House Rules: Shooting & Routing

[Kevin]

In any case, do you actually think that game is a good example of reasonable use of 5/5 archers?

I'm not sure what you're asking.  If you're asking whether it was reasonable that I took 5/5 archers in that game, I'd say absolutely!  I mean, I took a bunch & won quite solidly.

If you're asking if this game was similarly to most games, and should be cited as an argument for the general utility of 5/5 archers, then not really. 

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I know it's not apples to apples, but Jaime took (3) 5/5 Cretan archers in most of his games.  Granted, for what it costs for one standard (4) 5/5 archer you can get two Cretans and shoot off 6 dice, but still.

[elgin_j]

I find that 5/5 archers are useful at the end game if your opponent has only archers left.  Often your line units are all over the place and in a parlous state and there is a danger that even a weak unit can pick them off before someone can close them down - hence it's nice to have a unit to take them out quickly (archers obviously lay waste to other archers).

From a combined arms perspective, though, I err on the side of Niko on this issue.  Not wholly but as time passes, even with the recent buffs, I simply don't find 165pts on Hawk archers to be a judicious unit choice.  Stand and Shoot is one thing, and it still has its place as a viable strategy but, by and large, if my army is getting Close at the start then archers (even Longbows) are usually a waste of time...

[Kevin]

5/5 archers suffer from other stuff unrelated to Disrupted.  Vs. elves they're at 1's to hit at long range, and vs. most easily-hit large/colossal units they're at 1s to damage. 

I personally shy away from combined arms, but a lot of this is related to the issue that in the old days archers were allowed to shoot over enemy units and target each other directly.  So that 0/1 defense & poor morale on Goblin Bowmen meant that they would almost certainly lose an artillery duel to, say, Dwarves.

Under the new rules they're of almost identical value, despite the dwaves costing over 20 extra points.  I still consider breaking the dam by changing card costs a very bad idea, but if there were a case to say the old formula was wrong, this would be it.

Along those lines, I'd argue that, while it's occasionally worth taking skeleton of goblin bowmen, the more expensive 5/5 archers are almost never worth it.

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Final point, Niko, I haven't seen your Aztec army lately, but if you still have 250-point units with obscene offensive stats and a 2/1 defense then you bet your life (or, more accurately, their lives) I'll be loading up on 5/5 archers no matter what faction I play! 

[elgin_j]

5/5 archers suffer from other stuff unrelated to Disrupted.  Vs. elves they're at 1's to hit at long range, and vs. most easily-hit large/colossal units they're at 1s to damage. 

I personally shy away from combined arms, but a lot of this is related to the issue that in the old days archers were allowed to shoot over enemy units and target each other directly.  So that 0/1 defense & poor morale on Goblin Bowmen meant that they would almost certainly lose an artillery duel to, say, Dwarves.

Under the new rules they're of almost identical value, despite the dwaves costing over 20 extra points.  I still consider breaking the dam by changing card costs a very bad idea, but if there were a case to say the old formula was wrong, this would be it.

Along those lines, I'd argue that, while it's occasionally worth taking skeleton of goblin bowmen, the more expensive 5/5 archers are almost never worth it.

I think you're spot on with that assessment and clearly something needs to be done if they are ever to be considered worthy of their points cost.  I too stray away from combined arms these days but that is as a result of archers being such poor purchases, rather than any inherent dislike for them.  I love having a second line of archers with Close to back-up line units that die but their cost vs effectiveness ratio just doesn't make it viable except in a stand and shoot.

I'm guessing you have access to the formula.  What would happen if range units were gifted more attack dice?  I wonder if getting 1 extra dice across the board might make the archers a little more efficient.  Would this offset the fact that they were originally costed at the ability to target at whim and therefore are now overcosted?  Whilst I favour the inability to fire over enemy troops for the shift it provided away from stand and shoot as dominant I really would like to see the lesser archers become truly viable units.

[Kevin]

Without even checking, it should be obvious that addiing an attck die would make archers a much better buy.

However I'll restate an old opinion of mine here, which is that in general I want archers to be a bad buy, because I hate stand-and-shoot games for two reasons.

1)  Turns Battleground into rock-paper-scissors.   If both sides stand & shoot, whichever side has more "shoot" will win 9 times out of 10.

2)  Much less interesting game, as there's minimal-to-no maneuvering, which is the heart of the game.

So basically, if archers ever get cheap enough that they're every bit as good in most games as regular units, then IMHO we've collevtively made a very large design error.

[gornhorror]

Why not just say that you can suffer (-1) hit dice to improve ranged units offensive skill by one.  Say it's a situation where the archers really take their time to aim.  If people think this is too strong, then make it also cost a command action.  I would be against being able to improve offensive power as it would be devastating to large creatures.  Just say the the rule could also be used for archery with better offensive skill, but it takes a bigger penalty to increase a 6 to a 7.  Say like a -2 to hit dice. 

