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"Typical Army" Restrictions
Posted: Sat Nov 23, 2013 12:56 pm
by rbodleyscott
The FOGR army lists are quite lenient on force composition, as unbalanced forces did historically occur on occasion. However, this allows tournament players to minimax their armies perhaps more than is always desirable. Many people think it would be a good thing if some tournament themes enforced more typical army compositions.
Following on from the "More Restrictive Army Lists" thread, I have started this thread to specifically discuss a possible set of "Typical Army" restrictions that could be promulgated for OPTIONAL used by tournament organisers to force more typical army compositions as part of the theme.
Such a set of Restrictions should ideally be able to cope with all types of army - though some exceptions might need to be specified. I do not envisage anything being done on a list by list basis, however.
As a first stab I suggest:
1) At least half of all non-light Mounted bases must be Average or Poor. (Note that this does not include Dragoons). Note: Most army lists already have similar constraints for infantry.
2) Armies must have at least 1 Mounted or Dragoon base for every 3 Foot bases (excluding Dragoons and Artillery), or half the total maximum permitted bases of each of Mounted troops and Dragoons if this totals less. If the list only allows a maximum of one unit of Mounted troops and Dragoons, the army doesn't have to have to have any.
3) For every 2 bases of Medium or Heavy Artillery there must be at least 12 bases of Determined Foot/ Heavy Foot/Medium Foot/Warriors or a combination of those, or half the maximum number of those types of infantry that their army list allows if this is less.
Re: "Typical Army" Restrictions
Posted: Sat Nov 23, 2013 2:34 pm
by madaxeman
If you enforce a lot more Average Horse, you may also want/need to allow Av Hse to be fielded in 6's, otherwise it's Artillery we will be legislating against next...
Re: "Typical Army" Restrictions
Posted: Sat Nov 23, 2013 4:52 pm
by rbodleyscott
madaxeman wrote:If you enforce a lot more Average Horse, you may also want/need to allow Av Hse to be fielded in 6's, otherwise it's Artillery we will be legislating against next...
Can't most be fielded in 6s already?
Re: "Typical Army" Restrictions
Posted: Sat Nov 23, 2013 4:54 pm
by nikgaukroger
rbodleyscott wrote:madaxeman wrote:If you enforce a lot more Average Horse, you may also want/need to allow Av Hse to be fielded in 6's, otherwise it's Artillery we will be legislating against next...
Can't most be fielded in 6s already?
Er, no - well, not if you're looking at the western mounted types from the late C16th onwards where the BGs are fixed at 4 bases.
Re: "Typical Army" Restrictions
Posted: Sat Nov 23, 2013 4:55 pm
by nikgaukroger
madaxeman wrote:If you enforce a lot more Average Horse, you may also want/need to allow Av Hse to be fielded in 6's, otherwise it's Artillery we will be legislating against next...
Well that may be no bad thing anyway
Re: "Typical Army" Restrictions
Posted: Sat Nov 23, 2013 5:15 pm
by nikgaukroger
rbodleyscott wrote:
Such a set of Restrictions should ideally be able to cope with all types of army - though some exceptions might need to be specified. I do not envisage anything being done on a list by list basis, however.
A one size does not fit all approach certainly has the benefits of simplicity, however, I wonder just how many exceptions may be needed - I fear it could be quite a few.
I fear as well that it may just leave things wide open in some periods to armies which are just as skewed as they currently are which rather defeats the idea of moving things towards a more historical norm. A good example which springs to mind immediately would be the C17th European armies in Duty and Glory. These maintained a pretty rock solid ratio of mounted:foot of more or less 1:2 (the French may have touched on a bit above 40% mounted in the 1670's) but the suggested scheme above would allow army compositions that simply make a mockery of that.
I suggest that the degree of change and variety in the FoG:R period makes a single catch all solution an overly optimistic aspiration.
I wonder if we want to avoid list by list restrictions* whether there could at least be a few broad period/geographical restriction sets.
* I would also note that the listing I did could, in fact, we compressed down into about 3 broad restrictions which listed which armies they applied to rather than being expressed as list by list.
Re: "Typical Army" Restrictions
Posted: Mon Nov 25, 2013 11:29 am
by nikgaukroger
rbodleyscott wrote:
3) For every 2 bases of Medium or Heavy Artillery there must be at least 12 bases of Determined Foot/ Heavy Foot/Medium Foot/Warriors or a combination of those, or half the maximum number of those types of infantry that their army list allows if this is less.[/b]
I wonder if Commanded Shot would be best omitted from the 12 bases in this? Would make the restriction a touch stronger.
