The necessity of defending the Objective

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The necessity of defending the Objective

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Started 1 year ago by Russell Briant
Latest reply from Evan

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Russell Briant
Member

Hi Sam

This is a new thread picking up an idea from the Really silly situation in Lasalle thread.

In your answers to the perceived fall back problems you noted that there was a necessity for the defender to defend the objective.

Our group has been mulling on the role of the objective in the game and are coalescing to a view that it isn't strictly necessary, though not without its risks, of itself to defend the objective at all. It could in fact be a workable tactic to ignore it or leave it as a distraction for at least one enemy unit.

Many other game systems would give victory to the force holding the objective at the end of the game and that does make direct defence important in those rule sets.

It is only at the point that a defender has reaches their break point for units lost does the retention of the objective start to matter in games terms to the defender.

Similarly the objective is less of a motivator to the attacker than it might be in other rule sets. Its capture has no effect unless he can also break sufficient enemy units.

So our observation is that the objective is less of a focus and a driver on the behaviour of the attacker or the defender than it might be in other rule sets.

That's just the way this game works and that fine. It’s not wrong, just different.

We have been thinking, however, about experimenting with changing the role of the objective to see how that would affect the game.

The attacker wins if they break the defender or hold the objective uncontested. Otherwise the defender wins. We thought that that might, for example, bring all infantry armies into the game.

Will let you know what we find if we proceed with this.

If there is prior information on this or what lead to the way Lasalle has chosen to treat the objective then happy to hear that.

regards

Posted 1 year ago #
Sam Mustafa
Le Grand Fromage

"It is only at the point that a defender has reaches their break point for units lost does the retention of the objective start to matter in games terms to the defender."

No, as soon as you lose the objective, you have to start taking army morale tests with four dice - no matter what your casualties are.

Posted 1 year ago #
Russell Briant
Member

Ah. My mistake.

That does make it critical.

Thanks.

Posted 1 year ago #
cam_millar
Member

I actually managed to do that once at our comp in Wellington. I captured the enemy objective and forced him to take a test despite him not being broken. Certainly caught him by surprise.

Alas, he easily passed his test, rushed a unit to within 6BW of the marker to not have to take further tests, and my army ended up breaking for a comprehensive defeat.

Cam

Posted 1 year ago #
McBeth
Member

Hi Sam,

Thanks for replying to Russell. That's maybe something we have missed in our games so far. But as the defender how do I win when outnumbered and having to defend an objective that will lose me the game?

As the attacker I can concetrate my forces on winning in two ways:

1. breaking the defender by removing more than X from his forces and forcing a morale test or,
2. taking the objective and forcing a morale test.

As the defender I can win by:

1. breaking the more numerous attacker.

If the objective was worth not just a morale test but the entire game to the attacker the defender could win in two ways

1. break the attacker, or
2. hold (or at least contest) the objective at the end of the game.

This, admittedly is coming from players in the Wellington region who play Flames of War which has a very definate win/loss set up.

I played in the NapCon competition a few weeks ago using my Penninsular British (with Brunswick support) and while I did not lose any games, as the defender in all three games I also did not win any games as I could not break the attacker nor force him away from the objective.

In two of the games where time the game ended I controlled the objective but as I had taken casualties and had far less pursuit cavalry than my opponents (Austrians with 4x Hussars, French with Hussars, and French with Cuiriassuers) I ended up with a minor draw situation. Had the objective been worth something more to the attacker I would have actually won the three matches :)

A draw can still be achieved with this idea if the objective is contested (ie if the attacker and the defender both have elements within say, 2 BW of the objective).

All in all it seems all the advantage is with the attacker. More units and the objective is a weakness for only the defender.

Simon

Posted 1 year ago #
cam_millar
Member

All in all it seems all the advantage is with the attacker. More units and the objective is a weakness for only the defender.

It is a pity we have not keep records of the attacker/defender performance at the three NZ comps. It would be interesting to see if the attacker has an edge or not, and how many games were won versus drawn. Perhaps the attendees need to put our heads together to see if we can figure it out.

There is certainly a strong perception that the attacker has an edge - everyone wants to try to attack. But I wonder if it is true?

The main risk with a "defender holding objective wins" is it risks creating very defensive play. Not losing and holding the objective is the same as destroying the enemy.

Coming from a DBx background, personally I would prefer equal forces and no objectives - but you FOW guys seem to love objectives...

far less pursuit cavalry than my opponents (... and French with Cuiriassuers)

I know the British/Brunswick list sucks - but Cuirassiers outpursuit you as well?

