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Post by greedo on May 27, 2018 6:09:40 GMT
Ever had an arrow through one of your limbs? I have. It sucks. Dang Primus... That's badass. I got hit in the head with a boomerang once. Of course it didn't STAY there!
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Post by scottrussell on May 27, 2018 8:12:23 GMT
Perhaps solid bow should get a +1 on its shooting factor against solid foot within its threat zone? Scott
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Post by stevie on May 27, 2018 10:04:57 GMT
I’m afraid that just +1 is not enough Scott. If you look at that 1 in 36 Combat Effects Chart of mine (see fanaticus.boards.net/post/9701/ ), you’ll see why. At present, a single bow with CF 2 v CF 4 has 6 chances out of 36 of recoiling them, and no chance of a kill. With a +1, a single bow with CF 3 v CF 4 has 10 chances out of 36 of recoiling them, and still no chance of a kill. Even with +2, single bow with CF 4 v CF 4 has 14 chances out of 36 of recoiling them, and only 1 chance in 36 of a kill. (One if the interesting quirks of the DBA combat system is that adding to your combat factor is less effective than giving a minus to your opponent)As I posted before, I think the CF 2 v CF 2 gives the best results, with 4 chances out of 36 of a kill. Not too much, and not too little. Once the desired kill ratio is decided upon, it’s then a matter of designing the mechanism that is required to achieve that kill ratio... ...by either allowing concentrated fire on foot at close range, or by giving non-shooting foot a -2 for being shot at close range, or by allowing an equal score to be a kill at close range against non-shooting foot. (Have a go yourself with that Combat Effects Chart and see if there are any other possibilities...)Some potentially useful player aids can be found here, such as the “Quick Reference Sheets” from the Society of Ancients, and the new “Army List Corrections” file: fanaticus-dba.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Reference_sheets_and_epitomes And this is the latest January 2018 FAQ: fanaticus-dba.wikia.com/wiki/FAQ_2018
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Post by goragrad on May 27, 2018 10:40:07 GMT
As to rear ranks of bow being blocked at close range, that opens the question of how many ranks we think are represented in an element and their frontage. A two or three rank formation similar to later musket or rifle formations would not be as affected.
Deeper formations would be more impacted if crossbows.
As to the AT guns Stevie, depending on the approach angle, if not straight in, AT guns do have more problems at closer ranges. AT guns did not have (aside from guns like the 2 pdr) the capability for traversing rapidly...
At least in DBA 3 the bows get a chance to shoot at solid infantry prior to close combat. Used to get my Palmyran BW run over without a chance to shoot in DBM regularly.
Would be nice to see one of the options proposed here though, still too weak.
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Post by stevie on May 27, 2018 11:34:52 GMT
As to rear ranks of bow being blocked at close range, that opens the question of how many ranks we think are represented in an element and their frontage. A two or three rank formation similar to later musket or rifle formations would not be as affected. Deeper formations would be more impacted if crossbows. ...unless the crossbowmen were stepping forwards to shoot and falling back behind to reload, caracole style... ...or passing their loaded crossbows to the front rank, with the discharged ones being handed behind for reloading.. As to the AT guns Stevie, depending on the approach angle, if not straight in, AT guns do have more problems at closer ranges. AT guns did not have (aside from guns like the 2 pdr) the capability for traversing rapidly... ...against a moving target, that's true. But what about against a stationary target, which is what we are talking about... At least in DBA 3 the bows get a chance to shoot at solid infantry prior to close combat. Used to get my Palmyran BW run over without a chance to shoot in DBM regularly. ...still not much good if this one-and-only shot before contact has little or no effect... Would be nice to see one of the options proposed here though, still too weak. I emphatically agree. Some potentially useful player aids can be found here, such as the “Quick Reference Sheets” from the Society of Ancients, and the new “Army List Corrections” file: fanaticus-dba.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Reference_sheets_and_epitomes And this is the latest January 2018 FAQ: fanaticus-dba.wikia.com/wiki/FAQ_2018
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Post by primuspilus on May 27, 2018 13:09:53 GMT
As we agreed, as the front rank closes on the archers, the hit rate of the front rank of archers against the front rank of enemy foot approaches 100%... When all or most of your front rank have arrows sticking out of them or their gear, it gets hard to (a) fight, and (b) rotate ranks.
