Army of Liberty: a Fantasy Revolutionary Warfare Quest

Chimeraguard · Wednesday at 4:17 PM

Hmm. Historically, one of the big issues with cavalry IIRC was that after such a successful charge, all but the most disciplined of cavalry would become uncontrollable as they go off to chase fleeing troops/loot the enemy baggage train/whatever, and there's too great a distance to make them properly reform.

But that runs headlong into game issues where one of the primary concessions is being able to command your troops at all times because otherwise things just become a mess.

Hmm, borrowing something from other games, maybe moving away while still being engaged in a melee could trigger an attack of opportunity? That feels like it would make sense.

natruska · Wednesday at 4:37 PM

Red Rationalist said:
I'm also a bit wary about reducing their movement speed to much in general, they still need to be fast in order for us to get use out of them. There are lesson to be learned here, but I also think we should think of this as the result of a fatal mistake rather than the typical battle. The other side also lacked infantry to fully cover and was just not able to respond, so the basic army balance was a bit screwy for this case in the first place.

It's a fair concern but I don't think there's much risk of making cavalry too slow to be useful. Even if you swung the nerf bat as hard as possible and made light cavalry 4 Move/heavy cav 3 Move, they'd still just be the speed that our cuirassiers and Wolf Guard are right now. And I think this battle has demonstrated that that's plenty of movement to exploit openings.

I'm also kinda skeptical that not blocking every single tile someone could use to reach your backline should be treated as a fatal mistake. That doesn't really seem like a reasonable standard. How is anyone supposed to fight in an open field like at Mauvais Plain then? And even a lot of strong positions anchored on forests/swamps can still be flanked if there's a clear path to the other side anywhere on the map, or if hussars just spend a turn powering through the forest. Ready Charge with your own cavalry is obviously part of the answer but it feels inadequate and also, like, strange. Cavalry being able to leap the whole map in a turn or two means the Ready Charging will necessarily have to be a bunch of mind games and guesswork.

Are armies going to scale up with a bunch more regiments so they can cover their artillery in all directions? That'd make sense, but it'd mean even more units…all the scenarios that aren't "nerf cavalry" kinda look like a hassle to me.

Chimeraguard · Wednesday at 4:45 PM

Chimeraguard said:
Hmm. Historically, one of the big issues with cavalry IIRC was that after such a successful charge, all but the most disciplined of cavalry would become uncontrollable as they go off to chase fleeing troops/loot the enemy baggage train/whatever, and there's too great a distance to make them properly reform.

But that runs headlong into game issues where one of the primary concessions is being able to command your troops at all times because otherwise things just become a mess.

Hmm, borrowing something from other games, maybe moving away while still being engaged in a melee could trigger an attack of opportunity? That feels like it would make sense.

I do wonder if there's a way we could frame things to acknowledge the relative difficulty of controlling cavalry after a charge. Maybe something like, after a cavalry's first Charge, they automatically gain effects similar to a Maverick CO until they've Rested or Routed? Or at least, that happens to cavalry who aren't high enough on the Experience level? Certain CO traits might also mitigate that.

I'm not sure how effective that'd be, but it would make it a lot harder to do precise maneuvers with your cavalry unless you have very skilled ones.

Red Rationalist · Wednesday at 5:00 PM

natruska said:
I'm also kinda skeptical that not blocking every single tile someone could use to reach your backline should be treated as a fatal mistake. That doesn't really seem like a reasonable standard. How is anyone supposed to fight in an open field like at Mauvais Plain then? And even a lot of strong positions anchored on forests/swamps can still be flanked if there's a clear path to the other side anywhere on the map, or if hussars just spend a turn powering through the forest. Ready Charge with your own cavalry is obviously part of the answer but it feels inadequate and also, like, strange. Cavalry being able to leap the whole map in a turn or two means the Ready Charging will necessarily have to be a bunch of mind games and guesswork.

I mean, I thinking keeping one cavalry on the edges and or backline and telling them to ready charge in the way of flanking cavalry is doable. Theoretically you would have just needed one cavalry unit to ready charge into the gap and ours would have been toast. With a system that allows for far more movement range regarding ready charges, blocking the enemy is also reasonably easy especially if they chain charges together (moving around a unit in melee costs somewhere around 6 movement, which is substantial).

natruska said:
It's a fair concern but I don't think there's much risk of making cavalry too slow to be useful. Even if you swung the nerf bat as hard as possible and made light cavalry 4 Move/heavy cav 3 Move, they'd still just be the speed that our cuirassiers and Wolf Guard are right now. And I think this battle has demonstrated that that's plenty of movement to exploit openings.

So, I'm fine with the idea of introducing movement costs/opportunity attacks from running alongside a units front. But I think we should be very careful to tune their ability to flank and exploit, rather than their movement in general. Cavalry units should still have the option to charge, something which is almost never going to happen if you can't engage from outside the enemy artillery range. And I think the stunning effect from the cavalry success is also blinding people a bit in the general balance discussion, like the need to tune momentum gain down a bit. Momentum from destroying the artillery should not make the enemy morale basically dead.

