Common misconceptions

[Andreas Johansson]

I never played the old WRG sets, but didn't LHI officially stand for Loose Heavy Infantry, the idea being they were similarly armoured as proper HI but fought in less densely packed formations? If so, denying that such distinctions existed seems brave given Polybios' famous comparison of legion and phalanx, where he among other things say that the the former had twice the frontage per file.

Of course, it's another question if the right troops got put in the right boxes, and whether the mechanical effects of the classifications were appropriate.

And it's a third question what myths may have been inadvertently spawned in the minds of players insufficiently schooled in Phil-ological exegesis.

[Erpingham]

LHI stood for Light Heavy Infantry.  They were equipped as HI, but in loose order and moved faster.  In this they paralleled the relationship between Light Medium Infantry and Medium infantry. just with more armour.   While the name is on the surface oxymoronic, it actually indicates consistency in the nomenclature in the rules.  This is entirely separate, of course, to whether such troops a) existed or b) troops were correctly classified.

[RichT]

According to WRG 5th which is the oldest I have:

LHI. Light Heavy Infantry. Men in partial metal or horn armour. Fight in loose formation. Move at jog, charge at run.

As opposed to:

HI. Heavy Infantry. Men in partial metal or horn armour. Fight in close formation. Move at walk, charge at jog.

and

LI. Light Infantry. Unarmoured men. Skirmish in dispersed formation. Move at jog, charge at run.

So yes the armour of LHI is the same as HI, but they are in more open order (maybe the L started out as loose?).

The close/loose thing, and especially the walk/jog/run thing, seems to be largely a figment of the Phil-ological imagination, but I agree, that would be a good definition of eg Republican legionaries (though they were in fact classed as HI, IIRC).

[Justin Swanton]

I never played the old WRG sets, but didn't LHI officially stand for Loose Heavy Infantry, the idea being they were similarly armoured as proper HI but fought in less densely packed formations? If so, denying that such distinctions existed seems brave given Polybios' famous comparison of legion and phalanx, where he among other things say that the the former had twice the frontage per file.

The default frontage for most infantry files seems to have been intermediate order: wide enough so shields just touched or there was a small gap between them. Polybius states that the pike phalanx formed up in close order when confronting legionaries, and close order was unique to it. Indian infantry had a frontage between intermediate and close order. Greek hoplites formed up intermediate, but by the time they reached their opponents they were about as close together as the Indians, +/- 2 feet per file. Then you have Saxon and Viking shieldwalls, probably comparable to the Indians, or maybe, in the case of Hastings, even the close order phalanx. So there are quite a few exceptions to the rule.

Conclusion: you need 3 kinds of HI: Close Order, Loose Order, and Close Loose Order, with perhaps the subdistinctions of Loose Close Loose order for Viking shieldwalls and Close Loose Close order for the shieldwall at Hastings.

[Erpingham]

According to WRG 5th which is the oldest I have:

They were introduced in 5th IIRC - they weren't in 4th unless they came in as an amendment.  I don't think LMI were ever "Loose" medium infantry.  I think they reflected the idea of an intermediate between Light (skirmishing) and Medium (close combat) infantry. 

[Imperial Dave]

agreed...the concept that formations were 'rigid' is also a current misconception for me....

[DougM]

I think one of the challenges, as I've pointed out before, is that wargames rules don't have the luxury afforded to historians of just shrugging and saying 'we don't know'.

At the end of the day there would be an awful lot of gaps in our rulesets.

I do think there are a whole bunch of inherited truths that are wargamers received wisdom, and some of those don't stand up to even casual scrutiny.

One of the questions would be whether wargamers would choose to play a game that didn't adhere to that received wisdom? Given human nature, I suspect not.

