Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[Frank Gilson]

There has been a debate over in Events about the proper configuration of Skutatoi on Byzantine lists.

They start as MI with LTS and fight two full ranks. They can have JLS and/or Dart and be upgraded to HI.

Typically, many folks had decided to run them as HI/MI LTS,JLS,Sh...so uparmored, but no Dart.

Ewan had a reaction that Dart would be useful to damage enemy lights and assist adjacent friendly bodies.

You could go to HI/MI LTS,JLS,D,Sh...but those guys are a bit too expensive...so it really seems to be a choice between HI and Dart.

Of course, if you have Skutatoi fighting Skutatoi, something that must have come up in playtesting, then you must have HI and the Dart is relatively useless (especially with early Byz testudo).

The note that HI matters against pike is irrelevant...enemy pike should rout Skutatoi on bound 2 of a combat, generally, regardless.

HI is irrelevant against enemy mounted lancers, foot with HTW or 2HCW/T, and mostly irrelevant against Elephants.

If you have Skutatoi with Testudo, HI is irrelevant against enemy shooters. HI is irrelevant in any event against Sling or Longbow.

HI matters if you would face enemy 'other foot' or LTS, of course.

Early Byzantine can make a strong case for HI instead of Dart given its organization and the fact that it has no 'strong attackers' other than the Skutatoi themselves. The fact that the Skutatoi will generally be aggressive and charging is also a negative for the use of Dart.

This reasoning flip-flops when you consider a list such as Nikephoran or Komnenan Byzantine. Your aggressive attacking will be done by Varangians and SHC or EHK, not the Kontaratoi (later Skutatoi).

The role of the Kontaratoi in the later Byzantine lists are as a supporting mobile 'wall', especially against enemy armored lancers and elephants.

In that case, Dart is preferable to Armor.

Frank

[Ewan McNay]

Dart also makes you a shooting target priority in some circumstances, which might be useful.

I could conceive of a decision to give front rank only dart.

[Ed Kollmer]

I really like this Dart discussion. Being Ed the Byzantinophil, I am always trying to figure out to uparmour or Darts or LTS or HTW or whatever. I will keep these missives as background info.
That is why when Steve Rawls remarked about looking at NikeByzan I started to freakout.
Ed the Byzantinophil

[jamiepwhite]

First, this is based on recent experience at the Theme and Open (Grats to Scot or whoever chose the theme for this year, I found it a lot of fun).
Second, I am in the minority opinion on this, 3 of 4 Early Byzantine commanders were swayed by the skip the darts and buy a LMI bow unit argument. I mostly resisted out of habit from playing Late Roman.

My experience favors buying darts and half HI. The HI helps against various weapons such as JLS, 1HCW, etc. The Skutatoi are only RC and the armor thus to a degree balances against the wild swings of the dice (lost one game when the skut kept rolling -3, won another game because the skut kept rolling +2). Dart is useful for shooting up light troops (everyone sees this) but also for preventing enemy cavalry from hanging out safely in front of the skut. I pulled this one off against the Oracle, my Byzantine heavy cav could camp out in front of his dartless skutatoi till charged but my skut with darts could shoot them up if his cav tried to camp.

The base cost for 16 MI LTS JLS RC is only 90. Half armor is 16 points and darts are 16 more for a total of 122. Half LTS is also an option but no one cared for it.

Jamie

[lilroblis]

jamie makes some great points - one area that I consitently try to address is make the troops you want (and expect) to fight to win you the game as potent as possible - light troops in holding actions don't matter as much, but if they are potentially going to win you the game - equip them to do it.
I would reccomend out of theme that you look at the nationals lists in List lore (unfortunately more recent lists are not posted - however if you work through them many of the matchups become much easier to decide on - darts may well be one of them. (note: in theme the answer may be different)
All the best
Robert

[Frank Gilson]

It really comes down to whether your Skutatoi/Kontaratoi are supporting troops or attacking troops.

On Nikephoran the lancers and Varangians are attack...so Kontaratoi end up being support, and don't have a strong need for Armor...but do need Dart.

There really isn't room to up them to 122 points per 4E unit. You lose too many necessary light troops to make that happen (and end up with only 16 units, most likely).

