Question about unit balance?

[Jorgen_CAB]

Hi!

I recently downloaded the rules and have run a few test battles and I have some questions about a few balance issues. I really found the rule set fun and engaging.

1. First question is why certain abilities or values on units are not included into the points cost of models?
Specifically impact hits that seem to be a rather important value, especially on units that have lots of it. I mean, two identical units with the same value but one has +1 impact will cost the same. I just find it a bit peculiar.

2. Why are feudal and late medieval knights so extremely strong on the charge when you compare with high grade infantry that is armed with the perfect tools to deal with them?
As far as I know Knights could never ever charge a good order veteran/disciplined infantry line armed with long spears/pole arms or pikes. The Knights either had to rely on charging infantry that simply gave way in the charge (low grade) or wait for the infantry to be softened up by either missile fire or other infantry first.

Up until the 100 years war Knights reigned supreme on the basis of infantry being rabble and drafted peasant for the most part, poorly armed and trained. Knights usually fought each other, infantry were more a tool for sieges anyway during those times and armies quite small.

Sure, if you lure the knight into broken ground the will be pretty weak in the game, but good order highly disciplined infantry was too much for heavy cavalry to deal with frontally in nine out of ten times from around 1300 and forward.

In battles such as the "Battle of the Golden Spurs" and "Battle of Morgarten" clearly showed how even rudimentary well organised and led infantry forces were very problematic for heavy cavalry to deal with and I would probably classify most of those infantry formations as Type C perhaps some Type B here and there. While the cavalry in both battles were the best that could be mustered at that time. These are two very early battles.

As far as I know there are no accounts of knights being able to frontally charge good order infantry with weapons such as pike and pole-arms (that I would class as Type A or B) unless they were softened up first. (unless you bring up Winged Hussars in later periods but that is completely different)

If the knights dismount and lets say they use their lances or pole arms as weapons. Such a unit is much weaker than the mounted version despite being at least twice their number. As far as I can tell standing on the ground is not that much of a disadvantage with the right tool set.
Knights did fight more on the ground than on horseback as time went on from 1300 and forward, not only because of ground conditions but for tactical reasons, I don't see these reflected in the unit profiles. The rules also, at some place, say that you replace one knight unit for one dismounted knight unit... I suppose they suddenly multiplied themselves with two or three then...

I also think most feudal knights units should have the "aggressive" trait... they were very hard to control and many battles were lost because of it. Agincourt could probably have been lost for this very reason, at lest some think that the French could have won that battle if it were not for the knights charging too early.

3. High grade Swiss and later pikes should perhaps be faster and more manoeuvrable than older pike formations, perhaps even a fourth rank as well. I would make them 2R for movement. These formations were very manoeuvrable due to high drill and new combat tactics of that time. Perhaps add some crossbow and/or hangunners to them as well, say two stands in each block.

4. I don't find any units that have the Type E class anywhere in the list, I thought that peasant levies should fit that bill but even they have Type D?

Long first post... I hope you go easy on me, I'm not as pessimistic as I sound... I just like to be educated if my premises are wrong.

[Jorgen_CAB]

Ok I had some ideas I wanted to share on the subject above and I know I am a newb at this game so all my ideas might just be junk...

with that said...

The way I see it is that many units have a melee combat value that is way to high, some chariots have a melee value of 5 why mainly were light units in reality and easily dispatched if caught in a melee with infantry that stood their ground. The same can also be said for most cavalry charges. If the infantry hold their ground in good order and melee ensues the cavalry will just be overwhelmed and hacked down, especially if the enemy is equipped with halbardiers. It should also be noted that most pike units also employed pole-armed infantry just for occasions such as those.

My suggestion would be something which I thought about when I perused the list and it mainly pertains to the late medieval period such as "The Hundred Years War" and later battles where most of the Men-at-Arms fought dismounted (on both sides).

Now, any formation with a low manpower count such as chariots, knights etc should have a relatively low melee value to reflect that fact and a high impact value.

Strong infantry with heavy weapons and good armour should have very high melee values and a low impact if any at all to reflect they particular combat abilities and uses.

Pike formations were very special and should be treated differently and I will come to that in a moment.

The last thing is that to balance thing out you simple add a melee combat bonus to a unit if it has a better type than all the unit they are fighting, simply add +1 melee bonus to the unit with the highest type. If no one is highest then nothing has to change.

