fragmented behind stakes (sob!)

BurinusAgricolae · Post by **BurinusAgricolae** » Mon Mar 02, 2009 11:45 am

hi all,

yesterday we had a pleasant game day at our club with two matches with fog using medieval lists. During the game a couple of things happened that required some discussion. I report here one of theme in order to have some additional confirmation.

I had english 100YW continental army. I was facing with one of my longbow units behind stakes a unit of xbow armed cv.
after a pair of unfortunate shot exchanges and cohesion failures my lb dropped two levels to fragmented and the xbow just one level to disrupted. Realizing i was fragmented the cv declared a charge onto my lb. They passed the cmt for charging while disrupted while i failed the cmt to resist when charged being fragmented. therefore my lb routed despite they were defending (in disorder) the field fortifications.

I searched extensively the rules but i found no bonus for defending fortifications in cmt and no other rule that helped me avoiding that unfortunate ending for my lbs... (for example the fact that the cmt is not due to resist while fragmented behind fortifications).

Did i miss something ?

In case i didn't i think this situation should be evaluated for a possible revision of the rules because i think is not so realistic (IMO clearly)

regards to all
daniele

hammy · Post by **hammy** » Mon Mar 02, 2009 11:56 am

I believe that you are correct in that there is no modifier for the CMT to charge troops behind stakes. I suspect that it would only happen if the troops behind the stakes were fragmented anyway so it isn't that bad. There is after all no bonus on the CMT if you want to charge fragmented troops.

You must have been very unlucky to drop to FRG from crossbow cavalry shooting your longbow.

shall · Post by **shall** » Mon Mar 02, 2009 12:42 pm

Just be proud of the achievement!!

No there is no benefit for defending FF or PO. The benefit is you aremore resilient and take less tests. But POs alas do not hep vs missiles and are there to protect you from cavalry - which they will if you are not FRG.

Note that the realtive profile of decline if roughy STDY---DISR -------------FRG----BRK

Is how it it works. So DIRS is wuite a minor problem from which you can often recover. FRG is on the brink of breaking and takes some recovering from. This shape is very deliberate. Alas your Lonbowmen were in too much panic to consider waiting to see if the stakes were any help to them.

Si

gibby · Post by **gibby** » Mon Mar 02, 2009 12:47 pm

I agree with Hammy, it sounds like all the way down the line you have been unlucky. I don't think the rules need re writing because of a rare event happening. You would expect a 6 or 8 element longbow unit to outshoot a 4 or 6 cav xbow unit. The fact is that you failed 2 seperate cohesion tests and then a complex move test to receive the charge. He failed 1 of 2 cohesion tests I'm guessing and then passed his cmt.
So the longbow bottle went despite having some stakes in the ground. Whats so wrong about that.
Personally, I rarely use the stakes and use the extra points for an IC. It makes such a difference to passing all the cmt tests or cohesion tests.

cheers

rbodleyscott · Post by **rbodleyscott** » Mon Mar 02, 2009 2:46 pm

BurinusAgricolae wrote:I searched extensively the rules but i found no bonus for defending fortifications in cmt

i think this situation should be evaluated for a possible revision of the rules because i think is not so realistic (IMO clearly)

We deliberately avoided complicating the rules by adding additional modifiers for unusual cases.

You can, of course, make a case that the rules would be more "realistic" with such a modifier. If, however, we had included modifiers for all equally deserving situations, the modifier tables would be about three times longer than they are.

As usual, there is a tradeoff between increased "realism" and ease of assimilation and playability.

philqw78 · Post by **philqw78** » Mon Mar 02, 2009 3:51 pm

If I was a longbowman and some blokes on horses had outshot me I wouldn't think much of my chances when they charged, even if I was standing behind a few toothpicks, or kebabsticks, depending how you model your stakes

marioslaz · Post by **marioslaz** » Mon Mar 02, 2009 3:58 pm

philqw78 wrote:If I was a longbowman and some blokes on horses had outshot me I wouldn't think much of my chances when they charged, even if I was standing behind a few toothpicks, or kebabsticks, depending how you model your stakes

Do you talk for direct experience? Did you ever try the feeling of a real fight? I don't pretend you fight in a real war, but at least in a virile sporty struggle, like wrestling, rugby, boxe, american football, etc.

philqw78 · Post by **philqw78** » Mon Mar 02, 2009 3:59 pm

try the not pretend bit

BurinusAgricolae · Post by **BurinusAgricolae** » Mon Mar 02, 2009 4:14 pm

hammy wrote:I believe that you are correct in that there is no modifier for the CMT to charge troops behind stakes. I suspect that it would only happen if the troops behind the stakes were fragmented anyway so it isn't that bad. There is after all no bonus on the CMT if you want to charge fragmented troops.