To suggest a compromise solution here: What if braced units specifically got to make melee attacks on any units trying to move alongside their front? This would somewhat model the square formation that was used against cavalry attacks and thus allow infantry to control the battlespace somewhat better (preventing any easy move through three tiles). Arguably you could even have a real caret simply by having 2 adjacent units with their backs to each other, while still allowing cavalry to damage unprepared enemies. Cavalry that charge alongside a braced unit would take the significant 6 movement point penalty, thus giving us a counter option that is light on the amount of infantry needed (1 per three tiles you really want to cover), but still allow mobile exploiting forces under the right moment. in return, perhaps cavalry could have a low movement cost to actually disengage again, allowing for more hit and run tactics.

As a sidenote, I generally think our battles had too little infantry. Right now we are just forming a line (or in this case, a loose position among the forest) and storming the others position. We had little in the way of successful skirmishes, forward positions being taken, infantry being moved to fall into the flank (though the new system allows and encourages that) or deliberate scouting. I think a lot of problems stem from the sparseness of infantry, which prevents a more enduring defense and offense and thus encourages overly conservative play.

Pyrelight · Wednesday at 5:44 PM

Photomajig said:
I do agree regarding the effectiveness of ranged. Increasing the killiness of firearms would help a bit (still inaccurate, but deadly when they hit), but I think other changes are needed to encourage firefights more too. I suppose the Fire cost could be dropped to 1 AP to be in line with melee, but I'm not sure about that.

This is definitely something I'll have to do something about in revisions after the battle. I think restricting Facing changes is a good idea. Limiting how much you can turn as part of your Move seems good to me. I'll also probably remove the ability to change Facing through Attacks (limiting it to Charges and Moves). Especially melee-engaged Units shouldn't be able to spin around like they're pod-racing.

Imo the real issue is that units can do multiple melee attacks, more than that ranged is too weak. We saw three turns worth of grinding melee over and done in one charge.

As Nschwerte mentioned, it looks like the "ideal" defence against a charge might be to brace and then launch counterattacks in melee rather than shooting on the way in.

I know that in this period "the bullet is a mad thing, it's the bayonet who knows what he's doing" but..

Making it so that units can only initiate one attack per turn maybe? But then you might get weird behaviour like charge-withdraw-brace. Idk.

Red Rationalist said:
Well, considering we got 3 cavalry units and they had one at that point with straight-up gap, I would absolutely call this a mistake. The exchange rate was seemingly equal, but it prevented them from screening; thus effectivly exchanging 2 cavalry unit at all their artillery for routing 2 cavalry. We wouldn't have been able to pull this off if the other harq. unit screened instead of staying in position for the wolf guard to charge them.

The Halflings got run over the way, they didn't actually intercept our charge. To be honest, that one was more the result of charging to the endpoint, which in turn was enabled by the lack of counterplay. I would say the army just mostly did a bad job iterating on their position.

Well, my basic point is the lack of an intermediate turn between the skirmish. Sure, cuirassiers are comparatively slower but the rapid movement was more the result of us fully charging into the rear. Which did pay off thanks to a lack of remaining screens (2 cavalry routed on the same turn), something that wouldn't be the case on a larger map.

I'm also a bit wary about reducing their movement speed to much in general, they still need to be fast in order for us to get use out of them. There are lesson to be learned here, but I also think we should think of this as the result of a fatal mistake rather than the typical battle. The other side also lacked infantry to fully cover and was just not able to respond, so the basic army balance was a bit screwy for this case in the first place.

I don't think trying to screen would have done anything. We had triple the usable cavalry and even if we didn't, it's the same as with the halflings. They got run over, but they didn't slow them down much either; 3 MP to disengage from melee and move around. Even if it had been a deliberate countercharge it wouldn't have stopped them, where previously it would have forced a disengage.

I think everything's too fast currently, the cavalry are just the worst offenders. It was already possible for infantry to charge through musket range in one turn, but cavalry could already threaten a large area and now they can cross most of the map in one go.
If we did Brutet under these rules it would be basically a normal battle but with the melee phase greatly shortened.

Maybe the specific solution to cavalry is to have a dogfight mechanic or Screen order so that if a cavalry squadron is engaged in melee with enemy cavalry, they can't disengage or the enemy cavalry can move to block them and prevent them from just moving around?

natruska · Wednesday at 5:55 PM

Red Rationalist said:
So, I'm fine with the idea of introducing movement costs/opportunity attacks from running alongside a units front. But I think we should be very careful to tune their ability to flank and exploit, rather than their movement in general. Cavalry units should still have the option to charge, something which is almost never going to happen if you can't engage from outside the enemy artillery range. And I think the stunning effect from the cavalry success is also blinding people a bit in the general balance discussion, like the need to tune momentum gain down a bit. Momentum from destroying the artillery should not make the enemy morale basically dead.

