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Post by paddy649 on Sept 28, 2019 5:10:46 GMT
IF the free subsequent move for LH is GENUINELY not strong enough (really?), then tweak it so that the LH subsequent move may end in contact. Try that. (If that's still not strong enough, you're having a laugh.) I wasn't surprised to read that it 'fell at the first hurdle', as I was expecting this from a particular quarter.  Equally, I suspect that the more folks persist with it, they might find it runs on pretty good legs.
Other rules may need to be combined with it, such as LH flee from Bw results, etc. Sicadi has put forward some interesting ideas for LH in CC which will need time to consider.
(Another little idea: LH may ignore rolls of 1 for movement. So a 1 result becomes a 2. Throw that into the mix if it helps.) Snowcat, I'm assuming that you at least tried out the free subsequent move idea before proposing it but from your post above it seems not. But you have my playtest reports so you can recreate them yourself and demonstrate differently. However, please just don't take my word for it - sicadi wrote: "Game 2 played with Snowcats suggested “free” successive move. 4-3 to the Romans. Wbs & Kn letting the side down again but did notice what Stevie has just suggested. Moving in any formation initially gives large groups of LH plenty of latitude to reorganise with lots of “free” single element moves and I did like that. However I also noticed when the fighting started a bad pip roll stuffs you. No initial move so no subsequent move either." Yes you could alter it to allow "free subsequent moves to end in contact" but then they aren't subsequent moves - they are moves. It also means that you could move a group of say 4 elements with a PIP and then move each element again for free - so 1 PIP becomes 5.....or the average of 3.5 PIPs becomes 17.5. That is at least until you get into combat range and don't need the second moves when it reduces to 3.5 again. So it grants the extra mobility at the point of the game where it's not vitally needed. This contrasts with +1/3LH only grants an average of 6.5 and evenly throughout the game. Yes you could ignore rolls of 1 and make them 2.....BUT who gets to do this and under what circumstances - that's the difficult bit. Also this would take the average PIP roll to 3.66 and so have limited effect given that the playtests show you need to get into the average PIP area of about 6 before the balance feels about right......so we could for example ignore rolls of 1 and 2 and make them 5, ignore rolls of 3 and 4 and make them 6 and ignore rolls of 5 and 6 and make them 7. If you try this I can tell you that that it would give something looking like the right result because I've tried similar. Which all brings us back to the original point - what do your playtests demonstrate? |
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Post by paddy649 on Sept 28, 2019 5:36:53 GMT
I’d be careful about increasing LH’s combat capability. The obvious one is to give them a cv of 3, but then people would start using them as Cv and we want to avoid that I think. Adding 1 on a loss is an idea I like to use to represent “superior” units as it makes them less likely to be doubled or to recoil. Spartans, Spanish Slingers, Numidian LH perhaps.. but that’s all I would do there. That’s a whole other thread  Interesting to hear the test results of +1 pip / 3 LH. Paddy, did you find any difference between that and the +1 / 4 LH? Any preference? Obviously I’d prefer the /3, but there’s other armies to consider... Also, was the prevailing idea to have the extra pips applicable only to LH groups or to the army generally? I applied +1 per 3LH on table - so +3 to an army with 11 LH casualties falling to +2 after 2 casualties. Previously I've tried +2 per 4LH in ORBAT - so +2 constant. To be honest when you are in the +2 to +3 territory it is in the right ballpark and any differences are masked by die roll variability. Less than this for armies with 9-11 LH and they start looking ragged. More than this and you start burning them too frequently. For me +1 per 3LH on table seems to work best but am worried about the numbers of armies that brings into the range of the rule given Snowcat's excellent analysis showed approx 50 lists and 80 sub lists with 4 or more - which was more than I expected. Starting the bonus at 3LH may be too low a hurdle - but I haven't playtested that end of the spectrum yet. We need someone to give it a go with say Tessalians. When end it comes to applying the PIPs to just LH or the whole army - I've only been playtesting on armies with so many LH that it is academic. I don't see why the presence of LH in an army should make non-LH elements more mobile with the super-Jumbo problem of the elephant that can always move just because there are more than 3LH in the army with it. Or why should Thessalian hoplites get 1 more move just because their army has 3LH. That just doesn't seem right to me! |
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Post by snowcat on Sept 28, 2019 7:20:11 GMT
IF the free subsequent move for LH is GENUINELY not strong enough (really?), then tweak it so that the LH subsequent move may end in contact. Try that. (If that's still not strong enough, you're having a laugh.) I wasn't surprised to read that it 'fell at the first hurdle', as I was expecting this from a particular quarter. Equally, I suspect that the more folks persist with it, they might find it runs on pretty good legs.
