Army of Liberty: a Fantasy Revolutionary Warfare Quest

Pinniped · Sunday at 9:43 AM

NSchwerte said:
Artillery isn't set up to ready fire at the 72nd, the path is NE, NE, NW, NW and the 72nd is a human unit, they are incredibly hard to rout especially as they will be in forest the entire time.

They are though? His 75th, 60th, 80th and 66th can all (most likely) fire on the 72nd if they take that route? The 75th and 60th are confirmed to be facing in the correct direction, while for the 80th and 66th the other facing (SW) makes no sense.

There is also no forest among that route? There are woods, which cost 2 Movement. This means the NE,NE,NW,NW movement is not possible in one turn, it would take them two turns to reach the artillery. Which is plenty of time for him to move his infantry to block them.

NSchwerte said:
Guillory can just ignore whatever cavalry is there and hit the artillery. I am assuming that von T routs one of guillorys hussars with charges, which means that they can't have done a ready action

Well, that is optimistic. He has a Ready Charge on the 1st right now, so it is possible they Charge Guillory already on our turn, after which they can freely attack on his turn. With bad luck, we lose both Hussars and thus the plan fails immediately. He can also use his turn to move his infantry, such as the 31st to block Guillory, as well as set up Ready Fire from those artillery he has further back. And this is assuming his cavalry is in the West, and not in his backline. I believe so, but it is merely an assumption.

The Laurent · Sunday at 9:44 AM

[X] Plan: Stick to the plan

The more I hear about the calcs going into Counter Attack, the more it seems like an obvious mistake.

NSchwerte · Sunday at 10:07 AM

Pinniped said:
They are though? His 75th, 60th, 80th and 66th can all (most likely) fire on the 72nd if they take that route? The 75th and 60th are confirmed to be facing in the correct direction, while for the 80th and 66th the other facing (SW) makes no sense.

There is also no forest among that route? There are woods, which cost 2 Movement. This means the NE,NE,NW,NW movement is not possible in one turn, it would take them two turns to reach the artillery. Which is plenty of time for him to move his infantry to block them.

Could you clarify why the artillery would be facing E/SE? That means that they could not hit the center of the battlefield.

Keep in mind that even at medium range shooting at woods is nearly as bad as shooting at long range, which conventional wisdom considers "a waste of ammunition".

In my opinion a counter attack would need to start moving the 72nd and 148th into position aggressively this turn where they can engage either the enemy artillery or infantry next turn, I do not understand the goal of Plan Counter Attack if I'm honest cause it attacks and retreats at the same time.

Being in the western side of the Rotholz is an incredible strong position,where we could shoot any attacking infantry from the flank with artillery and threaten everything he has while he has no way to retaliate, so I don't understand why it's not taken.

Pinniped said:
Well, that is optimistic. He has a Ready Charge on the 1st right now, so it is possible they Charge Guillory already on our turn, after which they can freely attack on his turn. With bad luck, we lose both Hussars and thus the plan fails immediately. He can also use his turn to move his infantry, such as the 31st to block Guillory, as well as set up Ready Fire from those artillery he has further back. And this is assuming his cavalry is in the West, and not in his backline. I believe so, but it is merely an assumption

He can't ready fire against cavalry with artillery. Remember that there was a change which prevents artillery from being able to immediately turn around. If he wants to defend against the cavalry he has to render his artillery useless against a center push or for supporting an attack.

I simply do not believe that his ready action for the 1st hussars is to turn around and charge stuff that moves in behind them, it is simply nonsensical when there are threats in the center

Also keep in mind that if he moves too much from the cemetery he will be vulnerable to a center charge from us.

Tbh none of the plans make sense to me

natruska · Sunday at 10:35 AM

[X] Plan: Stick to the plan

I'm still on Team Keep Pushing overall, and I do think the Guillory charge through the forest is a pretty clever and imaginative move, but it does sort of feel like taking more of a risk than is strictly necessary. We've already got him on the ropes with his infantry line falling apart. We can spend this turn finishing those units off and see what his response is - whether he starts pulling back, whether we get eyes on his missing cavalry, whether the horse artillery finally starts shooting, etc. If things look good, we can launch a similar attack next turn with the full weight of our Rotholz infantry to back it up.

EagerListener · Sunday at 10:53 AM

Kinda sucks that I just spent a bunch of time and effort towards making a plan based on something that wasn't going to occur.

