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Post by jim1973 on Oct 29, 2023 10:51:35 GMT
With all this discussion about presentation of rule sets I thought this was interesting: youtu.be/b3F7EOgtDbM?si=vVJdMSnBiOfx4RzNI have no connection at all with this team but coming from the US I thought that it gives a broad perspective. Also with a Warhammer background I was expecting the authors to be a bit biased. However, I was pleasantly surprised that: DBA - the oldest set of rules being reviewed was viewed very positively. There were no negative comments about the writing of DBA. Substance was preferred to style - it wasn’t all about presentation! The more “boutique” games were called out for what they are. ADLG was trashed as being only good for competitions. However, I note that Triumph was lumped in with the DBA rulesets. What does anyone else make of this? Anyone tried the other two recommended rulesets: Age of Hannibal and To the Strongest? Age of Hannibal is from Greg Wagman of Little Wars TV. You can see them in use in their Pyrrhic Wars campaign linkThey are based on Chipco's Fantasy Rules!, which borrowed and adapted some DBx ideas. Cheers Jim |
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Post by jim1973 on Oct 27, 2023 4:16:19 GMT
A little later than our period and possibly taking advantage of the unemployed mercenaries following the Italian wars? I thought the Swiss in the Burgundian wars were quite mobile. But I may very well be mistaken as it's not my era of interest.
Cheers
Jim
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Post by jim1973 on Oct 27, 2023 0:12:33 GMT
I am very much looking forward to DBF and its mechanics. As you allude to, High Fantasy and High/Late Medieval, will work together well. Can't wait to try my LOTR armies! We'll have to see how it extrapolates to the Ancient era. To stay on point, I'm not sure Swiss pikemen or other late medieval polearm troops (billmen, halberdiers, etc) behaved like phalangites. If nothing else, the phalangites were deployed in much larger numbers giving them much more inertia and less flexibility.
But I am interested in your playtests with cheaper costs, as this may lead to a surrogate playtest of 8Pk. If 8-12 pike elements cost the same as 6 blades then I'm reasonably certain they will be in a block and act very similarly to 8Pk. I am assuming that a single Pk will still be quite weak. I do wish Alex could field his Pk as 4Ax to simulate his battles with tribal armies in Afghanistan, but I digress.
Cheers
Jim
PS Really good to see you back on fanaticus medievalthomas!
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Post by jim1973 on Oct 22, 2023 14:00:01 GMT
Making Pikes a bit stronger would make their centre breakthroughs even more likely, and encourage the Blades to shorten their line as they’ll need to have reserves. This is the approach favoured in DBF, where Pikes recoil enemy on an equal roll. It encourages historical formations. Firstly, DBF is a point cost game so the troop costs will be important if people want to translate that to historical games. Maybe Pikes will be cheaper than Blades. We'll have to wait and see. But I'd still be happy to line up my six Blades in a line with the two Spears in reserve to face a 3x2 Pike block. Doubling Romans with only 3 attacks is not that easy and the flanks of the Pikes will soon be open. The Romans will still have 10 elements in the frontline with the Pike army down to 9. Cheers Jim |
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Post by jim1973 on Oct 22, 2023 12:37:59 GMT
It depends on what you want to model, but probably yes. 6x8Pk at +6 v 6x4Bd at +5 will make it difficult for the Romans to break the line (need double overlap and 1-5 or 1-6). That seems more in keeping with the Pyrrhic Wars than the Macedonian Wars. Flank forces probably favour the Hellenistics if they can field Knights against Roman Cavalry so the balance will be against the Polybian Romans and the double element loss of the 8Pk probably doesn't balance out.
Against Sp, the 8Pk will likely run over them as even pursuit won't weaken them too much and this seems too easy when compared against the long grind described in battle reports. Spears will usually outnumber them though.
So I think overall, just overpowered.
