New Shooting Rules

[jdesmond]

Salutations, gentlefolk !

May I suggest that you probably want to rewrite part 68.1 (top of left column, p.26).

Besides not incorporating the new shooting rules, it also refers to "being shot at by... a stand of mounted troops" (also a relic of some earlier version ?)

Would volunteer to take care of this, if I weren't hibernating.

[jdesmond]

Salutations, gentlefolk !

Noted the bad news for balistarii in the new rules.

A - Artillery beating Elephants no longer leaves them shattered and dead; now only makes them recoil.

B - Artillery doubling Horse Bow in open terrain makes them panic, no longer destroys them. (though a Panic move by Horse Bow may well take them off the table.)

Hath the trebouchets been deemed too powerful, or ??? Comments invited.

[El' Jocko]

Salutations, gentlefolk !

May I suggest that you probably want to rewrite part 68.1 (top of left column, p.26).

Good catch. I missed that bit. Will definitely fix that for the final release.

- Jack

[El' Jocko]

Salutations, gentlefolk !

Noted the bad news for balistarii in the new rules.

A - Artillery beating Elephants no longer leaves them shattered and dead; now only makes them recoil.

[snip]

Artillery shooting at Elephants used to be a +4 to +5, so the shatter made sense. But now Artillery shooting at Elephants is a +4 to +3, so the shatter result would be overkill (literally). The numbers change from 28% destroyed to 47% fall back/11% destroyed. Overall, that's probably an improvement for the Artillery; they get fewer outright kills but they're much more likely to disrupt the Elephants.

[David Kuijt]

Salutations, gentlefolk !

Noted the bad news for balistarii in the new rules.

A - Artillery beating Elephants no longer leaves them shattered and dead; now only makes them recoil.

As Jack says, that isn't bad news for Artillery. With their movement rate and recoil distance and the extra pip to move them, attempting to get Elephants up to attack Artillery will suck a whole bunch of pips from the army (because they will be recoiled a lot, breaking up their line) and get the Elephants killed in the majority of cases. The effects are more subtle and take a little longer, but the dominance of Artillery on Elephants isn't really changed.

[Bill Hupp]

I like the change in the shooting rules. Much simpler and quicker. More in line with the game design. It will be much easier to teach. Too much tortured logic to fit into the previous single opposing die roll mechanic as noted above.

Bill

[Andreas Johansson]

We play tested 100 years war three archers firing on one knight does not work as well as spreading out your archers to make sure all three get shots.

With the new system you actively want to spread out your shots, because then you have a slim chance to destroy all targets.

A presentation suggestion: on the QRS for shooting factors, it says "All Foot/Mounted (except those below)" - might be preferable to list the exceptions first and then "Other Foot/Mounted"?

Artillery are now quite vulnerable to Archers (once the letter get into range). Is that appropriate? Trying to think of examples of the matchup.

It's probably one of those we don't have the evidence thing, but I'm surprised that Chariots should be extra resistant to archery. Since killing or disabling just one horse is enough to disable a chariot, you'd think them extra vulnerable if anything. Mind, in the ANE the horses would be likely to be armoured and Classical chariots (Gauls etc) won't be facing a lot of shooting anyway in historical matchups.

The increased clarity is appreciated - I found the previous shooting rules rather confusing

The clear path rules have the curious implication that you can sometimes shoot at a 1½MU deep stand where you couldn't shoot at a 1MU deep one, despite not being able to see any more of the deeper stand, because the target edge segment is shorter. If you care to fix the anomaly, you might simply say the target segment must always be 1 MU long for deeper bases.

[David Kuijt]

Thanks for the suggestions, Andreas. We appreciate your input.

A presentation suggestion: on the QRS for shooting factors, it says "All Foot/Mounted (except those below)" - might be preferable to list the exceptions first and then "Other Foot/Mounted"?

That's a tough call either way. Our hope was that listing the rule first, and then the exceptions, would help people internalize the rule. People don't organize data in their brains as well listing exceptions first, and then rules, even though it makes for more felicitous phrasing on the QRS. We'll look it over again.

Artillery are now quite vulnerable to Archers (once the letter get into range). Is that appropriate? Trying to think of examples of the matchup.

