Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > GURPS

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 01-10-2012, 11:48 PM   #21
vierasmarius
 
vierasmarius's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Oregon
Default Re: Mass Combat

Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen View Post
That's a good question.

Edit: Maybe "Combined Arms" should also be a legal Technique, each such being a fairly rigidly defined ratio of forces, such as 50/50 cavalry/archer? I think historically many armies were fairly uniform, meaning either all cavalry, or all infantry, or all archer, and making full use of a combined arms force was a rare ability.
Actually, apart from small, homogenous skirmishing forces, I was under the impression that most armies included a mix of troop types. For example, Napoleonic commanders recognized three branches of the army (infantry, cavalry, artillery) that had to be used in concert to wage a battle. In medeival times there was an even broader assortment of troops (light and heavy infantry, archers, cavalry, artillery).

Perhaps another way to handle this would be to have a set of perks that multiply the strength of a certain troop type, for the purpose of class superiority only. For example, a Cavalry commander would double the Cav TS rating of horsemen (but not chariots). If fighting an army with equal Cav, he'd gain an effective +1 bonus - but if his army already enjoys the maximum Cav superiority (or lacks Cavalry) there'd be no bonus.

Alternately, a perk could multiply the true TS of one element type by, say, 1.25 (equivalent to roughly +1 on the Relative TS table). By itself this wouldn't give a bonus when two equal-sized armies face off, but it edge cases it could tip the balance (ie, if outnumbering the opponent by less than x1.5, the perk could push them over the x1.5 mark.)
vierasmarius is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-13-2012, 06:16 AM   #22
Peter Knutsen
Banned
 
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Europe
Default Re: Mass Combat

Quote:
Originally Posted by vierasmarius View Post
Actually, apart from small, homogenous skirmishing forces, I was under the impression that most armies included a mix of troop types. For example, Napoleonic commanders recognized three branches of the army (infantry, cavalry, artillery) that had to be used in concert to wage a battle. In medeival times there was an even broader assortment of troops (light and heavy infantry, archers, cavalry, artillery).
I had low-TL armies in mind. My impression is that apart from the armies of great and very organized empires, such as the Romans and Persians, most TL1-3 (and 4 too?) armies consisted mainly of one troop type, either archers, or infantry, or cavalry.
Peter Knutsen is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-13-2012, 07:44 AM   #23
Michele
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Udine, Italy
Default Re: Mass Combat

Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen View Post
I had low-TL armies in mind. My impression is that apart from the armies of great and very organized empires, such as the Romans and Persians, most TL1-3 (and 4 too?) armies consisted mainly of one troop type, either archers, or infantry, or cavalry.
I'm not sure of that.
The Greek city-states weren't a great and organized empire, and the big chunk of the army was definitely the hoplite heavy infantry, yes. But they had peltasts and archers as auxiliary light infantry, and later they began to field the phalanx.
Plenty of the various Italic people that Rome defeated in its early centuries had a hodge-podge of medium infantry, psiloi, left-over light chariots, and sometimes some horsemen.
The above also applies to the Gauls.
Various African powers who weren't necessarily the organized Carthaginian empire, but, say, the Numidians, added to all of that heavy infantry and of course elephants.
Most of the peoples who had an all-cavalry (or nearly so) army, would have both shock cavalry and light cavalry, and maybe horse archers.
__________________
Michele Armellini
GURPS Locations: St. George's Cathedral
Michele is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Tags
banestorm, mass combat, yrth

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 05:07 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.