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Post by primuspilus on Apr 21, 2020 19:27:47 GMT
Yes there is: Persian 8Bw don't fight historically as they did. The need an extra TF so they aren't vapourised in a single bound. Plataea and Marathon were both long drawn out affairs. The Persians didn't simply drop their weapons and run at the sight of a hoplite glaring at them. Sure. but Persian 8Bw are not exactly your vanilla, archetypal bows, outliers really. Even in DBM/M which has a richer inbuilt granularity, they had to have a special category, Bw(X), X for exception. Is it really wise thus to use their performance to derive mods for ALL solid Bw? Would it not be more precise to focus on 8Bw only and do something with them? Instead of risking unintended consequences (actually pretty obvious) and "pollute" other periods and theatres?
Bw armies perform pretty well in tournaments, at least in the UK. I shudder to imagine what a Sung army would do with your mod, monstruous.
Have you actually read the "Lessons from History"? Have you reviewed what is actually proposed? 8Bw gain conditional +1, and LOSE the side support! This is to reflect that their front rank is more like Sp than Bw. If you have read and studied the "Lessons", could you give us your actual battle results with the Sung? Because as I have mentioned before, the only thing I am seriously after here is hard data. Not one or two anecdotal games, or general speculation on what might happen. |
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Post by arnopov on Apr 21, 2020 20:36:33 GMT
Sure, I have read your stuff (well, the summary at least  ). There can't be "hard data" in DBA, you'll never have enough play-tests to achieve even a smidge of ergodicity, not a chance, just too much variety in army, terrain, player styles etc... The phase space is too big. I have found that some sort of "Theory" (in a very weak sense obviously, "though-experiments" if you prefer) to be more powerful and reliable. That approach has served me very well in the tournaments (open or closed sets of army lists) I have attended. Don't get me wrong, it's useful to be able to run some test games to test a very precise hypothesis, or to try to answer a very modestly scoped research-question.
Soft data then (but tournament based). Bow-line type armies have been doing well in UK tournaments. The PAWS crew, especially Lyndon and Bill are deadly with Neo-Babylonians; PAWS autumn theme in 2018 was dominated by Bw armies (Terry's Emishi, my early Sui). The many 3Pk armies were badly mauled. Steve's Southern dynasts shot the c**p out of mot of their opponents at the last Welsh. I had a few games facing static bow-lines (Nabateans, Palmyrans) where my HI could just not close-in and were well beaten. Can't be bothered to trawl the posts, but I also recall a time when pretty much every tourneys in T. Thomas' land seemed to be won by his HYW English (pretty impressive that!). Seriously, Bw armies, especially with low aggression and a few Kn to counter-punch are already seriously tough nuts to crack. They don't need more. (Auxilia and Warbands, another story) |
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Post by snowcat on Apr 22, 2020 0:20:23 GMT
And, once again, based on medievalthomas's post (and as I wrote in a prior discussion on the topic), for Agincourt to work in DBA, all that is needed is for the French dismounted knights (BD) to have to attack the English dismounted knights (BD). At which point, per history, the archers (LB) will be able to close the door on them. Even with a CV of +2 they will be in a position to force the kill. And if the French BD are in column (again a per history) this will kill 2 elements (or even 3 with 15mm deep bases). Whether thru French pride or the effect of the battering from the arrow storm this is what happened historically. No need to modify the CF for the archers needed (although I am actually in favor of the +1 for CC for solid BW and AX). Thomas wrote: "The English (maybe 7k strong) deployed in their traditional formation of intermixed blocks of Men at Arms and archers with wings of mostly archers." Heath writes that each division comprised a centre of dismounted men-at-arms with forward-angled wings of archers (forming herces between the three divisions).
How are you going to limit the French Bd to only contacting the English Bd when the latter have Bw between their groups? By limiting each French column to the same width as each English Bd group? Thus ignoring the Bw standing in between?
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Post by snowcat on Apr 22, 2020 1:03:20 GMT
This leads me on to part 2 of my argument... get rid of the ridiculous shooting priority against foot. If someone were designing a set of rules, no matter if they were ancient, medieval, Napoleonic or modern, you’d expect them to have shooting at long range being weaker and less effective than shooting at close range. Well not so in the topsy turvy Alice in Wonderland world of DBA, where shooting at a long range small distant target is actually better than shooting at a nice big target nearby. And because close range shooting has been made so infective, it creates a mythical ‘safe zone’ in front of a line of heavy foot where they cannot be killed! Yet the fix for this is mind-numbingly simple... ...just add a single word to the rules, so that page 10 paragraph 4 reads as:- “Bows and War Wagons must shoot at a mounted target in their TZ.” (And if you want a zone where shooters must target the nearest threat, then fine, you’ve already got it...