But, I'll see if I can make a modified plan. I do think we should move Guillory into the forest, it gives us move flexibility to act next turn without being too risky, even if does tip our hand a bit. And for the morale checks, I'll compare routing the 109th and the 20th.

Overall, even if we can't rout the enemy cavalry, I think we're still in a good position, 1 of his units have routed, and some other have gotten stress.

But I do agree that hussars probably have too much movement. I think the problem here specifically is that they can too easily move behind and attack units in the flank. Constantly having to brace isn't really a good solution. Maybe terrain debuffs for cavalry need to be upped a bit. And also, maybe 2AP to form a square is too high, given the advantage artillery receives.

NSchwerte · Sunday at 10:54 AM

Oh yeah, both plans leave the Hartillery completely exposed to an infantry charge with 0 screening, von Trotha can just charge in and kill it if he wants.

Also my deployment in Rotholz would be this, whether guillory charges or not. The Human infantry are an existential threat to von Trothas artillery, but he has no good response - he cant route humans in forests and dwarves charging in get hit by artillery fire in the flank(our units have forest cover and dont get flanked, thats worth the friendly fire), cavalry charging in is still charging in a forest and will get butchered by the elves the next turn, the hill and artillery set up means that most of them cant hit them and even if they do they hit at 40.

The 5th would hit a cavalry this turn mostly to get a morale roll on enemy cavalry and then deploy to Rotholz turm next turn to get us control of the entire battlefield and another ambush shot at the enemy.

If von Trotha doesnt withdraw from his current position we have free reign the next turn. The humans can devastate the dwarves with forest cover shooting duels, we can hit any cavalry that doesnt run away and the elves will be able to move up to really put the pressure on.

natruska · Sunday at 11:03 AM

NSchwerte said:
Oh yeah, both plans leave the Hartillery completely exposed to an infantry charge with 0 screening, von Trotha can just charge in and kill it if he wants.

No they don't? In both plans there's at least one unit of cavalry that would definitely intercept that charge and prevent it from landing. In both plans von Trotha can see two cavalry set to Ready Charge in that area - in the more cautious plan, he also knows that there are two more hussars (Guillory) right there next to the H. Arty. Even if he sent the 1st Hussars along with the 20th they'd probably be intercepted also, so why would he ever try to do that?

NSchwerte · Sunday at 11:08 AM

natruska said:
No they don't? In both plans there's at least one unit of cavalry that would definitely intercept that charge and prevent it from landing. In both plans von Trotha can see two cavalry set to Ready Charge in that area - in the more cautious plan, he also knows that there are two more hussars (Guillory) right there next to the H. Arty. Even if he sent the 1st Hussars along with the 20th they'd probably be intercepted also, so why would he ever try to do that?

which cavalry would be intercepting them? as i read the orders they are all looking only at the flanks. Unless its a bluff i guess where von T thinks that our cavalry have different ready charges.

If we do have ready charges covering it, isnt that kinda reavealing another big weakness, namely that he can ready fire his artillery and then charge in and kill whatever cavalry tries to intercept with artillery? an infantry unit for a cavalry unit is very much worth it

Pinniped · Sunday at 11:24 AM

NSchwerte said:
Also my deployment in Rotholz would be this, whether guillory charges or not. The Human infantry are an existential threat to von Trothas artillery, but he has no good response - he cant route humans in forests and dwarves charging in get hit by artillery fire in the flank(our units have forest cover and dont get flanked, thats worth the friendly fire), cavalry charging in is still charging in a forest and will get butchered by the elves the next turn, the hill and artillery set up means that most of them cant hit them and even if they do they hit at 40.

NSchwerte said:
The humans can devastate the dwarves with forest cover shooting duels, we can hit any cavalry that doesnt run away and the elves will be able to move up to really put the pressure on.

Those tiles are not forests, they are woods. Woods only provde -20 to Ranged attacks, meaning he can simply bombard the 72th and 148th with his artillery. He has at least 4 artillery aimed straight at those hexes.

NSchwerte said:
Could you clarify why the artillery would be facing E/SE? That means that they could not hit the center of the battlefield.

NSchwerte said:
He can't ready fire against cavalry with artillery. Remember that there was a change which prevents artillery from being able to immediately turn around. If he wants to defend against the cavalry he has to render his artillery useless against a center push or for supporting an attack.

Artillery fires in a cone along their current facing, like this. Thus his artillery cover both the center and partially his Eastern flank.