The values suggested below are just generic values for western type standard infantry.
Heavy Cavalry Melee 3(+4)
Medium Cavalry Melee 2(+3)
Light Cavalry Melee 1(+1 or +2) depend on type of cavalry and armament

Regular shieldwall infantry Melee 3-5 light and heavy types
Spear Infantry Melee 3(+1)
Early Pole-arm Infantry Melee 5(+1) It should be noted that many pole-arm units also deployed long pikes or spears to fight an initial cavalry charge.
Late Pole-arm Infantry Melee 6(+1) It should be noted that many pole-arm units also deployed long pikes or spears to fight an initial cavalry charge. Dismounted Men-at-Arms certainly did.
Early Pike Infantry Melee 3(+4) Typical pike formation before the Swiss introduced it with different tactics.
Late Pike Infantry Melee 3(+6) If in pike block they can utilize a +6 impact bonus, pike formations was brutally effective against infantry if they got the chance to engage.
Now lets look at some examples and how it plays out...

Heavy Cavalry charge (Type B) against a drafted spear unit (Type C). The cavalry has a total of Melee 3, Impact 4, Type 1, Stands 4 for 12p while the spear has Melee 3, Impact 1, Stands 4 for 8p. This should give the knights a rather good chance to at least force the spear to become disrupted or recoil, either way it is a win.

The same knights charge a Billmen (Late Pole-arm) unit (Type C), the knight are still at 12p and the Billmen are at Melee 6, Stands 4 and Impact 1 for a total of 11p. This is a Dicey affair for the knights and if I were the commander I would not allow a head on charge, even if it is in their favour... knights are expensive... Billmen not so much... to me this is realistic, we are talking good order units here.

Now, let's pit the same Knight up against some dismounted crack Men-at-Arms Type A. The knights now loose the edge against the fully armoured and elite foot soldier wielding a mix of lances/pikes and pole-arms but the knights are desperate and charge anyway, now at 11p versus 12p for the foot knights, this can truly become a slaughter feast if the line hold and a melee ensue, they can even be completely broken on the charge if they are truly unlucky.

Now, a large Swiss pick block (Type A) is charging the French Men-at-Arms (Type B), both are in good order. The Pike unit has Melee 3, Impact 6, Type 1 Stands 6 for a total of 16 against Melee 6, Impact 1, Stands 4 at 11p. The line is surely going to break under the crushing weight of the pike formation. Nothing can stop a pike block unless it is another pike block at this time, given that it is in good order.

However, large pike blocks was very vulnerable to missile weapons, especially cannon fire. My suggestion is to give all Horde and Pike block units a -1 on the dice roll to hit with ranged weapons. This would balance up the increased and accurate lethality in pike blocks but at the same time emphasize its greatest weakness. Horde formation is quite powerful in the game yet not included in the points, this rule should make it more neutral and realistic at the same time. I really think most people see horde formation as mandatory just because they are just simply better. In real life they were, as long as the enemy had no lethal ranged weapons that is.

Heavy cavalry should never be used to charge head on to enemy formation of strong infantry without weakening them first, mostly they should be deployed on the flanks and then charge into the flank or rear of the enemy if they manage to chase of the enemy cavalry. In the earlier medieval period large heavy cavalry charges against peasant levies and ill trained levied spearmen were much easier and could be done without archer and infantry support, but from 1300 and forward this was no longer the case.

Let me know if this is a bad idea, I don't want to upset the balance overall, just fix things I see as a problem.

[dane]

Hi Jorgen.

Some very interesting points. what rule system do you normally play?

I'll try and give my perspective on some of the things raised in your second post

1/ Chariots only really in the Romano British list and are a crossover from the Fantasy army list they may seem strong on paper but they are a very weak unit in play and very easy to kill with only 3 stands used them and played against them. nether seen any on the table by the end of turn 3

the combat eg. you give are all one on one but in game play a unit of knights hitting a unit of infantry one on one would mean that the knights had managed to isolate it first I have played a lot of games with and against Tuetonic knights yes they are hard but at 250 points you may only see 3 possibly 4 units of them for the same price I get 6 to 8 units of my basic spear infantry (Samurai Ashigaru with yari) who in a fight would probably lose the first contact then swamp and kill the knights in the next turn

Horde rule is you pay the cost of 3 units but you only field 2 yes they are stronger but you have less units

Swiss Pike blocks I'm currently painting Swiss a 6 stand block hits with as factor of 14 more than a match for anything on the table at the moment.

try a few more games and I think you will find the High factor cavalry aren't a big problem if you keep your battle line flanks secure

[Jorgen_CAB]

Hi!

I generally like to play scenarios and that is why I'm not so much bothered about points than the outcome of the actual confrontation. In such an environment you could all well have half your army be knights and the other half be infantry (say French) while the opponent mainly have infantry and archers (say English).

