Toughening Up CP

These conversations remind me again how varied our experiences in life are. Even a table top wargame.

The more I read the thread the more I think CP should keep their impact ability.

If you prefer a slightly different model make it that they keep their Impetus bonus but lose 2 dice per point of loss so that Impetus winds down with wear. Not quite as simple as halving the bonus after the first permanent loss but having tried it it does wok well enough.

Some actual examples from the tabletop:

1) Polish Winged Hussars vs Spartan Longspear Large Unit: The Poles has the initial advantage based on pure VBU (no Impetus vs Longspear) but the battle swung very quickly after they took their first losses.

This was the absolute point of no return for me in believing that CP need beefing up, some of the best heavy cavalry the world has ever known came close to removing the rear unit of Spartans before they died and that was it.

As the melee went on the Spartans maintaining VBU6 on their front rank whilst after 3 losses the Poles were down to VBU5 and as noted elsewhere that means the chance of a permanent loss increases 100% for Critical number calcs AND they had far fewer dice than the Spartans because their Impetus was nullified.

There's a lot more to CP issues than just Impetus, but the ease with which Impetus bonus can be denied means they do need something more than just one initial charge.

2) Multiple times Byzantine A grade CM: Mongols, Byzantines of the 6+3 variety are just insanely powerful. Use the A grade capability to oblique to a flank position at the outset, next turn or so later you have the ability to shoot with a one dice penalty so you're rolling 5 dice plus range modifier AND you then get to charge into melee against a likely DISR target who at the very least is very likely to suffer DISR on DISR and then all except the absolute heaviest cavalry are fighting the CM on an equal VBU footing (with the CM likely to maintain Impetus bonus) in direct melee or if the CM choose to disengage and shoot and charge again in later turns the CP have no equivalent capability that matches that. They've gone from being the Heaviest of the Heavies to moderately threatening slow CM in the flash of an eye.

B Grade CM with missiles aren't as easy to get around the flanks but they have the movement rate and they have the evade capability to get themselves there with a bit of thought. The CP can't generally match them and the CM will get the shoot and charge option soon enough.

This is the classic trap to lay for CP, they aren't very manoeuvrable, they don't move well, they're often Impetuous so you put a unit in front of them and control how they move and you just watch them fall into the trap time after time.

3: Pike/Longspear/Phalanx: Given the removal of Impetus bonus by so many different army lists containing specific weapons and the supporting unit bonus change the shock value of CP needs to be used carefully in order to make it count. If you intend to use them as "damn the torpedoes full steam ahead" frontal assaulters you're not going to win terribly often.

Add in the fact that Impetus (and this is one of the things I like about the system) doesn't allow direct base to base alignment and you're likely to be fighting outnumbered relatively frequently as your very expensive CP run into not so expensive and thus more numerous troops.


In short, there are multiple reasons CP need something to give themselves a representative mechanism as big heavy shock troops.

This is the thing for me - CP just aren't scary to the opponents who should fear their charge. 7-4 to a 6-2, meh, plus they are probably C class vs B class CM, so the CM get another melee die. They have this big impetus bonus that they are never going to get to use due to a combination of opponents denying Imp and casualties they take from shooting.

I think there needs to be a CP Lance special rule, kinda like Pilum - first time in combat +3 bonus no matter what casualties. All that blank space in the army lists Notes field for CP that needs filling...

stecal wrote:
I think there needs to be a CP Lance special rule, kinda like Pilum - first time in combat +3 bonus no matter what casualties.

The 'Lance' rule as used in Baroque will probably be in Impetus 2, I'm guessing. You get to re-roll your misses on the first turn of a charge or counter-charge.
Along with other possible add ons also used in Baroque like 'Feared unit or Motivated Fighters' will give these impetuous  heavy cavalry types more punch.
The biggest one of all which is keeping their Impetus bonus till half their VBU is reached will have the most impact, if that's what's planned of course

Of course you could go completely the other way and stop CM being able to evade - more historically realistic too!

