Cavalry Mounted/Dismounted.

Jul 20, 2017 22:45:20 GMT Spitzicles said:

People,

Having been recently diced up by a Lithuanian army (Collision Course late May in Canberra), I would suggest that:

(a) dismounting not be banned, if its in the rules, its in the rules. And.

(b) yes, when used effectively, Lithuanians dismounting as Bow Fast can be like panzer grenadiers.

In fairness to my opponent, hello Brenton, he did warn me before the game started and admitted it was a bit cheesy. But it was still surprising to see 3 Lh dismount and shoot away my flank force of 2 Lh and 2 Cv.

After the game one of my first reactions was "Maybe I should paint up a Lithuanian army ..."

Brenton has used the Lithuanians twice now

Landwaster 2016 (November) he came in fourth in a field of 20 with 4 wins from 6 games

Collision Course (May 2017) was another 4 from 6  - suffering two devastating losses in the first two rounds before recovering to come in second in a field of 12.

The big changes in dismounting from DBA2.2 to DBA3 have been

1) Most of the Western European Medieval Armies that were dismounting powerhouses in 2 have been converted from Kn//Bd to Kn/Bd which means you get the choice at deployment and cannot change at all

2) Dismounting is now a 1 PIP move not a 2 PIP move

3) To balance out point 2 above Dismounting is specifically NOT a group move

4) You can no longer move the full mounted move and then dismount

5) You can no longer dismount while in the TZ of enemy

6) Troops that can dismount during the game (eg Lithuanian LH//3Bw) can now choose to start the game on foot - whereas before these troops had to start the game mounted.

All up I would say that DBA3 has lessened many of the effects of dismounting troops - the exceptions being points 2 and points 6

Under DBA2 in Australia the local standard was to stipulate that dismounting troops were chose as one or the other for each game or more usually for the full competition.

In the tournaments I ran I simply declared that dismounting could not be a group move.

But the greater balancing effect came from the my use of an element rating system and the awarding of a handicap prize (the Magister Militum or "The Maurice" for each tournament and an overall prize for those that competed in several tournaments across the year The Magister Militum Per Capitoline Territorialis or "The Grand Maurice").  In calculating the ratings of armies for these awards dismounting troops count as the sum of their parts.  This makes an army with a high proportion of the Kn/Bd combination a very high rated army.  At Landwaster 2015 the Medieval French and Free Company armies were rated between 630-730 and the Trojans were rated as 586.  The average rating for the remaining armies without dismounters was just over 400.

Experienced players with their eye on any of these awards (particularly the Grand Maurice) tend to avoid bringing the dreaded dismounting armies to the tournaments.

So yes -

Dismounting troops do present a challenge in DBA but overall I think DBA3 has watered down the effect that they can exert. 

Dismounting was a legitimate manoeuvre practised by those armies.

If experience suggests that they are too powerful there are numerous ways to mitigate this without an outright ban

And - Contemporary accounts of the battle between the Burmese and the Yuan suggest that the Mongols dismounted to shoot at the elephants - why is this excluded from the lists?

Cheers