[Mass Combat] Statting a fantasy army

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by Dinadon

It isn't impossible, it's impractical. Taking the time to train a group of men to do two things could also be spent training both halves of the group twice as well at one thing. On the march, you only want to carry the stuff you'll be using in battle that day, the same can be said in a siege or at a guard post. You can't know in advance if you'll need archers or infantry, so it's better to have half infantry and half archers. Plus, bowmen work best when they have infantry in front of them to prevent them being overrun. I am slightly surprised you haven't actually got dedicated archer units, not even as levies.

For what its worth, most Late Roman infantry seem to have been able to fight as close-order infantry, or as archers and slingers, or to skirmish and fight in small groups. I doubt they were as good at any of these roles as a specialist, but they could still beat most 'barbarian' troops which didn't massively outnumber them. In the 12th, 14th, and 15th centuries, European men-at-arms often dismounted and fought on foot as elite heavy infantry. At one battle in Burma, a Mongol army dismounted and fought as foot archers because the Burmese elephants had panicked their horses. They won that battle. Late Bronze Age chariot armies may have included groups of elite warriors who could fight on foot or on chariot with a variety of equipment as the situation dictated.

I agree with Icelander that many troops can fight in several 'roles' as needed. Its not all that uncommon historically. Some of his cavalry sound like 16th/17th century European 'light horse' who carried muskets and dismounted to shoot.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by balzacq

What he's ignoring is that, essentially, you can't socket bayonet a crossbow. The specific weapons advance that made Napoleonic infantry tactics work was the fact that their weapons were both musket and pike. In TL 0-4 Mass Combat terms, then, they were both Infantry and Fire troops.

You can't, no. But you can carry the crossbow in a padded bag, where it will weight less than a marching pack and many battles have been fought with marching packs.

Originally Posted by balzacq

But bayoneted muskets weren't as good as actual pikes -- good cavalry could and did break mediocre infantry, even in square. And those excellent bowmen at Agincourt (good quality, fine equipment) made crappy infantry; it was only because the French were essentially already defeated that they were able to inflict so many casualties in melee -- standing in line of battle with those axes and hammers they would have been routed in minutes.

Breaking infantry squares required a set of circumstances so rare and lucky as to be almost Divine Providence. They were functionally safe enough for nearly all commanders to regard it as sheer tomfoolery to send cavalry alone against formed infantry. Which does bring up the question of what Ney was thinking at Waterloo, doesn't it? ;)

Infantry with socket bayonet is functionally a Fire unit. Bayonets were rarely, if ever, used in a battle. They were fixed, yes, and a charge was ordered, but Grossman and others have argued persuasively that contact was rarely made.

But nothing prevents a unit from carrying both crossbows and melee weapons. Historically this was not done because the added expense of training was unecessary. Anyone who had more resources could easily recruit more soldiers. Also, by the time crossbows were as good as they are in the TL(3+1) setting, gunpowder was already a mature technology.

Originally Posted by balzacq

I think it should be possible to cross-train heavy infantry to be crossbowmen, or medium cavalry to be medium infantry; I just think that it should be ridiculously expensive to do so. We're not talking about training skirmishers to stand in line and use basic musketry skills (light infantry regiments did not have the same staying power in the line as regulars, by the way), we're talking about what in modern terms would be cross-training helicopter crew to be infantry -- they can do it, but only at the cost of their former skill set, and if they want to excel at both then they need to spend all their time intensively training like SEALs. (Good helicopter crew changing to Poor helicopter crew plus Average Infantry.)

The red text is utterly false according to most accounts I've read. In fact, the Light companies and the Grenadier companies of the battalions in a division were sometimes taken from their parent units to provide an 'elite' unit for a given assault.

And who could forget the piquets of the day at Assaye? While the cohesion of the composite 'battalion' thus formed could be questioned, the ability of the soldiers in it to stand and deliver volleys was certainly equal to that of any regiment in the army.

I think the overlap between the skill set of infantry and infantry that is training to fire crossbow in volleys is more than the overlap between helicopter crew and infantry. I furthermore think that there is no comparison here.

Originally Posted by balzacq

As a house rule, I'd say that adding an extra capability (F to Cav/Inf, Inf to Cav, Cav to Inf) to an element should increase the raise/maintain cost by 50% per quality level of the capability. That is, adding F to a Heavy Infantry of Good Quality would cost +50% for Poor F quality, +100% for Average F quality, etc.

I think that's far too much. If you look at the price difference between Light Cavalry (Cv, Rec) and Horse Archers (Cv, F, Rec), for example, you'll find that it differs by precisely 20% or the same as my suggestion.

Plenty of historical troop types are listed as more than one thing in these rules. All I'm trying to do is add a rule that allows for more customisation of those troop types which aren't, for whatever reason.

Originally Posted by balzacq

I think it's much more likely that Icelander's 1st of Foot regiment would have a 70/30 mix of heavy infantry and crossbowmen elements. Platoon-sized task forces could cross-attach these at will (4 inf + 1 xbow). The crossbowmen could stand in battle line if absolutely necessary in emergencies, but would be better used behind the line of battle or manning fortifications. This would be cheaper, easier to train, faster to raise, for a minimal tradeoff in pure infantry combat power.

