Everyone gets rear support!

Hmm, perhaps that's the key. I still don't agree with looser troops with rear support.

BUT, if we're going in that direction, finding a simple way to nerf Fast troops in some small way so that's more of a choice as to whether the player takes fast or solid troops. That however, can be a different thread...

Hmmm...the II/8c Apulians don’t have a choice, the II/14 Kappadokians don’t have a choice,
nor do the II/28bcd Armenians, the II/54 Scots-Irish, the III/1ac Slavs, nor do many others,
not to mention almost all the armies in the Book 1 army lists...
(Well, players do have the choice of not playing with those armies I suppose)

You are forcing me to repeat myself, and thereby suffer the wrath of Snowcat (  )...
...let us look at the bigger picture.

If both 3Pk and 4Pk had a CF of 4, then:-
...with the bad going penalty being -1, they’d be equal to Ax (would that be right?).
...in rough going they’d both be superior to Ax (would that be right?).
...when shot at, they’d both be the same as shooting at Bd (would that be right?).
Phil Barker has already found the best solution: make all Pk CF 3 with rear-support.

Getting back to 3Wb, the historical accounts indicate there were two types of Warband;
a slower moving but tougher type (Germans and Galatians), and a faster moving lighter
type (Ancient Britons), with Gauls being either, depending upon the period and location.
But both types seem to have fought in deep columns, as it's simple & requires no training.

Now having a preconceived notion, such as all ‘fast’ foot cannot receive rear-support is fine...
...providing it doesn’t create more problems than it solves, and flies in the face of history.
And trying to shoe-horn troops into following this preconceived notion seems to do just that.

All ‘fast’ foot already do have a disadvantage to compensate them for their extra speed.
They recoil more often, on an equal score, so are more likely to be overlapped and have
a lower combat factor when fighting ‘solid’ troops. They don’t need another penalty.
As I said before:-
Let players decide for themselves...form-up shallow to outflank, or form-up deep to live longer.

In principle, I like that.

Someone will no doubt be along shortly to skewer it, but I like it.

I like that Barritus. Has a good rock, paper, scissors feel to it.

Damn right it would!

Ok. I've set up my suggestion in its own thread.


fanaticus.boards.net/thread/2855/fast-foot-mounted-open

I wouldn't want to risk the The Wrath of Snowcat  .

Ok so I’m liking the fast vs solid vs mounted rule (different thread).
But that did get me thinking, would double ranks gain or lose anything against mounted? In a sense they lose because they are expending 2 elements for the same frontage but no combat gain. I’m ok with this as it represents a disadvantage vs mounted but wanted to bring it up.

The other thing I was thinking was what do we do about double elements (8Bw, 6Bd, 8Sp)? The only advantage to taking these now is that you get a free rear supporting element, which is nice. I think the downside of this is that those deep formations aren’t all that special anymore since everybody can effectively be a Theban phalanx, sparabara etc now, with the added negative that you lose two elements when the first one is killed. It’s a knock on effect. I am coming around to the idea of universal rear support but this did occur to me.l that it might need dealing with.