[elgin_j]

Without even checking, it should be obvious that addiing an attck die would make archers a much better buy.

My question is whether the costing of an additional dice would match the over-inflated archer cost as a result of rule changes.  Does it?

[Kevin]

If you give Hawkshold Bowmen a 5th die, the formula raises their cost from 165 to 192.  Put it another way, you'd be talking about roughly a 15% discount for keeping their cost at 4 dice while they have 5.  Which IMHO is WAY too much.

[Kevin]

Why not just say that you can suffer (-1) hit dice to improve ranged units offensive skill by one.

Not a bad thought at all.  Definitely worth real cosideration.

I have 2 concerns.

A bit one is for archers which have more than 4 dice.  For example, the Goblin Bomb Chucker would become devastating.  Wuxing has an archery-type unit which gets more than 4 dice, and I can see future factions doing it as well.

The other is that a (3) 6/X costs more than a (4) 5/X archer (about 5% more).  So it would definitely be an upgrade in power to stand-and-shoot.  Which as noted above I'm really, really scared about improving.

But what do others think?

[Hannibal]

If I may summarize, I think there's two salient points here that answer the conundrum of Niko's concerns of the 5/5 archers being not good units:

5/5 archers suffer from other stuff unrelated to Disrupted.  Vs. elves they're at 1's to hit at long range, and vs. most easily-hit large/colossal units they're at 1s to damage. 

Kevin's analysis is spot on.  If due to range penalties and/or the enemy's high Def skill you can have a very steep drop-off in damage inflicted.  From an old tactical post I made:

If you look at at the math of a (X)5/5 unit attacking a Def Y/2 unit:

If Y = 2, then each X will result in 1/4 points of damage.
Y = 3, then X results in 1/6 pts.
Y = 4, then X results 1/12 pts of damage

If you think of ranged penalties as bonuses to the enemy's Def, then you see that a D:2/2 unit at long range suffers 50% fewer points than at short range.  And given the number of D: 3/1 or 3/2 units out there, this can make (X)5/5 archers really not a good buy pretty quick.  Because if you're shooting at long range, then the amount of damage you inflict becomes halved.


I think a possible solution is in gornhorror's post:

Why not just say that you can suffer (-1) hit dice to improve ranged units offensive skill by one.

My first response to this is that this is rules bloat, just like the M+S modifier.  Its this complex way to get rid of the penalty that new players probably won't see and runs the risk of frustrating them when it is "sprung" on them in a game or demo.  I'd take your idea and take it a step further:  turn range and move penalties into dice penalties, not skill penalties.

Moving and shooting is (-1)-0/-0. 
Long range is (-1)-0/-0.
Extreme range is (-2)-0/-0.

You can keep the M+S bonus if you want, to allow for those "rolling thunder armies" although I'd be strongly inclined to limit M+S to having line of sight only (So LOS weapons or archers that aren't shooting over friendly units).  I obviously think I'm the voice in the wilderness on this one.

There's "real life" justifications for long range affecting dice rather than skill (namely the extra time pulling & aiming the bows lower the ROF and also that not all bows are constructed equal and thus the maximum range of some weapons is shorter than others, etc.) but in truth its a purely game  balance thing, like the penalty for shooting at cavalry.

As an aside, if folks liked this idea, I'd suggest pairing it with tweaking the Large/Colossal rule to negate range penalties rather than providing an outright bonus to skill.  So Large negates the long range penalty and Colossal negates the long and extreme range penalty.

[gornhorror]

Well, glad I could contribute and I hope that we all find an easy and elegant set of rules that are balanced and make sense.  What about this for size.
Keep the move and shoot penalty at (-1) 0/0 for any movement. Take away the long range penalty all together and make extreme range a (-1) 0/0 only.  This way only the big boys that have greater than 14" range suffer a range penalty, but it's not a horrible one.  3 dice would make sense, but 2 seems a bit low.  With this I would want to keep the no penalty for shooting into an engagement.  How's that for kiss?

[Kevin]

Speaking with the autority of someone who did archery at summer camp for a few years back in the day, far away targets are harder to hit; large targets are easier to hit.  (This revelation is doubtlessly a shock to many.   )

Any system of modifiers which doesn't reflect that doesn't pass the smell test, IMHO.

[Zelc]

Exactly zero people present considered the shooting-happens-first thing desirable.

To be more fair, I didn't think it made too big of a difference and didn't care either way.

