I mention it because red position fires through an unbroken ark of three hills and a forest to hit the woods beyond. It looks like there's lots of space to draw line of sight through but the hexes are all line of sight blockers I think.
Army of Liberty: a Fantasy Revolutionary Warfare Quest
- Thread starter Photomajig
- Start date
- Fantasy Historic
I mention it because red position fires through an unbroken ark of three hills and a forest to hit the woods beyond. It looks like there's lots of space to draw line of sight through but the hexes are all line of sight blockers I think.
- Location
- Derna
I've been thinking about this a bit, yeah. A huge part of artillery being so dominant on the defensive is the weakness of that very same artillery on the attack. That weakness is mostly due to the inability of Field Artillery to support an attack, which has two causes: the snails pace that FA moves at and how quickly infantry can be routed.
Obviously attacking with Field Artillery would be much easier if they had the same 3 Move as infantry. Batteries could follow the infantry into Medium Range and be firing by the time the charge lands, or even follow them all the way into Close Range and be firing within two turns of the charge. The defending artillery would still have a multi-round headstart, but it'd be much less significant. As it is, FA is super static and moving batteries up in support is basically unthinkable. The battle will be long decided by the time they've moved a single range band closer.
And that leads to the other thing too. A Napoleonic commander could feel confident moving his artillery right up to the front because even intense fighting might drag on for ages. In the end the time batteries spent repositioning might be quite small compared to the total length of the battle, they might not lose a significant amount of firing time. That can't really be the case here. Since we can't play out 400 round battles, every round spent repositioning is a large chunk of the overall battle and every extra round of fire for the defenders is worth a lot.
I don't know if any changes are really needed (especially since it'd be kinda cowardly to try to get attacking buffed before we ever have to attack ourselves
) but it's interesting to think about. If artillery dominance does shut down infantry attacks entirely, you could work to change that by nerfing artillery - others have mentioned options like making it harder to concentrate artillery fire on one unit for example - but you could also try to go about it by buffing artillery.
This? Not a hill, though I forgot about the forests and red/blue not being on a hill. Still, the yellow positon covers a good chunk of the forests, the black position covers all of it, which is my main point. I'll go and fix the up the images.
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This way of solving this problem with defensive artillery being too dominant would actually be kind of cool, since it would not necessarily require changes to rules, only to unit stats. Thus these changes could in-story be presented as an actual in-universe development in military tactics and technology, rather than a rule change or retcon. Maybe we just are in a WWI-type situation, where offensive tactics have not yet adapted to modern artillery being very accurate and effective? Perhaps military thinkers in both Arne and Norn are discussing the same issues we are, and as a consequence lighter artillery better able to support infantry offensives are already being developed?I don't know if any changes are really needed (especially since it'd be kinda cowardly to try to get attacking buffed before we ever have to attack ourselves
Alright, should be fixed now. Changed black to purple. Link; Proof, Proof.
View: https://imgur.com/a/wCbIcyj
For reference, blue is going to the position of the horse artillery in my plan, green for Nerdorama's, red for Red Rationalist's. Yellow and purple are hypothetical positions that we could take after turn 1 of my plan. Yellow, but not purple also works for Red Rationalist's plan.
Also just a notice for everyone who voted for Plan: Shuffle and Move Alternate. There was an error in the order that didn't match the picture of my plan, so I changed it. The 45th Elven Regiment orders went from: NW, NW, NW to NW, NW. If people want it back to NW, NW, NW, then I can order them to move last just for Plan: Shuffle and Move Alternate.
View: https://imgur.com/a/wCbIcyj
For reference, blue is going to the position of the horse artillery in my plan, green for Nerdorama's, red for Red Rationalist's. Yellow and purple are hypothetical positions that we could take after turn 1 of my plan. Yellow, but not purple also works for Red Rationalist's plan.
Also just a notice for everyone who voted for Plan: Shuffle and Move Alternate. There was an error in the order that didn't match the picture of my plan, so I changed it. The 45th Elven Regiment orders went from: NW, NW, NW to NW, NW. If people want it back to NW, NW, NW, then I can order them to move last just for Plan: Shuffle and Move Alternate.