View: https://imgur.com/a/UveNXXa

natruska · Sunday at 11:29 AM

NSchwerte said:
which cavalry would be intercepting them? as i read the orders they are all looking only at the flanks. Unless its a bluff i guess where von T thinks that our cavalry have different ready charges.

If we do have ready charges covering it, isnt that kinda reavealing another big weakness, namely that he can ready fire his artillery and then charge in and kill whatever cavalry tries to intercept with artillery? an infantry unit for a cavalry unit is very much worth it

The 55th - 'any unit beyond the Rotholz line' means any unit that moves past our infantry in the center, not any unit coming out of the Rotholz. You can see that in the visualization for Counter Attack, it's the purple quad in the center.

As for the second part, I think Ready Actions currently do not trigger other Ready Actions (that's one of the discussed changes in the pipe for after this battle), but even if they do my answer would just be 'okay, go for it von T!'

Trading an infantry unit and all your artillery fire for the turn for damage to one cavalry unit isn't worth it in my book. Defensive Genius Elves are not a great target to be shooting at. Without ambush advantage he's only inflicting morale checks with casualties, and even with most of his artillery targeting them that's not gonna be a rout.

And then what? Every shot he takes at the 55th is a shot that isn't dealing with his Rotholz problem. Why would he sacrifice one of the only infantry units protecting his artillery and a bunch of possible Fires or Ready Fires against that threat that's right up in his face for such marginal gain?

NSchwerte · Sunday at 11:45 AM

Pinniped said:
Artillery fires in a cone along their current facing, like this. Thus his artillery cover both the center and partially his Eastern flank.

Huh, so that change was kinda useless.

Pinniped said:
Those tiles are not forests, they are woods. Woods only provde -20 to Ranged attacks, meaning he can simply bombard the 72th and 148th with his artillery. He has at least 4 artillery aimed straight at those hexes.

He still hits them with -40 in these Woods tiles. Firing at -50(Long range) is considered a waste of ammunition by the thread where its not worth it to do even if you cant do anything else.

If he hits the humans in the woods tiles, he doesnt roll any morale rolls from ambushes or whatever, so he just relies on casualties rolls. So these 4 artillery shooting amount to maybe one morale roll with disadvantage? The 72nd has +10 morale roll modifier, thats not going to break them any time soon (if they roll a 1 on the morale roll the humans go to +6... which is the base modifier of the hobgoblins! Unless they get extra rolls the humans need a minimum of 4 turns to get routed with casualties, even if they always roll 1)

It would be worth more to shoot at the hobgoblins at long range in my opinion for him. Yes he gets one more -10 modifier, but in exchange the Hobs only have +4/+6 Morale roll, so he would rout them faster than the humans and hitting the hobs would mean that his flank has any chance to win. If he hits out humans thats kinda a victory for us cause it prevents that scenario (the hobs get revealed in keeping to the plan cause they dont hide and the 109th sees them)

natruska said:
The 55th - 'any unit beyond the Rotholz line' means any unit that moves past our infantry in the center, not any unit coming out of the Rotholz. You can see that in the visualization for Counter Attack, it's the purple quad in the center.

Imo that really should be made clearer in the plan, cause i read it as charging any unit coming out of the Rotholz.

natruska said:
Trading an infantry unit and all your artillery fire for the turn for damage to one cavalry unit isn't worth it in my book. Defensive Genius Elves are not a great target to be shooting at. Without ambush advantage he's only inflicting morale checks with casualties, and even with most of his artillery targeting them that's not gonna be a rout.

And then what? Every shot he takes at the 55th is a shot that isn't dealing with his Rotholz problem. Why would he sacrifice one of the only infantry units protecting his artillery and a bunch of possible Fires or Ready Fires against that threat that's right up in his face for such marginal gain?

I mean, what would his artillery do? Both plans retreat from Rotholz, they make sure our units cant get hit by artilery and also make sure that we cannot pose any threat next turn. He wont have a rotholz problem next turn, he can move an infantry into the forest and square them up and were sitting there having to dislodge dwarves in melee combat out of forest tiles.

Thats kinda my big criticism, that we are exerting no threat from Rotholz even in the Counterattack plan!

What is the threat on von Trotha from this position? That we will slowly grind through his infantry in the forest? Im not sure if that even works, i think he recovers faster than we can rout him

Pinniped · Sunday at 11:58 AM

EagerListener said:
But I do agree that hussars probably have too much movement. I think the problem here specifically is that they can too easily move behind and attack units in the flank. Constantly having to brace isn't really a good solution. Maybe terrain debuffs for cavalry need to be upped a bit. And also, maybe 2AP to form a square is too high, given the advantage artillery receives.

