Spanish: The "Parthians" of Lasalle?

Honour Forums » Lasalle » Army Lists

Spanish: The "Parthians" of Lasalle?

(16 posts) (10 voices)

Started 1 year ago by Clay
Latest reply from Dicer0ll

Tags:

No tags yet.

Clay
Member

I had been thinking of being clever and painting up a 15mm Spanish army for Lasalle (it would be my third Spanish collection). Who would do such a thing? Me! But as I think of the best way to play it...it seems very tedious and BORING.

The way to win would be to use Home Field Advantage to turn the table on end and make my opponent attack me the long way, placing terrain in his way to slow him down. My army would be split into two lines with the better troops in the front, placed in Entrenchments.

The idea is to hang on for a draw - and gain the automatic Marginal Victory.

There is no way I could do this in a semi-competitive Lasalle gaming league! Faced with such an opponent I might just shake his hand and wait for the next game.

Posted 1 year ago #
Sam Mustafa
Le Grand Fromage

Our group has two guys with Spanish armies. One of them, admittedly, has sold his soul to Satan in return for the most unbelievable dice luck anybody has ever seen, so he's perhaps a bad example. (In a recent game I watched him fighting a bunch of combats, and he won every single one of them down the (trench) line, rolling something like 25 fives and sixes out of 30 dice.)

But in every one of those cases, had the dice luck gone normally, the French columns would have thumped him out of his entrenchments and started pushing him back. A typical situation involves two French columns, a little beat up, attacking a Spanish entrenched line... So, about 14 dice to 10 dice. Unless you roll like Chris, you should lose that fight most of the time, and then suddenly you're in the open, rolling only 7 dice, and now not even the Blessed Virgin Santa Maria can save you.

I actually think that the Spanish should try to use their numbers to snipe at the flanks of their enemy, and perhaps - Eek - even attack on those flanks. Just waiting in your entrenchments will probably not be enough.

Posted 1 year ago #
drferling
Member

I was the French player in the game above and boy did I get a butt kicking. I am confident that I could hold onto the draw against any army out there with a Spanish Core.

Use home field advantage to turn the table, place a ford-less river at the edge of the board as your final terrain piece. Deploy your infantry in entrenchments immediately behind the river.

2x French attacking columns: 16 Dice Base - 4 Dice for bad terrain = 12 Dice - DISR
1x Veteran Spanish Unit: 8 Dice + 2 Cover = 10 Dice

The above assumes that the French suffer to DISR during 3 rounds of fire from the Spanish.

1st Round - End within 4BW
2nd Round - Advance to the edge of the river ( you only have 2BW worth of movement reduced)
3rd Round - Advance into the river and into contact with the Spanish entrenchments.

Needless to say, in an infantry on infantry fight they are a tough nut to crack.

Add in cav. support for the French and the entire picture changes dramatically. Spanish squares crumble pretty easily when charged by Dragoons and an infantry unit.

Posted 1 year ago #
Clay
Member

The defensive river is exactly the type of terrain I was thinking of.

Personally, sitting on my duff and playing like a sissy is the opposite of what I want to do in a wargame.....nor would I enjoy facing it. I might build a Spanish army and just try to be the attacker in every game!

Posted 1 year ago #
Kevin in San diego
Member

The way we have played the Spanish is to have the infantry entrenched as you have described; but use the cavalry out in front to delay the French approach march. So far, this has led to great cavalry battles, especially the time when the Voluntarios rolled Valiant morale!

Posted 1 year ago #
zel
Member

Sorry this has to be a no Brainer....take a Spanish list ...roll to be attacker...then sit on your ass with 3 extra units and Entrenchments forcing your opponent to attack understrength (good luck)..if u lose the attacker role you are still defender with all the above advantages+ Homefield advantage.

With clever terrain placement (ie place biggest woods possible) almost guaranteed 5 outa 6 marginal wins in a competition...probably not enuff to win but maybe place...