To suggest a compromise solution here: What if braced units specifically got to make melee attacks on any units trying to move alongside their front? This would somewhat model the square formation that was used against cavalry attacks and thus allow infantry to control the battlespace somewhat better (preventing any easy move through three tiles). Arguably you could even have a real caret simply by having 2 adjacent units with their backs to each other, while still allowing cavalry to damage unprepared enemies. Cavalry that charge alongside a braced unit would take the significant 6 movement point penalty, thus giving us a counter option that is light on the amount of infantry needed (1 per three tiles you really want to cover), but still allow mobile exploiting forces under the right moment. in return, perhaps cavalry could have a low movement cost to actually disengage again, allowing for more hit and run tactics.

As a sidenote, I generally think our battles had too little infantry. Right now we are just forming a line (or in this case, a loose position among the forest) and storming the others position. We had little in the way of successful skirmishes, forward positions being taken, infantry being moved to fall into the flank (though the new system allows and encourages that) or deliberate scouting. I think a lot of problems stem from the sparseness of infantry, which prevents a more enduring defense and offense and thus encourages overly conservative play.

I'm not sure I follow the bit about cavalry not having the option to engage from outside of artillery range. Is that referring to the hit-and-run style attacks we've seen in previous battles with cav darting forward to charge infantry then falling back, etc.? If so I'm not strongly against that kind of hit-and-running (though it does feel a little non-Napoleonic at times) but I'm not sure it's vital that rule changes preserve it. Cavalry needs to have enough movement to fight other cavalry/flankers away from the main force concentrations and enough movement to charge in support of infantry at decisive moments, those are the two big requirements IMO. Being able to attack the main body without that kind of support/co-operation is a bonus, but I don't think its a necessity. As for the Momentum stuff, I disagree. We just wiped all of their artillery out, every single gun, in one stroke. That's the kind of thing that makes armies turn around and walk home. I think it's reasonable for that to be an instant game over.

I don't think Bracing inhibiting cav movement/granting attacks of opportunity is really the answer because that means that the zone-of-control effect goes away at the exact moment it's most needed, when the infantry charge has landed and the two lines are engaged in melee. If a ZOC system is what you want to do, I think it'd just have to be active at all times (except for Routed units presumably).

Re: too little infantry - eh. I think forming a line and storming the other's position is an accurate summary of a lot of Napoleonic warfare. A lot of the skirmishing and scouting and probing happened below the level of abstraction for this game, at the company or troop level. On the higher level of regiments and battalions it looked a lot like the game does, the two armies forming up on the field and hitting each other until one of them starts to buckle. If there's an inaccuracy it's in the length and scale of battles (no multiple hour attacks, no tens of thousands of reserves cycling in and out etc.) but that's a reasonable/necessary concession to playability.

Red Rationalist · Wednesday at 6:14 PM

Pyrelight said:
As Nschwerte mentioned, it looks like the "ideal" defence against a charge might be to brace and then launch counterattacks in melee rather than shooting on the way in.

I know that in this period "the bullet is a mad thing, it's the bayonet who knows what he's doing" but..

So, as I understood the rules that wouldn't do anything. Units engaged in melee can't brace and the charge would presumably happen before the braced status could apply. The QM response indicated a similar ruling.

I've also seen nothing indicating that melee attacks are an issue. They are deadly, but that is not by itself.

Pyrelight said:
I don't think trying to screen would have done anything. We had triple the usable cavalry and even if we didn't, it's the same as with the halflings. They got run over, but they didn't slow them down much either; 3 MP to disengage from melee and move around.

So, this isn't accurate for 2 reasons: 1) We couldn't leave our cavalry in the enemy range as long as their artillery operated, meaning we couldn't commit to a full charge. Also, nobody forcef to put their cavalry in front rather than behind the gap.
2) We happen to run into melee with a unit in open field and evaded one turn lefter. This was the result of overspending movement due to fully comitting to a big charge. A risky move, but one that paid off. I can guarauntuee you, we could absolutely prevent this if we commanded the enemy army.

natruska said:
I don't think Bracing inhibiting cav movement/granting attacks of opportunity is really the answer because that means that the zone-of-control effect goes away at the exact moment it's most needed, when the infantry charge has landed and the two lines are engaged in melee.

Why should infantey busy in a melee also be able to deter cavalry? That should probably warrant an action being devoted to this so a full march into cavalry doesn't inhibt them.I don't see this as a problem. None of the infantry was in a melee during our break-in through the line.

I'm also goung to questtion what role cavalry would even have in you proposed system. If they don't have hit and run rattacks, are screened without effort by infantry, slow moving, what are they going to do on the battlefield? We need to keep the mobile forces relevant, otherwise thing are going to devolve into a pure artillery duel.