You must have been very unlucky to drop to FRG from crossbow cavalry shooting your longbow.

Dear Hammy (and all the other that kindly answered ...)

I clearly was VERY unlucky for being fragmented from shooting by those nasty mtd xbw (meanwhile not being able to fragment them!).
My post was mainly to check wether i didn't miss something in the rules (and sadly i didn't) ...

Going through the asnwers and speifically considering that of Richard I am clearly with his position to limit the number of items in the CT/CMT to the essential ones since this is a quite non frequent (hopefully) situation. What i expected however (before carefully reading the rules) was that being behind defences may avoid testing to resist a charge when fragmented or even more drastically i would limit the need to test only to troops considered in the open.
This is not a crucial issue but i think is quite reasonable since troops even very disrdered may have a chance to resist if the terrain or the defences may give them some help.

In any case thanks all for the kind attention to my question and thanks richard and the other for bringing me back to ancient wargaming !!! (and hopefully to renaissance soon...)

daniele

hammy · Post by **hammy** » Mon Mar 02, 2009 4:32 pm

marioslaz wrote:
philqw78 wrote:If I was a longbowman and some blokes on horses had outshot me I wouldn't think much of my chances when they charged, even if I was standing behind a few toothpicks, or kebabsticks, depending how you model your stakes
Do you talk for direct experience? Did you ever try the feeling of a real fight? I don't pretend you fight in a real war, but at least in a virile sporty struggle, like wrestling, rugby, boxe, american football, etc.

Phil claims to be one of the few British army squadies to have been promoted to Sergeant three times

He gets really upset when my FoW artillery observers get stuck in and fight. "Real OPs wouldn't do that....."

marioslaz · Post by **marioslaz** » Tue Mar 03, 2009 7:56 am

hammy wrote:Phil claims to be one of the few British army squadies to have been promoted to Sergeant three times

He gets really upset when my FoW artillery observers get stuck in and fight. "Real OPs wouldn't do that....."

The point isn't who is what, the point is that here there is a group of people who claim to know all human knowledge: they know every army of the world and of any era, they talk of statistic as they were academic, but then when put to test ...

philqw78 · Post by **philqw78** » Tue Mar 03, 2009 9:33 am

but then when put to test

We must roll a dice as no matter how much research is done nobody knows what will happen

shall · Post by **shall** » Tue Mar 03, 2009 2:47 pm

Perhaps real battles are more random thatn we give them credit for ....

Si

Lycanthropic · Post by **Lycanthropic** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 12:14 am

Stakes or no stakes, standing amongst your fallen friends with crossbow bolts whizzing by?........LEG IT!

Boiler · Post by **Boiler** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 1:48 am

If you want to rationalise it, the longbowman ran out of arrows, had the indignity of being outshot by Cavalry who no doubt took out a few element leaders and the sight of all those horses heading ther way was the last straw.

Not sure how much having stakes around would help the thought process.

philqw78 · Post by **philqw78** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 7:14 am

Boiler wrote:Not sure how much having stakes around would help the thought process.

"Start running now, the stakes will slow them down"

shall · Post by **shall** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 10:56 am

"Start running now, the stakes will slow them down"

Thus speaks the experienced soldier ... that probably is the reality.

Si

marioslaz · Post by **marioslaz** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 1:26 pm

shall wrote:
"Start running now, the stakes will slow them down"
Thus speaks the experienced soldier ... that probably is the reality.

Si

I really don't know if my example could be comparable because they are different periods and different warfare styles. Anyway, in ancient Greek, hoplites who fled the battlefield were considered doomed, and in hoplite training they learned, when defeated, to retreat in small groups, instead to simply throw away shield and run, because this improved significantly their chances to survive.

philqw78 · Post by **philqw78** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 1:38 pm

In most historical battles people that turned and ran were killed a lot faster then if they stood to fight even against poor odds. However, if it is looking bad and you get to run away first, in your own opinion, you would have more chance of escape. A bit like fish - "There's a whole shoal of them behind me, I should get away" It takes discipline and bravery or desperation to stand and fight against the odds. Probably the more experience of combat you have the better you will know how to react to be able to survive.

I think Flames of War has later British infantry rated as reluctant veterans. Never played the game but I think it means that they are not keen to assault the enemy but are hard to kill and good at fighting. Seems fair after a few years of war.

vingthorr · Post by **vingthorr** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 2:02 pm

Boiler wrote:If you want to rationalise it, the longbowman ran out of arrows, had the indignity of being outshot by Cavalry who no doubt took out a few element leaders and the sight of all those horses heading ther way was the last straw.

Not sure how much having stakes around would help the thought process.

and were probably suffering the effects of dysentery as well

fragmented behind stakes (sob!)

fragmented behind stakes (sob!)

Re: fragmented behind stakes (sob!)