List Limits

[Sane Max]

The designers of Hail Caesar didn’t really want to do lists. They make it plain they wanted a set that allowed you to put your toys on the table and play.

But, having done lists, they seem to have gone out of their way to make life difficult for those of us that, GIVEN a set of rules to work to, feel uncomfortable breaking them.

Their basic approach is ‘at least / up to’ and this causes a lot of juggling, even before you hit the list where they made a mistake and made it actually impossible to adhere to (Sassanid Persia)

The (Goths)  list I am painting for now demands no more than 25% cavalry, of which at least half must be heavy cavalry, at least 75% non-skirmish infanty of which at least half must be warband, and so on. so I start with 12 warband, 4 units of archers, a couple of skirmish units…. so I can have 6  cavalry…. oops I am a few points over, I will remove a skirmisher unit… dammit now I am over on cavalry…. and so on. It’s a pain in the calculator is what it is.

what is your own preference for the most elegant way these sorts of limits can be applied? (Just for the record, I am very much of the ‘I think I know what they should have had in their army, let’s do that and check the lists are happy with that’ approach, but I recognise there are different strokes for different folks.)

 

[Guy Farrish]

I tend to go for the overweening arrogance approach – I know what’s right – they’re just a bunch of people who were trying to cover all bases (polite version!).

Having said that I very rarely play in competitions and usually with people who aren’t too fussed about lists so don’t often have to justify balance. I do try and stick to the bog standard line ups from history – no super troop only deals – but I wouldn’t bother about being a few points over or under on army totals or individual units.

Even more recently I tend to do a lot of solo stuff (perhaps because of approach one above!?) so I don’t get the problem.

[Not Connard Sage]

Lists are a guide, not a law.

 

…and what Guy said.

Obvious contrarian and passive aggressive old prat, who is taken far too seriously by some and not seriously enough by others.

[Rhoderic]

Not Connard Sage wrote:

Lists are a guide, not a law.

Yes. I suspect that if one were to be invited to a game night with Priestley himself and his gang of Warlord-affiliated celebrity wargamers, one would find that they treat their own army list limits as rather blurry, fuzzy, wiggly things. They just know it’s not good business to publish imprecise rules for the masses.

[OB]

Yeah, go with what you think is about right.   BTW did your Khurasan Byzantines turn up yet?

OB
http://withob.blogspot.co.uk/

[Sane Max]

No, but not anxious yet 🙂 and tbh having rediscovered my painting mojo, i am quite contentedly painting ‘Not-Goths’ so there is no hurry. another week and I would say they were late and start getting antsy, but no, not yet uneasy

[OB]

I wouldn’t worry at all Pat-he’s reliable.  I’ve ordered from him 3 times and it always turns up.  Sometimes quicker than others.

I was thinking of getting some of the cavalry and was wondering about what you thought of them is why I asked.

OB
http://withob.blogspot.co.uk/

[jeffers]

Regarding lists, I’ve never bothered and avoid rules that are based around them. I’ve not much time for the BP-based family but one thing in their favour was that they were aimed at sociable, not competition, play.

You could, however, use the points system for attributes in a campaign. Experience = points to buy special skills:  steady, first fire etc.

What I do when building an army now is work out how many of the ‘bulk’ troops I want (I.e. Line infantry) then work out the rest in proportion. I tend to work in numbers divisible by 3 with 12 as the maximum.

More nonsense on my blog: http://battle77.blogspot.com/

[Autodidact-O-Saurus]

I tend to work more or less (often less) from the Basic Impetus and Triumph army lists–mostly because they tend to roughly be the number of units I want on the table (typically less than 20 units per side). Sometimes I’ll refer to Command and Colours scenarios, too. I’m mostly just concerned with the rough proportions of the types of units. Then, modify the armies by the units actually painted, based and ready to play. Since I’m typically setting up a scenario for Age of Hannibal, I can then adjust point inequalities by adding attributes or extra units according the the AoH point system. Not terribly concerned over point inequalities, though. Close is good enough.

Self taught, persistently behind the times, never up to date. AKA ~ jeff
More verbosity: http://petiteguerre.blogspot.com/

[Deleted User]

Being the person I am, I am loathe to break the limits set by the author of an army list.

This doesn’t mean I haven’t, on occasion, added a unit of horse archers or deleted a unit of clibarnarii in the face of clear guidelines. I have, however, lost sleep over my wilful decisions and felt some sort of Quisling.

It’s harder to be me than any rational estimation would suggest.

 

donald

[Sane Max]

That’s me in a nutshell Ochoi – I have done it, but feel bad about it.

In this case, what use would 4 units of heavy cavalry be in a 600 point army? Adrianople would be awfully tricky if the Goth cavalry turned up on their flank and the Roman Cavalry didn’t even notice as there was a tree in the way.

 

But I will still feel bad inside

 

[Stephen Holmes]

Sane Max wrote:

The designers of Hail Caesar didn’t really want to do lists. They make it plain they wanted a set that allowed you to put your toys on the table and play. But, having done lists, they seem to have gone out of their way to make life difficult for those of us that, GIVEN a set of rules to work to, feel uncomfortable breaking them. Their basic approach is ‘at least / up to’ and this causes a lot of juggling, even before you hit the list where they made a mistake and made it actually impossible to adhere to (Sassanid Persia) The (Goths) list I am painting for now demands no more than 25% cavalry, of which at least half must be heavy cavalry, at least 75% non-skirmish infanty of which at least half must be warband, and so on. so I start with 12 warband, 4 units of archers, a couple of skirmish units…. so I can have 6 cavalry…. oops I am a few points over, I will remove a skirmisher unit… dammit now I am over on cavalry…. and so on. It’s a pain in the calculator is what it is. what is your own preference for the most elegant way these sorts of limits can be applied? (Just for the record, I am very much of the ‘I think I know what they should have had in their army, let’s do that and check the lists are happy with that’ approach, but I recognise there are different strokes for different folks.)

Ancients is heavily list oriented, probably due to its close relationship with competition gaming.

 

I think that the WRG (5th?) edition lists are pretty good where the army is a simple one.

The same lists run into real trouble when you start to combine early/middle/late era armies into one list, or incorporate other exceptions like regional or rebel armies.

The model persisted through DBM, and has clearly influenced Basic Impetus and To the Strongest in the ancients Genre.

 

I really have no idea what the Hail Caesar guys were thinking when they assembled their lists (or indeed points system).

[McKinstry]

I use lists as a starting point but apply other research and common sense to come up with OOB’s if not using an actual battle and even there, most ancient OOB’s are are a combination of guess and conjecture.

The tree of Life is self pruning.

[Author]

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