Posted 1 year ago #
Sam Mustafa
Le Grand Fromage

[ Sorry this has to be a no Brainer....take a Spanish list ...roll to be attacker...then sit on your ass with 3 extra units/Home Field Advantage and Entrenchments forcing your opponent to attack understrength ]

No, you only get the Home Field Advantage if you choose "Defend."

Three extra (crappy) units is probably not sufficient compensation for the fact that you now have six feet of board to "defend." Surely that's an invitation to be outflanked.... Especially if you then can't resist the glimmering prize of the Objective on the opponent's table side, which is probably less-defended now because the "defender" is moving out to attack you.

I suppose you could bunch up into a little unflankable ball of Spaniards on one corner of the board, declare that although you're the Attacker, you are refusing to attack, and surrender all initiative to the defender... I imagine every tournament attracts one or two players who do things like that, and we just have to accept that there are guys for whom gaming the point-system is more important than having a good game. Trying to outsmart a guy like that with ÜberGamer-Proof Rules is a futile waste of sweat and tears. He's always going to find a loophole to exploit. Fortunately most guys play to have fun and are in the spirit of the thing.

One other thing to consider about the Spaniards, of course, is their substandard crew of Officers. They have the worst Vigor ratings in the game, and an army primarily composed of Amateurs. That means that they've usually got only a 1-in-3 chance of doing something like a Countercharge, or Falling Back, or even just forming a square when charged by cavalry. On average, a Spanish army with three subcommanders will have at least one poor Tactician, meaning that you'll hit them in combat on 4+, and the +2 cover bonus they'll get for the Trench is usually negated by the +2 you'll get for better Esprit.

It's not a pretty army. They can be outsmarted, out-meleed, out-maneuvered, and out-shot by pretty much every other army in the book. Their only hope is to dig a trench.

Posted 1 year ago #
zel
Member

I dont think that someone would do this for a whole comp but could see someone using this to protect a lead going into the final rounds of a comp or hobbling a player they dont want to lose to( seen enuff of this in DBM comps to know it does happen)...but who knows it may give a good game, as you said the Spaniard may get an opportunity to counter attack and snatch the objective.

Posted 1 year ago #
Clay
Member

Sam understands the issue....that's why I compare the Spanish to "Parthians"...I've had too many unpleasant games against players who just ran around and delayed, resulting in a three-hour headache fought to a draw instead of a good game. I don't play that way and don't want to face it.

Posted 1 year ago #
Chevy
Member

Hehe, I'm the 'Chris' Sam spoke of above. Yeah, it was incredible dice rolling (lucky me!), but Jay and I have played this French attacking Spanish a few times now - always comes down to the wire...except the one game Sam saw (and even then I don't think the French broke..I cannot recall....). Anyway, I actually do come out of the trenches on the flanks to threaten some advancing French infantry units. Typically this occurs on only one flank, as I am not advancing into a Cavalry charge on the other flank. But the Spaniards need to do that to eek out a win (sans incredible dice rolling!). Worst case is it slows down the French advance as it gives them more to consider. Awesome game. Thanks Sam!

Posted 1 year ago #
jmmorillas
Member

Hi from Spain, ;-)

My name is Juan Miguel, and I'm a long time wargamer. In Napoleonic Period, I was played Shako, Shako II (I was made the 'Official' spanish traslation of the QRS), Principles of War, but the most played is Napoleon's Battles.

I've French, Austrians, British and Spanish.

About Spanish Army, I usually play it to have fun. I know it's not a good army in any rules (In NB you must almost always loose), so I will not expected a lot in Lasalle.

After a few games, I can give you my view.

The rules was written thinking for tournament, specially the Army Builder section, so I think there is some things that can be better for a more balanced games, and the most important, most funny games:

1.- Army in defence:

I was surprise there is no "Guerrilleros" in the army, and I think it's one of the big problem of this army in Lasalle.

Even with the "Home Field Advantagge", the army has no Irregular units to exploit that advantage like must be "Guerrilleros".