I kind of agree, but rather than nerfing cavalry movement speed, I'd rather make them more squishy.

Photomajig said:
orale Checks incur Stress for the Unit if failed and may cause it to Rout. Each point of Stress penalizes subsequent Morale Checks by -1.

The following trigger a Morale Check in an Unit:

Being Charged.

Being attacked in a Flank.

Being Ambushed.

Suffering a Critical Hit.

Adjacent allies Routing.

Suffering >50 Casualties in one turn.

Having been attacked in melee this turn.

Currently all units require 50 Casualties to trigger morale checks, which is one of the last details with the rules that keep bothering me. With these rules, ironically cavalry and artillery are much more resistant to losses, relatively speaking. Cavalry can lose 10% of their force before taking a single Morale Check, compared to 5% for infantry. Actually, artillery does not suffer Morale Checks for losses before the entire unit is dead!

Changing this to a value relative to the unit's size would go a good way to make cavalry significantly squishier, making bold movements with them more risky. This which would also make it easier to interrupt charging or moving cavalry with Ready Fire, which I feel like is something that historically did happen. Maybe 25 losses for cavalry and 10 for artillery would be decent values for this?

While discussing cavalry, another thing that keeps bothering me: cavalry getting charged. A hex represents about 100 meters, so situations like the proposed charge against the 9th feels very odd to me. Is the enemy 9th cavalry really just standing there, rooted in place when our cavalry crosses into their hex some 50 meters away and charges them? Some googling reveals a horse gallops at about 14 meters per second, given the defending cavalry at least some seconds to react. Likely they would have more warning, since 500 Hussars charging through a forest is not a silent attack exactly? The same issue is even more clear when cavalry gets charged by infantry, as happened to our 109th this battle. The logistics of that makes even less sense to me.

Therefore, I would suggest that for cavalry a mechanic could be added, according to which upon being charged, cavalry that is not currently Engaged in Melee automatically turns to face their attacker and is Braced. I think cavalry being inherently resistant to charges makes sense, they are riding big heavy horses too. A cavalry formation is not as static as a infantry Regiment, after all. It makes sense that they can turn on a whim and face their attacker, instead of standing in place and allowing themselves to be Charged.

Note that these two changes would complement each other: the first makes cavalry squishier in combat, but the second makes them much more resilient to Charges.

EagerListener · Sunday at 12:18 PM

[X] Plan: Counter Attack
-[X] Visualization
-[X] Infantry
-[X] 72nd Hum: Fire at 33rd Dwa, Move E Facing NE, Brace
-[X] 148th Hum: Act after 45th Elv have acted Move SE, and rest
-[X] 42nd Elv: 3*Melee 155th Elv
-[X] 45th Elv: 3 melee 74th
-[X] 251st Hob: Act after 72nd have moved: 3*Move [E, 3 NE] Face West
-[X] 200th Hob: Move W, 2*ReadyFire NW 400m
-[X] 19th Half Pfd: Brace, Ready Fire (Forest Hill to the East), Ready Melee Adjacent Unit
-[X] 16th Half Pfd: 2*Move [SW,SE,W] [Face NW]
-[X] 28th Half Pfd: 3*Fire at 109th Hob
-[X] Cavalry
-[X] G. H: Charge the 155th from the rear and right (from NE/E), remain in the forest hidden from outside enemy view, and turn toward the enemy to the North (Face Northwest after charge).
-[X] 13th Hob Lance: Move W, Ready Charge Rear of Unit that moves onto plains within 400m and is west of Schloss, and not South of Kirschenholz.
-[X] 55th Elv Hsr: Move [E,E (swap with the 5th artillery),NE,NW], Ready Charge + Ready Move (Trigger: any unit that approaches beyond the Rotholz line, move towards orginal position after charge)
-[X] Artillery
-[X] Horse Artillery: Move 2W (swap with the 55th Hussars on second west movement), Fire at 20th Dwa
-[X] 31st Elv Art: Set Up, Fire at 109th Hob
-[X] 10th Hum Art: Fire at 33rd Dwa, Move E, Face NE
-[X] 84th Elv Art: Fire at 109th Dwa, Move E, Face NE
-[X] HQ: resupply 10th Hum Art after firing

New revamped plan. Guillory just charges the 155th and stays in the forest. Instead of a melee attack on the Nym Rangers, the 16th pulls back, they're in a too exposed position and they need all the movement to get out. The 28th stays in place and fires against the 109th along with 31st/10th. The position 28th are in isn't actually really exposed, plains are covered by the 13th Lancers and 200th, and the forest is too high movement except for the Nymphs which is covered by the 19th.

