|
|
Post by louien on Oct 10, 2018 15:24:16 GMT
Hello,
This is just a "I am curious" question.
What is the drive behind having such open flanks upon deployment. I always envisioned Ancient/Medieval armies trying to anchor their flanks down on some kind of terrain. Such as Hasting and Agincourt.
But the standard deployment leaves openings and my first goal in the battle is to get those filled in or covered.
My first thought is this is all to do with playability. If I can deploy my pikes along the entire front that cav army will not have as much fun.
But I am here is ask to see if there is more to it.
Thanks
|
|
|
|
Post by Vic on Oct 11, 2018 16:03:41 GMT
While the rules do restrict placement areas, you'll rarely find yourself being forced to spend movement extending the line unless you're actually trying to manoeuvre around terrain or to envelop your opponent on that flank, in which cases it is actually quite reasonable to have you spend PIPs.
Let's take 40mm scale. For the minimum board size, 60cm x 60cm, this means that your normal deployment area is 600 - 4 x 40 x 2 = 280 mm wide, which is exactly 7 elements. So your main battle line can be up to 7 elements wide, with 5 elements forced to go behind it. However, Ps, LH, Cv and Ax (IIRC) can extend the front line by up to 2 elements to each side. While there are armies that contain none of those troop types, it's really uncommon (the only one I've played is Maori, which is 12 x 3Bd). For most armies, you'll usually get at least a couple of elements that can go in the extended deployment area, forming the flanks, so your line will usually be 9-11 elements wide, leaving you with 1-3 elements in a second line. Taking into account that in certain cases, such as with Pk blocks, you might want to keep elements in a second row, which shortens your line, you'll usually have plenty of room. For the maximum board size, 80cm x 80cm, the normal deployment area is actually 12 elements wide, so you can always deploy in a line if you want to.
|
|
|
|
Post by davidjconstable on Oct 11, 2018 21:27:12 GMT
There are a couple of reasons that are fairly obvious, though they do not work in the rules in a strictly historical manner in all cases.
It allows light cavalry (LH) a chance to get round an opponents flank.
It allows early Persian and similar cavalry (Cv) to get behind an opponents rear and shoot, or charge. Hence Marathon "chorris hippeas" or something like that (cavalry away).
Two hoplite lines are the same length, so a tactic developed of putting extra troops round the open end of the opponents line.
In a German Medieval army war wagons (WWg) were used on the flanks, the latter ones were actually handed for the left and right flanks.
That is a few things to start with.
David Constable
|
|