Other rules may need to be combined with it, such as LH flee from Bw results, etc. Sicadi has put forward some interesting ideas for LH in CC which will need time to consider.
(Another little idea: LH may ignore rolls of 1 for movement. So a 1 result becomes a 2. Throw that into the mix if it helps.) Snowcat, I'm assuming that you at least tried out the free subsequent move idea before proposing it but from your post above it seems not. But you have my playtest reports so you can recreate them yourself and demonstrate differently. However, please just don't take my word for it - sicadi wrote: "Game 2 played with Snowcats suggested “free” successive move. 4-3 to the Romans. Wbs & Kn letting the side down again but did notice what Stevie has just suggested. Moving in any formation initially gives large groups of LH plenty of latitude to reorganise with lots of “free” single element moves and I did like that. However I also noticed when the fighting started a bad pip roll stuffs you. No initial move so no subsequent move either." Yes you could alter it to allow "free subsequent moves to end in contact" but then they aren't subsequent moves - they are moves. It also means that you could move a group of say 4 elements with a PIP and then move each element again for free - so 1 PIP becomes 5.....or the average of 3.5 PIPs becomes 17.5. That is at least until you get into combat range and don't need the second moves when it reduces to 3.5 again. So it grants the extra mobility at the point of the game where it's not vitally needed. This contrasts with +1/3LH only grants an average of 6.5 and evenly throughout the game. Yes you could ignore rolls of 1 and make them 2.....BUT who gets to do this and under what circumstances - that's the difficult bit. Also this would take the average PIP roll to 3.66 and so have limited effect given that the playtests show you need to get into the average PIP area of about 6 before the balance feels about right......so we could for example ignore rolls of 1 and 2 and make them 5, ignore rolls of 3 and 4 and make them 6 and ignore rolls of 5 and 6 and make them 7. If you try this I can tell you that that it would give something looking like the right result because I've tried similar. Which all brings us back to the original point - what do your playtests demonstrate? They demonstrated what sicadi found. This:
" Moving in any formation initially gives large groups of LH plenty of latitude to reorganise with lots of “free” single element moves and I did like that. However I also noticed when the fighting started a bad pip roll stuffs you. No initial move so no subsequent move either."
I didn't think that was a bad thing. On the contrary, it seems pretty balanced to me against other element types in the game. How good do you want LH to be? Bad PIP rolls usually stuff lots of other troops in combat too.
It's very easy to type up playtest reports that showcase your own ideas. I'm not going to do that; that's for others to do. If the ideas have genuine flaws, others will discover them. Typing playtest reports that showcase the author's idea, while immediately finding fault in alternative ideas seems about as subtle as a Stuka and is counterproductive.
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Post by stevie on Sept 28, 2019 8:35:29 GMT
I would like to say a few things about ‘playtesting’, and describe how I go about it.
I don’t use anything from the army lists, I don’t use terrain, and I don’t use PIP rolls.
Let me explain.
1) I want to test the LH, not how well Wb fairs against Bd, or what elephants are capable of.
So I’ve just been using 12 x LH against various troop types (i.e. 12 x Bd/Sp/Bw/Cv/etc).
Mixing elements just muddies the water. I want to see how LH performs against these.
2) I’ve been testing on a large 20 BW table with no terrain at all. If LH can’t perform well
under these conditions, then they certainly won’t be able to when terrain restricts them.
3) I don’t roll for PIPs. Usually when playtesting I just give both sides 4 PIPs, although in this
case I’m giving both sides 3 PIPs each per bound. After all, we already know that armies
with lucky PIP rolls have an advantage, and those with unlucky PIP rolls are likely to lose.
Again, I want to see how well LH perform when all things are equal, not who is the luckiest.
In other words, test either the ‘+1 per 3 x LH’ method or the ‘free subsequent move’ method
under strict clinical conditions, with no distractions, to test each system to their absolute limits.