For calcs, we have a 69.32% to do 100 plus casualties against the 109th. For the 33rd, the extra artillery borrows from Pinniped's plan and is there to make sure a rout occurs.

Overall, the 155th is at 19 stress, the 74th is at 13 stress, the 33rd is at 20 stress, and the 109th is at 5 stress. As compared to us, besides from the routed 108th, the 148th is at 12 stress and we're moving them back, the 74th is at 7 and the 19th is at 7 stress. Bear in mind, we have a much higher morale modifier so our units are less brittle than our opponents. Our infantry in at Rotholz is operating mainly in forest, which protects us from enemy cavalry and artillery. Even if we can't rout the enemy cavalry with Guillory, why would we want to attack here? We're still in a pretty good position, and we need to keep up and advantage by routing/attacking the enemy as much as we can while preserving our forces as best we can and I think my plan best does that.

NSchwerte · Sunday at 12:22 PM

EagerListener said:
[X] Plan: Counter Attack
-[X] Visualization (outdated, I'll try to get one up soon)
-[X] Infantry
-[X] 72nd Hum: Fire at 33rd Dwa, Move E Facing NE, Brace
-[X] 148th Hum: 3*Move SE
-[X] 42nd Elv: 3*Melee 155th Elv
-[X] 45th Elv: 3 melee 74th
-[X] 251st Hob: Act after 72nd have moved: 3*Move [E, 3 NE] Face West
-[X] 200th Hob: Move W, 2*ReadyFire NW 400m
-[X] 19th Half Pfd: Brace, Ready Fire (Close Range NE), Ready Melee Adjacent Unit, priotize hitting NE unit if NW unit has already been hit by a melee attack
-[X] 16th Half Pfd: 2*Move [SW,SE,SW] [Face NE]
-[X] 28th Half Pfd: 3*Fire at 109th Hob
-[X] Cavalry
-[X] G. H: Charge the 155th from the rear and right (from NE/E), remain in the forest hidden from outside enemy view, and turn toward the enemy to the North (Face Northwest after charge).
-[X] 13th Hob Lance: Move W, Ready Charge Rear of Unit that moves onto plains within 400m and is west of Schloss, and not South of Kirschenholz.
-[X] 55th Elv Hsr: Move [E,E (swap with the 5th artillery),NE,NW], Ready Charge + Ready Move (Trigger: any unit that approaches beyond the Rotholz line, move towards orginal position after charge)
-[X] Artillery
-[X] Horse Artillery: Move 2W (swap with the 55th Hussars on second west movement), Fire at 20th Dwa
-[X] 31st Elv Art: Set Up, Fire at 109th Hob
-[X] 10th Hum Art: Fire at 33rd Dwa, Move E, Face NE
-[X] 84th Elv Art: Fire at 109th Dwa, Move E, Face NE
-[X] HQ: resupply 10th Hum Art after firing

New revamped plan. Guillory just charges the 155th and stays in the forest. Instead of a melee attack on the Nym Rangers, the 16th pulls back, they're in a too exposed position and they need all the movement to get out. The 28th stays in place and fires against the 109th along with 31st/10th. The position 28th are in isn't actually really exposed, plains are covered by the 13th Lancers and 200th, and the forest is too high movement except for the Nymphs which is covered by the 19th.

For calcs, we have a 69.32% to do 100 plus casualties against the 109th. For the 33rd, the extra artillery borrows from Pinniped's plan and is there to make sure a rout occurs.

Overall, the 155th is at 19 stress, the 74th is at 13 stress, the 33rd is at 20 stress, and the 109th is at 5 stress. As compared to us, besides from the routed 108th, the 148th is at 12 stress and we're moving that back, the 74th is at 7 and the 19th is at 7 stress. Bear in mind, we have a much higher morale modifier so our units are less brittle than our opponents. Our infantry in at Rotholz is operating mainly in forest, which protects us from enemy cavalry and artillery. Even if we can't rout the enemy cavalry with Guillory, why would we want to retreat? We're still in a pretty good position, and we need to keep up and advantage by routing/attacking the enemy as much as we can while preserving our forces as best we can and I think my plan best does that.

