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Post by stevie on Dec 6, 2020 11:34:31 GMT
What if we could introduce a form of fatigue in the rules to try to simulate the wearing down of units in the game? One of the beauties of DBA is that it has no messy fiddly paperwork. Being a ‘positional’ set of rules, the location and orientation of our elements gives us their tactical situation, be it bonuses or penalties. Attrition requires keeping a record of each individual element’s state. I suppose we could have a system where players keep a dice in their camp, and one is added to this ‘attrition count’ each time one of their elements recoils or flees from shooting. Once this ‘attrition count’ reaches a certain number (I don’t know...say 3 or 4), then the next recoil or flee from shooting becomes a destroyed result instead. But this is army level fatigue and attrition...it might be a bit odd if a fresh reserve element that has not fought or been shot at before is lost the very first time they recoil just because the ‘fatigue count’ has reached a certain level due to other friends being shot at. The alternative is to use on-table markers placed next to elements to indicate their personal attrition and fatigue status. Old Stevie, who seems to have a House Rule for just about everything (!), has tried this. See fanaticus.boards.net/post/10629/
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Post by snowcat on Dec 6, 2020 12:17:55 GMT
Sounds like more than 'LH only pays ½ a PIP to move' may be required to fix this...? I think the problem stems from within the dba ethos, skirmishing is generally considered to be included within the combat factors and thus its over-all contribution to the game is decided by the combat or shooting resolution within the game mechanism which broadly dictates that troop types that are not allowed distance shooting must contact an enemy element to skirmish with it. If you accept this as the norm then it's a question of accepting the possible outcomes and adjusting your gaming techniques to fit the game mechanics. LH and Ps can move right up into contact with some troop types and be their for the whole game or recoiling/fleeing and returning to distract), keeping them busy while your army tries to gain success elsewhere.But when your opponent equals or scores higher in this contact or shooting there is no further effect to show any possible attrition. If a Sp element stood and took 3 rounds of shooting from a Bw element and had not been effected as their dice roll was equal or higher than the shooting element, should it still have the save combat value?The same with skirmishing LH or Ps, What if we could introduce a form of fatigue in the rules to try to simulate the wearing down of units in the game? I think you'd have L'Art de la Guerre. Specifically, 'cohesion points'.
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Post by markhinds on Dec 7, 2020 3:05:53 GMT
Mounted archery was fairly key in open battles wasn't it? Which of course you can't do under DBA. Maybe the house rules guys would like to have a think and make some suggestions? It would also help the Sassanids and Turks as well. Actually you can do this in DBA, if you realize that the game mechanics allow light horse to skirmish with most opponents with relative impunity. Same type of mechanics as with Psiloi. The "problem" arises when we insist that such skirmish shooting be accomplished without base-to-base contact.
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Post by snowcat on Dec 7, 2020 4:47:36 GMT
Only if you use the optional flee house rule, otherwise they get blown away by Bw instantly. And if you don't use some version of 'move for 1/2 PIPs' they tend not to do very much that's useful at all, compared with most other troops.
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Post by sheffmark on Dec 7, 2020 11:00:21 GMT
Not all horse archer armies equals LH who ran around shooting then skirmishing away. For some it does, but it can also equal massed ranks of mounted bowmen, i.e. Cv laying down concentrated missle fire.
I wonder whether the Mongols were more the later than the former? I think the Sassanids could also fit this category.
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Post by Cromwell on Dec 8, 2020 8:52:47 GMT
This has been a real eye opener. I thought the Mongols beat their enemies because they had better PIP rolls.
Just shows how wrong you can be!
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Post by scottmc94 on Dec 8, 2020 20:37:22 GMT
The Kings and Generals youtube channel put out another great video: linkTons of mentions of battles, etc.. I enjoyed this. Thanks for the link.
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