Doing it this way has two functions: firstly it focuses solely on the performance of LH, and secondly
it also trains us in how to use LH properly, as LH, and not as Cv. It seem to me that some people
are just using LH to make frontal charges then whingeing when they perform badly.
Well surprise surprise...LH are not Cv.
If you can’t learn to dance with LH, then you shouldn’t be using them. Use something else instead.
You don’t charge Ps into frontal attacks then complain that they can’t kill anything do you? So why
are you asking LH to do the same, without giving them the advantage of overlaps and hard-flanking?
And this is the problem that Paddy highlighted in his original post...
...LH can’t dance in DBA, because they only get to use their subsequent move ability if they have
lucky PIP rolls. It’s as if they’ve had their legs tied together, and are limited to moving like Cv.
So of course they ain’t gonna be much good and are wimps...they have a low combat factor and
are only more mobile than Cv if they have more luck.
So whatever method you use (and the ‘free subsequent move’ has not been tested properly, and
is much simpler and more ‘natural’), use ‘clinical’ testing procedures, and lets let LH dance.
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Post by snowcat on Sept 28, 2019 8:38:37 GMT
One thing I'm interested in reading is if someone tries the 'free subsequent move' idea, and experiences a run of good luck with PIPs. Because that does happen sometimes and it did in one of my tests. It was when this occurred that I thought the idea was potentially too powerful (literally running rings around the enemy AND getting decent CC results), and so I edited it out of my original post (on pg 6 IIRC), replacing it with the '+1 free LH move / 4 LH' idea (which was just a more restrictive version of Paddy's idea). I used Tribal Mongolian against more sedentary opponents (Jurchen-Chin). It's one of the reasons that testing these ideas requires multiple games, so the effects of luck can be observed across the spectrum, not just when luck ran out in CC in one game or contributed tremendously in another. I don't have a problem with the idea that winning with LH armies still requires some good fortune; it's part of the appeal. Now I need to go back and re-read some of the suggestions others have put forward...
edit: I just read Stevie's last post and that presents a whole different approach to what I was saying re observing effects of luck on rule-validity across multiple games. I hadn't thought of doing it that way. Hmm...
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Post by paddy649 on Sept 28, 2019 13:38:33 GMT
Snowcat - please don't edit out your playtests. That is the important bit that gives your ideas credibility and as you say it requires multiple games. So please show the evidence - the more we get the better. I've been back to Page 6 but can't find your report - did you say you deleted it.
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Post by haywire on Sept 28, 2019 18:33:19 GMT
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Post by stevie on Sept 28, 2019 20:27:29 GMT
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Post by paddy649 on Sept 28, 2019 21:24:33 GMT
So only one playtest today only because I was distracted by a triathlon this morning. The sides were Thessalian II/5d - Cav(Gen), 3LH, 6 Sp, 2Ps vs Alex II/12 - Kn(Gen), Cav, LH, 6Pk, solid Ax, fast Ax, Ps. Now this is a match up I'm very familiar with as the Tessalians are my boy's favourite army and I've tried to beat them with Ales many times and failed. BUT my boy always uses the Cav option and not the LH option. Thing is 4 Cav beats Kn, Cav and a LH and 6 Sp overlap 6Pk, so while PK push Sp, that just opens flanks for Victorious Cav to exploit...which is why Alex is a hairdresser. Worse still with Agg4 Alex never gets terrain so the Thessalian can play on a billiard table of their choice. Switch the Cav for LH and it would seem that the Tessalians are asking to lose because they have just thrown away their mounted superiority.
Again I played an amalgam of +1/3LH and free subsequent moves until either broke down - but neither did. Terrain was such that the Thessalian LH tried a big left hook while Sp and PK advanced towards each other. Initially, as Snowcat identifies, free subsequent moves definitely gave the LH more Manoeuvreability as they charged down the left flank. A mere +1 was less effective and halved their advance. Alex sent his Prodomi back to cover and advanced everything else. Thessalians swept round a wood towards the Prodomi and free-subs put them in a wonderful position outside 1BW from the Prodomi while +1 placed them furthrer away. Spear Advanced supported by Gen. Alex withdrew his Prodomi (not in TZ) either way and advanced his Pk supported by Kn hitting Sp with lots of pushing Cav and Hypaspists moved to stop flanking while Ax and Ps tussled in a Hamlet. Simultaneously under both House Rules the LH hit the Prodomi which died. While Sp and Pk continued their tussle with the middle Sp getting killed and Alex losing a Ps. Advantage Tessalians - they now had a clear run with their LH at the Macedonian rear which was round a wood and 5-6 BW away. Which meant under either system they had to stop outside 1BW and unable to TZ any of Alex's troops. Thus with LH 1.00001BW in their rear Alex's middle Pk could split to hard flank the two Sp for kills while the Tessalian General, by now pushed into a wood died at the end of Alex's xyston. It ended 5G-3.
