Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Hans van Der Drift on May 5, 2008 at 12:24am

I posted this at consim world and below is a summary of my thoughts and clarification's:

The rule in question:
(10.83) A full-strength LG or HI unit taking more than 2 BP of
losses is not Reduced; it is completely eliminated instead.

I did some calculations and made this post:

The Gift of the Romans is the Curse of the Romans

I have been playing this game constantly for about 12 months now. I am sure the old war gamers know this but it came as a revelation to me during my current online game.

I always had a fear for the Romans (now just respect) as I thought a Roman army full of 4bp LG is too powerful. Now I see the Roman asset is their curse, the reason is that LG bleed faster than HI.

For example: 2 evenly matched armies come to battle. The Romans have 15 LG for 60bp's vs the Greeks with 20 HI for 60 bp's.

To keep the maths simple lets say they both took 50% losses.

Both Armies would need to loose 30bp's from their stacks. Because the rules for HI and LG losses are the way they are the Romans and Greeks would both loose 10 full chits each. But where does that leave the armies now....

The Romans have 20bp's compared to the Greek 30 bp's, or the Romans lost 67% compared to the Greek 50%

So the Romans can look big and scary, but the bigger they are the harder they fall.

I had a reply from the developer:

Not quite. Destroying a legion takes 4 BPs worth of losses; destroying an HI takes 3 BP. So in your example, the Romans would lose 7 full LG and reduce one LG. The Greeks lose 10 HI. The Romans would have 7.5 LG remaining, or 30 BP. The Greeks would have 10 HI remaining, or 30 BP.

I replied back:

(10.83) A full-strength LG or HI unit taking more than 2 BP of losses is not Reduced; it is completely eliminated instead.

I always took that as a LG takes 3 to eliminate in a full battle. Its only worth 2 if it remains after the battle.

So for you explanation it would write like this with the above rule:

Not quite. Destroying a legion takes 3 BPs worth of losses; destroying an HI takes 3 BP. So in your example, the Romans would lose 10 full LG and reduce one LG. The Greeks lose 10 HI. The Romans would have 5 LG remaining, or 20 BP. The Greeks would have 10 HI remaining, or 30 BP.

Then he said:

(10.83) A full-strength LG or HI unit taking more than 2 BP of losses is not Reduced; it is completely eliminated instead.



This is true, but in both cases, if you have more LG or HI in the stack, you can spread the losses around.

Example: You have 3 LG and you take 4 BP losses. You flip one LG to its reduced side for 2 BP, and you flip another for the final 2 BP. You end up with 1 full-strength LG and 2 reduced LG.

If you have an army of only one LG and you take 3 BP losses, then you lose the entire LG - you flip it for the first 2 BP, but then you have to remove the LG for the third BP because there's no other choice.

But... I then said:
(10.84) It is not permissible to reduce 2 LG/HI in a single Battle

But then you have this rule to contend with.

(10.84) It is not permissible to reduce 2 LG/HI in a single Battle instead of eliminating a full LG/HI. For example, if a force consisting of 5 HI takes losses requiring the elimination of 4 BP, it may not reduce two HI units to satisfy the losses; it must elimi- nate one full HI unit instead and reduce another HI.

And he said:

Hans, you're absolutely correct to bring this up, except for the fact that it's mis-worded and requires errata. Many thanks for showing me this.

The rule should read:

(10.84) It is not permissible to reduce 2 LG/HI in a single Battle where eliminating a full LG/HI would satisfy the loss requirement. For example, if a force consisting of 4 HI suffers 8 BP of losses, you may not simply reduce all four HI. Instead, you must eliminate two HI (6 BP losses) and reduce a third HI (2 BP losses). Similarly, if a force consisting of 5 LG takes losses requiring the elimination of 6 BP, it may not reduce three HI units to satisfy the losses; it must eliminate one full LG unit instead and reduce another LG.

Sorry about that - this was the intention of this rule all along. But to be honest, I kinda wish we'd left the entire rule out of the game and gone with "lose whatever you feel like as long as you satisfy the losses" - which we might do in Second Edition.

but...
But this rule: (10.83) A full-strength LG or HI unit taking more than 2 BP of losses is not Reduced; it is completely eliminated instead. Still confuses me.

How should I read this in context of losses. Is it the last LG.

So Finally:

Yes, or the only one.


So the bottom line is: The Romans are Strong in Both LG and Losses.