Art De La Guerre

[ethan]

OK so what do people think of something like:

Corp I (Brilliant Command CiC)
3xImpetuous Elite Medium Knights
2xElite Light Cavalry Bow
4xLight Cavalry Javelin
1xLight Foot Bow

Corp II (Ordinary Sub-general)
4xElite Heavy Spearmen
1xMedium Cavalry
2xLight Foot Bow

Corp III(Ordinary Sub-general)
3xHeavy Spearmen
2xJavelinmen
1xMedium Cavalry
2xLight Cavalry Javelin
1xLight Foot Bow

[Soranon]

It's not bad. But it depend what opponent will play...

I think that you should take less LH (6 in the same corps with different use and 8 for the wholearmy, is maybe too many) and take more LI for seizing terrain or for protecting your Knights against Elephants... Remember that you can move your LI with your Knights in group and they have the same move... (forget that if you don't figth elephants)

With ordinary generals it will be difficult to move Mounted and heavy lancers... It could be a weakness...

26 units, it' good for feodal armies.

But if I make a simple thinking about your list , I count only 10 unit that can really figth against heavy infantry... So if you face a big line as I often see, you will have some problems... (like Russians-Vikings-Germans with 18 HI or Heavy lancers... Or worst, pikemens...)

Now it depend of your style of play or your skill with this army.

If i was you, I should try to take some medium or Light troops for seizing terrain and try to think about be able to move all corps troop with just a 1 on D6 dice. Your third corps can't move all your troops easily with a 1... The use of LH and MC are really different...

[ethan]

Assume it is more or less an in period fight - so other Feudal Armies.

How about:

Corp I (Brilliant Command CiC)
3xImpetuous Elite Medium Knights
3xLight Cavalry Javelin
2xLight Foot Bow

Corp II (Ordinary Sub-general)
4xElite Heavy Spearmen
1xMedium Cavalry
2xLight Foot Bow

Corp III(Brilliant Sub-general)
3xHeavy Spearmen
2xJavelinmen
1xMedium Cavalry
3xLight Cavalry Javelin
2xLight Foot Bow

[cmuk]

Thanks for posting your list, gets me thinking what would I do against that!

probably lose...

[ethan]

The obvious other change is to drop the medium knights and replace 2 of them with elite spearmen, the third with perhaps 2 impetuous medium camelry. Then make Corp I and II have 3 elite spearmen each, with corp I retaining the camels and LH.

[chris6]

Well, i am not a big fan of mixing hvy foot with to much medium and light cav. They cant move as a group. Meaning you always need more pips. If you let them ride in front of your line you may get in trouble if the horses get charged and you want to evade. Can lead to disorder...

But one med Cav in a hvy inf corps maybe a good choice if used as a back up to close the gaps or move to give overlaps.

If this army is for an Intime-Fight, than you may think about the support for the hvy spearmen. Giving them more stayingpower against the christian knights.

[ethan]

A few thoughts:

I have the medium cavalry in with the spear as a ready reserve. I like the idea of the relatively mobile cavalry there to be able to fill, make an overlap, etc. The alternative would be something like Medium Swordsmen which are also available in the list and which could move with everything else.

I like the knights as I see them as a partial antidote to someone bringing impact swordsmen or 2HW swordsmen which look dangerous to my spear line, having the knights available would seem to help even that out a bit...

[ethan]

I took my Fanatic Berbers out against Feudal Spanish.

The Berbers had

Corp I
Brilliant CiC
3x Elite Impetuous Medium Knight
3x Light Cavalry Javelins
2x Light Foot Bows

Corp II
Ordinary Sub
4xElite Hvy Spear with Missile Support
1xMedium Cavalry
2xLight Foot Bows

Corp III
Competent Sub
3xHvy Spear Missile Support
3xMedium Swordsmen
3x Light Cavalry Javelins
1x Light Foot Bows

The Spanish had two corp with 4x Hvy Spear Missile Support, 2xImpetuous Hvy Cavalry, and a third corp with 8 or so Impetuous cavalry.

The board effectively had little terrain of consequence - except to make obvious the fight would be on the center/right side of the table. I deployed my corp from left to right 3-2-1. The enemy had the cavalry heavy command on my right (so facing my knights), then one corp with the cavalry supporting his cav heavy command then the second spear group with 2 cavalry on my far left.

The Spanish had vastly more heavy troops and I would almost certainly lose a straight up sluggling match...But I had better troops (elite spears and knights) and a decisive skirmisher advantage (i.e. I had some, the Spanish did not...).

I had the first move and decided the best play was to send out all my skirmishers and then rush up my right flank to try and mug his cavalry with my knights and elite spears. I had the idea that I would soften up that flank with light cavalry and archers as well. Things basically played out as expected, although I probably shouldn't have bothered trying to skirmish on my right as heavily as I did, better to simply have spent the pips moving the strike troops up.

The enemy on my left managed to get into my flanks and cause some damage, but the badly outclassed impetuous heavy cavalry were fairly easily dispatched by the spear/knight combo and that was enough to win the game.

A few observations:

- "Naked (i.e. lackign skirmishers to cover them)" impetuous guys are pretty vulnerable to skirmishing and the risk of being pulled around and out of position is a serious threat. Despite "wasting" pips on skirmishing on my right, those skirmishers pulled the heavy cavalry forward onto the spear/knight wall. Holding troops in ADLG is much harder than FoG or DMB IMO. Doing anything but charging with them in charge range costs THREE pips, this is basically everything the command has and ordinary and competent generals might not even have that. If you are pulled into charge range you have little choice but to charge....

- It is easy to write off the plinking from skirmishers as it may not seem that significant and can be repaired. I believe it is in fact fairly dangerous. The -1 due to being disorded is a killer if the enemy is not disordered. It is also notable that unlike FoG you cannot do things to help out when being shot at, there is no rear support, generals, etc that add to your morale roll. The enemy controls all the modifiers...

- Troops wind up out of command range/pips like they did in DBM - but it happens much faster. Commands just don't have that many pips so troops that are peripheral are at real risk of never being important enough to spend pips on. This also limits "fancy" things you might think would. Something like moving three separate elements to double overlap an enemy seems like a neat move, but then that is likely all that command is doing that turn...