In the game they are pretty rubbish! The ability to ignore armour saves is useful against 5+ save units, but there aren't a lot of them around. Typically as well people will only line up their troops two deep, so the best their ability to penetrate ranks gives you is 4 shots (2 on the front rank and 2 penetrating through to the rear rank). They could be good against heavy cav which generally are 5+ save, but they can't stand and shoot so tend to get the worst of that. I haven't been able to find a decent use for them and generally don't take them, they are not as good as a unit of archers in my opinion.
Of all the rules in warmaster I think light artillery is the one which doesn't work. I know the Bournemouth guys who play a lot of the WMA and maintain Rick's site now have their eyes on updated pike phalanx rules and house rule it at the moment, but I think these need looking at.
Possibilities could be to increase them to 3 stands to give them an extra shot (for a modest pts increase), or giving them a rule in the roman army to reflect their combined arms usage in the legions. Some way of negating their penalty of being unable to retreat (and thus being wiped out if anyone basically contacts them)?
Let me know your thoughts on light artillery
Hi there, some months ago, I released a wargame named Seasons of War: Days of the Conqueror - a ruleset based around armies of the 11th century.
ReplyDeleteSince then, I've been at several shows (colours to name but one!) and although people were generally positive about the ruleset, they were a little put off by the fact that the book only included 11th century lists which wasn't an era that they had an army for. Never fear, I have been working on a 'Core Army List' to provide a generic, all purpose pre-powder list for those wishing to use other armies (romans, celts, greeks, crusades, anything goes!) Although the list is finished I was hoping to jazz it up with some pictures of people's armies from a variety of eras. So, if you can help, I would really appreciate if you would let me use an image of your scorpions in the pdf. You would of course receive credit for the models.
Please let me know if this is ok by emailing: ihannam@gmail.com
for more information on the game itself, visit www.redwyverngames.com
Thanks!