Suggestions for Advanced Impetus

I open this post to collect all clarifications you think have to be added in the next edition of AI in order to not miss any

I start with

1) Rules for 400pts, 28mm competitions
2) Some additional clarification on Wagenburg
3) Mounted foot cannot use the special movement to charge
4) Attacker has the same limits as Defender when moving the terrain features during the making of the terrain phase.
...

Thanks for this Lorenzo.

I'd like to see amendments that allow a little more variety in terrain choices, i.e. rivers and waterways, currently rarely seen on the table.

TD

This needs clarification Lorenzo in the next AI so added here now because I'll forget.

Amendment to paragraph 7.6.2

In the case of a draw against Infantry, the player controlling
any CM/CL/CGL Units involved in the melee can
choose to retreat by 5U+1d6 or remain in contact.

Should have disordered added

In the case of a draw against Infantry, the player controlling
any CM/CL/CGL Units involved in the melee can
choose to retreat by 5U+1d6 disordered or remain in contact.

In our last games with flank bonus added we learned, that this changed the game a lot. Will you keep +1 per covered flank?

And if you think on units that have a low VBU (or get there) the boost is huge.

We play with +1 for supported/covered flanks instead of +1 for each flank.

The effect in melee seems to be reasonable, but more importantly, the players (still) tend to form battlelines.

Personally I like the +1 per covered flank. It makes FL  VBU4 B armed with javelin a bit more competitive with warbands. This is relatively expensive unit that easily gets wiped out by other troop types. Now they are bit harder to dispose if found in groups.

Warbands now do a bit better against cavalry since they generate more dice in the melee.

The boost to low VBU troops is justified to my thinking. Fragile troops are more likely to engage when they have support on their flanks.

jorneto, Gaius, thanks for sharing your experience! That helps. I like jorneto´s suggestion for +1 for supported flanks and I agree with you that this rewards battlelines, which is good.

I like +1 per support. It encourages one of the most basic tactical approaches, the working of a flank. 

I would like to float another idea - make the deployment box a standard 15U for all sides. It should remove a minor quibble from Oz players that the current 12U/15U can restrict a cavalry army. As a serious lover of cavalry armies, I do not accept this argument but this small compromise gives that small bit more manoeuvre room and simplifies the deployment requirements.

Can I ask (with trepidation) what clarifications about wagenburg are you proposing ?

Cyrus The Adequate wrote:Can I ask (with trepidation) what clarifications about wagenburg are you proposing ?

Personally I'd suggest they do not automatically disorder when moving (very hard to disorder a cart) but that they are limited to a single pulse of movement.

I'm ok with the disorder when moving thing. You need to see them as something more complicated than a cart, they're a number of different wagons with crews and lots of additional bits (at least Hussites etc) so they do take some time getting into an ideal fighting posture ie chaining them together, putting the shields up, dismounting the guns where needed. Allowing them to move without disorder would make them VERY powerful and would deny the opponent the "no thanks" option.

I would ideally like to see some way of allowing supporting infantry to fight around them but at the moment that's not viable - maybe some overhead fire? but then again it is not that much of an issue

I will post a draft before the official release

Anyway I keep the +1 per flank for support. I think it works.

Wagenburg clarification will be very few.
They will not be able to ambush.
Mounted can charge them, still with penalties. The rules are not clear which to be applied so I will simplify.

As for terrain placement I'm working at some new idea for Basic Impetus 2. Not sure can work for Impetus as well. I mean they need to be adjusted according to miniature scale and points probably.

Anyway here the draft of the idea, so you are welcome to help. Please note that the idea has been designed for BI, so now I'm trying to customize dfor Impetus. Let's' consider 400pts 28mm.

Player who has the controll of the battlefield rolls 2 dice and place terrain according to one of the tables (if he has the same number, he can choose the table).

If the army has more Foot Units
2-4 Gentle Hill and/or Wood
5-6 Wood or nothing
7-8 Any Difficult and or any Rough
9-10 Any rough or nothing
11 Village or nothing
12 River and/or Village

If the army has more Cavalry
2-4 Gentle Hill and/or Wood
5-6 Any Rough or Nothing
7-8 Gentle hill or any rough
9-10 Nothing
11 Village or nothing
12 River and/or Village and/or Nothing

Only one river can be placed.
Only Attaker can place a Village(Bua) and only once can be placed.

The second player rolls the same but his terrain elements must be placed at at least 40cm

Then First Player rolls agains 2 dice, but he can place anywhere (not over other terrains)

At last Second Player rolls and can place anywhere (no over other terrains)

I think this system (that can be tuned) allows a good flexibility

dadiepiombo wrote:

Wagenburg clarification will be very few.
They will not be able to ambush.
Mounted can charge them, still with penalties. The rules are not clear which to be applied so I will simplify.

I thought Mounted have always been able to charge then just didnt get impetus and get disordered?

sorry, I meant W protected by fortifications.
Mounted can always charge them, but of course with a penalty.

Interesting terrain proposals.

Couple of points, I notice that "impassable" is not listed. It could be added to the 11 or 12 score. I assume that the second player selects from the same table as the first player, that is the table is selected according to the "control of battlefield" players foot / horse ratio?

dadiepiombo wrote:
Only one river can be placed.


The second player rolls the same but his terrain elements must be placed at at least 40cm

Regarding these, Lorenzo.

Does this mean that rivers could now be placed without mutual agreement or does that still hold as a rule?

And 40 cms from where? Either player's deployment box? Another terrain piece?

"If he has the same number" - does that mean if he rolls a double?

