Quote from: craig.w on July 06, 2019, 09:28:58 AM
Unskilled javelin short spear is in my opinion a lot better than just short spear cavalry.

The unskilled jav is worth its weight in gold when added to a basic SSp cav type. If it were optional it'd be hugely unusual not to take it.

Downgrading a bow only cav type to unskilled can get you a similar usefulness - it will come as no surprise that Alasdair has been doing this 

Quote from: mad lemmey on July 06, 2019, 08:40:17 AM
THIS THREAD IS NOT ATTACKING ME1) I was an idiot.
Can we take that point as read.
2) I tried one block, I tried two blocks and a pinning force while picking on units I could/should beat. It didn't work. I'm looking for advice how to beat this type of army and improve. If not beat them, at least cause some damage!
3) see 1 (above).
4) I'm sure I can come up with any number of excuses, but I have realised that I basically got too big for my boots and forgot that I go along to these things to have fun.
5) See 3 (above)

Sorry I was a stroppy fool. Hugs.

And the winner of the humble confession of the year prize goes to ....

There is however some truth inthe point raised but we are really into rather fine details and tweaks. Bet ever the serach for near prefection so lets have the ideas ...

S

I suppose one possibility is to raise the base price of everything. Ie make the cost of bodies a little higher relative to the cost of weapons/capabilities. Might diminish the move towards vast walls of mediocrity.

Unskilled shooting is a tricky one. It is almost worthless if you don't get an evade as a result but possibly under-priced if you do (especially in the case of javelin). Is this a distinction that can be accommodated by the spreadsheet?

Martin

is 13 Tugs (horde) compared to 11 (normal) a vast wall of mediocrity?

I took 13 with the plan that more dice would mean less randomness.

nope


therefore I hesitate to give any advice, but long spear infantry is not a game winner, its a game not looser  (though that can go wrong really quickly).   An army mainly made of long spear with a couple of lethal anti cav powerbow units is going to struggle against larger numbers.  It really cannot cope with flank attacks as it strips the frontal factors on top of the direct damage.  Add in that it is not likely to go through the front of anything (very unlikely to be better than +1 frontally, mainly evens on green, and losing ranks really hurts)

so a small army of drilled long spear is likely to get outflanked and tonked.

Yep, no point in running anything high quality. Numbers are what count. That's why Gauls and Spanish dominate tournaments, with huge numbers of crap-troop tar baby units.

Except they don't. A 9 stand Gaul unit will get chopped into cat foot by 6 stands of superior Romans in fairly short order, and clever use of cavalry, light troops and terrain can keep the barbarians off the Roman flanks long enough for it to happen. Other examples will occur to you. The game is a balance between quality and quantity; you need a bit of both...unless you're Alastair, of course. Us mere mortals need some quality troops to with battles.

I'd tend to agree that long spear infantry look better on paper than they actually are in reality.

Quote from: nikgaukroger on July 06, 2019, 08:54:36 PM
I'd tend to agree that long spear infantry look better on paper than they actually are in reality.

As a user, I agree. Go to one rank deep and you're dog meat.

So if you have long spear then go tribal so you get lots of them for fewer points and go four ranks deep. Oops we are back on the topic of cheap massed armies again!!

Quote from: marshalney2000 on July 06, 2019, 09:50:08 PM
So if you have long spear then go tribal so you get lots of them for fewer points and go four ranks deep. Oops we are back on the topic of cheap massed armies again!!

Oh and while we are at it protect the flanks with mounted long spear cheap average in three ranks deep.

Quote from: marshalney2000 on July 06, 2019, 09:51:38 PM

Quote from: marshalney2000 on July 06, 2019, 09:50:08 PM
So if you have long spear then go tribal so you get lots of them for fewer points and go four ranks deep. Oops we are back on the topic of cheap massed armies again!!

Oh and while we are at it protect the flanks with mounted long spear cheap average in three ranks deep.

Yes please, it'd be much appreciated.

hmmm maybe i need to ditch the big army/dice mitigation strategy and go for the fucking hard frontal assault strategy

Is it really horde armies and long spear that's the problem? Is there even a problem? The top 5 armies were:

First Bulgarian Empire
Hussite
Royal Achaemenid Persian
Ottoman Turkish
Khawarij

Maybe someone could post the lists used?

Looking at that list (excluding the Hussite) and the overall 38 armies used the almost complete absence of any Romans, Successor, hairy barbarians, dark age foot-dominant armies, pike armies suggests that the problem is cavalry are under-priced relative to foot. Unless it's a tightly themed competition people usually aren't choosing foot (of course there will be exceptions).

So wouldn't the answer be to get fewer mounted on the table to make it more of a challenge?

I really think that tinkering the the rules at this late stage is not a good idea. There needs to be a line in the sand and if there is a problem change the army builder, not the rules. Isn't that the point of an online army builder, if things are a bit out of whack change the points rather than the rules? Mounted long spear has its quirks, keep it as is, rather than have all the cataphract players up in arms after they get neutered because of the success of Arab style armies with massed long spears (Hunter scored 2 in the first game, so someone clearly had the answer to that army). Bump loose formation cavalry up a bit, mounted long spear up a bit, decrease close order cavalry would imho be a better idea than changing the way a weapon works after 3 years in the rules.

I am not sure I can agree that playing with points for mounted long spear is the answer. As you say this would then knock on to cataphracts who are already expensive. I remain convinced that mounted long spear are given certain advantages that their historical performance do not seem to justify. In particular, cancelling mounted melee expert and a plus in all types of terrain. I think, and I am being cautious here, Nik has tended to agree indicating the Arab style as being more of a fencing with long spears skill.

Quote from: marshalney2000 on July 07, 2019, 08:25:22 AM
I am not sure I can agree that playing with points for mounted long spear is the answer. As you say this would then knock on to cataphracts who are already expensive.

But link it with the ArmHrs question, as previously mentioned, and it may work out fine for the cats.

Quote from: craig.w on July 07, 2019, 02:11:17 AM
Is it really horde armies and long spear that's the problem? Is there even a problem? The top 5 armies were:

First Bulgarian Empire
Hussite
Royal Achaemenid Persian
Ottoman Turkish
Khawarij

Maybe someone could post the lists used?

Looking at that list (excluding the Hussite) and the overall 38 armies used the almost complete absence of any Romans, Successor, hairy barbarians, dark age foot-dominant armies, pike armies suggests that the problem is cavalry are under-priced relative to foot. Unless it's a tightly themed competition people usually aren't choosing foot (of course there will be exceptions).

So wouldn't the answer be to get fewer mounted on the table to make it more of a challenge?

I believe that there are some factors pushing for cav armies :
1- duration of the game. Game Less than 3h means you need unit running fast to catch the last points missing.
2- the proximity of the skulls with Britcon. Britcon is post 1066 this year. It Focuses the attention of the gamers on later medieval armies.