Quote from: badhabum on February 04, 2025, 03:18:22 PM
Yes but my point is WHAT is the problem ? what is the essence of the problem ?

Huh. Thank you for reiterating that question. It legitimately got me reevaluating my assumptions here.


If I could back up and ask a direct question to Richard and the dev team:
If we were to take the single most common classification of dedicated shooter in MeG-- Loose, Average/Unprotected, Experienced Bow -- what is the developer intention for the general role, use case, and effect of these guys?

(And if I could ask a follow-up question: do any of those answers change if they're protected and/or crossbow-armed?)


TBH, I'm really kicking myself for being a dimwit and not just leading with that question before throwing out a bunch of opinions /smh/.

QuoteYes but my point is WHAT is the problem ? what is the essence of the problem ?

Ah, fair enough. It's honestly a bit hard to get to the essence of the problem because I'm not sure exactly what role the dev's want ranged units to have, except that they don't want the game to be dominated by ranged combat. Doomsmile is right that I should probably wait for their feedback ... but I spent too long writing this to not post it!

The TLDR is shooting doesn't do enough harm and has too short a range. So a ranged unit has to expect to get into melee but also doesn't do enough damage before melee to gain a real advantage (against targets of comparable cost). So ranged units have to be able to stand up reasonably well in melee. Any ranged units that can't do that may as well be downgraded as much as possible. Even the ones that can are usually a bit underpowered compared to their cost.

The main issue is that ranged weapons just don't have much of an effect at all. On average 3 white dice will do a single wound and have a 50/50 chance to cause a slow. If the shot is taken while the unit is not being charged then due to the order of play, and the fact that it's very difficult to get shots on a unit in melee, the target won't be engaged until the next turn. So they will be able to pick up the wound with a yellow, or very possibly an upgraded green, before you have the chance to stack more harm on them. The slow, if it even matters, can also be picked up with a yellow. So a ranged shot is unlikely to cause any meaningful or lasting harm if taken before the charge phase. If the shot is taken while the ranged unit is being charged they can expect to cause 1 shooting wound on average and then end up in melee; if the ranged unit is at a disadvantage in melee, which they usually are, the 1 shooting wound has a very small effect on the final outcome.

The second issue is that all of the ranged weapons have pretty short ranges relative to the movement speeds of the game. Most ranged weapons essentially only get to shoot once. Even for the weapons that do have enough range to fire beyond charge reach you have to have some control over timing/initiative; else your opponent will stay just out of shooting range or move up to within charge range. So ranged weapons don't do much and if you want to make use of it you have to be close enough to get into melee.

QuoteAlso there modern tactics of shooting, fall back, reload, shoot, one step back, reload shoot is very unrealistic

Completely agree, my hope would be to find a way to make ranged units worth taking without the need for the fallback moves which they currently need to eek out a another shot or two before getting stuck in a losing melee.

Letting ranged units shoot before charges and again if charged gives them some real benefit for their ranged weapon in the case of a unit that can stand up in melee, but also gives some interesting utility to ones that can't. It would let them fire before the charge to put some wounds on a target before their own side goes in. Which seems like something they'd have done historically. Skirmishers would have a lot more utility since not only would they be able to shoot before the charge to do a bit of harm then fall back to allow their own side to charge in. They'd also be able to absorb the first shot from a ranged unit before the charge, so a means to mitigate the advantage ranged units just got.

QuoteNow when people take downgraded unprotected combat shy poor unskilled bows ..you ask for them to be killed

Completely agree, fully downgrades ranged units are bad and deserve to be.

Quote from: Doomsmile on February 05, 2025, 12:56:13 AM

Quote from: badhabum on February 04, 2025, 03:18:22 PM
Yes but my point is WHAT is the problem ? what is the essence of the problem ?

Huh. Thank you for reiterating that question. It legitimately got me reevaluating my assumptions here.


If I could back up and ask a direct question to Richard and the dev team:
If we were to take the single most common classification of dedicated shooter in MeG-- Loose, Average/Unprotected, Experienced Bow -- what is the developer intention for the general role, use case, and effect of these guys?

