Well, it is a bit strange that late medieval dismounted Knights, dressed in full plate armour,
could be “splashing through waist high water and yet be as effective as if on flat clear ground”.
Good grief...at Agincourt troops in full plate armour were impeded merely by mud clinging
to them, let alone by trying to wade through a river!
However, in DBA troops in a river ARE impeded...they give the enemy a +1 riverbank bonus.
And this applies to ALL troops equally, be they Bd/Pk/Sp/Wb/Ax/Ps or mounted.
Because Phil Barker perceives rivers to be an
obstacle, and not a special type of going that
only affects some troop types and not others.
Alexander’s Pikes at Granicus and IssusYes, it was very remiss of me not to quote my sources, which is of course Arrian, who although
he wrote 300 years later, did have access to other historical sources that have been lost to us.
Granicus: en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Anabasis_of_Alexander/Book_I/Chapter_XIVThis is not very useful, as Arrian is like some Hollywood film director, and only focuses his
literary camera on Alexander’s exploits. Indeed, the pike phalanx hardly gets a mention,
except at the start were we are told they formed the centre, and at the end (in chapter
XVI) where Arrian says “When their (Persian cavalry) centre had given way, the horse on
both wings were also naturally broken through, and took to speedy flight.”
Issus: en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Anabasis_of_Alexander/Book_II/Chapter_VIIIThis is more useful, as at least the pike phalanx gets a mention! And yes, they did have a
tough time trying to cross the river when opposed by the Greek mercenary Hoplites...
....but there is a difference between ‘having a tough time’ and being destroyed.
I’m going to have to do some number crunching to get my point across, but bear with me.
If the Pikes have NO rear support, they’ll have a CF of 3 v a CF of 6
i.e. Sp CF of 4, +1 for side support, +1 for the riverbank bonus
(the figures below shows the chances out of 36):-
| Pikes Doubled | Pikes Recoil | Equal Score | Spears Recoil | Spears Doubled |
Pikes not overlapped = | 9 | 21 | 3 | 3 | - |
Pikes overlapped once = | 15 | 18 | 2 | 1 | - |
Pikes overlapped twice = | 21 | 14 | 1 | - | - |
(Because of the high chances of being recoiled, the line in blue is the most common)
If the Pikes DO have rear support, they'll have a CF of 6 v a CF of 6:-
| Pikes Doubled | Pikes Recoil | Equal Score | Spears Recoil | Spears Doubled |
Pikes not overlapped = | - | 15 | 6 | 15 | - |
Pikes overlapped once = | 1 | 20 | 5 | 10 | - |
Pikes overlapped twice = | 4 | 22 | 4 | 6 | - |
Now which of these two scenarios best fits with the historical accounts of the Battle of Issus?
The one where the pikes have on average about 15 chances out of 36 (42%) of being destroyed?
Or the one where the fight is equal, and could go either way, until Alex crashes into the Sp flank?
But let us forget about history for the moment, and just concentrate on the rulesThe page 6 river rules say “For movement, a river is neither good nor other going;”.
It does NOT say “For movement and combat, a river is neither good nor other going;”.
Nor does it simply say “A river is neither good nor other going;”.
No...it says “For movement”, meaning that ONLY for movement do these conditions apply.
This leaves us with the big question; what going is a river for combat?
The rules don’t say.
That is the part that is missing.
So, to quote from the comedian Rowan Atkinson, before he became Edmund Blackadder,
“We are like a blind man...looking for a black cat...in a darkened room...that isn’t there...”
Well, we don’t know what going a river
is for combat, as that bit of the rules is missing.
But we do know what they are
not...they are not ‘neither good nor bad going’, as that
ONLY applies “For movement”, not combat.
So some players trying to guess what going a river is for combat have decided to deliberately
misinterpret the river rule and stretch the “For movement” requirement to cover combat...
....
even though it quite clearly says don’t do this.
The result?...all those weird absurd river effects that I and
Paddy mentioned, as well as making
it impossible for Alex the Great’s pikes to fight their way over a river at Issus (even though they did).
ConclusionIf you’re happy with those weird absurd river effects, and you don’t care about the historical
accounts, then by all means distort the river rule to try to fill in the missing bit.
On the other hand, my attitude has always been that if something is missing or wrong in DBA,
then let’s fix it.
And it’s blatantly obvious that the missing part of the river rule is...
...
for combat, rivers count as the going they pass through, just like roads.