Re: Another POINTless Argument

At 11:47 PM 4/23/97 -0400, Allan Goodall wrote:

>Of all the point based systems I've seen, the DBM and Armati systems
are
>probably the best.  Even still, they are the exception that proves the
rule.
>There was a recent discussion on the Armati mailing list about
tournament
>armies. The discussion revolved around Byzantine armies and how one
player
>thought they seemed over powerful. In the end, it was determined that
there
>were several particularly nasty armies, including the Byzantines,
>Alexandrian Successors, and Romans. While a weak player with one of
these
>armies could lose to a strong player with another army, it was
determined
>that these armies did have a considerable edge. This lead to a
discussion of
>how warband based armies (i.e. Caledonians and Britons) were at a major
>disadvantage against Roman legions. The suggestion was that Caledonian
>armies should either have a higher point total or that specific
scenarios
>giving them a defensive advantage should be used.
	The reason Roman Legions, Byzantine and Alexander armies were so
successful was their use of combined arms tactics.  As time went on and
new
technologies developed, the range of potential combined arms grew as
well.
The Battle of Hastings showed that if a well disciplined force using
combined arms can hold it together, they will generally defeat a larger
army
than themselves.  What would be unique though is to evaluate the
mobility of
a given army and then give the more mobile side a proportionate control
of
the ground that they occupy.  The Caviate is the question of strategic
mobility, since chariots etc can be very tactically mobile but not
strategically.