Points Values for HC

[Crocus]

Hi folks!

One of the greatest selling points of DBA for my personal tastes are the arbitrary 12 element army lists. Unimaginative maybe, dull possibly, but I like it! HC is now my ruleset of choice and I am wondering how best to design my Decine and Fall of Rome armies for campaign rather than scenario play.

I use WAB for the small scale skirmish episodes in my solo campaign, and am enjoying getting back into those rules which I bought in their first WFB edition (and subsequently ditched as the evil empire grew so monstrous), but I find the points system so fiddly and those posts on various forums soulsearching for the right way to spend 60pts do my head in.

Basic Impetus lists are quirky but make for good games. Their primary points basis is centred on a 1, 2 or 3pt VDU though takes combat value into account too. I like its simplicty, and might base my eventual HC points values along the same lines: 1pt for skirmishers, 2pt for core troops and 3pt for elite/special units, with additional points modifications for size and other considerations. Do you think that adding a point for mounted units (for the horse) is excessive? It would certainly hobble my Huns! Cataphract-heavy armies - Sarmatians, Huns, Ostrogoths for instance - could easily be so small as to make them unhistorical(perish the thought!) or weak.

I did glance at the HC Yahoo site some time ago and saw an HC points equation in the fantasy section I think, but failed to take note of it. In the rule book the points values given seem to simply add up all the troop charateristics and invert the saves.

What I want is a simple (simplistic even) measure of the cost of a unit. This cost should relate to the economics of fielding the element and to the unit type's availability. Thus it should relfect that there were significant numbers of cataphracts in a Sarmatian host, but they were not significantly smaller on this account (if indeed they were not smaller and I have simply got the history wrong!). Perhaps there should be some reflection also of the manner in which the forces were mustered, whether professional or gathered as a tribal rising.

What are you doing to weigh your forces and balance your games?

[Ran The Cid]

We've been playing a simple system of balancing all of the units. In a 12 unit army, a player would have 3 heavy, 6 medium and 3 light. Want an extra heavy, turn a light into a small unit. Each army uses 4-5 useful rules with negative rules like Levey allowing an additional rule. Its nothing formal, just matching up lists before game and have both players approve.

I don't find heavy cavalry significantly better than heavy infantry. The higher sustained value for infantry and the added protection against shooting are big benefits.

[Gandamar]

Sorry for the late reply, I just returned to the forum after a very long hiatus

Take into account that, in Ancient times, raising a unit of a particular troop type had a monetary cost according to the equipment used and the time it took to train such a unit. This, of course, doesn´t guarantee that, say, 1000 denarii worth of Roman Legionaries have the same fighting capability of 1,000 denarii worth of Sarmatian Cataphracts, so you really can't "balance" both armies by this means.

Now, if what you seek is just managing troop availability based on money and personnel costs, you can always adapt the costs given on the Rome: Total War video game. You'll need a way to keep track of each city's population growth and monetary income, though. It's quite an undertaking, but not an impossible one.