"Debateable Units" Topic

The Hail Caesar army lists allow for a Hittite cavalry unit in the Late Bronze Age. Specifically, a Tiny or Small unit of mounted bow-armed scouts.

I want some! But I want to make them plausible and have an actual wargame use.

We know the Hittites were superb horsemen and horse trainers. The famous Kikkuli Text describes conditioning horses over many months, demonstrating just how advanced Hittite horsemanship had become. Their chariot arm was probably the finest of its day, and horses must have been ridden by couriers, scouts and trainers. On the other hand, contemporary depictions overwhelmingly show chariots rather than mounted warriors, and there seems to be little evidence for cavalry fighting as a formed battlefield arm.

So where do people draw the line?

If they're fielded as a Hail Caesar Tiny Unit (2 figures) they have a Stamina of 1, making them very fragile. What role would they realistically fulfil on the battlefield?

More generally, what other debatable units do you field in any period? Have you included something because the rules allow it, even though the historical evidence is sparse or open to interpretation?

I had a Hittite army with WRG Ancients rules.
The chariot units were very robust.
There were also 2 different types. A 3-horse HCh and a 2-horse LCh.
I did okay, but was never a champion player.

I think that a different set of rules than what you are using might work. But that's a hard decision.

Thanks for the reply, John. I have two suitable figures & horses – a bit of conversion needed to glue bows & quivers onto them. They're simple figures in tunics so an easy paint job.

So, if the whole thing doesn't work, it's easy to just discard them.

Personally? No. Probably my closest approach was treating Scout Grenadiers of the Guard as though they were the equals of the Guards who died in Russia. But Heaven knows I've played with enough. Tiny units of French Guards of Honor who never actually left their home cities used to show up everywhere as French recon units, because four militia light horse were six points and a squadron of regular French Chasseurs a Cheval were 20. And there was a vogue for Swiss Napoleonic militia dragoons--three casting stand with a three-casting command stand--because that command stand gave you a cheap fast-moving sapper to set charges and clear obstacles. Somewhere there is an old Courier cartoon about "historical" research dedicated to discovering such useful units.

RP, is what you're describing Min-maxing? – the gaming practice of optimizing a character or strategy by maximizing desirable strengths while minimizing unwanted weaknesses or useless attributes? The ultimate goal is to achieve the absolute highest level of mathematical efficiency and performance in a specific role?

I've never been a tournament gamer & I only sometimes use 'points' but only to decide on a roughly equal forces game.

We only use "weird" units because we like them -the Cool Rule.

Use them as messengers. They'd be faster than foot ones… ;-)

Seems like they would historically have been scouts and thus being very fragile makes sense. As well as being a tiny unit. If you're doing scenarios that can be useful to the scenario. If it is a pick up game of marched points, they're likely useless. I personally believe in using units that may actually have existed but using them as they would be used not how I want them to be used.

Re; Hittite Scouts. Going by the HC rules, you can give them "Marauder" ability – no command radii – and "Evade".

They could be useful to disrupt the enemy ie if within 'charge range' the enemy, rather than moves in unison, is forced to charge, taking them out of line. If they evade away, they can repeat, and if caught, oh well! a sacrificial unit.

I'm also thinking fast movement could mean capturing undefended objectives & things like supply trains or camps.

Hey! There's a reason you use good, trained soldiers for scouts in real life, and not uniformed civilians of the social elites. On Planet Tabletop, you don't have scouting reports of varying reliability: you have visibility, or you don't. So, yes, Ochoin "min-maxing" though I don't believe the term existed in 1969. One of many, many things I hate about point systems.

What we really needed was a picket rule of some sort, but it would have played hob with the basing system.

If one is going on the assumption that "army lists" are accurate, I'm afraid that that's rather simplistic.
Whatever the genre, whether it's Ancients, "other historical" armies, fantasy or science fiction, the lists (Codexes 🙄) are designed to favor armies that the writer already has, or sales of armies the company wants to push.
"Equal points" is a joke. At best, they reflect relative strength.
Finding your favorite army shut out is very often symbolic of the writer having no interest in it.

I often found myself thinking "why didn't this super army conquer the world?"
I refer you to Warrior lists, and their desperate attempts to make Romans viable. And the tiny states that never bothered to expand. Like the Hindu Muslim City States of India.
Or the Inca, who can exchange ranks like Roman veterans. Their halberds doubled as staff slings.

Look. You have and like Hittites. Unless you are bound into a group that plays ahistorical tournaments (Hittites vs Vikings! 😄), make up your own "list", and screw the official one. I'm sure your Egyptian opponent will happily oblige, given the same freedom. Don't give the Hohenstaufen Sicilian army any leeway, though. They have 3 whole pages!

Thanks, John. I agree that army lists are a starting point rather than holy writ, especially where the evidence is thin.

I'm not really looking to make the Hittites stronger. I'm trying to make them feel more plausible and enjoyable to command. The mounted scouts caught my eye because they seem just about defensible historically without implying the Hittites fielded true cavalry.

So my question is really where people think that line should be drawn. Is a Tiny Unit of mounted scouts a reasonable representation of reconnaissance and couriers, or is even that a step too far?

I think I have my answer, but if the experiment doesn't work out on the tabletop, I can easily change my mind. Which is, I think, your point.

I remember the WRG ancients berserker units.
At the rule ratio of 1 to 20 that might be a unit of 200 berserkers.
Very angry gang of chaps?

martin