Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[scott holder]

2014 and 2015 are firm. 2016 is tentative although I'll try to get that pinned down by the end of the year.

2014:
100 Years War

This will be a very tightly defined theme with probably 9-10 armies max. Look at the Historical Opponents of List #30 in Feudal Warrior (HYWE) for an idea. We'll probably add one of the German lists and perhaps Italian Condotta (an historical opponent of the Medieval French list) but don't expect much else in terms of "enemies of enemies". This theme is built totally around HYWE.

We won't be redoing lists, this will be straight up Feudal Warrior. However, there will be list restrictions (for example, no Swiss in the Early Burgundian list) and Derek will handicap the final army list selections.

2015:
Alexander and the Successors

We last did this in 2005 so it's time. I might tighten this up as well and go with just an Alexander and Enemies theme or perhaps just a Successors Wars theme...or simply repeat what we did in 2005. Again, we won't be redoing lists. There might be some list restrictions depending on the final army pool. And yes, we'll handicap them.

2016:
Roman Civil Wars

This is still very tentative. The idea is to limit the armies to just Roman armies with one exception. So, we're talking Marian, EIR, MIR, LIR, Patrician and Spartacan. Yeah the latter is a revolt but it has a very Roman character to it. So, no more revolts, no external enemies, etc. Given how the lists can be so varied, I think we'll have plenty of variety even with so few armies. I doubt they'll be any list restrictions. We will handicap the lists assuming this concept makes it out of the "late Saturday night at Historicon 2013 kibbitzing phase".

[Todd Kaeser]

Hey Scott,

I know I've seen it somewhere (and have tried to find it myself) but I can't find the lists and their restrictions for Historicon's Theme in 2014.

Help please.

Todd K

[scott holder]

It's at the top of this section listed as an Announcement.

Hiding in plain site.

scott

[scott holder]

The Alex and the Successors Theme will be limited to just Alex and the first generation Successors plus all the enemies. The tentative listing follows. Once we have this firmed up, along with the weighting, I'll post a seperate thread.

Alex and Sucessor Lists

22) Alex Maceodonian
23) Alex Imperial
24) Asiatic Early Successor
25) Lysimachid
26) Macedonian Early Sucessor
27) Seleucid (Early Period Only)
28) Ptolemaic (Early Period Only)
30) Pyrrhic (No Samnites/Oscans; No Italiot/Sicilian Greeks)
31) Pergameme (No Ex-Seleucids)

Enemies Lists

2) Skythian (Early Period Only; No Assyrians)
5) Illyrian (No Syracusan-led Troops)
6) Thracian (Early Period Only)
18) L Ach Persian
19) Bithynian (No Roman/Roman-led Troops)
32) Galatian (No Imitation Legionaries)
37) Hellenistic Greek

Imperial Warrior Enemies Lists

2) Early Armenian (CinC cannot be Tigranes)
6) Nabataean Arab
8) Bosporan (Early Period Only)

Oriental Warrior Enemies Lists

7) Early Indian (Republican Period Only)
8) Mountain Indian

[scott holder]

The Roman Civil War theme is now firm. The only variable is whether or not to include Palmyrans. We're really not wanting this to be a LC-centric theme so it might not make it.

I'll have weighting info at some point and like the Alex/Successors Theme, I'll start a seperate thread for that.

scott

[lilroblis]

May have to use subs - don't have Romans any more - Early Byzantine maybe>

[lilroblis]

I am looking to start painting - any updates on if this is still the theme?

[scott holder]

Still the theme.

No firm weighting. Give us a couple of weeks for something more final. Here's a draft:

Armies:



10) Marian, -10%

13) Spartacan, +15%

18) EIR, +10% West, 0% in the East

23) MIR, +5%

31) Palmyran, 0%

32) LIR, 0%

34) Patrician, 0%



Note: Weighting will most likely change.



Fulcum Movement:

Treated like Shieldwall rules except the unit can make an 80p tactical move and if in Fulcum and charging/c-charging it automatically comes out of the formation. You cannot march in Fulcum.



Fulcum Fighting:

When charging/c-charging out of Fulcum, the unit is armed with what was purchased, ie. treat it normally. If in the formation and receiving a charge by foot, you fight 1.5 ranks as 1HCW if armed with HTW, by mounted as 1.5 ranks of LTS.



Legionary Movement:

Marian/EIR and Severan MIR legionaries can make a 120p tactical move by paying a FP. They cannot do this if they start the move in either Fulcum or Testudo.



List Rules/List Modifications:

Lists with ditches may only deploy them within 240p of the base edge.

Marian and EIR lists may purchase up to 12E of caltrops to cover 1E frontage of Legionaries @ 4 pts.

Post-Severan MIR, LIR and Patrician legionaries may form testudo but cannot shoot (if armed appropriately) while in the formation.

Legionaries armed with bow in LIR and Patrician lists still must be in mixed units but the option to have such mixed units is now “any” as opposed to “all/none”.

[lilroblis]

So which list gets 300 scouting points as that is all we will see- lets limit scouting to 60 max or some such - tired of horse archer themes

[Frank Gilson]

Well, Rob...I think if you buy primarily LC on one of the lists that can get a bunch you could get to 130-ish...that would be at the expense of other mounted and infantry, of course.

These will still be Roman or Roman-like armies (Palmyran).

The bigger issue is whether this becomes theme-lancer as everyone tries to get as many lance armed cavalry as possible on the various lists.

Debate is very welcome...as are suggestions. Scott does reserve the right to not listen to us, which is totally fine...but he does value constructive commentary.

[Mark Stone]

The real challenge is that our current deployment system gives considerable advantage to the player who sets up his last command last, meaning that scouting points are more important than ever. This combines with a system that several of us have always felt favored effective use of light troops, light cav in particular. I know that one view about how to balance things is to put more terrain on the table; I am not convinced that really matters.

There probably isn't one simple fix for all of this. Here's my suggestion to help a bit:
* Instead of automatically having the player with fewer scouting points set up a command first, dice to see who puts down a command first just like we dice to see who chooses table edge.
* Then have the other player set up a command.
* Then dice again to see who sets up the next command.
* Repeat until all commands are set up.

This would make setup take on average 4 dice rolls longer than it does now, but would remove some of the overwhelming advantage that having more scouting points grants right now.

[scott holder]

Rob: I agree for the most part. I don't want to see a theme that's designed to allow for players to trot out hordes of legionaries get buried by the usual horde of LC. We're working on that, hence all the caveats in the above post.

Mark: Straight up die rolling as you describe doesn't cut it with me. Now, looking at giving the player with more scouting points a plus on the proposed sequence of die rolls, ala how we do it with side selection, I'm open to suggestions.

scott

[lilroblis]

Folks
So far just about every theme has been dominated by LC - in my mind in an open the LC option is not nearly as tough - because the armies are so different
For the theme I would argue that 60-70 scouting max makes a big difference - but expect to see lots of SHC/EHC L because they do so well - the ability to use Fulcrum make this less of a problem (Maybe)
We just have to agree on what the intent is, and then make sure we force that. I was looking at LIR - and you can run a list with almost no foot
Robert

[Mark Stone]

[Frank Gilson]