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Post by Haardrada on May 18, 2019 16:24:59 GMT
Hi Jim, got any archers? lol... Also I read somewhere that the Saxons may have at least had a small capacity for cavalry (didn't Ragnar lead a raid specofically to seize large numbers of ... horses? Presumably to build Cv/LH of his own to counter Wessex/Mercia?). You may want to look at allowing some (small?) mounted contingent for Saxons. An ally perhaps? Bd are a bit more vulnerable to mounted than to foot, and Sp/LH/Cv make a fun combo. My suspicion is the Danes would never have built such a trading empire without some ability to use and deploy horse formations from somewhere at some level as well. Like hoplite armies, I suspect Saxon and Danish armies were more Cv-heavy than the contemporaneous writers celebrate? It has been reported that Anglo-Saxons and Vikings would travel mounted to and from battle but fight on foot.One source does describe the Saxons attempting to fight mounted which ended in disaster. My thoughts are that given that after the Romans left Britain some units may still have remained mounted.Also their enemies,Irish,Picts and Welsh still continued to have mounted elements in their armies or raiding parties...so for the Saxons to do simular is certainly a possibility. |
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Post by primuspilus on May 18, 2019 22:02:27 GMT
Saxon and Danish Mounted Infantry.... I like it!
Bring on the Danelaw! It'll have to do until we get the Tomesday Book!
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Post by saxonred on May 19, 2019 16:55:15 GMT
Is the real problem that the Vikings are unrealistically too strong?
DBA probably has the only army list where a Viking has over 90% the same troop type/weapon type - is that reality?
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Post by primuspilus on May 19, 2019 21:19:43 GMT
I have always wondered whether Vikings really were better as solid Wb. Were they really a better-moving version of a Roman Legion?
While "blade" describes equipment, I suspect a Danish dark ages infantry scrum performed very differently than a legion. Perhaps they should be Spears and Warbands mostly? With a Bd general, and a Mtd Inf or two?
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Post by vodnik on May 19, 2019 21:49:27 GMT
...there are not only the Vikings...many lists has to get a few corrections.
Under ADG rules there is a certain balance between huscarls, bondi & bowmen...
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Post by primuspilus on May 20, 2019 1:53:35 GMT
Read through ADG. Didn't do anything for me. Whole thing felt like reading through the income tax act. I wanted to like it. Couldn't. Not a bit.
DBA v3 is far from perfect. But it has serious ease of play and surprising accuracy in a game so simple-looking.
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Post by vodnik on May 20, 2019 7:30:43 GMT
...to do larger battles with 25-60 elements you need a simple book keeping. Adg differs a bit from DBMM or Armati & other rule sets. But during the real gaming time about 3 or more hours you can feel the fog of war suposed the rules are good...
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Post by saxonred on May 20, 2019 20:37:36 GMT
Here’s a little house rule that I use for Vikings - I don’t believe that a Viking army is entirely made up of professional troops all of the same training and weapon skill.
The Jarl/Lord/King would have his bodyguard/followers, a trained body of trusted troops. So as well as the generals element I usually give him 2 bodyguard elements = 3x 4Bd with a CF of 5 against foot for the whole battle.
The rest of the army would be Hird and Bondi, I also make these 4Bd but they only have a CF of 5 for their first combat against foot and only if they moved to contact i.e. they charged in. After that they revert to a CF of 4 for the rest of the game. CF against mounted doesn’t change.
I think it gives the Vikings a better representation of troops without writing a new army list and It encourages them to make the first strike hitting hard in an attempt to break the enemy - something they were good at.
If you’ve ever stood in a shield wall (re-enactment type of thing) then you will know that before contact is made everyone gets hyped up until each one of you believes themselves to be unbeatable. This was a ploy used in dark age warfare to ensure that once the attack started that everyone hits the enemy as a single unit and hit them hard - hence the CF of 5 on first contact.
But once contact is made and the shoving and pushing, killing and maiming starts parts of the shield wall looses that bravado and realises the reality - hence CF drops down to 4.
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Post by saxonred on Jun 5, 2019 6:24:01 GMT
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Post by medievalthomas on Jun 21, 2019 21:56:48 GMT
As some have generally suggested we solve these lists problems by having Medium Foot (+3 CF). You can give them Blades so they are +1 v. Foot & -1 v. Mounted or give them Spears so they get Drive Off (Recoil Mounted on Equals). Many Viking warbands would probably have been mostly Medium Foot w/Blades (maybe Fast?). Only "elites" would have been Heavy Foot (+4 CF) w/Blades (so +1/-1).
Also re historical battles - they were NEVER 12 elements v. 12 elements so you must always consider relative numbers etc before saying army X should beat army Y because they did so historically - first tell me the numbers involved/leadership/luck/terrain before declaring one army "better" than another.
Easy problem to solve but only outside of DBA 12 element strict classification system.
TomT
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Post by primuspilus on Jun 23, 2019 6:45:31 GMT
I disagree with the claim that DBA cannot solve historical puzzles in the 12 v 12 format. As PB has repeatedly pointed out, a DBA element often gets confused with a unit. It is not a unit. It is 1/12 of the frontage of an army. Nothing more.
Armies frequently stretched their frontage to cover the opponent's front, and the front was, more often than not, determined by topography.
Napoleonic 20 by Victory Point Games is a fantastic example of this concept in action. They stretched it to include Bulge 20 as well. That is 20 pieces in the game, including markers. To do major battles like Waterloo, Austerlitz, etc.
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Post by medievalthomas on Jun 24, 2019 16:56:06 GMT
Armies may have stretched frontage but at the cost of depth which would have made lines much more brittle - not reflected in DBA. Nor did this really work most smaller armies had to find terrain to anchor on and therefore force the larger army to attack in column of battles (as at Agincourt).
Almost all battles features a disparity in numbers presenting an interesting challenge to both sides (large numbers create real command control problems). Because another game system also uses a 20 on 20 method does not mean it reflects historical reality only another abstract attempt to create a "fair" game - fine for tournament play but not useful to analyze battlefield abilities of various armies where unequal numbers/resources may have played a major role in determining outcome.
TomT
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