...it’s called close combat)Now we get the effect that Goragrad mentioned: the Bows can concentrate their fire even at close range to make the enemy heavy foot recoil away from the shooters, making it easier for heavy foot to reach the opposing heavy foot but difficult to reach the bows (and I’m talking about all periods here, NOT JUST AGINCOURT!) I’m not asking for more shooting power...just the same as they already get when shooting at long range. (Close range shooting should be more devastating, but I’ll just settle for it being the same, certainly not less) I actually think the rule makes sense. At close range, a Bw unit would be far more likely to shoot directly at the enemy imminently threatening it, rather than offer shooting support to a neighbour against an enemy unit further away. Only at long - safe - range do archers have this luxury, not when under direct imminent threat themselves. So I think the rule makes sense.
However, it is a by-product of this rule that is the problem, as you have outlined above: it makes it much more difficult to kill heavy foot at close range.
Would a modifier at close range go some way to fixing this? e.g. +1 when shooting at enemy (foot?) in threat zone? Or something along those lines? (I'm guessing Joe's idea of +1 Pip for Foot to contact Bows is not enough on its own to help with this issue...)
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Post by stevie on Apr 22, 2020 12:07:41 GMT
There can't be "hard data" in DBA, you'll never have enough play-tests to achieve even a smidge of ergodicity, not a chance, just too much variety in army, terrain, player styles etc... The phase space is too big. Well, perhaps hundreds of players, over many years, playing hundreds of games, is enough to constitute as sufficient pool of play-tests. And it is those players (or at least those with the courage to say “hmmm, things are not quite right with DBA, as it doesn’t give the results mentioned in the history books”) that have noticed over the years that both 4Ax and solid bows are under-powered and not play-balanced. Play-test a hundred games, or a thousand, or ten thousand, and it’s not going to change the fact that troops with a CF of 3 get slaughtered by troops with a combat factor of 5. The truth of the matter is:- Bows with a CF of 2 in close combat with CF 5 troops is a laughable joke... Bows with a CF of 3 in close combat with CF 5 troops get killed too easily... Bows with a CF of 4 in close combat with CF 5 troops is just right... Bows with a CF of 5 in close combat with CF 5 troops makes them too powerful. Now all we have to do is think up plausible ways of making CF 2 be CF 4. Artificially giving side-support to solid bows is a start...but another fudge factor is required. And if players want crappy CF 2 bows dying in droves against CF 5 troops, they already have it. They’re called 3Bow. And if players want crappy CF 3 Aux dying in droves against CF 5 troops, they already have it. They’re called 3Ax. It’s not our fault if DBA has swept 4Bows and 4Ax into the same dustbin as 3Bow and 3Ax, and tries to pretend they were as useless, and even slower, despite the historical evidence. But it will be our fault if we meekly go along with this misconception. DBM and DBMM realized this situation long ago, and made provisions for it by having highly complex mechanisms and troops grades to reflect that they were different from each other. Why can’t DBA have 3Bow and 3Ax based on the DBMM Irr (0) class, so are weak, while 4Bow and 4Ax are based on the DBMM Reg (S) class, so are a bit better? Or are we DBA players too dumb to warrant such niceties? |
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Post by snowcat on Apr 22, 2020 12:36:01 GMT
"Bows with a CF of 4 in close combat with CF 5 troops is just right..." Is it?
I think 4Bw with a CF of 3 vs foot is about right, without the need for Bd side-support.