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Dutch
Bored Spearman of the Wind
- Location
- CET
I mean. Foot artillery wasn't slow, its artillery was still pulled by horses and a trained crew could limber in one minute and unlimber in three. The reason why horse artillery was faster was because its crew was mounted, where foot artillery crews had to walk on foot, hence the name.
Amusingly a horse artillery battery would actually take longer to set up then a foot artillery company, precisely because of all the extra horses that needed to be taken care of. They also had less guns (and smaller callibers) and proved to be bigger targets for enemy artillery. In the latter case again, because all the horses proved to be a big juicy target that could really disrupt operations if they were hit or scared.
If there's anything funny about cannons as they are presented in this game is that they're mostly positioned on hills, when in actuallity that was a sub-optimal choice. Gun depression tended to be bad, so the higher you are the less stuff you can actually shoot and the harder it is to aim the guns. Skilled crews also liked to fire ricocheting round shot to increase the range of their shots, or fire rolling shots specifically aimed at ankles and legs of men and horses or wheels of wagons. This is also harder if you position guns high on hills. Optimal height was between one and three meters of elevation.
Amusingly a horse artillery battery would actually take longer to set up then a foot artillery company, precisely because of all the extra horses that needed to be taken care of. They also had less guns (and smaller callibers) and proved to be bigger targets for enemy artillery. In the latter case again, because all the horses proved to be a big juicy target that could really disrupt operations if they were hit or scared.
If there's anything funny about cannons as they are presented in this game is that they're mostly positioned on hills, when in actuallity that was a sub-optimal choice. Gun depression tended to be bad, so the higher you are the less stuff you can actually shoot and the harder it is to aim the guns. Skilled crews also liked to fire ricocheting round shot to increase the range of their shots, or fire rolling shots specifically aimed at ankles and legs of men and horses or wheels of wagons. This is also harder if you position guns high on hills. Optimal height was between one and three meters of elevation.
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For people worried about any potential attack through Rotholz valley, then wouldn't it help to have a unit on Rotholz Turm that would be able to spot any units entering into the valley? On turn 1 an elven cavalry unit (108th) is placed on a hill in Rotholz Turm in my plan. It would be able to spot any units that are going into the Rotholz forest.
Line of Sight, yellow shows the 108th line of sight on turn 1. Occupying Rotholz Turm will forewarn us of any attack through the Rotholz valley.
View: https://imgur.com/a/PPQg4Op
Line of Sight, yellow shows the 108th line of sight on turn 1. Occupying Rotholz Turm will forewarn us of any attack through the Rotholz valley.
View: https://imgur.com/a/PPQg4Op
One thing that your picture ignores is line of sight being blocked by our units. Trotha could easily think our artillery could be behind our other units.
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- Location
- Finland
I'll correct that, thank you!
And that. East of the 148th is a Village tile.
Err... I'm not sure what I was thinking there. Bit of a brain fart. We'll say Guillory is trying something new, nothing like turning a mistake into a plot point!
The enemy commander can know the CO traits of Units that have seen battle under them before. Von Trotha is mostly commanding untested provincials.
Hidden modifiers to represent good officer training is an interesting idea, but currently there are none, no.
Yes.
Hills. Apologies, the terrain is positioned unclearly there.
The breastworks are, yes.
Good points, though rather than revising the artillery rules, I think you'll just get chances to fund artillery innovations down the road. That said, in some things mechanics have to take precedence over realism/authenticity.
Looking at the Monsters and Magic section, I wonder how dragons will work as a unit. I speculate that any incredibly ancient dragon might have hides that are strong enough to at least resist medium to long range cannon attacks, and they may occupy multiple spaces. Short range cannon attacks might deal a lot of damage. Dragons could also have a ranged fire breath attack, fire balls they can spit, claws, tail attack, or they could simply ram troops. Any attack they have probably will have high wounding/maybe some additional advantage. Some attacks like breathing fire, may inflict more morale damage or deal damage in multiple tiles. Maybe dragons can do two types of actions in turn, attack with their claws in addition to their tail in one turn. Dragons may also try to set forests, woods, villages, and urban tiles on fire.