Chimeraguard · Wednesday at 6:22 PM

Red Rationalist said:
As a sidenote, I generally think our battles had too little infantry. Right now we are just forming a line (or in this case, a loose position among the forest) and storming the others position. We had little in the way of successful skirmishes, forward positions being taken, infantry being moved to fall into the flank (though the new system allows and encourages that) or deliberate scouting. I think a lot of problems stem from the sparseness of infantry, which prevents a more enduring defense and offense and thus encourages overly conservative play.

Hmm. That's something to think about. Right now it takes well, a lot of effort to recruit even a single infantry unit. Halflings, the most common of the Kin, still would take on average 2 actions just to muster up the necessary reserve manpower, and then another to turn them into an actual infantry unit. Other Kin take 3-4, and that's for the most common Kin rather than the minority ones.

Given that Marches in general seem to have 1-3 Actions (or no Army Actions if we want to Force March), that makes it really hard to build up any sort of army while still proceeding to various objectives.

For cavalry, it makes sense that it would take a good bit of effort to assemble and train them and artillery even moreso, but I wonder if recruitment should be altered that it's relatively easy to gather up masses of infantrymen (or at least infantry recruits.)

natruska · Wednesday at 6:31 PM

Red Rationalist said:
Why should infantey busy in a melee also be able to deter cavalry? That should probably warrant an action being devoted to this so a full march into cavalry doesn't inhibt them.I don't see this as a problem. None of the infantry was in a melee during our break-in through the line.

Because the whole point of the discussion is not wanting cavalry to be able to effortlessly wrap around an infantry line that's engaged in combat and get free flanking attacks/free artillerymurder for a single move action, with zero need for any kind of pre-positioning or linebreaking? Because that's the problem I'm seeing?

Why would we even try to 'shoot the gap' like we just did if waiting until the infantry makes contact allows our cavalry to move freely again? What's the point of the mechanic at that point?

Red Rationalist said:
I'm also goung to questtion what role cavalry would even have in you proposed system. If they don't have hit and run rattacks, are screened without effort by infantry, slow moving, what are they going to do on the battlefield? We need to keep the mobile forces relevant, otherwise thing are going to devolve into a pure artillery duel.

Shock attacks. Screening and pursuit of routed units. Flanking (because the infantry ZOC system, which I don't think is really needed if cavalry is nerfed in some more direct way, wouldn't prevent flanking, it'd just force cavalry to spend enough MP staying that extra tile away that they might have to stick to attacking the actual flanks). The sorts of combined arms fighting that cavalry actually did. Not running around into the enemy's rear and charging them from behind, the sort of thing that they didn't do much of at all.

EagerListener · Wednesday at 6:36 PM

Red Rationalist said:
-[] 1st Elv. Cuir.: 2*Charge [E,NE,E], Brace
-[] 2nd Elv Cuir.: 2* Charge 2nd Nymph Guard [3*NW,NE, SE], Melee
-[] 4th Elv Cuir: 1* Charge [2 NW, W, SE], 2*Melee 52nd
-[] 7th Elv Musk.: Go AFTER 2nd Elv Cuir, 3* Charge [2*NE, 2E] 2nd Nymph Guard
-[] 1st Hob Musk: 3*REST
-[] 2nd Hob Musk.: 2*Charge [3*NW] 1st Nymph Guard, Melee 88th Elv.
-[] 3rd Hob Musk.: Go AFTER 2nd Elv Cuir, 3* Charge [3*NE, E, NE] 2nd Nymph Guard
-[] 4th Hob Musk.: 2* Charge [2 NW,NE] 1st Nymph Guard, Melee 1st Nymph Guard
-[] Wolf Guard: 1*Charge [W, 2*NW], 2* Melee 88th Elv
-[] Roy Sieg. Art.: Fire at 1st Nymph Guard, Brace
-[] HQ: Resupply Roy. Sie. Art.

Just to note, the 7th Elv Musk are going through woods when they more NE, so they won't have enough movement points to charge into the 2nd Nymph Guard. In your visualization they are one east of their actual position.

PeaterDuck12 · Wednesday at 7:15 PM

Photomajig said:
Georges d'Estrées
Loud

Hang Draw and Quarter this man, i swear if we miss the bonus obj cause some elf jaggoff wanted to cock fight, grrrrrhhh

Pinniped said:
Yep. Despite our best efforts, we are definitely in a winning position. Honestly, I don't understand how the Elven king managed to lose this battle at this point. How badly must he have messed to actually lose??

Well I imagine that we're not yet done with the twists. Fate is a fickle thing.

EagerListener · Wednesday at 8:24 PM

@Photomajig, do cav still inflict morale checks with disadvantage if they attack cav unfriendly terrtain such as Urban hexes?