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Post by stevie on Apr 22, 2020 14:18:22 GMT
If a CF of 3 is fine, then why do some players think that 4Bow and 4Ax are under-powered in close combat? And why can’t they reproduce the events that happened at Cannae, Agincourt, Poiters, Marthon and Platea? Tell you what...try it for yourself. Line up 6 units with a CF of 5 (be they Blades, Daleks or Shermans), and pit 6 units with CF 3 against them. Repeat this several times and see how you get on. Now try again with CF 4 v CF 5...remembering in both cases to seek out double-overlaps. See which of these results in a longer but ultimately losing fight, that matches the five battles mentioned above, and which is a complete and utter walkover. I’d be interested in your results... |
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Post by arnopov on Apr 22, 2020 14:50:17 GMT
Tell you what...try it for yourself. Line up 6 units with a CF of 5 (be they Blades, Daleks or Shermans), and pit 6 units with CF 3 against them. Repeat this several times and see how you get on. Now try again with CF 4 v CF 5...remembering in both cases to seek out double-overlaps. See which of these results in a longer but ultimately losing fight, that matches the five battles mentioned above, and which is a complete and utter walkover.
Your problem is that you are exclusively considering the worst case situation for the Bw. In actual play, there are many actions that the Bw player can take to improve, considerably I must add, its chances: mostly based around terrain, but also various tactics (synergies, counterpunch or threat thereof, dancing, delaying...) some more effective than others. In fairness, the HI player has also some tactics (principally based around Ps screening, which is not so easy to implement btw), but not as many, not as good, and terrain is far more likely to favour Bw.
In 2018, I took an Early Sui army to the Autumn PAWS tournament: 3x4Kn+4x8Bw+4x4Bw+1xArt. Ended up wining it with 5 wins out of 5 (I think, not entirely sure now, might have been a draw). My early intuition was to go with Koguryo+Paekche Ally maxing out fast HI (1X3Bd+6x3Pk), but preliminary games quickly showed that even that amount of fast foot was at a disadvantage against so much firepower, and so it proved at the actual tourney. With Agg3, it was not even terrain that made the Bws so formidable, but the shear number of shooting, the synergy with the 4Kns, and the threat of counterpunch. Have you got any experience of shooty armies in DBA? In fact, do you have much experience of DBX in general? Many of your comments are quite naive and do not indicate a long familiarity with the system.
I'm not trying to be offensive, there is no shame, everybody has to start somewhere.
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Post by primuspilus on Apr 22, 2020 19:32:19 GMT
Tell you what...try it for yourself. Line up 6 units with a CF of 5 (be they Blades, Daleks or Shermans), and pit 6 units with CF 3 against them. Repeat this several times and see how you get on. Now try again with CF 4 v CF 5...remembering in both cases to seek out double-overlaps. See which of these results in a longer but ultimately losing fight, that matches the five battles mentioned above, and which is a complete and utter walkover.
Your problem is that you are exclusively considering the worst case situation for the Bw. In actual play, there are many actions that the Bw player can take to improve, considerably I must add, its chances: mostly based around terrain, but also various tactics (synergies, counterpunch or threat thereof, dancing, delaying...) some more effective than others. In fairness, the HI player has also some tactics (principally based around Ps screening, which is not so easy to implement btw), but not as many, not as good, and terrain is far more likely to favour Bw.
In 2018, I took an Early Sui army to the Autumn PAWS tournament: 3x4Kn+4x8Bw+4x4Bw+1xArt. Ended up wining it with 5 wins out of 5 (I think, not entirely sure now, might have been a draw). My early intuition was to go with Koguryo+Paekche Ally maxing out fast HI (1X3Bd+6x3Pk), but preliminary games quickly showed that even that amount of fast foot was at a disadvantage against so much firepower, and so it proved at the actual tourney. With Agg3, it was not even terrain that made the Bws so formidable, but the shear number of shooting, the synergy with the 4Kns, and the threat of counterpunch. Have you got any experience of shooty armies in DBA? In fact, do you have much experience of DBX in general? Many of your comments are quite naive and do not indicate a long familiarity with the system.
I'm not trying to be offensive, there is no shame, everybody has to start somewhere.
Ummm ... hundreds of games of shooty armies vs all manner of armies with Kn, armies with Pk and cannon, armies with Bd, armies with Sp. Starting in Jan 2013, and going all the way to June 2018 (when I moved). In tourneys, campaigns, club nights. Your claim of this being "edge cases" is simply nonsense. Fast Bd are the worst! You have zero chance of materially delaying Classical a Bd(F) force with a Bw force. None. And as you know, the place you WANT to hang out as the shooty guys (in rough, where you can still shoot) or marsh (where you'd like to still shoot ... except you can't) are a problem. Only chance you have is to deploy IN a wood. Which is why folks like Stevie and I are saying that solid Bw in DBA behave more like WW2 LMG's than like historical Heavy Archers. Play around 50 tests of Marathon and Plataea. See what happens. Come to think of it, I am surprised the Greeks bothered to show up with any kind of army to face Xerxes - his force was clearly so useless, half the Greek army should have stayed home and made tzatziki all day. Heck they should have just faced him with Ps, perhaps ...