Cam

Posted 1 year ago #
McBeth
Member

Ah I knew as I typed that someone would pick up that Cuiraissuers are not pursuit :)

The choice of the British/Brunswick option I think is the best of the Pennunsular lists as a reliance on the British Light or Heavy cavalry turning up in a timely manner is a huge risk. If I have the cavalry off table I am at even more of a disadvantage in numbers and a shrewd enemey will keep some units of infantry or cav 9as everyone seems to have organic light horse) in column and msrch to the other side of the table restricting the reserves deployment. But that is for another thread.

I think it may be the FOW background but the objective must mean something to both sides. It seems to me that there is a mixing of game ending options in Lasalle that are not quite complete. If the objective of the game was to bash the bejeesus out of the opponent and break him or was to capture a point on the table to win/lose then I can see the way to play the tactics in the game. With the defender defending the placed objective and the attacker having the extra option to win, why would you not be the attacker?

In the 8 competition games I've played I have been the attacker twice and the defender 6 times. I have also won twice - guess which role I had in both wins :)

As an aside the second win was actually a loss as I was attempting to use the Young Guard with the Saxon cavalry option. My pursuit cav was taken out {silly me} and I lost because of the 'Send in the Guard' rule. Tim had more pursuit cavalry left than me.

Simon

Posted 1 year ago #
Rupert of Hentzau
Member

My two penny worth is that the current game favours the attacker, and I think this is about right.

However, I think the onus should be on the attacker to break his opponent, if he fails in this then the defender is to me the winner.
They have held against superior enemy forces allowing the overall CinC to get an advantage somewhere else on the field.

This would mean British armies for example could comfortably try to defend in the knowlege that their lack of cavalry is not a game losing handicap. Holding their ground and denying sucess to the French is sucess enough.

cheers Bryan

Posted 1 year ago #
McBeth
Member

Bryan (you Austrian devil) that is a very good way of putting what I spent far too much time and far too many words blathering about.

Posted 1 year ago #
Russell Briant
Member

"Ah I knew as I typed that someone would pick up that Cuiraissuers are not pursuit :) "

Cuirassiers would get 1 pursuit point for being a cavalry unit on the table. If the Brunswick Hussar squadron (I think that is the Brunswick option) was broken then the Cuirassier force with 1 or 2 points might out pursuit the British.

I hope I've remembered that rule right.

Russell

Posted 1 year ago #
cam_millar
Member

the Cuirassier force with 1 or 2 points might out pursuit the British.

True - but doesn't your lonely Hussar unit spend the game surrounded by a red wall of infantry merely trying not to die - particularly when there are real cavalry around!

This would mean British armies for example could comfortably try to defend in the knowlege that their lack of cavalry is not a game losing handicap.

I would certainly then always try to defend against British. If they have to win or they lose, their lack of cavalry will be even more of a handicap.

Since this started from the thread about the "problem" with the fall back/charge delaying tactic, having an attacker must win rule would make this worse.

It does not seem right that the defender could win while killing none of the enemy - and not even trying.

Cam

Posted 1 year ago #
MarkGrindlay
Member

Hi Blucher - I owe you about four rolls form our last game since we played as Russell did that the objective didnt trigger morale checks.

I got 17, 15, 16 and 18 - so I still hadn't broken when you did.

Posted 1 year ago #
MarkGrindlay
Member

Do you think he will buy that?

Posted 1 year ago #
Russell Briant
Member

Hi Cam

"Since this started from the thread about the "problem" with the fall back/charge delaying tactic, having an attacker must win rule would make this worse."

What's your view on the "problem" on how the Defender goes about winning when their only option is break the enemy but have less resources to do that with?

By the way, in your games do you typically seek to Attack or Defend and what's the basis for choosing that.

An opton could be to give both players an objective to attempt to take and equal resources to do so (we could be back to Flames of War again).

cheers

Russell

Posted 1 year ago #
Nick the Lemming
Member

If you're looking at interesting things to do with objectives (or if you want something other than having to break the attacker), have a look at my suggested alternative VP system found here: http://www.sammustafa.com/honour/forum/topic/proposed-optional-victory-point-system

Posted 1 year ago #
McBeth
Member

Cam: Since this started from the thread about the "problem" with the fall back/charge delaying tactic, having an attacker must win rule would make this worse.

It does not seem right that the defender could win while killing none of the enemy - and not even trying

But if the defender falls back against the numerically stronger attacker they expose the objective and then are testing to not break.

Simon

Posted 1 year ago #
cam_millar
Member

What's your view on the "problem" on how the Defender goes about winning when their only option is break the enemy but have less resources to do that with?

My gut feeling is the attacker does has the edge, but I guess I just would like to see some stats first.

