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Post by paddy649 on Oct 24, 2023 20:27:11 GMT
Games Workshop gets studied in business schools as example of vertical integration - they run the stores, make the figures, write the rules and the novels with the backstories and the 'mythos', organize the tournaments and conventions, and put $$$ and effort into giving their hobby a 'classy' presentation. I've never bought anything from them, but if you're one of those who 'pay to play', it's almost like joining a club. You are right there. It was a case study when I did my MBA….along with Red Bull. I quizzed the Prof about it he pointed out something that struck a cord with me. He asked me who GW were competing with…..and I naively said that they were competing with the Wargames market. He said “No!” GW were competing with Pokemon, Lego, the Top 40, Hornby and the Japanese collectible market etc. Our Wargames market is small beer and not worth competing for. Apparently us wargamers don’t have enough cash to bother with! However, his appreciation of how Red Bull made billions from a drink that tastes dreadful was even more enlightening.
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Post by paddy649 on Oct 24, 2023 17:57:42 GMT
I got distracted from my Medes project. When I returned home from MOAB I discovered that only 11 elements accompanied me. So to bring the Nikophorian Byzantines up to scratch I had to paint up a 3Cv element. As I had some Baueda mounted Normans, iwith the overhead thrusting pose, laying around I used them to represent Lombad mercenaries. Cheers, I hate that! Any idea what happened to them? Pilfered? Mixed up with someone else’s box? I did large display for decades and only lost 1 figure (my Napoleon) which I am fairly sure went the way of sticky fingers. Otherwise most wargamers are very trustworthy. Most of my DBA casualties come from me being clumsy - putting a box of figures down on a Psloi element has the same effect as a 1:6 in combat!
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Post by paddy649 on Oct 22, 2023 17:23:49 GMT
It depends on what you want to model, but probably yes. 6x8Pk at +6 v 6x4Bd at +5 will make it difficult for the Romans to break the line (need double overlap and 1-5 or 1-6). That seems more in keeping with the Pyrrhic Wars than the Macedonian Wars. Flank forces probably favour the Hellenistics if they can field Knights against Roman Cavalry so the balance will be against the Polybian Romans and the double element loss of the 8Pk probably doesn't balance out. Against Sp, the 8Pk will likely run over them as even pursuit won't weaken them too much and this seems too easy when compared against the long grind described in battle reports. Spears will usually outnumber them though. So I think overall, just overpowered. Cheers Jim I would not envisage 6 x 4Pk being replaced by 6 x 8Pk. Instead they would be replaced by probably 4 x 8Pk leaving room for other elements that are not represented by the current Alex army list such as more LH, Sp or Aux.
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Post by paddy649 on Oct 22, 2023 10:41:06 GMT
I’m not sure 8Pk is too OP for the Macedonian Phalanx.
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Post by paddy649 on Oct 22, 2023 8:58:25 GMT
One question - mostly to Jim who started this thread: What are we trying to achieve with this house rule?
Faced with Macedonian pike being frequently outflanked for the loss of 2 elements I have been thinking about making Macedonian Pike an 8Pk element which assumes the stats of 4Pk with rear support but as a DBE that counts double for the first loss. This has the advantages of giving the Alex’s army list 4 x 8Pk, adding a extra LH (which it needs) BUT I don’t know what the final extra element should be possibly 8Pk or Sp or 4Ax or Ps. Couple this with making the Hypaspists 4Ax or Sp or 3Bd AND making Alexander’s Companions 6Kn, this should make Alexander’s army more useful.
Three points to note - I think the 8Pk idea comes from Jim’s post in 2020. Second, my Macedonians are currently at the bottom of a big stack of really useful boxes so I haven’t tried out all these ideas. Lastly - if 8Pk is a thing then what does 4Pk represent?
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Post by paddy649 on Oct 20, 2023 18:33:39 GMT
Those are lovely minis. I love all the Red Copper stuff - can’t fault their design etc. However, I understand that if a mini is shown without a base then it doesn’t have a base. I unsure how robust Wargames figures will be if they are just superglued to their movement base via their tippytoes? This is the only thing stopping me from investing heavily in Red Copper minis. I have asked Baueda if they could add bases to the figures but unfortunately they replied that their license is that minis are printed as shown. Any advice from users of Red Copper minis would be appreciated.
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Post by paddy649 on Oct 19, 2023 15:42:01 GMT
I guess this could be a bit of a "what did the Romans ever do for us" debate but one might argue that GW: Maintained a significant wargaming presence on the high street Encouraged young people to get into wargaming and provided instore facilities for painting models and playing games Led the way in high quality plastics as an alternative to lead. Set the standard in terms of clear, well-written and professionally presented rules. Cheers Simon “All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?” IMHO GW have profited hugely by selling substandard rules and oversized and overpriced (albeit sometimes beautiful) miniatures. The only rules and ranges that sparked any form of interest in me were Epic and Warmaster but they seemed to drop those like a stone the moment they had milked their initial profit. OK you could see their pioneering of plastics as a contribution rather than a cynical attempt to reduce costs and increase profit but I note this doesn’t extend to 3D printing. Where you have a point is their well-written (compared to Barkerese) and well presented rules - but are they all style over substance? You may just detect that I’m not a big GW fan and never have been….but that’s just my 2p.
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Post by paddy649 on Oct 18, 2023 6:42:34 GMT
I def want a GW like 200 pages of fluff having no bearing on the game whatsoever. Oh and adverts, dont forget some adverts. Oh yes - while you are there please don’t have one d6. I want to roll 54 of them every minute of the game and then allow my opponent saving throws. Plus please don’t bother with play-testing the rules - that simply isn’t as important as the fluff - besides we’ll change it all next year via a CODEX when new figures are released.