So what did I learn about LH in this battle. Well free subsequent moves is far more beneficial to small numbers of a LH than a mere +1. They were far zipper if they could group move 1 in the general direction and the make 4 separate moves to position in the perfect place. However, as sub-moves this was outside any TZ so couldn't tie anything down meaning that the slower +1 LH got to action in the same timescales. Once dominant in the rear the LH were over 4BW from the action or the camp and again ended up being unable to TZ anything. The LH merely became well placed spectators to their Gen dying and their Sp getting destroyed. So would either house rule make me choose the LH option over the Cav option? Not on this showing - absolutely not! Were LH better under either house rule than under RAW - yes they felt like they were. Sub-moves made the small number of LH appear far manoeuvreable than +1/3LH but the final reckoning saw little distinction between them.
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Post by paddy649 on Sept 28, 2019 23:13:02 GMT
Nah just played a couple more times to check. With 4 Cav the Thessalians overmatch Alex, start fighting the Prodomi 3-1 33% chance of a kill, hard flank for a 72% chance of a kill. Ripple on from there and you've got 2 killed and Alex overlapped before the Inf meet where spear overlap Pk seriously. You simply can't do the same with LH - however nippy they are! With LH Alex cuts them up allowing Pk to push through the Sp for the other kills that make 4. Giving the Thessalian LH +1 or free-subs makes no difference when the Companions are in their face.
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Post by snowcat on Sept 29, 2019 0:20:45 GMT
Snowcat - please don't edit out your playtests. That is the important bit that gives your ideas credibility and as you say it requires multiple games. So please show the evidence - the more we get the better. I've been back to Page 6 but can't find your report - did you say you deleted it. Yes it was page 6, where I first mentioned my +1 free LH move variant of your idea. Originally that post had been my proposal for the free subsequent move idea, but this did not include a written playtest report at the time. When I thought about what a run of high dice rolls could do in conjunction with this rule (from what I'd seen in one game), and because my previous suggestions had been slapped down, I hesitated and withdrew the proposal. Stevie clearly read it while it was still 'live', hence his later post about it which brought it back to life. In fact his description of the rule was almost verbatim what I originally wrote, which was very handy.
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Post by snowcat on Sept 29, 2019 0:48:39 GMT
I'm sure most of us have read the following quote by Ammianus Marcellinus concerning the Huns, but I thought it would be useful to have here for the focus of this attempt to rebalance LH armies.
"They also sometimes fight when provoked, and then they enter the battle drawn up in wedge-shaped masses, while their medley of voices makes a savage noise. And as they are lightly equipped for swift motion, and unexpected in action, they purposely divide suddenly into scattered bands and attack, rushing about in disorder here and there, dealing terrific slaughter; and because of their extraordinary rapidity of movement they are never seen to attack a rampart or pillage an enemy's camp. And on this account you would not hesitate to call them the most terrible of all warriors, because they fight from a distance with missiles having sharp bone, instead of their usual points, joined to the shafts with wonderful skill; then they gallop over the intervening spaces and fight hand to hand with swords, regardless of their own lives; and while the enemy are guarding against wounds from the sabre-thrusts, they throw strips of cloth plaited into nooses over their opponents and so entangle them that they fetter their limbs and take from them the power of riding or walking."Using the 'free subsequent move for LH' rule should enable numbers of LH to perform in this 'divide and scatter' manner more often than not in a simple, elegant and natural way in order to get around the enemy and acquire desirable matchups where possible.
It allows a single LH element to behave more like light cavalry did. Same for 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,& 12 elements. The more LH available, the greater the scale of maneuver, divide and scatter becomes. Of course it helps if you roll well (as is the case with everything in DBA).