You are saying we shouldn't retreat from Rotholz, but then why are you retreating? I don't really understand that.

Like as I see it both plans are doing the same thing in Rotholz now

EagerListener · Sunday at 12:31 PM

NSchwerte said:
You are saying we shouldn't retreat from Rotholz, but then why are you retreating? I don't really understand that

Do you mean the 148th? That move is so that they can be protected from ambush morale checks from the unrevealed artillery. After which, we can rest them or move them up. The retreat part is mainly refering to the broader position (halflings/42nd) and also partly the broader disposition I think we should take to the battle, but it is unfair to Pinniped's plan. I'll edit the language to reflect that.

NSchwerte · Sunday at 12:32 PM

EagerListener said:
Do you mean the 148th? That move is so that they can be protected from ambush morale checks from the unrevealed artillery. After which, we can rest them or move them up. The retreat part is mainly refering to the broader position (halflings/42nd) and also partly the broader disposition I think we should take to the battle, but it is unfair to Pinniped's plan. I'll edit the language to reflect that.

There is only one unrevealed artillery.

I'm not sure how the 42nd will be a crucial factor, both plans are retreating from Rotholz

Pinniped · Sunday at 12:36 PM

EagerListener said:
[X] Plan: Counter Attack
-[X] Visualization
-[X] Infantry
-[X] 72nd Hum: Fire at 33rd Dwa, Move E Facing NE, Brace
-[X] 148th Hum: 3*Move SE
-[X] 42nd Elv: 3*Melee 155th Elv
-[X] 45th Elv: 3 melee 74th
-[X] 251st Hob: Act after 72nd have moved: 3*Move [E, 3 NE] Face West
-[X] 200th Hob: Move W, 2*ReadyFire NW 400m
-[X] 19th Half Pfd: Brace, Ready Fire (Close Range NE), Ready Melee Adjacent Unit, priotize hitting NE unit if NW unit has already been hit by a melee attack
-[X] 16th Half Pfd: 2*Move [SW,SE,SW] [Face NE]
-[X] 28th Half Pfd: 3*Fire at 109th Hob
-[X] Cavalry
-[X] G. H: Charge the 155th from the rear and right (from NE/E), remain in the forest hidden from outside enemy view, and turn toward the enemy to the North (Face Northwest after charge).
-[X] 13th Hob Lance: Move W, Ready Charge Rear of Unit that moves onto plains within 400m and is west of Schloss, and not South of Kirschenholz.
-[X] 55th Elv Hsr: Move [E,E (swap with the 5th artillery),NE,NW], Ready Charge + Ready Move (Trigger: any unit that approaches beyond the Rotholz line, move towards orginal position after charge)
-[X] Artillery
-[X] Horse Artillery: Move 2W (swap with the 55th Hussars on second west movement), Fire at 20th Dwa
-[X] 31st Elv Art: Set Up, Fire at 109th Hob
-[X] 10th Hum Art: Fire at 33rd Dwa, Move E, Face NE
-[X] 84th Elv Art: Fire at 109th Dwa, Move E, Face NE
-[X] HQ: resupply 10th Hum Art after firing

New revamped plan. Guillory just charges the 155th and stays in the forest. Instead of a melee attack on the Nym Rangers, the 16th pulls back, they're in a too exposed position and they need all the movement to get out. The 28th stays in place and fires against the 109th along with 31st/10th. The position 28th are in isn't actually really exposed, plains are covered by the 13th Lancers and 200th, and the forest is too high movement except for the Nymphs which is covered by the 19th.

For calcs, we have a 69.32% to do 100 plus casualties against the 109th. For the 33rd, the extra artillery borrows from Pinniped's plan and is there to make sure a rout occurs.

Overall, the 155th is at 19 stress, the 74th is at 13 stress, the 33rd is at 20 stress, and the 109th is at 5 stress. As compared to us, besides from the routed 108th, the 148th is at 12 stress and we're moving them back, the 74th is at 7 and the 19th is at 7 stress. Bear in mind, we have a much higher morale modifier so our units are less brittle than our opponents. Our infantry in at Rotholz is operating mainly in forest, which protects us from enemy cavalry and artillery. Even if we can't rout the enemy cavalry with Guillory, why would we want to attack here? We're still in a pretty good position, and we need to keep up and advantage by routing/attacking the enemy as much as we can while preserving our forces as best we can and I think my plan best does that.