Red Rationalist said:
-[] 1st Elv. Cuir.: 2*Charge [E,NE,E], Brace
-[] 2nd Elv Cuir.: 2* Charge 2nd Nymph Guard [3*NW,NE, SE], Melee
-[] 4th Elv Cuir: 1* Charge [2 NW, W, SE], 2*Melee 52nd
-[] 7th Elv Musk.: Go AFTER 2nd Elv Cuir, 3* Charge [2*NE, 2E] 2nd Nymph Guard
-[] 1st Hob Musk: 3*REST
-[] 2nd Hob Musk.: 2*Charge [3*NW] 1st Nymph Guard, Melee 88th Elv.
-[] 3rd Hob Musk.: Go AFTER 2nd Elv Cuir, 3* Charge [3*NE, E, NE] 2nd Nymph Guard
-[] 4th Hob Musk.: 2* Charge [2 NW,NE] 1st Nymph Guard, Melee 1st Nymph Guard
-[] Wolf Guard: 1*Charge [W, 2*NW], 2* Melee 88th Elv
-[] Roy Sieg. Art.: Fire at 1st Nymph Guard, Brace
-[] HQ: Resupply Roy. Sie. Art.

Did some calcs for the draft plan, and overall it looks good. Calcs: Attack on 2nd Nym, Attack on 1st Nym, Wolf Guard, 4th Elv Cuir, 1st Elv Cuir. Though I would suggest using the 1st Elv Cav to charge the 52nd from the E and then charge the 17th. And for the 7th Elv and 3rd Hob, taking a path nearer to the rest of our army would be better, since if the 2nd Nym moves SE or E, they would be in a better place to respond. Something like 3rd Hob NE, E, 3NE; and 7th Elv 2E, 2NE, E.

Red Rationalist · Thursday at 4:16 AM

EagerListener said:
Though I would suggest using the 1st Elv Cav to charge the 52nd from the E and then charge the 17th.

So the issue is that the 1st is currently in melee, meaning they would be paying 3 movement for any movement adjacent to the 52nd. Charging the 52nd would take 2 actions (3 disengage, 2 on a charge NW,W) and we would be subsequently engaged in melee again due to charging a unit from the front. There is just not enough movement for that change.

EagerListener said:
And for the 7th Elv and 3rd Hob, taking a path nearer to the rest of our army would be better, since if the 2nd Nym moves SE or E, they would be in a better place to respond. Something like 3rd Hob NE, E, 3NE; and 7th Elv 2E, 2NE, E.

The 2nd Nymphs can't move on our turn and I don't expect them to spend 2 action points [disengage, move] to just position themselves slightly differently. So I don't think changing the charge path would have an impact.

Thank you for compiling the casualties though, that is pretty useful if we want to calculate routing chances.

EagerListener · Thursday at 4:22 AM

Red Rationalist said:
So the issue is that the 1st is currently in melee, meaning they would be paying 3 movement for any movement adjacent to the 52nd. Charging the 52nd would take 2 actions (3 disengage, 2 on a charge NW,W) and we would be subsequently engaged in melee again due to charging a unit from the front. There is just not enough movement for that change.

Wouldn't the move NW be part of the disengage? Moving while in melee is a plus 2 to move cost, so NW would be 3 movement, charge W 1.

Red Rationalist · Thursday at 4:24 AM

EagerListener said:
Wouldn't the move NW be part of the disengage? Moving while in melee is a plus 2 to move cost, so NW would be 3 movement, charge W 1.

That is not allowed by charges, as you need to be at least 1 tile away from the target to start one. Also, disengaging requires you to be one tile away.

EagerListener · Thursday at 4:37 AM

Red Rationalist said:
That is not allowed by charges, as you need to be at least 1 tile away from the target to start one. Also, disengaging requires you to be one tile away.

Ahh I see, so the disengage rules would prevent that. Though, for charges, the wording is just 1 movement towards the enemy, which is a bit vague as to what "towards" means.

Red Rationalist · Thursday at 4:40 AM

EagerListener said:
Ok, the disengage rules would prevent that. Though, for charges, the wording is just 1 movement towards the enemy, which is a bit vague as to what "towards" means.

Exact quote:

Photomajig said:
Unit moves and attacks a non-adjacent enemy Unit or Hex within its movement range in melee. They must move at least 1 Hex towards the target and spend the Movement cost to enter the target Hex as part of this action. The attack has Charge Advantage unless the target Unit has Braced.

Moving 1 Hex towards the enemy means reducing your distance to them by at least one tile, not moving adjacent to them. It also doesn't really make sense to run alongside the enemy and then turn 90° for your charge, that wouldn't have much of an effect.

Photomajig · Thursday at 4:43 AM

Great discussion as usual. I'll try to bite into all the critique in due time. To begin with:

Pyrelight said:
Didn't attend the rule discussion but it looks like movement and melee attacks are, frankly, too good, in addition to no longer having the mind games uncertainty of who might be on ready fire or braced.