What it won't additionally do is provide guaranteed extra PIPs to close with the enemy in close combat. Is this bad/wrong/insufficient/broken? I don't think so, especially when you consider that other troop types such as Cv, Kn, Wb etc don't receive any guaranteed extra PIPs to close into combat either, even though many of them are literally champing at the bit to do so. Furthermore, the rule doesn't make LH more powerful in close combat; they will still rely on some luck and more importantly the advantageous positions they have hopefully secured against their enemy via 'divide and scatter' free subsequent moves. So in short, the rule allows LH to dance. It allows LH to swarm and divide into advantageous positions and get desirable matchups against the enemy. After that you still need to roll well like everything and everyone else. Getting back to Ammianus' quote again, I do wonder if there's a little poetic licence involved in his description of the Hunnic attack, especially their follow up into hand-to-hand. It reminds me of a certain 'float like a butterfly, sting like a bee!'...but I'm not sure we really need LH to become the battlefield equivalents of Muhammad Ali at the level of DBA. Perhaps in future some consideration could be given to different subclasses of LH on the solid-fast model or similar, but I don't think we need to go down that path just yet (do we?). |
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Post by paddy649 on Sept 29, 2019 7:25:17 GMT
Good quote Snowcat. Now ask yourself how this is represented under DBA where "they they fight from a distance...gallop over intervening spaces and fight hand to hand with swords." It is represented under DBA going into front edge contact. LH for good or ill do not have ranged shooting ability under DBA. They cannot have any effect, not even in generating TZs outside 1BW which is where they are at with after a subsequent move. Your Roman source has them "rushing about and dealing terrific slaughter" and not just rushing about!
Yes - free subsequent moves allow LH to swarm and get into advantageous positions....but outside 1BW. Then what? Then the enemy has a vote and quite a big vote as he is outside TZ but if within 2BW so even solid foot can close with the LH into an overlap position or within bowfire arc or just within TZ to pin the LH etc. The very opposite of what you're quote describes. But to do that the opponent requires PIPs and so we hope the enemy roll low and the LH roll high...your "run of luck." But the LH could also roll low. In fact there is equal probability of either side rolling low or high and both average 3.5 so the LH have no more ability to "divide into scattered bands and attack" once within a few BW than do their opponents.
In order to deal "terrific slaughter" they must, under DBA, move into contact, simultaneously, en-mass and into hard flanking positions which requires 1PIP per move but like everyone else the LH have 3.5.....so tell me how can you move 12 scattered elements into contact with 3.5 PIPs? You can't! So to remedy this, under DBA even with free subsequent moves, you need to either give the LH a ranged fire capability or give them a higher ability to move into contact. Until you do this LH remain too much butterfly and not enough bee!
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Post by goragrad on Sept 29, 2019 7:47:13 GMT
Not sure why LH should get the flee from BW on a double versus the kill. Head to head the LH have 6 chances for a kill versus 9 chances to be killed. Not great, but not a disaster. Add rear support, however, and the LH go to 10 chances of getting a kill against only 4 to be killed.
Definitely favorable odds for the LH.
Historically this ability of LH to overrun BW led the Chinese to develop their baggage cart/war wagons (Battle or Mobei - speaking of which, Where are the Han WWG? And why can't they kill LH?).
On a further note, Carrhae is a very atypical engagement - the Parthian LH were facing an essentially static enemy with what amounted to an unlimited supply or arrows. I am not sure any other battle in period matched or came close to those circumstances. And in the event the bulk or the Roman casualties were either inflicted by the Parthian KN, were wounded killed after the rest of the army left them behind, or were killed as they retreated in disorder. The initial combat saw the LH pin and harass the Romans leaving them vulnerable to later selective attacks by the KN. Modern tests (as with that longbow vs plate video) show that the Roman shield and mail armor would withstand the Parthian arrows unless at point blank ranges. Most of the wounds would be to extremities - potentially incapacitating but not fatal unless the victim was unlucky. Of course given the circumstances this did lead to a relatively large number of wounded. THis would not have been decisive, however, had Crassus not lost his nerve.
A good test of any of these proposals would be to pit a Hsiung-nu army against a Han army based on the mounted a lsit option. Historically the Han won the majority of the battles, eventually destroying the Hsiung-nu empire.
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Post by paddy649 on Sept 29, 2019 7:57:59 GMT
I think one proposal was to allow LH to flee from Bow shooting and leave in contact unchanged.
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Equally, I suspect that the more folks persist with it, they might find it runs on pretty good legs.