To be honest, this plan is not too dissimilar from mine. My biggest point of contention is the Hobbs, I would rather keep them in the center protecting the artillery. As for the 16th, I do feel pretty confident using them as bait for the Nymphs. The Nymphs cannot go after them without making themselves vulnerable.

I am seriously considering borrowing your idea of moving at least one of Guillory's hussars to the Rotholz forest.

natruska · Sunday at 12:41 PM

NSchwerte said:
I mean, what would his artillery do? Both plans retreat from Rotholz, they make sure our units cant get hit by artilery and also make sure that we cannot pose any threat next turn. He wont have a rotholz problem next turn, he can move an infantry into the forest and square them up and were sitting there having to dislodge dwarves in melee combat out of forest tiles.

Thats kinda my big criticism, that we are exerting no threat from Rotholz even in the Counterattack plan!

-image snipped-

What is the threat on von Trotha from this position? That we will slowly grind through his infantry in the forest? Im not sure if that even works, i think he recovers faster than we can rout him

He can't square the 31st like that. Square's a 2 AP action. I suppose a normal Brace would allow him to block most of the relevant tiles though so it's a fair point.

Still, even with our infantry where the two main plans would put them we've got 1 infantry in charging distance of some of his artillery + others able to charge and pin his last infantry screens in place, be non-targetable because they're in melee. That seems like real pressure to me even if it's not total artillery death on the table for next turn.

But if you're convinced that the infantry needs to move further up or the 148th shouldn't take that one step back, okay, make that plan. Always room for more plans!

Pinniped said:
I kind of agree, but rather than nerfing cavalry movement speed, I'd rather make them more squishy.

Currently all units require 50 Casualties to trigger morale checks, which is one of the last details with the rules that keep bothering me. With these rules, ironically cavalry and artillery are much more resistant to losses, relatively speaking. Cavalry can lose 10% of their force before taking a single Morale Check, compared to 5% for infantry. Actually, artillery does not suffer Morale Checks for losses before the entire unit is dead!

Changing this to a value relative to the unit's size would go a good way to make cavalry significantly squishier, making bold movements with them more risky. This which would also make it easier to interrupt charging or moving cavalry with Ready Fire, which I feel like is something that historically did happen. Maybe 25 losses for cavalry and 10 for artillery would be decent values for this?

While discussing cavalry, another thing that keeps bothering me: cavalry getting charged. A hex represents about 100 meters, so situations like the proposed charge against the 9th feels very odd to me. Is the enemy 9th cavalry really just standing there, rooted in place when our cavalry crosses into their hex some 50 meters away and charges them? Some googling reveals a horse gallops at about 14 meters per second, given the defending cavalry at least some seconds to react. Likely they would have more warning, since 500 Hussars charging through a forest is not a silent attack exactly? The same issue is even more clear when cavalry gets charged by infantry, as happened to our 109th this battle. The logistics of that makes even less sense to me.

Therefore, I would suggest that for cavalry a mechanic could be added, according to which upon being charged, cavalry that is not currently Engaged in Melee automatically turns to face their attacker and is Braced. I think cavalry being inherently resistant to charges makes sense, they are riding big heavy horses too. A cavalry formation is not as static as a infantry Regiment, after all. It makes sense that they can turn on a whim and face their attacker, instead of standing in place and allowing themselves to be Charged.

Note that these two changes would complement each other: the first makes cavalry squishier in combat, but the second makes them much more resilient to Charges.

Re: making them more susceptible to morale checks, I don't really like the sound of that. This is Napoleonic cavalry we're talking about - charge cavalry, shock cavalry, not fragile mid-late 19th century skirmishing cavalry. Reducing their morale check threshold to 25 casualties would mean that they often take a casualty check from charging Braced infantry, take a casualty check with disadvantage most times they come under significant artillery fire, and-yknow, that was all pretty common stuff for cavalry to be doing. I don't want cavalry to be fragile. I want them to be good at shock attacks and not so good at running around the map.

As for cavalry getting charged, it's not about whether they can actually see the enemy but whether they're able to do anything about it before contact. A cavalry formation is a lot of mass, lot of unwieldy horses. If it's standing still it turns slowly, far slower than the equivalent number of infantry. You're not going to be able to turn and start moving to face a charge in 15 or 30 seconds, and a cavalry squadron that's stationary or being hit in the side/rear is going to shatter with little resistance. Cavalrymen and cavalry formations can only really fight facing forwards.