The arrow injury was self-inflicted! Fashioning crude arrows for my shortbow. The silliness of the 11 year old boy, suffering from boredom in the colonies...
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Post by stevie on May 28, 2018 9:44:11 GMT
But Primuspilus, you haven’t told us which...er...’limb’ it was you shot yourself in. Nowhere too serious and affecting your future family life I trust. Anyway, I just want to take this opportunity to reiterate my position. I am not against Joes’s “+1 PIP to contact bow” suggestion (nor the “Pk recoil foot on an equal score”). Far from it. I fully support these innovative ways of bringing more historical realism into DBA. It’s just that I want them to work as advertised. At the moment, because of the fantasy ‘safe immune zone’ in front of bows, the +1 PIP concept is flawed. People will be encouraged to sit heavy foot at 1 BW close range, unable to be killed, while they wait for a high PIP roll. Take away this unhistorical mythical ‘safe immunity zone’, and Joe’s suggestion will work better and begins to make sense. Should I advance now, even though I don’t have enough PIP’s to move everything and avoid being overlapped in close combat, so should I wait for that big PIP roll, and risk being shot to death at close range? Ah, decisions, decisions... One wonders why this ‘safe immunity zone’, which should never have been in the rules in the first place, was incorporated into DBA. I can only assume that either:- a) it’s because of poor playtesting prior to publication, b) or because of one persons overriding dominant personality in the face of logic, common sense, and dissension... Some potentially useful player aids can be found here, such as the “Quick Reference Sheets” from the Society of Ancients, and the new “Army List Corrections” file: fanaticus-dba.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Reference_sheets_and_epitomes And this is the latest January 2018 FAQ: fanaticus-dba.wikia.com/wiki/FAQ_2018
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Post by zygul on May 28, 2018 13:38:50 GMT
Stevie - thankfully the rules are written by somebody who knows more about these matters than you. I've already explained that missile units that depend on indirect overhead fire such as dense bodies of archers (especially those hiding behind pavises and fieldworks), trebuchets and artillery in general, howitzers, mortars and so on have a minimum range that is a 'safe zone'. Falling back on the 'common sense' argument is ridiculous because that leads to such false assumptions that the world is flat, the sun goes around the Earth, the Moon doesn't spin on its axis and flying towards the sun causes wings to melt because it gets hotter! Overhead fire is only effective at medium to long range as demonstrated quite well in several PC games such as Battletech [or google min/max ranges of modern mortars etc. for actual evidence]. As for a line of Spear/blade or whatever parking themselves a BW in front of a line of enemy archers to wait for a big PIP roll you must have got your own home-made rules mixed up with the actual rules because it only costs 1 PIP to move such a line. I also dispute your 'stationary' argument as it involves thinking overly literally: a line that has moved for three turns, for example but which does not move this turn must now be, according to you, stationary, which is, dare I say it, common sense, right? I prefer to think a bit more laterally and assume that once an object has started moving it has inertia and momentum which carries over into subsequent turns so that it can still be assumed to be moving even when it does not appear to be. To put this in game terms, assume that every time a unit moves it gains 2 momentum points but loses a momentum point when it does not move. It would still be regarded as moving, albeit more slowly, at 1 momentum point and only stationary at zero momentum. This is a bit more of a realistic portrayal of actual real time simultaneous movement than thinking literally in stop/start terms. After all, you have to imagine that your elements are shooting, fighting and dying so it isn't much of a stretch to imagine that they are still moving even when 'stationary'
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Post by stevie on May 28, 2018 16:59:20 GMT