When we discussed concerns about cavalry dominance in 1-support tournaments, we could at least point to a small NZ dataset that said the finish order mirrored the number of cavalry units. We could have waited till we had data for say 10 tournaments, found the same thing, then presented evidence to Sam. But it seemed pretty clear, and worth suggesting a NZ house rule.

My view is we have had 3 tournaments in NZ. If we can derive the win/loss ratio for the defender and attacker from those, I would feel on stronger ground thinking about change.

One (bad) way of assessing if the attacker has an edge is to ask if armies with +1 for attack seem to winning an overly large number of games or tournaments. So far the theme seems to be that Austrians rule NZ tournaments!

As an aside, did any of the rule changes at Napcon help you with the British/Brunswickers? An all infantry army got 2nd from the results I saw, which was encouraging.

Cam

Posted 1 year ago #
McBeth
Member

Hi Cam,

the house rules definately aided the British/Bruswick in not losing but Tim and I both believe the British lists are inherently hamstrung. The comparison between Call to Arms and Napcon was that I was not broken as easily but was still unable to become the attacker (as most opponents had a + to attack) to take advantage of the above bonuses to the attacking player.

Paul Goldstone has done some excellent research on the Penninsular British and has mocked up an alternative Lassalle list for then. I wont post it (as Paul should only if he wants to) but I think it goes a long way to debunking several myths of the superiority of the British skirmish screen and the lack of Portugese and cavalry support IMHO.

Posted 1 year ago #
Russell Briant
Member

"An all infantry army got 2nd from the results I saw, which was encouraging."

Brett's force did have one Dragoon squadron but point taken. The other factor that adds to the accomplishment was that both he and Nick, who came third, also only played 3 of the four games.

So lets get together those NZ results. I'll send out something off line.

Posted 1 year ago #
MarkGrindlay
Member

If you are posting those NZ results by army, be sure to indicate something which shows the relative abilities of the players also.

I know in the competative groups I've been playing with for the last many years, we all know which 4 players are likely to win, which 4 have a good chance of winning, and which of us are good but always somehow seem to just float about the middle.

When we examine armies (or more usually, the scenario games we play over the weekend, as we tend to play pre set scenario style games now), we find that the 'dud' scenarios or 'hopeless' armies being used, get an aberation result where they win on occasion, and it always turns out to be one of the top players, usually playing against one of the non top.

which sort of ruins the statistics on army ability alone if you forget to factor them in.

Posted 1 year ago #
MarkGrindlay
Member

Actually, thinking about how we play, it may be a solution to your 'problem' in the NZ competitions.

I've been playing the same minority Ancients rules at UK competitions for nearly a decade now (Armati 2).
After the first year we ran a tournament, the core players decided that in order to prevent the same armies being used every time by the same players (in our case, Nekephorian Byzantine, Trajanic Roman and Alexander), a couple of different formats would be tried to spice things up.

The most successful, and the easiest to organise, was to preset the table terrain for the weekend for all the tables (common in FoW as well, now), and to ask players to bring as many armies as they could (which also allows new players to bring no army and try things out).

Each game, you draw the opponent and the table - and if playing two periods or more (e.g. waterloo and empire), to agree which period you will play.

and then both players draw an army each from the pool - top round players drawing first, to get the best range of choice.

No one is allowed to play with the same army twice, and it encourages players to bring slightly less super armies, since they are just as likely to face it as use it.

it also encourages a much broader range of armies on display - since the less able but more fun to assemble and paint armies are going to get used at the competitions, and you don't have to face 5 games in a row getting thrashed with them yourself over a weekend.

Side effects - players are much more sociable ('well, it was my armies fault, who designed that list?'), we tend to go to the same hotels and pubs after the game, and the group has turned into a lage set of good friends, rather than just aquaintances who hapened to trash you at a game a few years ago in a town somewhere on the road.

Those spanish suddenly become a useful army again, not just a vanity project for having in the house.

just a thought

Posted 1 year ago #
Russell Briant
Member

We have done something similar, originally with old WRG Ancient rules and more recently with Flames of War when competitors rotate around preset tables (as you suggested) but the armies on those tables remain the same as well with a dice off to see who got which force. The opposing armies where typically historically matched and often with detailed scenarios.

The swiss chess draw would not only find your opponent but also you table.

We thought it a great test of table top generalship.

Posted 1 year ago #
Evan
Member

"So lets get together those NZ results. I'll send out something off line. "

Can you include me in that pse. Russell? us folk up here in PN would like to keep in the loop as well. We've come up against similar issues and are experimenting with different tactics to see if it makes any difference (rather than house rule changes)

Posted 1 year ago #

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