Balancewise it might make some sense considering how cavalry are able to move when engaged with each other (Flanking in general feels...really kind of wonky still, and I kinda wonder if it might make sense to just go back to no flanking as a more straightforward system) but from the realism perspective it makes sense for cavalry to be flankable.

NSchwerte · Sunday at 12:48 PM

natruska said:
He can't square the 31st like that. Square's a 2 AP action. I suppose a normal Brace would allow him to block most of the relevant tiles though so it's a fair point.

Still, even with our infantry where the two main plans would put them we've got 1 infantry in charging distance of some of his artillery + others able to charge and pin his last infantry screens in place, be non-targetable because they're in melee. That seems like real pressure to me even if it's not total artillery death on the table for next turn.

But if you're convinced that the infantry needs to move further up or the 148th shouldn't take that one step back, okay, make that plan. Always room for more plans!

ah yeah he cant square, but a brace still prevents the 72nd from charging his artillery.

And I dont see that pressure if im honest. If we decided to charge from that position we would be hitting them with a single charge and hit back by triple melee attacks and of course he could always decide to sacrifice a unit in exchange for hitting us with 6 artillery shots, especially if its a charged unit with already high stress.

Hmm in general, he could also disengage and then shoot us after he disengaged... is that something that should work?

I dont really want to make plans cause getting too invested is bad for me. Also any plan made now has no chance to get passed lol

EagerListener · Sunday at 12:52 PM

NSchwerte said:
There is only one unrevealed artillery.

I'm not sure how the 42nd will be a crucial factor, both factors are retreating from Rotholz

That's fair with there only being unrevealed artillery, but still 12 stress is a decent amount, and the 42nd can trigger them. We're not really retreating from Rotholz, both main plans still occupy the fortress.

Pinniped said:
To be honest, this plan is not too dissimilar from mine. My biggest point of contention is the Hobbs, I would rather keep them in the center protecting the artillery. As for the 16th, I do feel pretty confident using them as bait for the Nymphs. The Nymphs cannot go after them without making themselves vulnerable.

I am seriously considering borrowing your idea of moving at least one of Guillory's hussars to the Rotholz forest.

I mean, I did borrow your artillery orders against the 33rd. But I think there are a couple of other differences that would be helpful to point out, besides from the ones you already noted. First, my plan doesn't move back the 42nd. I don't really see a reason to do so they're not really in any danger. And your plan still melees the 16th with the Nymphs, leaving the 16th on the plains instead of the hills. The 13th Lancers are also placed way too back to be useful.

And also, my orders for the 55th remove the possibility of being medium fired by artillery.

NSchwerte · Sunday at 12:56 PM

EagerListener said:
That's fair with there only being unrevealed artillery, but still 12 stress is a decent amount, and the 42nd can trigger them. We're not really retreating from Rotholz, both main plans still occupy the fortress.

What i mean is that both plans remove the threat posed by the Rotholz contigent, the infantry is left kinda useless

birdmaster01 · Sunday at 12:57 PM

Btw are our artillery only direct firing cannons or do we have howitzers,mortars,rockets,etc. ?

NSchwerte · Sunday at 1:03 PM

Hmm, could we rest the 148th this turn by having them rest after the 74th gets routed?

Chimeraguard · Sunday at 1:09 PM

In theory yes, but von Trotha hasn't shown any reluctance to bombard the 148th's position despite it being a very inefficient use of artillery, and unfortunately it's not inefficient enough to cause 0 damage (just near-0 damage.)

EagerListener · Sunday at 1:11 PM

NSchwerte said:
What i mean is that both plans remove the threat posed by the Rotholz contigent, the infantry is left kinda useless

The fortress position isn't really suited for attacking. In my mind the best path is to go through the forest using it as cover and attack from there. We could also use Guillory to attack the artillery further up.

natruska said:
Balancewise it might make some sense considering how cavalry are able to move when engaged with each other (Flanking in general feels...really kind of wonky still, and I kinda wonder if it might make sense to just go back to no flanking as a more straightforward system) but from the realism perspective it makes sense for cavalry to be flankable.

I think a problem is that if you get 3 flank attacks, that's 3 morale checks, which is really good. And since cavalry moves pretty fast, they can easily move around and hit people in the flank much more easily.

NSchwerte said:
Hmm, could we rest the 148th this turn by having them rest after the 74th gets routed?

I think we could get a single AP rest off when we move them Southeast. I'll change my plan to account for that, it's worth a shot.

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