Fast or solid?

Erik,

Do not overlook other factors such as ‘home terrain’ and aggression factor

as these would influence your choice.

Secondly, which serves your playing style best?

In general having a mix of both works well.

Hi Timurilank
Thank you for your answer.

I affraid I still dont see what solid troops can do, that fast cant do just as good (except of course win that CC tie).

Cheers
Erik

There are some advantages that are army-dependent, such as the side support mentioned by arnopov that fast elements neither give nor receive. So if you have an army with a mix of Bd and Bw you have some thinking to do about what mix you want. Having faced a number of Communal Italian armies in my time (looking at you, Chaotic), trying to disrupt a line of 8Bw side-supported by 4Bd is quite challenging.

In my defence, it's been a significant period of time since I did my best PQ Varus impression and fed my army to you on a plate. But I'm probably so rusty that that level of tactical ineptitude would be an improvement....

An interesting question probably best solved by a disciplined play test. Take two armies of the same troop type but make one Fast the other not-Fast. Play a hundred games and carefully note the results. Keep Aggression and other factors equal. Switch sides. See what happens.

We did something similar to test whether Blades were still the "king" element in DBA 3.0 (they were but by a lesser margin than in DBA 2.0 and a massively lesser margin than in HOTT).

I have not had great success with HYW English and usually play WOR in competitive tournaments (WOR only have 4 Bow elements while HYW often get 8 an unmanageable army in a tournament). But getting side support does help.

We allow all troops types to take a Fast version (so we have Fast Knights) (well almost all not WarWagons for instance). So we have lots of Fast types running around and so far the consensus of which type is best is: "it depends". We play lots of games almost every weekend with a wide variety of players and play styles so its a decent if unsystematic test. So far I have not been convinced to make Fast cost an extra point. We play 25mm on 4X4 tables so there is lots of room for manuver.

So here are the balancing factors: Fast +1 BW to MA; no deduction for Rough/Difficult balanced by Recoiling on Equals from non-Fast and cannot use Formations (we recognize three Formations: Retinue (side support Blade to Bow), Shieldwall (side support Blade or Spear to Spear), Wedge (Rear Support (+1) Knight or Medium Mounted to Knight).

So if you don't think these balance you need to increase determent of Fast (perhaps Recoil on Equals, Flee on More, Destroyed on Doubled as base combat results or Fast become Clumsy and take 2PIPs to move) or improve non-Fast by improving/expanding the effect of Formations. (Unquestionably speed kills in a game where Hard Flanking is so important.)

So far we have managed not to do these things and feel our games our balanced BUT big caveat: we allow Longbow Shooters (+3 v. Foot, +4 v. Mounted) and Crossbows (+3 v. Foot, +4 v. Mounted shoot only in own bound). These make
"Bow" much more viable and so you see a lot more on the table. Since "Bow" Recoil Fast on Equals their Groups are broken up much more easily by shooting than non-Fast. This is a very effective counter but only works if Longbows/Crossbows are given their historical capabilities. Minor caveats: in this vein we only allow non-Fast "Bow" to take Stakes (so get Cry Havoc v. Knights - Destroy on Equals), this helps balance "Fast" Bow. Likewise we also base non-Fast Bow on 20mm depth bases (15mm in 15mm) so that they Recoil the same depth as Men-at-Arms (Blades) and hence hold their Retinue Formation longer.

TomT

Just posted re F vs S on another thread - doh!

fanaticus.boards.net/thread/2725/gets-rear-support?page=15

You could use the old DBM rule re (I): Fast troops deduct 1 from an Equal or Less score. Bit more complex then just losing on Equals.

TomT