I have found Impetus plays better with CM able to evade. So I am not eager to see that feature of CM removed. It seems "realistic" to me.

I guess I am the stecal camp in that I want the 7/4 CP to be a bit scarier than they currently are. 8/5 cavalry's ability to simply hang on is impressive but once they've taken their first hit or two they become pretty blah unit.

Just thinking out loud but another possible way of showing the shear power of CP is that they double the number of hits in melee when winning against a disordered opponent. The normal calculations would occur but should the CP win the melee after the CT the number of hits placed against the enemy is doubled if the enemy is disordered.

Again the point for me is that most troop type have some benefit. FL get to move quickly through all terrain types, CL and CM have several benefits listed above, elephants disorder other mounted types, FP get a +1 against mounted and missile fire in the CT. I suppose one could say that CP's benefit is that they are the only troop type that has VBU above 6 (the only exception I can think of is Elite Mongol CM at VBU7). My experience has shown me that their potential higher VBU total doesn't work out to be as significant as it looks at first blush.

We tried GG's suggestions of halving impetus rounded up for CP after the first loss until they lost 50% of VBU. Not a huge difference to be honest and it didn't stop the Teutonic Knights from losing to the Carthaginians. Still a bit of help.

Gaius Cassius wrote:We tried GG's suggestions of halving impetus rounded up for CP after the first loss until they lost 50% of VBU. Not a huge difference to be honest and it didn't stop the Teutonic Knights from losing to the Carthaginians. Still a bit of help.

Doesn't surprise me really Gaius we all know that more dice in Impetus doesn't always mean it will change things a great deal. It's why I rarely risk a counter-charge....often not worth it for a few extra dice in the hand.

Gaius Cassius wrote:We tried GG's suggestions of halving impetus rounded up for CP after the first loss until they lost 50% of VBU. Not a huge difference to be honest and it didn't stop the Teutonic Knights from losing to the Carthaginians. Still a bit of help.

Yep, it's one of the reasons I like it as a house rule, it gives something without being overpowering.

8-5 = 13
7-3 = 10
6-3 = 9
5-3 = 8
4-3 = 7
3-0 = 3

or

7-4 = 11
6-2 = 8
5-2 = 7
4-2 = 6
3-0 = 3

Seem like much better progressions than the immediate drop to zero impetus bonus

We did it slightly different GG than you originally suggested. We had the CP loose the bonus dice at 50% loss so it would be 4-0 on your first list. You suggested under 50%. We did this mindful that impetuous is lost at 50% VBU loss and figured both should happen at the same time.

Gaius Cassius wrote:We did it slightly different GG than you originally suggested. We had the CP loose the bonus dice at 50% loss so it would be 4-0 on your first list. You suggested under 50%. We did this mindful that impetuous is lost at 50% VBU loss and figured both should happen at the same time.

I can go with that, we wanted to give the VBU 8 guys value for that very costly 8th dice compared to a VBU 7 CP. Not a huge issue and I like the reasoning of Impetuous loss equating with Impetus loss.

Pretty clear we need Lorenzo to pull his finger out and release v2 to give us something concrete to talk about

Cyrus The Adequate wrote:Pretty clear we need Lorenzo to pull his finger out and release v2 to give us something concrete to talk about

I think play balance is a concrete topic. Several changes have occurred since the rules were originally published. It is probably fitting that before Impetus 2 is published there be some discussion about how the changes have tilted the game from the original. In fact, I would encourage Lorenzo to canvas the various communities playing Impetus and learn more about their experience with the game before finalizing any changes.

There has not been any major changes in 2 years - I suspect we've just about seen and said all that can be constructively in that time. I appreciate you have an issue with CP, that's fine. It doesn't chime with my experience but that's again fine. What I have noticed is that there is very little we say here that really makes "the cut". For good or bad Lorenzo tends to rely on his playtest group. I'm fairly sanguine about that. All we are doing is wrapping ourselves in knots trying to tweak the rules in some way or another to suit our preferences - again that's just human nature. I'd rather have something official to play and discuss than stuff that will most likely not be relevant.