Re: "Typical Army" Restrictions
Posted: Mon Nov 25, 2013 2:43 pm
by Maniakes
As an extension of RBS's artillery restriction (copied from another thread at Nik's request - which makes it embarassing clear that my post was "inspired" by RBS's) :-
"For every two medium artillery bases you must bring 12 bases of MF and/or HF and/or DF and/or Warriors (not including commanded shot) and for every two heavy artillery bases bring 18 bases of the same"
It strikes me as historical that mostly mounted forces probably didn't drag big artillery trains around (particularly Heavy Art) and it allows users of Light Art (like my Ming ....ahem!) to carry on ploughing their slightly lonely furrow.
Wouldn't that go a long way to sort the problem - without over-penalising the mounted types (and after all we do still want to see a range of strategies on the table)? Might be the only change needed at the moment. I left out the second part about "half the maximum" on the basis of simplicity and the assumption that there aren't loads of armies that would fall into this category (and they could just take no artillery if they entered that one particular competition).
Re: "Typical Army" Restrictions
Posted: Mon Nov 25, 2013 8:58 pm
by nikgaukroger
rbodleyscott wrote:
2) Armies must have at least 1 Mounted or Dragoon base for every 3 Foot bases (excluding Dragoons and Artillery), or half the total maximum permitted bases of each of Mounted troops and Dragoons if this totals less. If the list only allows a maximum of one unit of Mounted troops and Dragoons, the army doesn't have to have to have any.
The more I think about this one the more I dislike it. It is aimed at the Duty & Glory armies who minimise mounted (fair enough it is ahistorical), however, nothing is suggested to stop the equally egregious French mostly mounted option (also horribly ahistorical) - and the latter is more likely, I would suggest, to cause players to not play.
Re: "Typical Army" Restrictions
Posted: Tue Nov 26, 2013 8:56 am
by gibby
Actually, I quite like the simplicity of it and just think it needs maybe 2 additional points.
Average Horse to be allowed in 6's.
Dragoons to be max of 1 dragoon unit allowed for every 4 non light units.
cheers
Jim
Re: "Typical Army" Restrictions
Posted: Tue Nov 26, 2013 11:54 am
by ravenflight
rbodleyscott wrote:1) At least half of all non-light Mounted bases must be Average or Poor. (Note that this does not include Dragoons). Note: Most army lists already have similar constraints for infantry.[/b]
Hmm, I think this is a bit excessive.
There are several armies where the mounted were substantially better than others. For example the French Louis XIV mounted were considered pretty damned good. In my opinion, so good that they shouldn't HAVE to have half or more of average quality. When you consider the extreme cost of Impact mounted and determined horse, you're saying that for the Louis XIV French(for example) to have 2 BG's of superior combat mounted troops, they are going to have to have
at least 2 other BG's of average. That's a crap load of points just to have 2 reasonably easy to beat mounted troops.
In some cases this wouldn't be a very big negative, which makes it more of a negative for those who have limited choice. For example, the Poles would be able to comply with the rules just by having 2 BG's fo Winged Hussars and 2 BG's or Reiters, which are already average.
So, the French suffer and the Poles don't. This would be pretty much across the board, I'm just familiar with these two lists, so have picked on them.
Re: "Typical Army" Restrictions
Posted: Tue Nov 26, 2013 2:44 pm
by madaxeman
Agreed - 1 in 3 for mounted units being average would be enough, maybe even 1 in 4. At 1 in 3 it still means that any more than 2 Superior units and you are also taking 2 Average, 1 in 4 means 4 mounted Superiors needs 2 Average as well.. And that is starting to get to a lot of Superiors even for a max-mounted force as it is now
The foote/mounted thing seems tough at first glance, as "forcing" an 8-unit of foote D&G army to have 4 units of horse is quite a tax on pedestrians, especially for armies that can't have lots of Dragoons. 1 base for every 4 maybe?
And again I will repeat, Av horse in 6s!
Re: "Typical Army" Restrictions
Posted: Tue Nov 26, 2013 8:46 pm
by ravenflight
madaxeman wrote:Agreed - 1 in 3 for mounted units being average would be enough, maybe even 1 in 4. At 1 in 3 it still means that any more than 2 Superior units and you are also taking 2 Average, 1 in 4 means 4 mounted Superiors needs 2 Average as well.. And that is starting to get to a lot of Superiors even for a max-mounted force as it is now
I guess it depends on how it is worded. For instance, if you make it 1:3, one could read that I have only got 2 superior BG's, thus don't need an Average. Another could read that if I have 5 BG's, 1:3 of that is between 1 and 2, so I'll take 1, being 4 superior and 1 average. If you worded it it that 1/3rd of your bases needed to be Average, then you have them going the other way. A person with 4 BG's would need to have 2 Superior (max) and 2 Average (min).
Another thing that I bought up in my original post was that this kind of thing harms some armies without affecting others. How many Superior shooting pistol armies are there? Fairly infrequent.