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Post by paddy649 on Oct 16, 2023 19:31:12 GMT
I must admit that I quite like the 12 element-a-side format. It’s abstract yes, but also nice and simple. And all armies, no matter what their actual size, can be split into 12 parts. However, I also realise that trying to make all element types of equal value is practically impossible…the rigid and limited DBA two-dice combat system just hasn’t got the variety. So a points system is a way out, but it itself is not perfect. Take Camels for example. What should their point value be? The Camel combat factor of 3 against both foot and mounted makes them equal to Auxiliaries and Cavalry… But they have a ‘quick kill’ against Knights, so should cost more… And they’re ‘quick killed’ on an equal score by Blades, so should cost less… Then add on their terrain advantages, which only really applies when defending… Now I’m not saying that a point system won’t work, but it’s not as easy a fix as many people seem to think. Don’t get me wrong. The 12 element game is sheer genius - or at least it was in 1990! It’s just that over 30 years us players have got more discerning and now understand that if it’s just 12 elements then they need to be balanced….so either balance them or introduce a points system (that will invariably break the 12 element principle) to do the balancing for you. For me “rock, paper, scissors” is balanced. So is (for the geeks amongst us) “rock, paper, scissors, lizard, Spock.” So why can’t we balance Sp, Wb, Ps, Ax, Bw…….” It is a war-game…War=history, game=playable contest! So the closer we get to all units being considered equally valuable on the table-top the better war-game we have. Plus it IS historically justified - do you think Samnites thought they had zero chance vs Romans because they were Aux and the Romans Bd? Plus it’ll rectify historical anomalies such as LH armies being “pants” under DBA.
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Post by paddy649 on Oct 16, 2023 13:48:49 GMT
Forgetting history for a moment and just looking at DBA as a game - Each side chooses 12 playing pieces each with variable powers to win a battle. However, the problem is 12! Unlike HOTT you can’t elect to have 8 super-powerful pieces or 16 weak pieces. It’s 12 and that’s it. However, because of the history the various options for playing pieces have not been balanced…..at least not deliberately.
Elephants, Artillery and Horde are balanced by costing 2 PIPs to move, while the “rock, paper, scissors” effect balanced Bow, Heavy Inf, Knights and Cavalry and Ps are balanced with the no corner-to-corner overlaps. However, 4Ax, LH and Pk remain unbalanced and so regardless of history a player given free-reign to choose these pieces probably wouldn’t because they are poor choices. So if DBA was a board game I’d suggest more play-testing!
Given this we have 2 options for 4Ax - either strengthen 4Ax (+1 vs foot, no corner-to-corner overlaps, +1 vs solid in GG etc) OR weaken everything else! So how about -1 for fighting in Rough going with the usual exceptions for Ps, Aux etc. Alternatively Aux win all draws in RG and/or QK in BG.
That said haven’t we already mostly “solved” the 4Ax issue with the following existing house rules: +1 to 4Ax in the open vs Sp or Bd, Aux recoil like mounted (either BD or BW). Add to this no corner-to-corner overlaps for Ax in RG or BG or the -1 in RG (above) and we have pretty much balanced them out.
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Post by paddy649 on Oct 12, 2023 23:18:51 GMT
I agree with your comment that “the phalanx Macedonian was more flexible and not this unwieldy block that could only charge straight ahead.” ….less so for the later Successors but that’s a different discussion. I also agree that the tactics involved are more subtle than ‘hammer and anvil’ especially in siege warfare (obviously.)
However, you “didn’t sign up to the the hammer and anvil philosophy” but have subsequently retracted that statement for a more nuanced agreement that it was an important tactic that emphasised the role of Alex or the Macedonian King but was not the only consideration.
Hence, I think we are furiously agreeing that Pike under DBA does not fully represent the phalanx under Philip or Alexander. So what to do about it? …and on top of that what to do about Alex’s Hypaspists who are utterly neutered under DBA?
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Post by paddy649 on Oct 12, 2023 19:12:42 GMT
3 posts above this one! I assumed the word “on” was an auto-correct for “only” because that made your post make sense. However, if I misinterpreted please clarify because at the moment you are not being clear as to why you “….don’t really sign up to the ‘hammer and anvil’ philosophy…”. …..after all it does come with clear historical evidence that it was not only a tactic but a commonly used and intended tactic of both Philip and Alex.
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Post by paddy649 on Oct 12, 2023 17:51:29 GMT
So you acknowledge that it was a tactic used by Alex but contest the interpretation that it was his only tactic? Well you’ll have to come up with a reference for that assertion….because as far as I was aware nobody was saying that. However, you need to also acknowledge the earlier use of the tactic by Philip when Alex was back home operating as Regent.
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Post by paddy649 on Oct 12, 2023 16:01:06 GMT
I don’t really sign up to the ‘hammer and anvil’ philosophy either. So the fact that it is mentioned by Polyaenus, Diodorus, Plutarch, Polybius and Demosthenes isn’t important then? (….and that’s only the historical sources I mentioned in my dissertation - I’m sure there are more!)
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Post by paddy649 on Oct 12, 2023 8:03:52 GMT
Trouble is that in DBA1 (where all this started) Spear got +4 with +1 rear support, and Pike got +3 and +3. So Pike were at 6 vs 4 with risk of overlap or 6 vs 5 on the same frontage. In DBA3 Spear get side support so it’s 6 vs 5 with reduced frontage. So under the later rules Alex’s Pike are effectively nerfed when compared to the Greek Hoplites.
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