I would take a scenario such as the battle of Morgarten, it is relatively small with lets sat 2500 Swiss say 6 pike blocks (9 regular units) and 3 crossbow against the Hapsburg with 3000 light infantry and crossbow and 2500 knights, that is lets say 10 spear infantry, 5 crossbow and 25 knight units (or a mix of knights and mounted sergeants). Terrain would obviously favour the Swiss and it would be an ambush, I will try it out.

I have probably tried most other rules out there, for historical I have mainly played with Piquet but tried many other games before that. For fantasy which is what I looked at to try here I have also used Piquet and other like Warmaster we even tried the new Kings of War and intend to play with that with 15mm models.

[Jorgen_CAB]

If you take Piquet that don't even have a proper point system scenarios are the most usual game play, as you can guess I don't like point system over all.

But if you use points I like my system of using it, that let you take any number of units. You would play the battle as usual, often the one with the least point will defend and chose the battlefield but also deploy first, with the opportunity to rearrange slightly after the offensive side have set up. You play the battle normally until one army breaks, usually it is the smaller one, but not necessarily.

It is not the player that rout the other army that win it is the one that performed the best. You can often calculate this by saying that...

With equal points a draw is made of both players are within 20% losses in points of each other at the end of the battle. Anything else is a win or loss result.

If the point are uneven you just widen and narrow this gap with the difference in point, making it much harder for the player with more point to actually win, even if the opponent army is routed. If the difference is too large then it will at some point be almost impossible for the aggressor to win since just a tiny loss will end in him loosing the moral victory of the day.

Example: Player A have 100 points player B has 200 points. In essence if player B lost 50p then player A must have lost at least 90p which is their whole army. If player A lost 51 point he automatically lost or draws the moral (or skill factor) victory of the game. In this case a draw is if the points are with 20% of the middle here... so if player A loose 25 points Player B win if he looses less than 45p and a draw if he looses between 45-60p and a loss if he looses by more than 60p. Since we usually use morale per unit it is fully possible to loose more the half the points in your army.
It will become very hard for player B to win unless he play very conservatively and don't take many losses. I have found out that games like these are far more interesting than straight up "fair" fights.

Oh.. I also forgot to mention that for fantasy I have played with "Hostile Realm" a very good game that I actually helped develop. Although I like this game since it seem to play faster and that is important since my time to play have lessened over the years.

[Jorgen_CAB]

Ok... I will post an answer here again... more of a history recap about the knights history and my reasoning for why I think their values are greatly exaggerated in the game.

During the early middle ages up until the "100 years wars" between France and England the Knight had been the dominating factor on the field, not because heavy cavalry was so good, but because there were no good infantry to be found. This was due to two very important factors. The population of westerns Europe had declined and was much smaller than just 500 years before during the reign of the Roman Empire. The only professional soldiers were now the nobles who had the time and resources to equip and train for a life as a soldier, they obviously chose to fight on horse since that was more advantageous for many reasons.

There were no way for any single kingdom in the western hemisphere to train and keep professional soldiers on their own, fiefdoms were too small and the initial costs to maintain such projects enormous and the population was needed to work the land to provide food and resources. As time went by mercenary forces started to appear who could deploy professional infantry soldiers for a reasonable price, these were often more cost efficient than equipping a heavy cavalry soldier, otherwise you would have seen mercenary cavalry in much greater numbers. Which is why nobles stayed as the main source for heavy cavalry.

A noble spared no expenses to make him as invincible as possible while a mercenary were more interested on being cost efficient to get as much bang for the buck. That is why you can early see many crossbow mercenaries appear on the field of battle. These formations would usually be a combination of pike and crossbow and 200 pike/crossbowmen would cost the same as about 10 knights to train and maintain.

Even infantry such as Viking shieldwalls would be able to withstand most knights charges in the middle ages, but they could not withstand the development in ranged weapons such as the crossbow and longbow and would be no match for a combined force of ranged/light infantry and knights (such as the Normans versus Saxons at the battle of Hastings), at least for the most part.

If you were to put points on a knight versus a crossbowman from a resource perspective it would be like 1p for the crossbow and 20p for the knight... ...while on the field a combined pike and crossbow unit would much more powerful in comparison, especially when you consider you could field like ten times as many such formations for a single knight unit (if they were both paid for).

Now, in the real world that is not how it worked. The Knights were in service of a lord and that lord could muster a number of knights based on the nobles in his reign. The knights were usually many more than the professional soldiers you could find and hire. The Lord did not pay the knight, but at the same time the lord did not get any tax from them either, this was an arrangement the nobles obviously preferred and it was a cultural thing.