(Also note that he didn't specify the crossbows for the 1st Foot in his original post, which is why I didn't stat them thus above.)

Uniform training and equipment within a regiment is an item of faith with the military planners. Since squads of 9 men might be called upon to act independently, they feel it is essentially that each man be able to function in more than one role.

They are trying to do an awful lot of jobs with limited personnel. As such, they are adopting similar training doctrines as modern armies. They train often and well, in sharp contrast to some historical medieval forces. Instead of being focused training, though, this training aims to increase versatility.

[Ulzgoroth]

It increasingly sounds like you just want them to be anachronistic Line Infantry. Given that you have ahistorically advanced crossbows, the 3 F TS may not be inappropriate at all. But then you do want to price them, and they almost certainly should cost more.

Note that the 20% price difference between horse archers and light cavalry is 20% of a price that also includes horses. I don't think the horses got 20% more expensive, so I'd describe it instead as +20k/+4K, and charge a base of 50k/10k for your multirole infantry.

That's too cheap for them to be balanced against unmodified bowmen, but if you let dedicated crossbowmen be priced as TL4 musketeers it's not so bad.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

It increasingly sounds like you just want them to be anachronistic Line Infantry. Given that you have ahistorically advanced crossbows, the 3 F TS may not be inappropriate at all. But then you do want to price them, and they almost certainly should cost more.

Note that the 20% price difference between horse archers and light cavalry is 20% of a price that also includes horses. I don't think the horses got 20% more expensive, so I'd describe it instead as +20k/+4K, and charge a base of 50k/10k for your multirole infantry.

I do want anachronistic Line Infantry, yes, but I also want Line Infantry to be capable of learning how to scout without losing TS.

In short, I want it to be possible to train and equip units for more than one role.

I think Alternative Ability works well as a pricing. It nicely simulates that the troops have much the same equipment and training, but just need to learn some extra skills and maybe get an extra widget or two.

Note that with Alternative Ability, the infantry that can act as F, Rec or just plain infantry will come out at about 56k/11.2k. They'd be 48k/9.6k if they were either Bowmen or Heavy Infantry.

The anachronistic Line Infantry would contribute F at all times, though, not just when formed up as a missile troop.

[Rabiddave]

Originally Posted by Icelander

I do want anachronistic Line Infantry, yes, but I also want Line Infantry to be capable of learning how to scout without losing TS.

In short, I want it to be possible to train and equip units for more than one role.

I think Alternative Ability works well as a pricing. It nicely simulates that the troops have much the same equipment and training, but just need to learn some extra skills and maybe get an extra widget or two.

Note that with Alternative Ability, the infantry that can act as F, Rec or just plain infantry will come out at about 56k/11.2k. They'd be 48k/9.6k if they were either Bowmen or Heavy Infantry.

The anachronistic Line Infantry would contribute F at all times, though, not just when formed up as a missile troop.

You should go ahead and use this set up then...make them a h. infantry element with F & Rec, upgraded equipment, upgraded quality and go at it. Their Rec will apply before the battle and their F during. The TS will be scary. All done (albeit expensive, as they should be).

[Ulzgoroth]

Recon as an alternate ability is kind of cheap, given that there's never any reason to take them into combat in their weaker recon form.

[Rabiddave]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Recon as an alternate ability is kind of cheap, given that there's never any reason to take them into combat in their weaker recon form.

Doesn't any element with listed classes always contribute those effects? What do you mean by "form"? Was there rules for changing forms?

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Recon as an alternate ability is kind of cheap, given that there's never any reason to take them into combat in their weaker recon form.

Well, that's true.

But then, I can imagine getting caught in a battle with the recon elements still out. There are rules for Encounter battles and such, aren't there? That would require them to use the weaker form.

And note that Horse Archers essentially just add Recon to Medium Cavalry (at the price of a reduction of 1 in TS) and come in at 80% of the price.

If we give the Horse Archers Good quality gear, they cost the same as Medium Cavalry with the Alternate Ability to act as Good quality gear Horse Archers. Which is good, because these units are essentially equivalent.

In fact, it looks like the AA pricing mostly matches the unit types given in Mass Combat, at least at low TLs.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Rabiddave

Doesn't any element with listed classes always contribute those effects? What do you mean by "form"? Was there rules for changing forms?

Nope. That's why I'm trying to come up with such.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Rabiddave

You should go ahead and use this set up then...make them a h. infantry element with F & Rec, upgraded equipment, upgraded quality and go at it. Their Rec will apply before the battle and their F during. The TS will be scary. All done (albeit expensive, as they should be).

Well, the Alternative Ability as Bowmen will have reduced TS. The base TS there is 2 while Heavy Infantry has 4.

I'm thinking about making the Old Red One Medium Infantry. Something seems wrong about making them Heavy Infantry. Perhaps it's the fact that in the setting, plenty of much heavier troops exist.

They come out at a final cost of $187K to raise; $19.88K to maintain for each element. TS when functioning as infantry is 8.25 and as missile troops it is TS 5.5. They can also be recon, but at only TS 4 since they are not as experienced at that role and their gear is a bit heavy for the role.

I wasn't happy with calling them 'Elite' but they were better than 'Good'. So I made a new class of quality called 'Veteran', which costs +150% to raise, +30% to maintain and gives +75% TS.