@Photomajig, can dragons fly?
@Photomajig, can dragons fly?
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- Location
- Finland
Oh yes, though older ones are said to be too heavy for anything but short bursts.
Wait, @Photomajig, how does Guillory trying something new work with the first quote here? Will the 350th face any penalties? I would prefer the 350th to keep their Hobgoblin CO (without any penalties), as I think it could add something interesting to Guillory as a character, and as you note it could be a nice plot point. Though I would also like some mention of this somewhere, maybe sometime during the battle we could see the perspective of the 350th/their CO, and also have Durand/Guillory make some comments on the whole situation.
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- Location
- Finland
You'll find out what's going on there when we get a relevant POV during the battle, yesss.
Chimeraguard
We do deserve to exist.
Just so long as there's not any penalties.
But man, I was really looking forward to a unit of Hobgoblin Hussars. While Lancers are even better, any sort of cavalry is where the Hobgoblins shine with their retaining Charge advantage against braced and extra melee wounding. Having it just be another unit of Elves is kinda a letdown.
But man, I was really looking forward to a unit of Hobgoblin Hussars. While Lancers are even better, any sort of cavalry is where the Hobgoblins shine with their retaining Charge advantage against braced and extra melee wounding. Having it just be another unit of Elves is kinda a letdown.
I don't think having a hobgoblin CO will give us the charge advantage even when the enemy brace affect hobgoblins have, because I think hobgoblins still have that even if their CO is killed. It's their racial trait. Also, let's hope their CO doesn't have a bad trait.
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Chimeraguard
We do deserve to exist.
Yeah, that's my point. I was expecting us to have a full unit of Hobgoblin Hussars, not just yet another unit of Elven Hussars with a Hobgoblin CO stitched on.
By the way, doesn't Flank Scouting need to correct this issue where we're giving specific orders to two units of Allied Troops that we're not allowed to give specific orders to?
Oh, I misread your post. I agree that having a Hobgoblin hussar instead of another eleven hussar would have been nice.
@Photomajig, for the Hobgoblin racial trait, does the braced unit still get the first attack?
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@Photomajig Also, just to confirm what NSchwerte said, does artillery that doesn't move from where it's place at deployment, need to set up?
- Location
- Finland
You mean the counter-attack? Yes, they do. It's not really a first attack since both happen simultaneously.
That is correct.
Ok, then isn't the mechanic post specifically saying that the unit makes an immediate melee attack redundant? Maybe I'm missing something here?
Vote closed
- Location
- Finland
- Location
- Finland
I'm not sure what you mean. They are being attacked, so they make an immediate attack back simultaneously. This is how it has worked from the start. I guess that phrasing is unclear?
And for the first time during the quest (?), we have a tie. Hooray!
I believe Flank Scouting has an additional vote lower down the list.
Oh right, true. Good, no need to wait for a tiebreaker then.
- Location
- Germany
- Pronouns
- He/She/They
Indeed. So if they are even more useful doing flanking fire than doing assault and he doesn't want them taking attention, why would it be a bad thing for us to inflict attrition on them? Especially when they are only 10 casualties away from a decrease in damage output.
Cavalry does not actually degrade faster than infantry, both of them degrade at 100 lost troops. And cavalry is always faster than normal infantry, even over rough terrain.
I agree that they are unlikely to assault, but just like the nymphs that's because they are too valuable to throw away for that - which makes m quite happy to hit them, especially when degrading their cavalry brings us ever closer to being able to do our envelopment.
The example that come to my mind are Räuberwald, where once it became clear that the scenario is a danger to us it was disregarded immediately and the scenario where the enemy gets his artillery to medium range, where after I illustrated how I would counter them the debate immediately swung around to how it feels difficult, ignoring the actual scenario i laid out.
Keep in mind, whatever unit triggers our ready fires triggers all of them. If the horse artillery triggers the elves, it also triggers the 10th, which has a 50% chance to
But we don't actually place units in front of the potential artillery positions at the flanks.