(And if I could ask a follow-up question: do any of those answers change if they're protected and/or crossbow-armed?)

Check back on my earlier post.

To me, the essence of the problem is:

1.  The un-historic tactic of falling back while shooting.
2.  Average, unprotected, experienced bow/crossbow is not quite effective enough in points terms so is often downgraded to poor/unskilled and then treated as levy to be held in the rear to increase the army break point.
3.  The crossbow being more effective when charged has no historic basis (as far as I can see) and if anything it is the bow that is more useful when charged as it has a higher rate of fire - although this may have been countered by crossbows using volley fire.  At longer ranges, the lower rate of fire of the crossbow doesn't matter.  This is more a game mechanic to distinguish bow from crossbow.

Bow armed troops shouldn't be so bad that they aren't placed in the line. Against unprotected troops they should be more capable. They appear throughout history.  But they shouldn't be too effective either. 

Richard

Richard

Quote from: lionheartrjc on February 05, 2025, 08:51:19 AM
2.  Average, unprotected, experienced bow/crossbow is not quite effective enough in points terms so is often downgraded to poor/unskilled and then treated as levy to be held in the rear to increase the army break point.

Suggest it is just not the points cost vs value that is the issue otherwise the solution would just be to drop the cost, but the actual in game effectiveness (which I think is what you are getting at).

Any "good enough" archers as opposed to "levy dross" in terms of numbers is more likely an army list issue.

Quote from: lionheartrjc on February 05, 2025, 08:51:19 AM

Bow armed troops shouldn't be so bad that they aren't placed in the line. Against unprotected troops they should be more capable. They appear throughout history.  But they shouldn't be too effective either. 

Richard

Now that is a reasonable goal.

How about slows count as general claims in combat for any opponents - representing some level of disorder.

So if UG slowed by one, then +1 for any opponents in charge and melee combat.

Or would that be too powerful?

Quote from: badhabum on February 04, 2025, 03:18:22 PM


Yes but my point is WHAT is the problem ? what is the essence of the problem ?

I think possibly the problem is Unprotected Experienced shooters don't have a role. They don't have the survivability of Protected (not combat shy) to make a useful contribution to the battle without costing you a TUG loss, and they don't have the "filler" value of Unprotected Unskilled Combat shy. So you don't buy them, and if they are compulsory, you downgrade them.

Quote from: accard on February 06, 2025, 02:00:49 AM
How about slows count as general claims in combat for any opponents - representing some level of disorder.

So if UG slowed by one, then +1 for any opponents in charge and melee combat.

Or would that be too powerful?

It has been looked at as an idea.  It would be incredibly powerful.  Consider impact weapon only gets a +2 claim.  So if you got one slow and had short spear, this would be as effective...

Richard

Have  bows in close order?
Have bows cost 1  point instead of 2 points for army demoralisation?
increase stopping power?
S = slow and wound?

Are we trying to create a great game or create a great reenactment rule set. I don't think you can fully serve both masters.

You could say that they have integral shooters for impact

Quote from: rayfredjohn on February 07, 2025, 08:03:24 AM
Are we trying to create a great game or create a great reenactment rule set. I don't think you can fully serve both masters.

We are not creating a simulation, we want a great game - but the game is based upon history.  If you don't care about the history you can play fantasy games (and nothing wrong with that I stress - more players play fantasy games than historical games!).

Richard

All historical Wargames have an element of fantasy in them.

I was just reading about the Las Vegas Open, 1,100 40K players. Mind boggling.

That was only 1 of the systems being played. The biggest one.

Quote from: rayfredjohn on February 07, 2025, 11:44:06 AM
All historical Wargames have an element of fantasy in them.

Usually the players recounting of their dice   

Quote
I was just reading about the Las Vegas Open, 1,100 40K players. Mind boggling.

That was only 1 of the systems being played. The biggest one.

Read about those numbers recently; definitely mind boggling - historicals is a very small part of wargaming as a whole.

I resemble that remark