Multiples of the same terain type are now OK? 
How does this work in 400 pt competition battles?

We just tried it for a game and we ended up with a lot of terrain. A lot of terrain.

this is just a draft to be tuned and the river and BUA are present as at the moment I'm working on BI2, so Tables need adjustement.
I think you can fill will terrain if both players want to do so. Anyway I can add few more "or nothing" and of course few impassable. At the moment I'm working on the idea and I think it is simple and quick.

Yes, you choose the table according to the fact that you may have more foot (ideally seeking for more terrain) or more cavalry (preferring less terrains).

Any test and any improvement in the tables are welcome.
Maybe we can create 2 tables for foot and 2 for Mounted and the player can choose according to his plans/army

Can I suggest that Flank Marches be amended to have a mini,um size as a proportion of VDT? In competitions it is very tempting to send a single unit command (with general) on a FM because of the disproportionate damage and chaos this can cause - I've won a number of games this way. I think realistically there should be a minimum size on a command

Flank marches could also have a delayed arrival time.

Start rolling for their arrival after 6 - command structure (0,2,4 poor, av, good) or CinC rating or something with a minimum of turn 2 for arrival so you don't get them straight away.

Bring back the +1 per turn modifier as compensation for this so whilst they don't show up early it is likely they will show up later rather than never.

Or maybe they have to take a leadership test of some kind if you roll 3 or less on 2d6, failure of that leads to either partial or total loss of units or the command.

And rather than coming on anywhere on the board edge it must be defined in thirds or something so they are not ultimately flexible in deployment terms when they arrive ie you can't just choose the most advantageous spot to place them on the table.

Maybe also make them pay for their first turn of movement ie once you roll for them to come on they effectively make the first move of the new turn to move on from their designated edge position.

I'm not sure they need to be that restrictive, but certainly something is needed.

Actually we are in one of those wargaming self generating problems. Flank Marches are not used in game so they need buffing, but we tip the balance too far and from season to season they go from unused to omnipresent.

Hand on heart I'm not convinced there is a real need or justification for FMs at all in Impetus tournaments. If we were playing scenario style games such as an attack \ defence or the like then the mechanisms for FMs and reserves may be needed, but in out stand up encounter battles??

Just thinking out the box bit maybe a better option would be to allow the player with scouting advantage to deploy one command from a table side rather than his home edge on setup - say no more than half way across? Just thinking aloud

There is a flavour of the month thing that happens in competitions. Flank marches, ambushes, destiny rolls, weird cheap infantry confections - they seem to appear and disappear like whack-a-mole machines.

They appear because of changes, either in rules or in perceptions. They're self generating and often self correcting - someone comes up with a wizard wheeze that works until someone else works out a fix or points out it is based on a misinterpretation or similar.

The weight of "opinion" as to what needs fixing and the pressure to do so varies - Lorenzo gets more feedback from the Italians he plays with regularly so they sometimes have more sway - but again that can be problematic if you have a localised issue that gets blown out of proportion - a classic example being the guy at a comp in Italy who managed to wire himself in between two impassible terrain features and fortify his frontage. Sadly the opponents decided they could (against the odds) assault such a position, and then there was uproar when they predictably got minced. That resulted in a major rebuild of the competition terrain rules when the actual solution was simply for his opponents to leave him where he was and go and get coffee. My experience is players with that sort of competition mindset rely on the culpability of their opponents in engineering their own downfall, so simply refusing to engage would result in the cunning plan not working and being rejected next game.

That is not to say there are not issues, but most are self created. Extra Impetus 5 saw armies that broke some cardinal rules that Lorenzo had usually stuck to - the whole "Heavy Javelin" issue came to the front because instead of following the previous example of making upgrades to VBU5 to lose the Javelin Lorenzo     allowed a couple of lists through. That combined with the previous changes in the interpenetration rules makes VBU5 Javelin armed troops ranked 2 deep ridiculously powerful. I think that was a case of a rule that did need amending (others may differ)

I think Flank Marches are in a similar area. Flank marching a "normal" command is a gamble, but just using a single General to FM is taking advantage. I have done it and its extremely powerful and pretty much risk free. Thats why I think there should be a minimum size of FM - or even just a minimum command size.

Your "Whack a mole" analogy is pretty apt - we do spend a lot of time and effort trying to put right one problem and create another when doing so

As to flank bonus, thanks for clear statement, this will speed up games for sure .

I like the terrain placement rules a lot! This is straight forward and easy to follow. Two tables is really cool. Maybe the choice of the lists is up to the player all the time.

@dadiepiombo
Could you please specify the size of the terrain? I know, that the long side of a terrain should be between 5 U and 25 U. In my gaming group some guys simply do not want terrain on the table whereas I want to have a reasonable amount.

@starkadder you stated that you endet with lots of terrain. I understood from my reading that there are 4 rolls for terrain, where 5 of 12 results may have no terrain. So if one side does not want terrain, an one side wants terrain you end up usually with 3 elements. Is this a lot? Or did I miss some point here in the rule suggestion?

As for the Flank March: I go with cyrus, that there could be a minimum Command size (something more than 1 unit). The risk in the standard rule is high enough so that the usage of the rule limits itself to rare occasions. But the minimum FM will cost currently a fair general (20p) and let´s say feudal knights CP (29). That makes 50 Points which appear on a 10+. Any general who rolls that deserves the advantage

Tankred wrote: But the minimum FM will cost currently a fair general (20p) and let´s say feudal knights CP (29). That makes 50 Points which appear on a 10+. Any general who rolls that deserves the advantage

But for an extra 10 pts it will arrive on a 9 - and that is rather a good option