Quote from: martymagnificent on September 01, 2025, 07:12:02 AM

Quote from: nikgaukroger on September 01, 2025, 07:05:51 AMStill do not downgrade when shooting at FArm foot or elephants within 1 BW as currently.

That is rare almost to the point of non-existence.

martin

Funny use of SK crossbow . The guy advances with his FARM infantry and I counter with my crossbow SK the he understands I ignore his armour 

Quote from: martymagnificent on September 01, 2025, 09:52:47 AMAnother minor shooting thing that irks me is that everything except artillery gets upgraded against unprotected, even firearms. I don't think firearms should get this upgrade and you could, perhaps, make an argument for crossbow or even powerbow not getting it either.

I'm not sure I follow. If the argument is that being unarmored protects just as much as 'light' armor (i.e none) then shouldn't they treat them the same and get the upgrade against anything not fully armored rather than not get an upgrade against unarmored?

Quote from: Manzikert on September 07, 2025, 03:48:19 AM

Quote from: martymagnificent on September 01, 2025, 09:52:47 AMAnother minor shooting thing that irks me is that everything except artillery gets upgraded against unprotected, even firearms. I don't think firearms should get this upgrade and you could, perhaps, make an argument for crossbow or even powerbow not getting it either.

I'm not sure I follow. If the argument is that being unarmored protects just as much as 'light' armor (i.e none) then shouldn't they treat them the same and get the upgrade against anything not fully armored rather than not get an upgrade against unarmored?

Except the effect is presumably counterbalanced by slower rate of fire, etc

Martin

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Except the effect is presumably counterbalanced by slower rate of fire, etc
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To some extent the lower rate of fire is reflected in the shorter range. But there are other factors besides rate of fire, I won't pretend to have the specific stats; but a single shot that routinely defeats a target's armor is going to be worth multiple shots that don't. But also, don't forget that the primary effect of any weapon on a pre-industrial battle is going to be moral. Charging into handguns is really scary regardless what you're wearing.

During BRULIB, my poor combat shy crossbowmen ( and an average one ) just killed 2 tugs of mounter SUP knights by dicing "S" is a wound . First I stopped the charge by inflicting enough wounds not all with "S" is a wound and the turn after forced charges and both TUGS were routed. So my feeling is that it would make bows really powerful and the discussion during the tournament was : is it not too much especially the neew rule says at or less tha 1 MU, not even the charged file . To ponder

Quote from: badhabum on September 08, 2025, 10:19:55 AMDuring BRULIB, my poor combat shy crossbowmen ( and an average one ) just killed 2 tugs of mounter SUP knights by dicing "S" is a wound . First I stopped the charge by inflicting enough wounds not all with "S" is a wound and the turn after forced charges and both TUGS were routed. So my feeling is that it would make bows really powerful and the discussion during the tournament was : is it not too much especially the neew rule says at or less tha 1 MU, not even the charged file . To ponder

It's a little hard to tell from this description how much of an issue this would be. On one extreme a 4-pack of knights charging an 8-pack of crossbows is making a pretty risky move (especially if they start the charge from 5-BW and don't have the cards to push through fire since on average they should expect to be slowed for 2). The crossbows only need 1 result to stop the charge (92% chance) and 5 results out of the 8 total shooting dice to finish off the tug (36% chance). The knight player made some poor choices and took some risks they didn't need to, but even then the chance of killing the knights before contact is around 33%. I'm not sure it's an issue that small units have trouble closing with large ranged units. If shooters aren't dangerous in that situation then when would they be?

But on the other hand if a 6-pack of knights charges an 8-pack of crossbow (I'm assuming an 8-pack because a 6-pack wouldn't be able to cause 7 wounds in 2 turns of shooting) from 4-BW then the crossbows need 7 results overall in the 8 dice of shooting to stop the charge and finish off the tug (around 1% chance). (I think since the 3 results necessary to get the slow are required as part of the 7 wounds that the slow is already factored into that 1% but not 100% sure). If this is the case then knight player just got extremely unlucky.

