Hawk 2.5" movement fix

[lazyj]

See, Hannibal is wise. He knows how to make the eloquent points that I can only incoherently grunt at.

What he said. 

[gornhorror]

Here are my two cents.  I've played the Hawks quite a bit over the years.  They are my favorite army next to Ravenwood.  I find that the 2.5 movement of the greatswords and the heavy infantry is too limiting.  Maneuvering around the board is one thing, but having to take two turns to engage and enemy that is a card length away is quite annoying and makes even the relative low cost of the unit not worth it.  I say just give all 2.5" inch movers the ability to final rush at 3.5" and be done with it.  It just makes more sense to me, and it's more fun.  Greatswords and Heavy Infantry should be able to move at least as fast as dwarfs.

[Niko White]

Here are my two cents.  I've played the Hawks quite a bit over the years.  They are my favorite army next to Ravenwood.  I find that the 2.5 movement of the greatswords and the heavy infantry is too limiting.  Maneuvering around the board is one thing, but having to take two turns to engage and enemy that is a card length away is quite annoying and makes even the relative low cost of the unit not worth it.  I say just give all 2.5" inch movers the ability to final rush at 3.5" and be done with it.  It just makes more sense to me, and it's more fun.  Greatswords and Heavy Infantry should be able to move at least as fast as dwarfs.

Again; Greatswords are criminally undercosted if they final rush 3.5"!  Dwarf units get a relatively small points discount for their slowness, because it doesn't make it harder to pinch and do other useful things, it only hinders things like order-of-battle shifting (and you can sprint them if you really need to.)  Greatswords, on the other hand, lose like 40 points off their cost due to slow movement, and a lot of that is that they're more likely to get stranded in lategames and have more trouble pinching.  Capping your line at 2.5" to advance is certainly relevant, but that's far less important, as it rarely comes up.

[Hannibal]

but having to take two turns to engage and enemy that is a card length away is quite annoying and makes even the relative low cost of the unit not worth it.

I don't see how this makes much difference at all.  Usually the only time its going to matter is if there's a shooting unit nearby, and if that's the case you should thank your opponent for taking points off the battle line.  Unless you're facing a stand-and-shoot, at which point you have no one to blame for taking a slow unit like that against things like Dark Elves.

Also a 2.5" move is more than enough room to pinch and enemy, provided your units are side-by-side.  And if they're not, shame on you.  Heavy Infantry & Greatswords belong in your line shoulder to shoulder with their Hawkshold brethren.  And if your opponent has managed to tweak your lines so its not possible, then that's credit to your opponent.

[gornhorror]

I would like to know what greatswords would cost if they moved at 3.5.  Anybody know?  Most likely I would gladly pay for it.   Also, it's almost cruel to take a vanilla army like Hawkshold and make their only heavy hitting line unit so slow.  It's just frustrating trying to get this unit to finally engage in a fight.  When you choose it as one of your units, in hampers your entire line. It either has to join the fight late, or you have to slow down all of your units so it can keep up.  Real annoying.

[Zelc]

It would probably cost a bit over 300 points.  Take the Orc Axemen and add one red box.

[Hannibal]

Call it +35 points and you're probably pretty close.

[Chad_YMG]

I think this falls into the category of things I would probably have done differently but which aren't a big enough problem to "fix" (at least not officially).

Good plate mail isn't so restrictive that the heavy infantry guys need to be at 2.5" but it's reasonable that they are.  As you can gather, both Robert and I really like having racial unit differences defined largely by equipment so the shift from chain mail to plate was +1 toughness and -1 MC.  We certainly could have done just +1 toughness.

The only thing I don't like is that a 2.5" move often doesn't fit well with a typical Hawk army, especially since it's in units that are neither core nor cheap.  If you're advancing on the enemy then having to cap your whole army's advance is a pretty steep price to pay.  If you're running stand-and-shoot then you're already tight on points for your line so upgrading units beyond Sword/Spear can be problematic.  That said, with 12 units in an army there's plenty of room for some that see significantly less but not zero use and both Heavy Infantry and Great Swordsmen fall into that category.

[Niko White]

That discount also makes a huge difference.  Great Swords especially really are monstrous beatsticks for their points cost.  Having to cap the line at 2.5" matters in some cases, but in others it is mostly irrelevant.  I faced a Hawk army last night with 4(!) Greatswords at 2000 points.  That's really fearsome if you don't have much shooting, because once your lines hit, they're up by about 140 functional points!

[wulfgar61]

That said, with 12 units in an army there's plenty of room for some that see significantly less but not zero use and both Heavy Infantry and Great Swordsmen fall into that category.

We see both units get a fair amount of play in our campaigns.  The 2.5 movement has not prevented us from fielding them.  Typically it just requires more patience to play.  As any slow moving army would.  You don't even need terrain to get your armies in line.  Simple line up faster units behind your Hvy/Swrds and Indirect path them to the edges and you can usually impact with an intact line that stretches the full width of the board with little to no trouble.

[Niko White]

That said, with 12 units in an army there's plenty of room for some that see significantly less but not zero use and both Heavy Infantry and Great Swordsmen fall into that category.

We see both units get a fair amount of play in our campaigns.  The 2.5 movement has not prevented us from fielding them.  Typically it just requires more patience to play.  As any slow moving army would.  You don't even need terrain to get your armies in line.  Simple line up faster units behind your Hvy/Swrds and Indirect path them to the edges and you can usually impact with an intact line that stretches the full width of the board with little to no trouble.

Or cap everyone at 2.5".

[gull2112]

That said, with 12 units in an army there's plenty of room for some that see significantly less but not zero use and both Heavy Infantry and Great Swordsmen fall into that category.

We see both units get a fair amount of play in our campaigns.  The 2.5 movement has not prevented us from fielding them.  Typically it just requires more patience to play.  As any slow moving army would.  You don't even need terrain to get your armies in line.  Simple line up faster units behind your Hvy/Swrds and Indirect path them to the edges and you can usually impact with an intact line that stretches the full width of the board with little to no trouble.

Or cap everyone at 2.5".

But I can see the indirect path solution being preferable since it requires no CAs to "uncap" them as the engagement developes.