Very well Zygul, since you dislike my use of the word ‘stationary’, I’ll see if I can rephrase it into DBA terms. It is your bound, and you have the PIP’s, but you decide not to change an element’s position, what would you call it? Motionless, still, immobile, inactive, unmoving, static, inert, at a standstill, at a halt, at a stop, call it what you will. Whatever you call it, if you have the opportunity to change an element’s position, but refuse to do so, then it is doing the opposite of moving. Now I dislike trying to use 21st century armchair logic to discern things that happened in history, but I’ll have a go. Most artillery pieces cannot be elevated to fire vertically straight up in the air. Human beings do not have this limitation...wait, let me check that...yep, I can fire an arrow straight up. If I do, where will the arrow land? Why, on the top of my head, or at least close by. Where is my ‘safety zone’? There isn’t one. However, if I shoot the arrow at an angle a few degrees off of vertical, it’ll land a few paces away, on someone else’s head. Now there is a ‘safety zone’...it’s where I’m standing. That’s common sense. And if I and several hundred my mates all want to hit that large 8 rank deep body of unmoving enemy a few dozen paces away, we just adjust the vertical angle so that the arrows also fall a few dozen paces away (I’m assuming that the shooters have had half a lifetime of practice to do this with far more skill and accuracy than I will ever have). But let’s forget 21st century armchair logic, and see what the ancient and medieval historians say about this shooting ‘safety zone’. Well, they don’t. Not ever. Agincourt is one of the best shooting episodes in history, and is fairly well documented. Oh, the old historians talk about the power of the longbow, it’s rate of fire, and how even dismounted men-at-arms, in full plate armour mind you, would sometimes veer away from the arrow storm and take the path of least resistance to approach the enemy men-at-arms instead. But do they mention this arrow ‘safety zone?...nope, they do not. Anyway, had this ‘safety zone’ existed, then the men-at-arms would have had no need to veer away from the arrow storm. Just get inside the ‘safety zone’ and they’d be safe from the worst of it, right? Odd how no historian mentions this, at Agincourt or any other battle... ...but it’s not so surprising if this mythical ‘safety zone’ never existed. So we have DBA telling us one thing, and the ancient and medieval historians saying the complete opposite. Either the historians, some of whom actually witnessed mass bows in action, were wrong, or DBA is. Who do you think is right? Some potentially useful player aids can be found here, such as the “Quick Reference Sheets” from the Society of Ancients, and the new “Army List Corrections” file: fanaticus-dba.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Reference_sheets_and_epitomes And this is the latest January 2018 FAQ: fanaticus-dba.wikia.com/wiki/FAQ_2018
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Post by primuspilus on May 28, 2018 18:22:08 GMT
Mmmm zygul, you seem to have first hand knowledge of what it is like to fight as a member of a hoplite phalanx. Do tell.
As for Stevie and I (and Tom, and Joe, and countless others) we will prefer to use the same historical resources the designers of DBA v3 used. And since Phil is aging and in poor health, the design stewardship is being passed on to, well, the likes of us.
The "indirect" fire you speak of in this context, well, ... isn't. Do you actually have first hand artillery experience? Because you would know that ALL fire in an ancient setting is "direct fire". You are confusing observer-called fire (aka indirect) with the parabolic trajectories that ALL missiles take when fired in a gravitational field. Which is where we live of course.
So the greater the range to the target, the more your fire arcs. But your claim that close range fire is less deadly than long range due to some arcing effects is, pardon the expression here, total bollocks. I have yet to meet an artilleryman who wouldn't prefer direct fire on his opponent over indirect fire. Especially if his opponent is not similarly armed as he is. Arcing is a function of range, not line of sight. I assume here that you have spent precious boozing time instead firing actual artillery (heck right now I'll take .50 cal or .303 Vickers even) and so you already know this.
You would also know that in an ancients setting, regardless of how deep a formation is, it is the front rank of the enemy with which you must contend. A sudden and complete collapse of the front rank would, in most cases, prove catastrophic. Second and third ranks even would have a tough time stepping over/through panicked and fallen veterans in front of them, and not getting themselves injured by incoming arrows with greater kinetic energy and on flatter trajectories. This is ballistics 101.
But heck, don't believe me. Do as Stevie says and go straight to the raw sources.
Stevie, left calf, mate, just underneath the knee. Didn't hurt much till I stood up to see why my leg suddenly was twitching. Almost crapped meself...
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Post by Simon on May 28, 2018 20:20:14 GMT
I see from the Slingshot index that Phil barker wrote an article on the trajectory of arrows in issue 52. Does anyone have this? It might just give us some interesting insight into his thinking and how this might impact on DBA missile fire rules.