[elgin_j]

Speaking with the autority of someone who did archery at summer camp for a few years back in the day, far away targets are harder to hit; large targets are easier to hit.  (This revelation is doubtlessly a shock to many.   )

Any system of modifiers which doesn't reflect that doesn't pass the smell test, IMHO.

Would that not be what you achieve, though?  Theoretically, you could score 4 hits with your archers under the unfavourable circumstances of penalty modifiers but under the proposal you can never score more than 2/3.  It's also salient to point out that we aren't talking about a single archer and man-sized target but units of both - variance for range and the factors that come into play as a result aren't as influential when you utilise a weapon system for area effect as opposed to pin-point effect.  So, by reducing the number of dice, you are still breeding misses into the overall effect, you're just doing it in a manner that is not necessarily intuitive.  If the overall effect is beneficial then it doesn't matter how you get there - especially as the game is already riddled with counter-intuitive elements that are tolerated for the sake of gameplay.

Gornhorror and Hannibal's proposal strikes me as having merit and should be explored further.  Hannibal, any chance of playtesting this and coming back to us with your results?

[Hannibal]

Well, glad I could contribute and I hope that we all find an easy and elegant set of rules that are balanced and make sense.  What about this for size.
Keep the move and shoot penalty at (-1) 0/0 for any movement. Take away the long range penalty all together and make extreme range a (-1) 0/0 only.  This way only the big boys that have greater than 14" range suffer a range penalty, but it's not a horrible one.  3 dice would make sense, but 2 seems a bit low.  With this I would want to keep the no penalty for shooting into an engagement.  How's that for kiss?

I like how you're thinking, in terms of KISS, but let's also keep in mind what is the desired goal.  Per my understanding, the goal is to provide a cookie to make combined arms shooting good.  Which, per my understanding, equates making a (4)5/5, Rge 14" Indirect Fire unit (henceforward referred to as an "average archer unit")  a good buy.  However, there is also the additional caveat of not boosting shooting in such a way that stand-and-shoot becomes too good.  I'm in agreement with Kevin in what stand-and-shoot does to the game, and therefore if we make stand-and-shoot as good as other builds then it triggers the negatives that Kevin mentioned. 

So to summarize, to me, the desired goals are that any package of rules changes should have the net effect of:

1)  Make combined arms shooting by average archer units a good build while not making stand-and-shoot builds any better than they currently are.

2)  Being simple

3)  Being intuitive

Obviously, it's probably impossible to hit the brass ring on all three of these and so any proposal will end up ranking these three design goals so that when they conflict, we know which trumps which.  My order of ranking is as I listed them, with the understanding that in choosing one solution the others may be strained but not violated (for example, while I'm sure there is some solution involving calculus that would achieve the desired #1 goal but it would violate goal #2 like a mo-fo).  Kevin's concerns about archery affecting dice seems to violate #3 for him, and I think its very good he raises the point.  I'm less concerned as I think that there are realistic justification/explanations, but I think its good to have these justifications explored.


Anyway, onto Gornhorror's specific idea, I have deep concerns that it violates goal #1.  Removing any long range penalty while keeping the move & shoot penalty benefits stand-and-shoot builds quite a bit.  Sure it is very simple, but I strongly feel it'd have a negative impact on the game.

I can appreciate his concern of archers going down to 2 dice seems really rough, but it is better than if an archer unit suffers (-0)-2/-0 for long range & moving (which is how someone would get to 2 dice under my suggestion).  If an archer unit moved & is at long range vs a D: 2/2 unit, then with the current penalties it will need 1s to hit and 3s to wound, for a total of .33pts of damage (assuming 4 dice).  If the penalty is dice, then the archer unit will do .5 pts of damage  (3s to hit and 3s to wound with 2 dice).

Speaking with the autority of someone who did archery at summer camp for a few years back in the day, far away targets are harder to hit; large targets are easier to hit.  (This revelation is doubtlessly a shock to many.   )

Any system of modifiers which doesn't reflect that doesn't pass the smell test, IMHO.

I agree that it doesn't seem intuitive, but then again, neither does the penalty for shooting at cavalry.  Chad said as much when it was introduced, and I think there is a place for saying that sometimes you do things in a game system for the good of the system that may not be the obvious, intuitive choice.

I think elgin raises a very good point that a single person aiming at a target is different than units firing in volley.  I view improved skill as training and practice at volley fire, but there is also a limit for skill.  If the absolute maximum range of a weapon is X yards, then even an Elven lifetime of training isn't going to let you hit a target at X+20 yards.

Hannibal, any chance of playtesting this and coming back to us with your results?

I probably could, but I have to ask half tongue in cheek, why me?     I'm not on the rules team.  The playtesting I've done heretofore has been solely for house rules, and I certainly don't want to stoke resentment by being seen as circumventing the process of peer review.