Let us know if you think of any; we had trouble finding good ones (ones where Froissart said "and then the English Longbow slaughtered the Picardy artillery crews with volleys of grey goose shafts"). The "when they get into range" is also important -- because artillery still dominate archers outside their range.

It's probably one of those we don't have the evidence thing, but I'm surprised that Chariots should be extra resistant to archery. Since killing or disabling just one horse is enough to disable a chariot, you'd think them extra vulnerable if anything. Mind, in the ANE the horses would be likely to be armoured and Classical chariots (Gauls etc) won't be facing a lot of shooting anyway in historical matchups.

In period (during the period of Chariot dominance), chariots were the queen of the battlefield -- the elite arm. They were wealthy, well-armored, with the best bows, the most ammo, the most elan, --- they were the elite and they knew it, and everyone else knew it as well. Way, way more respected than massed foot archers. Archers (as compared to Bow Levy) are rare in armies of the period -- Nubians and Egyptians are the two main army exceptions before the 3rd Intermediate Period, and Kushite Egyptians are the only ones I can think of afterward. Elamites are all rated as Bow Levy, as are Neo-Babs and many others. Further, armored horse trappings were fairly common in many chariot-heavy armies, becoming the rule later on.

In practice Archers and Bow Levy still dominate Chariots, even with Chariots receiving fire at +3. Chariots don't often have the guts to charge Bow Levy (and are often treated roughly when they do); Chariots charging Archers at +2:+4 have success as often as legacy system Light Horse charging Bow, which is to say "rarely". Since Chariots don't have a ranged fire attack, they can only receive at +3:+3 without attacking back, and if they charge Archers (as said before) they basically die.

So the short form summary of the two paragraphs above put together is that we get more historical play and results of battles with Chariots being +3 resisting ranged combat. They still hate Archers, and strongly dislike Bow Levy, and Archers/BowLevy are still some of the best anti-Chariot troops.

With the system as it is, when faced with enemy Archers (or Bow Levy) Chariots will always attack somewhere else if they have any choice at all. That's the impact we want; when we had Chariots rated at +2 against ranged combat then it ramps up Chariots-v-Archers from "extreme distaste" to "outright terror" which doesn't seem to fit the historical matchup as well.

The clear path rules have the curious implication that you can sometimes shoot at a 1½MU deep stand where you couldn't shoot at a 1MU deep one, despite not being able to see any more of the deeper stand, because the target edge segment is shorter. If you care to fix the anomaly, you might simply say the target segment must always be 1 MU long for deeper bases.

Right, I hear what you're saying.

Measurement causes less argument if you are measuring to obvious points on the target element, and the easiest-to-identify point on an edge is a corner, and the next most identifiable points are the center points. We already have the anomaly you mention with 15mm deep edges compared to 20mm deep edges (talking about 40mm base width scale here), where the recoil of an adjacent 15mm stand would expose a full edge of an adjacent 15mm stand, but a 20mm stand would have its side edge partially obscured (and therefore not a legal target). We thought about letting a 15mm segment of the target side edge be the benchmark for shooting, but measuring it would be complicated and cause fussy arguments, and then people would complain about the difference between shooting at a side edge vis-a-vis shooting at the front, and so on.

We decided to go with the current system to keep it simple, even if it isn't perfect for the 15mm and 30mm base edges in comparison to 20mm base edges when shot from the side and partially obscured. There are other disadvantages to having deeper depth bases that counteract that small advantage.

[Alex Bostwick]

Hmm. Seems like this is particularly advantageous for those of us who prefer to be aggressive with their ranged units. There is now no risk in shooting the opponent's archers, as they can't shoot back (can't tell you how many frustrating times a return volley 6-1'ed me, while I internally cried out at the indignity of the situation) and you have a 50/50 shot to at least push them back, potentially eliminating the opposing stand's opportunity to fire that round. Careful selection of combat order is, in my opinion, more important than ever. I like it.

Not wild about splitting combat values, but it's a small price to pay for a better overall game. And hey, archers can 1-v-1 close order foot now.

[Andreas Johansson]

Thanks for the suggestions, Andreas. We appreciate your input.

Thanks for the reply

I'll ask some sages of my acquaintance if they can think of any examples pertinent to Archers v. Artillery.