I get why people like the '+1 PIP' to approaching a Bw element. It reminds me of the WW2 boardgame 'Thunder at Cassino' by Avalon Hill. In this game, German MG's were a 'movement impediment' and increased the MP cost of entering certain covered areas. They didn't do "defensive fire" as such. But there is an easier way, that REDUCES the rules overhead, and accomplishes the same effect on average: Get rid of the stupid TZ shooting rule.
As it stands now, for some reason I cannot fathom, folks have developed a momentary blindspot for the attrition mechanism of DBA shooting (i.e. the occasional doubling result) and feel that the TZ rule SHOULD be there, 'cause, you know, like it seems like a good idea, seems logical... but then we need to add a compensating '+1' for close shooting. So rather than actually reduce rule count (something everyone seems to want) now we increase rule count, and which is worse, we add in a second rule to counteract the unintended actual results of the first? This is sloppy and bad game design, and I suspect would net you poor grade on your assignment in Alan Emrich's College-level course in wargame design, or in Phil Sabin's course in wargame design at King's College... It is redundant, self-contradictory, and requires more rules to address its own unintended effects.
We set this rule aside on day (we never could remember it anyway). And still you will find Bw underpowered in a great many engagements against any kind of decent foot. Sure, they can machine-gun many a mounted army. But even that I find debatable as a desirable outcome.
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Post by stevie on Apr 22, 2020 20:48:22 GMT
Tell you what...try it for yourself. Line up 6 units with a CF of 5 (be they Blades, Daleks or Shermans), and pit 6 units with CF 3 against them. Repeat this several times and see how you get on. Now try again with CF 4 v CF 5...remembering in both cases to seek out double-overlaps. See which of these results in a longer but ultimately losing fight, that matches the five battles mentioned above, and which is a complete and utter walkover. Your problem is that you are exclusively considering the worst case situation for the Bw...
Have you got any experience of shooty armies in DBA?
In fact, do you have much experience of DBX in general?
Many of your comments are quite naive and do not indicate a long familiarity with the system. I'm not trying to be offensive, there is no shame, everybody has to start somewhere.
(Have you ever tried reading a history book?
I'm not trying to be offensive, there is no shame, everybody has to start somewhere...)
No...I’m just assuming a level playing field. Give the bows ideal terrain and they’ll do better. Likewise, give the CF 5 troops their ideal terrain and they’ll also do better. I’d have thought that was obvious. So how do you intend to give this ideal terrain to the the Hundred Year War English when they fight the French if they only have 1 chance in 6 of being the defenders? Seems to me that fighting on a flat open billiard table is going to be their default position (unless their French opponent is pretty dumb). Now try to win with the English. But I do find it strange that you agree that 4Ax with a CF of 3 is a bit weak against CF 5 troops, and could do with a bit of a boost, yet 4Bows with a CF of 3 in close combat with CF 5 troops is all fine and dandy. Bit of a contraction there. Yes, Bows have the advantage of shooting...but unlike Auxiliaries they’re vulnerable to mounted. So both have their advantages. And if one finds a CF 3 too weak against CF 5 troops, surely the other will as well. Oh, and congratulations on winning the Autumn PAWS tournament with an Early Sui army. Of course, I have no idea what armies you faced, or the skill of your opponents, or how much luck you had. Nonetheless, well done sir. 👍 As for playing with bow armies...yes, many many times, especially Agincourt. But try as I might, no matter what terrain I give the English, I just can’t replicate this battle into an English victory. Even with a Difficult Hill in front of them (and there wasn’t one in this battle, read the historical