Change not needed. Don't agree with this change.

Why exclude massed slingers ? slings were a very powerful weapon, too often underestimated .

As someone who has made a real effort to productively use unprotected crossbowmen (a basically 1:1 comparison of what these proposed shooting improvements amount to), I have to say that I'm pessimistic that these changed will be adequate to make pure shooters a unit type that people would voluntarily use.
(I've been forced to give up on them; they've pure liability on the table every game except the one.)

Before I try to really dig into this, I feel like I first need to ask:
When a TUG of dedicated shooters squares off against an equally-priced TUG of protected hand-to-hand foot, what is supposed to happen?
(e.g. "the archers should always be overrun and lose decisively", "the archers should stall the infantry for a turn with slowing, then lose", "it should be a 50-50 shot either way", "the archers should normally win so as to encourage using screening units or cavalry against archers", etc.)

I have used unprotected crossbowmen, one unit being poor . Yes they are useful and it's a a problem of when, where and vs whom .

Those are the guys that destroyed 2 CL knights .

Another game they were destroyed quickly because no terrain, nowhere to hide and I had to use them to gain time to win the game .

Now Why are so many unprotected I do not jnow enough about it

In a shooting contest they might die quickly but if you opponent does not shoot your crossbowmen might survive

Quote from: badhabum on September 18, 2025, 05:11:46 PMThose are the guys that destroyed 2 CL knights

I'm not sure it's a good idea to balance a broad swath of missile troop which (were usually employed primarily against other infantry) around the 1/16 chance that all four shots hit a 4-stand unit of knights in the charge phase.

I think the challenge with long range TUGs is the variety of historical role.

Broadly speaking archers/slingers/Xbow seemed to fill 3 broad roles;

1. Skirmishing in front of the main line - reasonably represented by skirmishing units as they are.

2. harrassment fire either from behind, or initially infront and then retreating behind the main line.

3. Effective fire - from close range. Ether fulfilled by mixed formations, multi-purpose soldiers (carrying a sidearm) or horse archers who would use mobility to fire and retreat repeatedly.

I find the current rules around bows tries to achieve a blend of these approaches with the results being very swingy from 'absolutely nothing' to 'killed a TUG of knights in one round" which is quite hard from a player point of view to design and play around.

Unprotected levy archers shouldn't be trying to sit in the mainline in the same way as protected, sidearm equipped or volley firing archers. They fulfilled different roles.

The slowing effect can be tactically really useful, except that the ranges that bowfire can occur currently really limits the application - with foot archers mostly aiming to get 2 rounds of shooting rather than just one and some modest affect of forcing an engagement - although most opponents of bow armed foot will be keen to get stuck in anyway. While, the likes of Longbowmen with armour and swords were very much expecting to engage in melee following only 1 or 2 rounds of shooting.

So trying to hit the right affect might get stuck making the aforementioned longbowmen just right, while making their unprotected experience bow compatriots utterly useless. or if the unproteced fellas feel somewhat useful could make longbowmen either too powerful or relatively not much better.

Although what I'm advocating for is more complexity in an already reasonably crunchy game, so sacrifices must be made somewhere, and tactically slowing ranged TuGs might also slow the game down further.

Quote from: badhabum on September 14, 2025, 10:44:57 AMWhy exclude massed slingers ? slings were a very powerful weapon, too often underestimated.

At the risk of derailing, I wanted to make sure I +1'ed this post.

Quote from: Doomsmile on September 22, 2025, 01:28:56 AM

Quote from: badhabum on September 14, 2025, 10:44:57 AMWhy exclude massed slingers ? slings were a very powerful weapon, too often underestimated.

At the risk of derailing, I wanted to make sure I +1'ed this post.

Already added to the proposals - https://mortem-et-gloriam.co.uk/smf/index.php?topic=3819.0

introduce a change in the future:
shooting dice : orange, blue and purple.
You can then tweak the shooting rules by simply adjust the wounds/slow deaths on the new dice.