Why can Longbows Fire at Point Blank Range & Not Others?

Seems a little artificial.

it is artificial but its a way of producing an acceptable knight v longbow interaction without inflating the VBU of the longbow.

As I understand it Zippee has it correct

Hmmmm OK, well much as I enjoyed reading these rules in general, I'm not a fan of that sort of thing. I like to have an actual real world explanation for a mechanism that is more detailed than "it reflects historical performance"

Is this rule really necessary anyway?

Surely all rules are intended to reflect historical evidence or our perception of it?

And I did say interaction not performance they are different things.

IMO it plays to the myth that longbows were invincible and no I don't think it is necessary to replicate the interactions it means to replicate (Crecy / Agincourt) but myth is myth and lives strongly in wargaming.

Although I would point out that all missile troops can shoot at Point Blank it's just that only LB are allowed to opportunity shoot at Point Blank - mind it takes a particularly inept sort of opponent to allow you a PB shot with foot archers!

I'd also point out that longbows never fire, ever, nor do other bows or slings for that matter - they loose or they shoot. To fire you require a slow match or other ignition system

Zippee wrote:Surely all rules are intended to reflect historical evidence or our perception of it?

What I meant was, something like "Longbow men were trained to loose (!) quickly, and were therefore better able than other archers to shoot at cavalry close to impact"

rather than "Um, er we made longbow shooting a bit better because otherwise it was unhistorically ineffective"

Eques wrote:

What I meant was, something like "Longbow men were trained to loose (!) quickly, and were therefore better able than other archers to shoot at cavalry close to impact"

rather than "Um, er we made longbow shooting a bit better because otherwise it was unhistorically ineffective"

I don't think that's what the rules are trying to emulate - rather its the opening round of close combat, for most archers point blank shooting is included in the melee calculation but for longbows they get a ranged combat calculation just prior to melee. They aren't unique in this - pilum does something similar for instance but it is applied uniquely.

Most would agree that longbows should have longer range than other bows (arguable in fact but most would assume it true), likewise most would assume longbows to have a more devastating close range impact than other bows (again arguable in fact - Sassanian rapid shooting techniques could put out a much greater volume of high velocity arrows but we digress form the myth/assumption) therefore the rules can either assign them a much higher VBU so they can survive that first round of combat or allow them a PB shot - remember this is to reflect the knight v longbow interaction, knights have high impetus, if you can do a casualty you can massively reduce their combat dice. To do that you want the effective bows to shoot twice, once to generate disorder, once to do damage.

Applying high VBU would turn the combat into more of a grind - that seems unlikely, either the knights fail to close / are deflected or they crash through. And higher VBU would make them the better or equal of dismounted men-at-arms and billmen which can't be right so their VBU would need to increases and so on in an upward spiral.

As I said, yes it's an abstraction but all rules are an abstraction but it's part of a intricate balancing mechanic. The Impetus combat mechanic isn't really like any other rule set, the black box is all about surviving the Cohesion Test but you need the combat dice to feed into that in a reasonable manner.

I suggest you actually try playing out some simple games and interactions rather than relying on pure reading. The system is simple but full of unexpected interactions and sophistications that are not immediately apparent until you play.

Yes, attempted a game on Sunday which was good as far as it went, but owing to multiple IT problems I only had the rules available on my phone, which turned out to be unworkable so we gave up.

Definitely like the ruleset though (looking for an alternative to Field of Glory, the successive revisions of which I don't like)

I gave my previous comment as an example of what I was referring to in the comment before that, it wasn't necessarily intended to be accurate.

LOL, well I would say

Longbow men were trained to loose (!) quickly, and were therefore better able than other archers to shoot at cavalry close to impact"

was wholly inaccurate and fully part of the myth  

Yes well that would make it a pain - even on a tablet I find the physical rules better at the table.

Do persevere, they absolutely rejuvenated our ancient gaming after years of DBM / DBMM / FOG ended in frustration and abandonment. We tried many other alternatives but Impetus was the one that stuck and got us playing regularly and frequently again.

And we haven't looked back despite all the idiosyncrasies and the sometimes odd changes and amendments. Really we're just treading water waiting for 2ed - and hoping it won't ruin a good thing!

I'd support Zippee in this. I'd also add v2 is looking to address this inconsistency.

Eques,
where are you based? Unless you're extremely remote/isolated chances are there's a forum member not too far from you. Learning from established players is always a heap easier than learning cold - whatever the ruleset.

Formed Longbows are far too weak.

They are outshot by mounted Byzantine archers and that is just absurd.

Really? How are you calculating that?

Way to derail the question from a new player.

Zippee wrote:Eques,
where are you based? Unless you're extremely remote/isolated chances are there's a forum member not too far from you. Learning from established players is always a heap easier than learning cold - whatever the ruleset.

I am based in the West Midlands.

Zippee wrote:Way to derail the question from a new player.

Sorry = point taken

Apologies all around

[quote="Eques"]

Zippee wrote:
I am based in the West Midlands.

Well I'm not going to be of much help being in London but I'd be surprised if there weren't players in the area.

Cyrus The Adequate wrote:

Zippee wrote:Way to derail the question from a new player.

Sorry = point taken

Apologies all around

No worries,

It's an interesting position to take and I agree with your quizzical reaction but I think it should go to a separate thread is all

Just to add that PB fire on Opportunity is rare in Impetus. Perhaps a pursuit comes into the firing unit's point blank range. Or perhaps the firing unit has already engaged in opportunity fire earlier in the turn and "reloads" in its own activation ready for next turn. But surprisingly, it doesn't happen much in our games at least.