There is no sufficient units to do anything else waiting enemy in our trench.

I think that add "guerrilla" units to the basic army will work better, and make army more funny and with a little chance to do anything.

2.- Army in attack:

Add only three units of 'crappy' units is useless. You have no chance. You don's have quality, you don't have enough quantity, and again you must sit down and wait in your trenches.

I've no problem to play with a poor army, but if you want balanced system to play tournament or pick up games I think this army need a little revision ;-)

Posted 1 year ago #
kshuler
Member

I have to tag along with Juan Miguel's "play it to have fun." I say challange yourself, see what you can do. I mean, it is only a game. After all, one of the nice things I see in Lasalle is that you can paint up several armies and still not go broke buying troops. And, as stated, one never knows how the dice will fall...just think of the war stories drferling's opponent will have.
Also, waxing philosophical for a moment, if winning a game of Lasalle is so important that you play nothing but Guard, then that can be just as boring and unrewarding for you and your opponents (and could call for some serious therapy). Yeah, its fun to win, but it's also fun to see if you can do better with something less than the best troops to be had. I guess I can see that getting your rump handed to you can be fun, if you just do it with style and tell a great story afterwards(insert smiley face emoticon here).
Keith

Posted 1 year ago #
Kevin in San diego
Member

Actually, our Spanish guy has never lost!

He always takes the Home Field Advantage, and will always try to put a stream in front of his fortifications. Last weekend, he defeated a French Guards division in a very tight battle.

He says he knows how to beat the Spanish Army, but isn't telling anyone until our campaign is over.

Posted 1 year ago #
vilcum
Member

I must be understanding something the wrong way...

Sam ( Le Grand Fromage himself) said :
But in every one of those cases, had the dice luck gone normally, the French columns would have thumped him out of his entrenchments and started pushing him back. A typical situation involves two French columns, a little beat up, attacking a Spanish entrenched line... So, about 14 dice to 10 dice. Unless you roll like Chris, you should lose that fight most of the time, and then suddenly you're in the open, rolling only 7 dice, and now not even the Blessed Virgin Santa Maria can save you.

but in rulebook pg 38 I find

Units in certain circumstances ignore a fall back as part of their
combat result:
...
• A unit in an entrenchment or defensive works.
...

can someone point me what I am misunderstanding?

Posted 1 year ago #
Sam Mustafa
Le Grand Fromage

It is a time-honored tradition that the game designer always forgets his own rules.

If I remember the gist of this discussion, though, the basic question is whether the Spaniards are a viable tournament choice? They're likely to be on the defense, and good at it.

I suppose another way of thinking about this is: Do you generally like armies that do only one thing very well? Even if you can't always be guaranteed that you'll be able to do it? (For instance, what if you're up against a Russian infantry division, and you end up having to attack?)

Some people have a lot of fun with the Spanish army, but I suspect most players prefer a more flexible army that has a more balanced approach.

Posted 1 year ago #
Dicer0ll
Member

I'm the player with the Spanish army that participates in the San Diego group. Every time we play, I do offer up the Spanish to be the attacker, and every time, I get put on the defense, not by choice, but because of the die roll or attacker modifiers. I do take the advantage of the entrenchment rule and pick specific terrain features to funnel the attackers advance to bunch him up. I have only used the stream once, most of the time I use forest or marshes to get my irregular cav into the mix more often. Also my cav support is always thrown to battle head-on to slow the advance of the attacker or disrupt fall back paths and command-in-control. I do think the Spanish army has some draw backs, but played right, any army can beat any army.

And also, in the fight with the French Guard, my regular cav destroyed 2 infantry units and the battery before the French got to my defensive lines. And delayed the Guard Cav enough where there wasnt enough time for them to get into the fight to make a difference. And after repeated attempts by the French infantry to break my lines, they were weakened enough for the Spanish to charge them. Which resulted in the French breaking by games end.

Posted 1 year ago #

RSS feed for this topic

Reply

You must log in to post.