But as you have so well argued regarding Rivers, there is nothing to force the French of marching to their doom. This is setting up as another stalemate is it not? Or at best, a battle of attrition on the flanks but not historical. Why would you in a one-off game?
Cheers
Jim
I have two answers to that
Jim me laddie.
1) Bows have a range of 3 BW, so can deal death at a distance (indeed, this is exactly what
happened at Agincourt...both sides sat for hours looking at each other until Henry V told
his men to up-stakes and advance into bowshot. The French then had three choices...
...withdraw and lose face, attack the English, or stand there and get shot to pieces).
2) I’d change the aggression factors, so the English have an aggression of 2 while the French
have an aggression of 3 (after all, it was the English that mostly chose the field of battle,
not the French. And if using the “Sun Clock” or the “Time of Day Display”, it will be up to
the French to make rash attacks, like they did at Crecy, Poitiers and Agincourt (are three
historical examples not enough?) or the defending English will be the winners by nightfall.
As Phil Barker himself says on page 14: “A drawn battle counts as a win to the defender,
since he loses no territory”).
Regarding that second item above, I’d also change the II/32a Later Carthaginian aggression to 2.
Again it was clever old Hannibal that chose the fields of battle, not the Romans, leading to the rash
Roman attacks at the River Trebia in 216 BC, at Lake Trasimene in 217 BC, and of course at Cannae
In 218 BC (are three historical examples not enough?).
How’s that for a bit more realism
(I do like simple solutions that fix multiple problems).The way the army lists have it, it’s the French and the Romans that usually get to place the terrain...
...so much for historical accuracy.
Oh, and just because the French are the ‘attackers’, that does not mean they have invaded England.
It just means the French have invaded English held territory in France (and the English owned at lot of it).
Likewise, just because the Romans are the ‘attackers’, that does not mean they have invaded Africa.
It just means they are invading a lost province in Italy (and it didn’t take Hannibal long to own much of it.).