Infantry are twice as fast, cavalry can cross most of the map in a single turn, and a unit that starts within two hexes of the enemy can drop them directly into a woodchipper.

I think if they attack into flanks, a cavalry unit like those cuirassiers could ping-pong charges into three enemies in a single turn? Or even charge one regiment twice.

In other words, this version of the rules is Springtime for Arne.

Pinniped said:
Even with the small map, I do tentatively agree that melee seems a bit strong right now. Shooting should be a viable option, right now it feels like you would only shoot when you cannot charge efficiently. I also do miss the Ready Fire/Brace mind games.

However I think the doubled infantry speed is generally good, makes things less tedious. But cavalry maneuverability could maybe be tuned down.

Pyrelight said:
Imo the real issue is that units can do multiple melee attacks, more than that ranged is too weak. We saw three turns worth of grinding melee over and done in one charge.

As Nschwerte mentioned, it looks like the "ideal" defence against a charge might be to brace and then launch counterattacks in melee rather than shooting on the way in.

I know that in this period "the bullet is a mad thing, it's the bayonet who knows what he's doing" but..

Making it so that units can only initiate one attack per turn maybe? But then you might get weird behaviour like charge-withdraw-brace. Idk.

Units only being able to attack one Unit (but use any amount of AP on attacks there, so potentially up to 3) was in the original draft of the rules, but I scrapped it.

I think a combination of dropping Fire for infantry to 1AP, harshly limiting how much you can change your Facing in one Move, and removing the ability to change Facing from Attack already do something to address these issues. Cavalry can still outmaneuver you, but they'll struggle to do their more outrageous maneuvers if they only have 1 free 45-degree turn per Move.

I'm currently thinking either "one change of direction/Facing per Move or Charge" or "one 45-degree/one side of the hex turn per Move or Charge". No zigzagging allowed here.

Another thing that would buff Brace is making Charging a Braced enemy trigger a Morale Check in the attacker, too. Charging was scary for everyone involved!

Chimeraguard said:
Hmm. Historically, one of the big issues with cavalry IIRC was that after such a successful charge, all but the most disciplined of cavalry would become uncontrollable as they go off to chase fleeing troops/loot the enemy baggage train/whatever, and there's too great a distance to make them properly reform.

But that runs headlong into game issues where one of the primary concessions is being able to command your troops at all times because otherwise things just become a mess.

Hmm, borrowing something from other games, maybe moving away while still being engaged in a melee could trigger an attack of opportunity? That feels like it would make sense.

While realistic, having cavalry potentially go out of control every time they break an enemy Unit is not ideal gameplay.

Attacks of opportunity I'd rather not add.

Red Rationalist said:
To suggest a compromise solution here: What if braced units specifically got to make melee attacks on any units trying to move alongside their front? This would somewhat model the square formation that was used against cavalry attacks and thus allow infantry to control the battlespace somewhat better (preventing any easy move through three tiles). Arguably you could even have a real caret simply by having 2 adjacent units with their backs to each other, while still allowing cavalry to damage unprepared enemies. Cavalry that charge alongside a braced unit would take the significant 6 movement point penalty, thus giving us a counter option that is light on the amount of infantry needed (1 per three tiles you really want to cover), but still allow mobile exploiting forces under the right moment. in return, perhaps cavalry could have a low movement cost to actually disengage again, allowing for more hit and run tactics

It feels odd that a Braced Unit would attack enemies passing by, since that would certainly disrupt the defensive formation it's meant to represent, but I do think extra Movement cost for moving through their Facing could work. I'd tie this into melee engagement and say entering a Hex in an adjacent Braced enemy's Facing counts as getting melee-engaged. Horses don't love running close to a thicket of bayonets, after all. This would add 2 Movement cost to any Moves through their personal space.

Attacking a Flank or a Routed enemy already doesn't trigger melee-engagement, so I think there's enough room for cavalry to hit and run without further boosts.

Chimeraguard said:
Hmm. That's something to think about. Right now it takes well, a lot of effort to recruit even a single infantry unit. Halflings, the most common of the Kin, still would take on average 2 actions just to muster up the necessary reserve manpower, and then another to turn them into an actual infantry unit. Other Kin take 3-4, and that's for the most common Kin rather than the minority ones.

Given that Marches in general seem to have 1-3 Actions (or no Army Actions if we want to Force March), that makes it really hard to build up any sort of army while still proceeding to various objectives.

For cavalry, it makes sense that it would take a good bit of effort to assemble and train them and artillery even moreso, but I wonder if recruitment should be altered that it's relatively easy to gather up masses of infantrymen (or at least infantry recruits.)

March Actions, particularly recruitment, is going to be revised after this as well.

EagerListener said:
@Photomajig, do cav still inflict morale checks with disadvantage if they attack cav unfriendly terrtain such as Urban hexes?

They do, yes. The horsies are still scary even when you're behind a wall. This would be simple to change, though.

