B 73 1204

***
Why Hun? Cheap. This was for a mini tournament ***ON A FULL SIZE TABLE*** about which I had posted pre-tournament that it was essentially therefore a LC tournament; I expected to see Mongols (and was right), and I had twice as many LC as they did. The HC can hit something if need be, but the point was maximum horse archers.

In general, absent odd tournament setup, I don't recommend irregular cav armies: just too difficult to pick your point of attack, get around flanks, get out of the way, etc. If you're running LC in an open-format setting, I think Mongol is the way to go - as Scott notes, requires thought, but is unmatched. If you run into someone using Hun, you're in trouble ).

[smoke]

don't forget the Kushans - lanced LC with B, shc/ehc combo units, elephants, lanced camels, decent infantry - lot of fun to play

bruce