Rebalancing for LH Armies

I'll do it.

For me this boils down to only a few army lists epitomised by II/40 Numidian which has more than I think 7LH and an elephant.  Why should an army with lots of LH always get to move Jumbo.  Their elephant isn't suddenly any better because it is surrounded by ponies.  The same applies to Hordes etc..... This I think sways me to restricting additional PIPs to LH only.

Thanks in advance for trudging through the army lists to identify LH heavy armies.

Hi all

This thread has intrigued me. How to fix LH ? Why would you want it if you could have Cv instead?
Sounds simple so my initial thoughts were get rid of the troop type and combine with Cv as in HotT (Riders). Make them fast Cv retaining the March move ability, keep the enhanced command radius and hey how. I tested this and it didn’t not work but why now take regular Cv when you can have fast. Bad idea so it’s filed as such😕

So back to the drawing board. Problems identified seem to be
1 A potential lack of movement due to poor pips. Would they really stand around in front of the enemy waiting to get bogged down in a frontal foot slog?
2 The powderpuff CF of 2. This won’t get it done believe me. So rear support gives you +1. It also contracts frontage and “pins” the rear element not to mention taking away the possible flee reaction and replacing it with death. This doesn’t sound like sound like a swirling mass of horse archers surrounding it’s poor foe and attempting to pick off in detail does it?

Solutions?
Free pips initially just didn’t sit well with me. DBA has a wonderful way of generating command and control. Stops us doing just exactly what we want from our front row seat high above the battlefield. Just giving “free” pips for x amount of LH seemed a little clumsy. And you don’t need that many pips to get close to the enemy in the first place. It’s when LH get close they need the help.
I would like to propose the following:
Any group containing 3 or more LH that has any enemy within 4 base widths automatically generates an (splitting hairs I know but don’t like the phrase free pips) autonomous pip to be used by any LH element(s) within the group. This can be any part of a march move sequence.
And yes I don’t see why you couldn’t have a line of say 7 LH within 4BW of the enemy and spend 1 pip from the die pulling out the centre element leaving 2 groups of 3 generating an autonomous pip each. A chance for the LH general to get creative a make the boys a bit more zippy if you like. Extra pips when it matters most used by the very troops that generate them. Lower level commanders using their initiative. I chose groups of 3+ to help armies that aren’t LH heavy. Only having 3 LH is still 25% of the army so qualifies as significant for me.

Combat solution
I tried really hard to come up with an answer but couldn’t, then realised it’s already in the game. Flank support, a very elegant but simple rule and they’re usually the best.
So I would like to propose the following
Any element of LH that has friendly LH in mutual side edge and mutual front corner contact and in going they count as good adds +1 to its CF
Gone is the rear support factor. This automatically extends the line. Instead of being locked down in rear support they now give the +1 from the side with obvious possibility this could also provide an overlap bring the enemy down -1. Also helps retain that flee option. Sounds a bit more like LH to me.

I have run several games of a 12 LH Hunnic v Eastern Patricians. The Huns didn’t turn into a killing machine (both won and lost equally) and I found the effects subtle. They didn’t obviously break anything and in conjunction with each other I thought they made me consider quite carefully how I employed them for best use.

One very obvious problem with a high aggression predominantly mounted army is your probably gonna find more terrain than you care for. So came up with the following

First the definition
Cv / Lh heavy - any army containing 8 or more Cv and/or Lh elements in it’s starting 12 elements.

Cv/ Lh heavy armies that are the attacker can after all terrain placement has finished, choose to remove completely up to 1 non-compulsory terrain feature and up to 2 roads.
The first removal reason I hope is obvious. The choice to remove a road(s) as well may not be that pertinent but does stop the defender forcing you to attack in a certain direction. We’re all on horses mate so we’ll choose where we come from!

And finally and sorry if it’s getting boring - Enhanced Deployment
I think Stevie has already adequately demonstrated that any form of “forward or widened” deployment zone is dead in the water and not worth pursuing.
I do however love a Littoral landing. Great fun and as likely to go t**s up as be devastating. So my initial thought was give Steppe terrain armies the ability to flank march, but Meroitic Kushites are Steppe and mostly heavy infantry as well. Not really the right candidate to flank march. So thought better to give Cv / Lh heavy armies the ability instead rather than the terrain type.

Works exactly the same as a Littoral landing. So at deployment reserve 2-3 Cv or Lh elements and place them beside the edge you want them to arrive on (not a WW unless you are Littoral Cv heavy if there is one) Deploy them as a group with at least 1 corner touching the side edge.
Risky but may make your opponent more defensive initially giving you time to cruise up and pick your spot?
As a package I think these make LH more viable and fun to play with, without making them must have, breaking the game or making it horribly complicated

Be nice if someone could maybe give ‘em a go. Try and break them and let me know what you feel.

Craig

Craig

I'll read your post properly in the morning. I'm exhausted after compiling the list of 4+LH armies (see above).

But what did I see in your post: a flanking deployment not unlike a littoral landing! Wow, I thought someone recently proposed something just like that. Oh that's right, it was me!

Thanks Snowcat. Good work.

My thoughts are that that is over 50 army lists and over 80 sub-lists with 4 or more LH. That feels like about 10%-15% of the books - so quite enough. Hence the breakthrough limit should be 4LH rather than 3 otherwise the additional PIPs become too prevalent.

Second thought is that there seems to be natural break points at 7LH - taking LH seriously with over half your elements being LH. The second cut off is the double figures of LH ( i.e. 10 or more) that deserve more recognition.

Both these point to the best Additional PIPs rule being something along the lines of "In addition to normal PIPs LH or LCm heavy armies are granted one additional free PIP that can only be used by a LH or LCm element or group containing entirely LH and/or LCm for the first 4LH/LCm in their ORBAT and for each successive 3LH/LCm thereafter. Additional PIPs cannot be used by elements that dismount in the turn they dismount and the act of dismounting changes an ORBAT for the turn an element dismounts."

This at least partly deals with those pesky Lithuanians that are LH that dismount.