[jamiepwhite]

Frank brings up a good point, darts might be the right answer for early Byzantine but might not be right for Nikephorian Byzantine. For early, darts meant picking between a 20 unit list or a 21 unit list. If getting darts on the Nikephorian list was going to drive the list down to 16 units, then I probably would have to think again about buying them. Steve's Gym has brought up several rules of thumb for gaging lists

scouting points - At least 15, over 40 is fun, over 60 is likely too much
missile units - Armies with numerous missile equipped foot are easier to run
units in the list - 20 or more is good
command size - odd numbers are better, 1 unit commands are begging for baggage camp sacks

etc.

Darts contribute towards missile units in the list but you wouldn't want to drag the number of units down to get them.

Jamie

[Ewan McNay]

scouting points - At least 15, over 40 is fun, over 60 is likely too much
missile units - Armies with numerous missile equipped foot are easier to run
units in the list - 20 or more is good
command size - odd numbers are better, 1 unit commands are begging for baggage camp sacks

Scouting I think may chance in perception with the altered deployment currently. Being outscouted is now worse than ever; and even a 2:1 advantage is significant. So I think that there may be a bimodal movement to either (i) very little (hoping to kill opposing light screens) or (ii) lots, hoping to gain deployment advantage and/or win the screen battle.

20+ units I have never come close to. Even my Sassanids, which had a lot of cheap units, only came in at 17. I think that >20 is probably a sign that you cannot focus force sufficiently and/or are very rliant on never taking wavers.

And if you've lost your camp, most of the time you're in bad enough shape that you don't care that much about losing more commands although if you have an army vulnerable to flank marches, this is a valid point.

[lilroblis]

scouting points - At least 15, over 40 is fun, over 60 is likely too much
missile units - Armies with numerous missile equipped foot are easier to run
units in the list - 20 or more is good
command size - odd numbers are better, 1 unit commands are begging for baggage camp sacks

I dont believe you need much more than 30 scouting - being outscouted is very bad under current deployment rules
I have 16 units andthat works for me - because more does not help the army in terms of fragility- dont think it matters that much - army balance, luck and playing your army well are more important than the number of units
Far more worried about having troops in the right place than command size - and this is the only argument I like for number of units - you can have a bunch doing nothing and your commands are less fragile, but my morale is fragile enough that even large commands can go from gung ho to retreat in one turn

[Frank Gilson]

I think we'll see more vulnerability to flank marches given that you can't 'cut off' a flank with a placed terrain feature. Our thinking still needs to catch up to the terrain/deployment reality.

45 Scouting is probably 'optimal' ...Ewan won't double you. No one will outscout you. You'll have the important 'more' than most folks (until some wise guy takes 46).

Frank

[lilroblis]

45 would be nice - but I always get to - am I just creating targets for opponents to smash?
I only have so many troops I want in my army - and the question I always struggle with is do I take two elephants or 2 eight man LI units - and so i take the elephants

[Ewan McNay]

Which is exactly the dilemma/biomdality I referred to.

45 is good if your opponent has 20, but probably very very bad if he has 80 because those 45 scouts are outnumbered, a target, *and* a significant investment. [See the Swiss: when Dennis ran them with lots of non-pike units, that was horrendous because people could kill them. Facing Dave this year, the few LI hid behind the *large* number of pike blocks; a much tougher opponent, but at the cost of totally ceding scouting.]

[Frank Gilson]

45 scouting isn't necessarily so much of an investment if they're shieldless low morale LC, primarily.

Small Reg B LC can get out of the way, hide, etc. and still provide scouting plus long range waver tests on LI.

Nikephoran list minimum scouting is:
8E LC for 24
6E loose cav for 6
8E LI for 4
...or 34...you pretty much have to take some more scouting as you add a little of this and that and try to have 18 units.

Frank

[scott holder]

My thoughts, such that they are, on the darting of Byzantine infantry pertain just to E Byzantines. All that later trash doesn't concern me.

To build on a point Ewan made, shooting priority is another factor here, not just with Skutatoi but with the Kavallarioi. I purchased them w/o bows, they don't need em. And since they are scattered between/behind units, some with missile weapons, some without, it played havoc, relatively speaking, on opponent's shooting priorities. That made it easier to work with the Kavallarioi.

I had 20 units in my E Byz list. Still don't miss the darts but again, the rest of the list, as mostly constructed by Steve, is designed around the fact that the Skuts are dartless.

And yeah, they were half HI and half MI.

scott