Cheers
Jim
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Post by jim1973 on Oct 22, 2023 11:44:43 GMT
Here is another thing we need to consider and take into account:- If Pikes are 8Pk, so that they match the enemy line, how on earth can the Romans defeat them, as they always did? Far better to force the enemies of the Pk to have reserves (i.e. 16 ranks of Pk facing 8 ranks of Hastati backed by 8 ranks of Principes… …the battleline is more or less the same length). Instead of whinging about Pikes, take the blinkers off and look at the wider picture… How do you force people to have reserves when they can outflank easily? As we've discussed previously, PB's design of the Polybian Roman army list suggests that the Hastati and Principes form the battleline with only the Triarii in reserve. As such, they would represent 16 ranks. Why do the Pikes need 32 ranks? Jim |
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Post by jim1973 on Oct 22, 2023 10:32:02 GMT
One question - mostly to Jim who started this thread: What are we trying to achieve with this house rule? Faced with Macedonian pike being frequently outflanked for the loss of 2 elements I have been thinking about making Macedonian Pike an 8Pk element which assumes the stats of 4Pk with rear support but as a DBE that counts double for the first loss. This has the advantages of giving the Alex’s army list 4 x 8Pk, adding a extra LH (which it needs) BUT I don’t know what the final extra element should be possibly 8Pk or Sp or 4Ax or Ps. Couple this with making the Hypaspists 4Ax or Sp or 3Bd AND making Alexander’s Companions 6Kn, this should make Alexander’s army more useful. Three points to note - I think the 8Pk idea comes from Jim’s post in 2020. Second, my Macedonians are currently at the bottom of a big stack of really useful boxes so I haven’t tried out all these ideas. Lastly - if 8Pk is a thing then what does 4Pk represent? My motivation is that a 3x2 or 2x2 block for 4Pk just isn't representative of a Phalanx. Most reports we have when facing Hoplites or Legionaries show relatively equal length battle lines. Certainly not double length that we have in DBA3. Outflanking is just too easy if half your army only covers 12 out of 60cm. Yes, you can use terrain if you're defending if it falls your way. But again, that seemed to be the exception rather than the rule. If you had 16000 phalangites, you were usually pretty confident to march out and meet the enemy. Initially, I suggested 8Pk as a powerful force but brittle due to the two element loss. It was argued that this was too powerful. This attempt is again to extend the line but keep it powerful and brittle as envisioned by PB. It also helps that no further painting is required! (And you could choose an odd number of pike elements without later regret) Cheers Jim PS The relatively poor performance of Hellenistic Pikes against historical opponents that they did beat is another motivation. |
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Post by jim1973 on Oct 22, 2023 4:02:23 GMT
I don't know stevie. Gaming war is artificial in whatever sense you consider. At least some of the mechanisms are "plausible". (Spears maintaining cohesion. Knights pursuing into danger. Warband attacking en masse). Some less so. My trouble with Bd and Pk pursuing into danger is that breaking into the enemy battle line was the aim of the exercise and, usually, led to victory, at least in that part of the battle. The three "heavies' (Bd/Sp/Pk) will eventually break if left to their own devices, usually after a bit of a slog, even without pursuit.
Cheers
Jim
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Post by jim1973 on Oct 21, 2023 4:02:29 GMT
Great link menacussecundus, Lovely camp, looks like it could work for 15mm and 20mm and inspire imitation in other scales. CarlL Certainly works in 15mm fanaticus linkJim |
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Post by jim1973 on Oct 21, 2023 3:58:13 GMT
Certainly possible. Pursuit has always been a puzzle for me. Was the intention to potentially get charging, impetuous troops into trouble like the Byzantine cavalry at Manzikert? Warbands, Elephants and Knights I can understand, but Blades are puzzling. Romans were mostly disciplined. Vikings were more spear and shieldwall than axes. Is it to try and recreate Cannae without a feigned flight mechanism? I'd rather give lighter troops the option to pull heavies out of line if they win the combat. May help 4Ax.
Jim
PS Good excuse to get my Khurasan Polybians painted up and out against Phillip V
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Post by jim1973 on Oct 20, 2023 23:43:47 GMT
That would make them less brittle. But pursuing single blade elements would struggle.
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Post by jim1973 on Oct 20, 2023 13:06:27 GMT
This is a specific house rule as I am not too familiar with Swiss pikes and their battlefield performance, other than their excellent reputation. For me, Hellenistic pikes were more static but fielded in huge numbers by the Successors. PB has modelled pikes as strong but brittle. He also seems to want them to pursue Romans onto rough going as described at Pydna. The former is fair enough. The latter seems more of an exception than a rule for Hellenistic pikes. So I did some 6v6 tests between Pikes and Spears and Pikes and Blades with the following changes: Pike +3 with +3 side support and no pursuit. My observations were:
- Everybody got "wins"
- Blade pursuit was not suicidal
- Pikes were brittle
Once the support was stripped from the Pike it was very vulnerable. This made the flanks particularly vulnerable as you only needed one push back to get a 5-2 advantage. Perhaps this is too much and Pikes may be able to get side-support from Spear, 4Ax or even Cav and Knights in order to make the flanks more robust. Will need to test it on the battlefield as these were just in isolation. I'll keep you informed if any progress.
Cheers
Jim
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Post by jim1973 on Oct 20, 2023 12:46:41 GMT
I'm happy to give the developers of DBF a bit of slack. They're probably quite excited as their project progresses. "Fixes" will always be in the eye of the beholder. They won't be for everyone and they will only be house rules for DBA3. In the mean time, I'm going to start a thread on house rules for Hellenistic pikes for people to try.
Cheers
Jim
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Post by jim1973 on Oct 19, 2023 12:13:35 GMT
Never been a fan of the main GW lines but Bloodbowl is legend! Also, the Lord of the Rings skirmish game (Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game) is one of the best skirmish games and easily adaptable to historicals. I'm painting up some Victrix ancients currently for a variant I found online.
Cheers
Jim
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Post by jim1973 on Oct 17, 2023 7:56:27 GMT
...why are Greek battles so often used to prove the superiority of certain types of troops? In China the fighting was completely different. Europe was regularly conquered by Asian hordes. Didn't these people care about Greek tactics?  I was pointing out a rules anomaly given the Thebans have 2x8Sp in DBA3, a well known fact to most DBA3 players. But people will always find fault when they look for it. Jim |
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