Simon
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Post by Simon on May 28, 2018 20:52:19 GMT
A Slingshot issue I do have is 199 in which there is an article by David Edwards called " Bows and arrows."
He quotes the following form the The Memoirs of Baron de Marbot Vol 2, Ch 38. Marbot was a veteran of the Napoleonic Wars and his light cavalry unit was attacked by irregular Russian horse archers at the Battle of Leipzig in 1813. He wrote:
"The loss these arrows caused was slight, for the Bashkirs are undrilled and have no more notion of drill than a flock of sheep. Thus they cannot shoot horizontally in front to of them without hitting their own comrades and are obliged to fire their arrows perpendicularly into the air , with more or less elevation according to the distance at which they judge the enemy to be. As this method does not allow of accurate aiming, nine tenths of the arrows are lost, while the few that hit are pretty well spent, and only fall with the force of their own weight, which is inconsiderable; so that the wounds they cause are usually trifling."
A large number of these Bashkirs only caused one fatality and a few light injuries. Marbot himself was hit in the thigh by an arrow but didn't notice at first!
Interesting I think.
Simon
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Post by macbeth on May 29, 2018 0:13:15 GMT
As a longtime Sung general I am a great fan of the line of shooters (Cb and Art) and have lamented the nerfing of Bw/Cb/Lb in DBA3 - having lost the ability to quick kill Kn on first contact, being restricted to shooting directly to the front when inside the 1 BW range, having the move/shoot combination restricted, with the only bright light being an increased range (at about the same time as almost all movement rates were increased). And don't get me started on third party shooting and/or the subsequent shots from "unmasked" enemy. As such I am leaning towards Stevie and Primuspilus here but I do think Stevie is being unnecessarily harsh on the subject of the solid foot standing at the "safe" zone waiting for the PIP roll. Basically if the bad guys roll up to 1BW and then take fire there is a chance that on the next bound (the good guys) there will be some elements standing out while others have been recoiled --> these recoiled units are now outside 1BW so the good guys can now concentrate on the exposed closer element - ideally at an even shot and have a chance of a kill. I have done this in the past with the glorious Southern Sung setting up a "Valley of Death" Cheers
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Post by lkmjbc on May 29, 2018 2:07:28 GMT
I see from the Slingshot index that Phil barker wrote an article on the trajectory of arrows in issue 52. Does anyone have this? It might just give us some interesting insight into his thinking and how this might impact on DBA missile fire rules. Simon Phil's article was primarily addressing overhead fire... and that it was possible at targets much closer than one would expect.
Joe Collins
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Post by lkmjbc on May 29, 2018 2:15:16 GMT
As a longtime Sung general I am a great fan of the line of shooters (Cb and Art) and have lamented the nerfing of Bw/Cb/Lb in DBA3 - having lost the ability to quick kill Kn on first contact, being restricted to shooting directly to the front when inside the 1 BW range, having the move/shoot combination restricted, with the only bright light being an increased range (at about the same time as almost all movement rates were increased). And don't get me started on third party shooting and/or the subsequent shots from "unmasked" enemy. As such I am leaning towards Stevie and Primuspilus here but I do think Stevie is being unnecessarily harsh on the subject of the solid foot standing at the "safe" zone waiting for the PIP roll. Basically if the bad guys roll up to 1BW and then take fire there is a chance that on the next bound (the good guys) there will be some elements standing out while others have been recoiled --> these recoiled units are now outside 1BW so the good guys can now concentrate on the exposed closer element - ideally at an even shot and have a chance of a kill. I have done this in the past with the glorious Southern Sung setting up a "Valley of Death" Cheers I would disagree somewhat in that I consider the increased range vs distance moved to be quite a bright light indeed.
Your point about Stevie being unnecessarily harsh I do however agree with fully. I have done a small amount of play testing with the extra pips required for closing with bow...
EAP just won 4 to 2 vs Greeks. Two kills were due to bowfire...Kills of spear sitting at range absorbing 2 vs 2 shots!
I will write it up with pictures when I have a chance. It is of course, just one game.
Unfortunately, our local convention is next weekend and I have those matters to attend...
Joe Collins
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