So, the person with no (or few) options to take shooting pistol troops are at a disadvantage against someone who can. The one with the shooting pistol can comply with this x% rule and not affect his impact capability, which he would almost be forced to do anyway, just by the list.
Re: "Typical Army" Restrictions
Posted: Tue Nov 26, 2013 9:26 pm
by urbanbunny1
madaxeman wrote:If you enforce a lot more Average Horse, you may also want/need to allow Av Hse to be fielded in 6's, otherwise it's Artillery we will be legislating against next...
I'm worried about this neutering some of the later D&G armies.
My Savoy would really suck if I had to have three battle groups of average horse. They've shown their inability to beat up dragoons in the past
Simon
The Aussie one
Re: "Typical Army" Restrictions
Posted: Tue Nov 26, 2013 9:40 pm
by kevinj
Don't worry, they'll have everyone else's Average Horse to fight!
Re: "Typical Army" Restrictions
Posted: Wed Nov 27, 2013 7:44 am
by nikgaukroger
ravenflight wrote:
I guess it depends on how it is worded. For instance, if you make it 1:3, one could read that I have only got 2 superior BG's, thus don't need an Average. Another could read that if I have 5 BG's, 1:3 of that is between 1 and 2, so I'll take 1, being 4 superior and 1 average. If you worded it it that 1/3rd of your bases needed to be Average, then you have them going the other way. A person with 4 BG's would need to have 2 Superior (max) and 2 Average (min).
Well if you word it in terms of bases in the way Richard's suggestion is I don't think there are uncertainties as to how you would interpret it.
Re: "Typical Army" Restrictions
Posted: Wed Nov 27, 2013 10:11 am
by nikgaukroger
Maniakes wrote:As an extension of RBS's artillery restriction (copied from another thread at Nik's request - which makes it embarassing clear that my post was "inspired" by RBS's) :-
"For every two medium artillery bases you must bring 12 bases of MF and/or HF and/or DF and/or Warriors (not including commanded shot) and for every two heavy artillery bases bring 18 bases of the same"
It strikes me as historical that mostly mounted forces probably didn't drag big artillery trains around (particularly Heavy Art) and it allows users of Light Art (like my Ming ....ahem!) to carry on ploughing their slightly lonely furrow.
Wouldn't that go a long way to sort the problem - without over-penalising the mounted types (and after all we do still want to see a range of strategies on the table)? Might be the only change needed at the moment. I left out the second part about "half the maximum" on the basis of simplicity and the assumption that there aren't loads of armies that would fall into this category (and they could just take no artillery if they entered that one particular competition).
Reflecting on Dave's post I quite like the idea that Heavy Artillery need a bit more infantry "support" than Medium, although maybe have it as 15 bases for them - thus a max sized GBG in an early C16th army would fulfill the requirement which seems neat to me. Later C17th armies would need 3 BGs if they had 2 bases of Heavy Artillery and 5 BGs if they had 4 (as opposed to needing 6 as Dave's suggestion would have it).
I also like his leaving out the "half the maximum" bit for simplicity - but haven't looked to see if that would cause problems; can anyone think of any?
Re: "Typical Army" Restrictions
Posted: Wed Nov 27, 2013 10:21 am
by quackstheking
This would kill all the Eastern Indian armies and the Turks (who aren't that good anyway), who actually relied on Heavy Artillery.
Don
Re: "Typical Army" Restrictions
Posted: Wed Nov 27, 2013 10:51 am
by nikgaukroger
quackstheking wrote:This would kill all the Eastern Indian armies and the Turks (who aren't that good anyway), who actually relied on Heavy Artillery.
Don
Do you mean the whole idea of linking numbers of foot to Heavy/Medium artillery or the idea that maybe Heavy would require more infantry to be fielded?
Re: "Typical Army" Restrictions
Posted: Wed Nov 27, 2013 12:35 pm
by Delbruck
Jacobites vs Japanese
Poles vs Pirates
Tlaxcaltecas vs Scots
Early Danish vs Late Jin
Ottoman Turks vs Irish
Rick: How can you close me up? On what grounds?
Captain Renault: I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!
[a croupier hands Renault a pile of money]
Croupier: Your winnings, sir.
Captain Renault: [sotto voce] Oh, thank you very much.
Captain Renault: Everybody out at once!
So, we want to make our tournaments more historical. If we are really serious, the only way to accomplish this (with a straight face) is to have the tournament theme based on a specific war - and the only armies allowed are those involved in that war Then it would be reasonable for the organizer to impose restrictions such as: a minimum of 200 points of cavalry and 200 points of infantry (MI or HI), or no heavy guns unless the army contains at least 400 points of infantry, etc. Otherwise, we will end with absurd situations like - a TYW German army organized for the Battle of Lutzen fighting a Woodlands Indian warband organized for a raid into northern New England.