Because if you move the Chinese into charge range you cannot put down the PO in that turn so will be immediately charged without them.
The mounted just need to sit and wait until you do. Then leave something within 6
But why do the Chinese need to move? They are perfectly safe at 5+ MU and can shoot with impunity.
Because at long range the cavalry can be shot at with impunity. The Chinese are fixed in place and haven't yet placed their PO. The cavalry do not need to move into charge reach, they need to find something else to attack, or keep that 1 bg scared
Unless your cavalry has a death wish it does not move into charge range of foot with PO
phil
putting the arg into argumentative, except for the lists I check where there is no argument!
With the PO vs charging mounted there was a tendency for parts of the battlefield to freeze - either cavalry just sitting outside charge range or just within (charge if the PO don't go down. If the PO do deploy, pass a test not to charge and turn 180). And then it was a question of what happened elsewhere. With pole arms but no PO, the battlefield is unlikely to freeze in the same way.
One issue for the armoured pole arm foot is that they are expensive, as were the HW types before them (though they don't need the PO now). 19 points a file isn't particularly cheap. If you want them in 8s that's 76 points a BG. In 6s they are 57 but can be a bit vulnerable to shooting. It's not really wide enough as an army, so most effective strategies seem to revolve around concentrating the army once the fighting starts.
I suspect they'll have the edge on contemporary horse nomads - protected bow sword types (but then again they did in version 2) unless the nomads can use their manoeuver to get round flanks while slowly giving ground in front of the Chinese.
I think in open play there will be more armies taken to competitions that will be good against them than was the case in v2. Impact foot are a lot better against other foot in general, so these will be more common. And they've never been that great at actually fighting the more hard core heavy foot, which are a bit quicker now. And apart from the armoured medium foot the rest of the army (such as it is) doesn't add much. So it's a bit of a monoculture army, which are always prone to a few bad match ups.
And Polearms and PO mean mounted double minus at impact. Lucky they don't have many light foot
But they don't need PO now
IMO
Though I do suppose Grahams explanation above about impact foot being better predators is the best mitigation I have heard. Their other common enemy, themselves, can have some. Though I think Terry should have invented impact foot crossbow*
phil
putting the arg into argumentative, except for the lists I check where there is no argument!
Well my hittite with heavy chariots got absolutely slaughtered last night by protected polearm MF, with bow in the second rank. One of the Korean mobs.
They are cheap and can cover the table and don't appear to have any predators.
philqw78 wrote:And Polearms and PO mean mounted double minus at impact. Lucky they don't have many light foot
But they don't need PO now
IMO
Though I do suppose Grahams explanation above about impact foot being better predators is the best mitigation I have heard. Their other common enemy, themselves, can have some. Though I think Terry should have invented impact foot crossbow*
They might be a bit vulnerable to superior impact foot heavy weapon in particular. Or good old fashioned Norse Irish MF Heavy weapon at 6 points a base.
dave_r wrote:Well my hittite with heavy chariots got absolutely slaughtered last night by protected polearm MF, with bow in the second rank. One of the Korean mobs.
They are cheap and can cover the table and don't appear to have any predators.
dave_r wrote:Well my hittite with heavy chariots got absolutely slaughtered last night by protected polearm MF, with bow in the second rank. One of the Korean mobs.
They are cheap and can cover the table and don't appear to have any predators.
More warband victims.
Warband are exactly the same factors against them as the chariots were.
dave_r wrote:Well my hittite with heavy chariots got absolutely slaughtered last night by protected polearm MF, with bow in the second rank. One of the Korean mobs.
They are cheap and can cover the table and don't appear to have any predators.
More warband victims.
Warband are exactly the same factors against them as the chariots were.
It's not my problem if you can't roll dice for toffee. The problem for the chariots is they really need to win the impact as they are in fragile units and will break off and get shot down. The warband ought to edge the impact (say 9 dice at 4s rerolling 1s vs 12 at 5s) but if they don't they have even chance in melee.
I designed an army to fight them and beat the two I fought. Unfortunately lost to the other armies I met.
Dave's Warring States only lost to Sea People and he came second
phil
putting the arg into argumentative, except for the lists I check where there is no argument!
grahambriggs wrote:Yes I can imagine Sea People wasn't the easiest match up
I threw bad dice in that match. One impact in particular I threw 24 dice and got three hits.
I lost the game because a unit on evens, lost the melee badly and double dropped. The unit pursued into a rear support cavalry unit and broke them in one turn as well. They then pursued into the mob and broke them in one turn (despite them having an IC).