accounts), the best the English can get is CF 2 +1 for side-support while the French inside the terrain are CF 5 -2, so CF 3 v CF 3...and even that’s only if they can keep their side-support. Maybe I’m not a very good player...or maybe the English don’t have the right tools to do the job. Yes, the Bows could actually be on the difficult hill and gain an extra +1 for being uphill, but they’ll then lose the +1 for side-support. Anyway, the French player if he has any sense will simply refuse to advance. Have you tried re-fighting Cannae? That has the same problem. Hannibal just doesn’t have the right tools to do the job (4Ax are too weak, and he should be the defender, not the Romans). No wonder players find the Carthaginians underperforming compared to their historical accounts. Oh, and since you asked:- Stevie’s Wargaming CV Starting playing in the early 1980’s (you’ve met me, and know I’m an old fart...but still remarkably good-looking  ) using the old WRG 7th edition, and I don’t remember ever finishing a game! When DBA 1.1 came out in the mid 1990’s I jumped on it, and followed it through DBA 1.2, 1.22, 2.0 and 2.1. However, come DBA 2.2 my mates and I gave up on it as being too ‘gamey’, with too much ‘positional trickery’, and far too unrealistic. So we moved on to “Shock of Impact”, “Classical Hack”, “Warlord”, “Field of Glory” and “Impetus” amongst others. I never played DBA 2.2+/Triumph, but have tried DBM/DBMM, which I thought was bloated and unnecessarily complicated (“only +1 if there is an ‘r’ in the month, but not before 11:00 am, unless it's a Tuesday, except during a leap year”). Then DBA 3.0 came out, and what an improvement it is, and far superior to all those mentioned above. Of course, that doesn’t mean that it’s perfect...the are still a few play-balance and historical issues. Note noted are the hundreds of boardgames and computer games, as well as the other wargaming periods such as “English Civil War”, “American Civil War”, “American War of Independence”, the “Napoleonic Wars”, “The Second World War”, as well as “Futuristic Wars” in starships and “Aerial Warfare” (oh, and I missed out HoTT). There, does that qualify me to have an opinion? I think the difference between us is that you only seem to be interested in playing ‘a game’.
I too like games...but I also like them to be properly play-balanced and based on history. Anyway, we are only talking about "House Rules" here. If you don't like 'em, then don't use 'em. |
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Post by snowcat on Apr 22, 2020 23:23:21 GMT
Get rid of the stupid TZ shooting rule. As it stands now, for some reason I cannot fathom, folks have developed a momentary blindspot for the attrition mechanism of DBA shooting (i.e. the occasional doubling result) and feel that the TZ rule SHOULD be there, 'cause, you know, like it seems like a good idea, seems logical... but then we need to add a compensating '+1' for close shooting. So rather than actually reduce rule count (something everyone seems to want) now we increase rule count, and which is worse, we add in a second rule to counteract the unintended actual results of the first? This is sloppy and bad game design, and I suspect would net you poor grade on your assignment in Alan Emrich's College-level course in wargame design, or in Phil Sabin's course in wargame design at King's College... It is redundant, self-contradictory, and requires more rules to address its own unintended effects.
We set this rule aside on day (we never could remember it anyway). And still you will find Bw underpowered in a great many engagements against any kind of decent foot. Sure, they can machine-gun many a mounted army. But even that I find debatable as a desirable outcome.
Yeah I get that. But it's as if PB forgot or changed the design logic behind his own attrition mechanism, and was then left with the apparently logical need to restrict support shooting at close range (which makes sense if the attrition mechanism isn't considered), which then only makes complete sense if you also add a compensatory bonus for close range shooting. So you can see where I ended up.
OK, get rid of the TZ shooting rule. But do it entirely. Don't add the word 'mounted' to it just so its effects don't apply to Bw shooting at enemy foot.
How do folks feel about removing the TZ shooting rule entirely?
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Post by Roland on Apr 22, 2020 23:58:41 GMT
How do folks feel about removing the TZ shooting rule entirely?
It solves a lot of problems and doesn't add another layer of rules. ( So pretty good really, especially since I got on board the DBA train at 1.0 and 1.1. Its really easy to unlearn a rule in favor of one you grew up with) |
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Post by jim1973 on Apr 23, 2020 3:14:10 GMT
"only +1 if there is an ‘r’ in the month, but not before 11:00 am, unless it's a Tuesday, except during a leap year"  |
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Post by greedo on Apr 23, 2020 3:37:22 GMT
I still like dropping heavy infantry -1 cc but give them all rear support. So you can get that 5 vs 3 but you gotta work for it |
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Post by snowcat on Apr 23, 2020 4:02:48 GMT
I still like dropping heavy infantry -1 cc but give them all rear support. So you can get that 5 vs 3 but you gotta work for it Won't this hurt Wb a tad too much? |
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) using the old WRG 7th edition, and I don’t remember ever finishing a game! 