EagerListener · Thursday at 4:47 AM

Red Rationalist said:
The 2nd Nymphs can't move on our turn and I don't expect them to spend 2 action points [disengage, move] to just position themselves slightly differently. So I don't think changing the charge path would have an impact.

I mean, why not just be safe with it. The 2nd Nym are ready actioning.

Photomajig said:
2nd Nym Grd Readies Action

Red Rationalist said:
Moving 1 Hex towards the enemy means reducing your distance to them by at least one tile, not moving adjacent to them. It also doesn't really make sense to run alongside the enemy and then turn 90° for your charge, that wouldn't have much of an effect.

Ah, feels a bit embarrassing to have miss that. Though I probably should take it as a sign that I should go to sleep now.

Red Rationalist · Thursday at 4:48 AM

Reflecting a bit more on how the battle is turning in general: I think the natural comparison point is with the battle at Mauvais. Large, quite open battlefield with some fairly straightforward line formation that got won by exploiting an enemy gap and killing their artillery. In this regard, the changes have accomplished some thing we set out to do very well: The turn bloat has been cut down significantly, movement has become much smoother, battlefield awareness at the start was somewhat low leading to increased uncertainty. Unfortunately for us, this battle is looking to be really short (5 turns or so in total), so our ability to draw info in general is a bit lacking. Additionally, the battlefield on the enemies side was extraordinarily tight, while also being quite open (baring movement penalties, all tiles except for the couple hills are functionally flat. This was likely a large reason the cavalry did shine as it did.

So, a couple of things I would suggest based on the battle:

Introducing a mild movement cost for villages and urban areas to make urban terain more of a blocker. I would suggest that villages should take 2 movement for cavalry (on acount of being a few streets, rather than completly open terrain) and urban areas could have 2 or 3. In effect, this would make villages into a natural sponge regarding cavalry charges, as their range for charging them is more limited. This would further help creating blocking areas that aren't just forests. To be honest, cavalry should be less zoomy in the outskirts of a city than in an open field.
I actually think artillery is still a bit to potent in regard to controlling movement. The change towards a turn-based model and facing has somewhat reduced it, though I would suggest forcing artillery to ready fire in 2 directional cone rather than a 3 directional one. This is more of a preference, but I think artillery fire should be in a smaller cone to force more decisions about how to set up fire.
I think I would suggest a maximum cap for momentum, in order to prevent it from making battles completely unwinnable or unlosable. This isn't a significant problem with the current battle, but I see future issues with larger armies having too much of a snowball effect from completely unchecked momentum. Don't get me wrong, morale should be decisive but it should not completely absorb misplay on the winners side, nor completely block success for the looser. Something like limiting it to +5/-5 would allow decisive gains while not preventing an extremely lucky or skilled opponent from making the best of a worst situation. Or maybe capping maximum momentum via morale? That seems to make thematic sense. Additionally, routing further units would act as a buffer towards the enemy equalizing the momentum (need to rout more units than the enemy), meaning you still have a really difficult cascade if momentum is turned against.

Pinniped · Thursday at 5:40 AM

Photomajig said:
I think a combination of dropping Fire for infantry to 1AP, harshly limiting how much you can change your Facing in one Move, and removing the ability to change Facing from Attack already do something to address these issues. Cavalry can still outmaneuver you, but they'll struggle to do their more outrageous maneuvers if they only have 1 free 45-degree turn per Move.

I'm currently thinking either "one change of direction/Facing per Move or Charge" or "one 45-degree/one side of the hex turn per Move or Charge". No zigzagging allowed here.

Hmm, I'm not sure I am a fan of limiting turning, since that would make planning trickier since you would have to consider what movements are allowed and which are not. But hmm, on the other hand it does make sense that galloping in a straight line is faster than doing zig-zag.

Photomajig said:
While realistic, having cavalry potentially go out of control every time they break an enemy Unit is not ideal gameplay.

I would like to bring into consideration one way to nerf cavalry just by changing the general rules: I think Moving after Charging could be disallowed.

This would make sense, since Charging is chaotic and breaks up the formation and organization of the Charging Unit. This change would also make every cavalry charge into a commitment, since the Cavalry will be stuck in Melee for the enemy Turn. This means charges into the enemy line would be suicide, charges into the back of the enemy line without support risky but charges to Rout weakened Units or flank charges supported by a central infantry push would remain viable and attractive options.

This would also prevent multiple Charges per turn from the same cavalry, drastically reducing their damage output if left unchecked. However, cavalry could still be used for Skirmishing or going after weak targets like artillery, by simply doing Move-Attack-Move instead of Charging.

I think this change, together with 1 AP Ready Action and maybe some minor nerf to Cavalry movement or maneuvarability in tight spaces, would go a long way of solving the issue.