Lets say that we just imagine that the lord could tax the nobles instead he could probably have gotten 10-20 professional soldiers instead of one single knight.

This change of money for military power was beginning to shift in the earth 14th century with city states being able to keep infantry militia with a relatively good training and armour and weapons. Such armies could repeatedly stand up to powers such as France, whose armies mainly was made up of knights and peasant infantry. The urbanisation had now started a surplus of people and time for them to actually train, this was also why England managed to contest the might of France even though England had about 1/10 the wealth of France, they could match France on the battlefield and repeatedly win with forces that were initially viewed as inferior.

You should also note that Men-at-Arms started to fight much more on foot from 1350 and forward, on all sides of the '100 Year Wars'. This is what I find is badly reflected in the stats of the units. Unless the field you intend to play on are severely in disfavour of mounting your troops there are no reason to dismount them. Especially if you turn a mounted unit into a two stand dismounted unit which you should do when you consider that an infantry unit is 200 men and a mounted unit is 100 men. You can then combine two dismounted units into one four stand unit. The rule say differently but in a realistic scenario this would be just strange.

If you also read a recap on all of the battles of the '100 Years war' not just the ones with England and France directly involved you find that cavalry repeatedly was repelled and beaten by combined forces of ranged and infantry units (comparable in size). So the knights were dismounted and fought alongside crossbow and longbow units instead. I'm not in the slightest saying that the cavalry was not important, they would be excellent at mounting surprise attacks and rout smaller and unprotected formation of archers and crossbowmen or flanking infantry fomration already engaged in combat.

One other problem with the knights was that they were often more interested in glory and loot and would often ride after a routed enemy and start plundering and trying to capture enemy nobles, this would make them rich and famous. Professional soldiers were easier to control in that regard.

The importance of the Knight waned from importance due to the rise of a surplus population and centralized economies of new "nations" rather then feudal kingdoms. These new nations rather called on massive professional infantry armies than relying and extremely expensive heavy cavalry forces.

The Romans certainly understood this a thousand years earlier and was one of the main reason the core of their forces were infantry and not cavalry or missile troops. The Romans knew that cavalry could never beat a disciplined infantry formation and that the combination of good disciplined infantry with ranged and cavalry as support forces were superior to large numbers of either ranged or cavalry. You could just deploy so many more heavy infantry than you could with either of the other types. Infantry was also far better for sieges, defence and garrison duty.

Here is a good pitched battle that show many of the deficiencies of the mounted heavy cavalry of the time... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Verneuil

[Jorgen_CAB]

Me again...

I just realised that I would not bother much if the cavalry were just mounted on a larger base, say 4x4cm. That would symbolize their frailty for being half the number of troops but still present a powerful force. It would also make them allot cheaper as well, perhaps they should be more than two points cheaper though from that perspective minus four point would be more appropriate.

They would now be much harder to outnumber in a points perspective so you actually can take them in the numbers they were used during the middle ages.

**Edit**

I realised this was a bad idea, they can only take one damage before they are removed and that is kind of too restrictive, and it does not work with impact hits. When I thought of it I for some reason thought it was you removed the unit when it taken below half its starting number of stands, don't know why...

[Gabz]

Some interesting points raised there.
The only thing I would want really looked at so far - and I have only done a few games - is the impact pts not being taken into account for unit cost.
I would not want to go down the half pt per impact level but maybe 1-2 impact could cost 1pt , 3-4 impact cost 2pts etc ?
Anyway the number of units with high impact pts is usually limited by the percentage of them allowed in an army , so I could see that being a bigger problem if you were doing a straight reenactment of a battle rather than the usual pts based affair.

[Jorgen_CAB]

From a points perspective I do think the army-lists overall seem pretty solid and balanced even if Impact is not counted, but that is mainly because the list is made in such a way that you are forced to take some forces while you are limited at others. If you had been free to choose your troops unrestricted there might perhaps be a bigger problem in that regard... the only way to know for sure would be to test it.

[Norm]

Point setting is difficult and the sort of thing that needs tweaking over time, but it is always helped by having restrictions placed on the composition of the force (as is the case with these rules). My own preference is for scenarios to be designed and then over a number of playings, modify them to get the play balance right, but points is generally a good starting base.

As to the effectiveness of knights, what would their impact have been at Agincourt without the mud? The situation itself was substantially unbalanced in terms of numbers involved, so perhaps it is the mud itself that becomes the game balancer, in which case, perhaps special scenario rules are more important than points when looking to get a result that accords with the historical situation.