[Imperial Dave]

true Doug, I used to have endless discussions with players when I presented my own army lists based on research rather than the de facto WRG ones (not in competition scenarios I hasten to add). I would always take people on their merit when they had a divergence and why they thought so etc

[Erpingham]

In ancients terms, I think we do have a "bubble" of wargamer history because we use source documents like WRG books or Ospreys or rules supplements that academic historians wouldn't use yet probably nor would popular historians.  As Richard says, this can actually be freeing to think through things that the other bubbles don't.  But some things do exist in our bubble which wouldn't be accepted elsewhere, because a lack of challenge from outside our system.  It makes interfaces where interactions can occur that allow new ideas into the bubble to be played around with important.  The SoA is one of these but there are various others that people interact with , including some of the rules forums.

[Justin Swanton]

From the playability perspective there are some things that are absolutely ahistorical but necessary for gameplay. In free movement systems for example, the ability of a line to wheel to any angle or fraction of an angle is essential, especially when combined with the razorlike precision of the ZOC. Wargaming is all about positional nuances, especially since the vagaries of dice convert combat advantages into an unreliable and blunt instrument at best. I think everyone knew that lines didn't wheel and there's enough evidence that even if a column did wheel, it did so in 90-degree increments only.* Which is fine for a square grid system, but much less fun for everyone else.

*with the probable exception of cavalry wedges

[Imperial Dave]

I am going to chuck the grenade in the room and say I dont like ZOCs in general

[Justin Swanton]

I am going to chuck the grenade in the room and say I dont like ZOCs in general

I don't like ZOCs in general either. He shouldn't have them - he's just one chap after all. 

[RichT]

Justin:

Historically I think everyone knew that lines didn't wheel and there's enough evidence that even if a column did wheel, it did so in 90-degree increments only.

Not sure if you mean "In the past, everyone knew..", or "Everyone knows that, in the past..." but either way I would have to strenuously disagree, and I believe (without, of course, actual statistical evidence) that you are in a minority of one in believing this.

In writing rules, as Doug says, you both can and must define these things rigidly. "We don't know" won't make for a working set of rules, and the rules writer has to jump to some conclusions (which makes it easier to criticise a set of rules than to do better - though WRG's unfortunate tendency to insist that they were always right makes them even more open to criticism).

Regarding intervals of files - for most of the 4000-odd-year period covered by 'Ancients' we have no idea what, if any, file interval was used. The only definite figures are Hellenistic manuals - which are both applied willy nilly to all sorts of inappropriate forces, and at the same time largely ignored in what they actually say* - the Indian data, and 5th C (AD) Roman. Everything else - Greek hoplites, Roman legions, Persians, Assyrians, Egyptians, 'warbands', shieldwalls - is just a guess (a perfectly plausible guess, no doubt, but a guess all the same).

* Hellenistic manuals clearly say that there was no one fixed interval - different intervals were adopted for different purposes.

Holly:

I am going to chuck the grenade in the room and say I dont like ZOCs in general

Kaboom! Nothing wrong with not liking ZOCs. They have two functions, broadly (and thinking a bit more of their boardgame than their miniatures game incarnations). They allow a single counter, base, stand or unit to represent a larger but more dispersed force (holding a larger section of line, say, than they are physically capable of on the game table, thus representing degrees of concentration and dispersion. And they remove some of the artificiality of alternating turns, by exerting influence even when it is not their turn. I think ZOCs are a perfeclty good mechanism, but they aren't essential.

[Erpingham]

I am going to chuck the grenade in the room and say I dont like ZOCs in general

Perhaps we need a new topic "10 things I hate about rules" as these don't seem to be misconceptions per se.  Unless we say that ZoC is an abstraction of a misconception about how units behaved in close proximity to the enemy?

[DougM]

I think there are a lot of aspects to ancients rules that could usefully be re-examined to see if the assumptions still hold up. I don't mind ZOC or whatever name you give them, because I think they represent a fundamental principle in Warfare. You don't faff around in reach of the enemy.

I have no evidence as to whether troops could wheel or not, but as it's something you can teach folk to do in an hour or so, I don't see why not. Personally there are other things I would explore, like certainty..  three moves to reach there so the enemy can't intervene. Tiredness,  we've been stood to for hours, and even things like animosity, particular grudge matches for ferocity of aggression.