One thing I'd like to also point out is that with 1 AP Ready Actions, Scouting becomes even more important. This is because currently, as long as we know an enemy has moved on their turn, we know they cannot have done Ready Fire/Ready Charge. With 1 AP Ready Action brought back, we actually need to keep eyes on the enemy unit during their entire turn in order to be able to determine if they could potentially have readied actions. This means actually keeping tabs on all enemy units becomes much more useful in terms of knowing how freely we can advance and what tricks we can expect. This means this change to Ready Actions would both make aggressive Cavalry moves more risky (due to higher chance for enemy Ready Fire/Charge) but also encourage cavalry to take on a role focused more on scouting.

Red Rationalist · Thursday at 1:45 PM

-[X] Plan Seize The Moment(um)
-[X] Visualization
-[X] 1st Elv. Cuir.: 2*Charge [E,NE,E], Melee
-[X] 2nd Elv Cuir.: 3* Charge 2nd Nymph Guard [E, 3*NW, NE, E, SE]
-[X] 4th Elv Cuir: 1* Charge [2 NW, W, SE], 2*Melee 52nd
-[X] 7th Elv Musk.: Go AFTER 2nd Elv Cuir, 3* Charge [2E, 2NE, E] 2nd Nymph Guard
-[X] 1st Hob Musk: 3*REST
-[X] 2nd Hob Musk.: 2*Charge [3*NW] 1st Nymph Guard, Melee 88th Elv.
-[X] 3rd Hob Musk.: Go AFTER 2nd Elv Cuir, 3* Charge [NE,E, 3*NE] 2nd Nymph Guard
-[X] 4th Hob Musk.: 2* Charge [2 NW,NE] 1st Nymph Guard, Melee 1st Nymph Guard
-[X] Wolf Guard: 1*Charge [W, 2*NW], 2* Melee 88th Elv
-[X] Roy Sieg. Art.: Fire at 1st Nymph Guard, Brace
-[X] HQ: Resupply Roy. Sie. Art.

[/ISPOILER]

So, might as well present a actually checked version of my early plan. There is not a lot to discuss here, this plan mostly emphasizes maximazing charges and attacks against the remaining units in order to further disable their army and blocking the intact cavalry unit via melee. Routing the 52nd and 88th is quite likely (rear cavalry charge/ wolf guard attack), meaning the only thing left will be some heavily damaged Nymph guards. Opportunities for counterplay are limited.

While @EagerListener has pointed out that the nymph have readied an action, I think they are unlikely to attempt moving out of their tile. Any woods tile they could move to would be under threat, while they would be getting fewer attacks and temporarily loose their advantage position. Far more likely is preparing a brace action combined with a ready shot or melee. In this regard, I switched my plan to keep a 2 tile distance from the nymphs for the sake of risk mitigation. Should they actually move away, we can annihilate them with our incoming force next turn.

Pinniped · Thursday at 3:32 PM

To be honest, looking at these cavalry movements in the plan, I think this really shows that some Cavalry changes are needed.

View: https://imgur.com/a/DD8SEu9

The facing changes makes it so that straight cavalry vs infantry fights will always be won by cavalry, since they can simply move around the infantry and hit them in the back. I don't think is historically accurate or good from a game balance perspective.

One way to solve this could actually be to introduce the square formation for infantry that has been mentioned a few times. If it was a 2 AP Order which prevents movement and gives omnidirectional Brace, this would allow infantry to combat cavalry efficiently, but make them vulnerable to shooting from other infantry.

Red Rationalist · Thursday at 3:42 PM

Pinniped said:
The facing changes makes it so that straight cavalry vs infantry fights will always be won by cavalry, since they can simply move around the infantry and hit them in the back. I don't think is historically accurate or good from a game balance perspective.

One way to solve this could actually be to introduce the square formation for infantry that has been mentioned a few times. If it was a 2 AP Order which prevents movement and gives omnidirectional Brace, this would allow infantry to combat cavalry efficiently, but make them vulnerable to shooting from other infantry.

Okay, let's not get overdramatic. This is cavalry exploiting the rear of a loose, disorganized formation which they should be strong against. If they were able to form a square against our cavalry, we would simple systematically smash them with infantry and fire advantage. The cavalry is like 40% of the overwhlming combat power we have, it's not some sign that "infantry always looses against cavalry". If they had the freedom to move without infantry interference, the world would look quite different in the form of a very quick cavalry rout after being dragged into melee.

The Laurent · Thursday at 3:45 PM

Red Rationalist said:
Okay, let's not get overdramatic. This is cavalry exploiting the rear of a loose, disorganized formation which they should be strong against. If they were able to form a square against our cavalry, we would simple systematically smash them with infantry and fire advantage. The cavalry is like 40% of the overwhlming combat power we have, it's not some sign that "infantry always looses against cavalry". If they had the freedom to move without infantry interference, the world would look quite different in the form of a very quick cavalry rout after being dragged into melee.

The degree of zig-zagging and always managing to get a behind shot is actually absurd IMO. You just like it because currently it's conveniencing you.

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