[Ansteorra-archery] Archery Discussion

[Eadric Anstapa]

Marlin and Amanda Stout wrote:
>
> But the data does not include the whole of the situation, either. 
> Suppose I had come to the war, and brought 2 crossbows, my own and a 
> 'spare'. That would count as two bows in your data, but would not 
> necessarily equate to two archers on the field. I could simply be 
> bringing the second bow in case mine (or someone else's) breaks down 
> on the field.
We know that is indeed the case.  Archers and groups  of archers often 
have a spare bow or two that goes through inspection.  I dot it. I 
usually check in three bows, one for me, one for my wife, one spare for 
either me or or my wife as needed.  However, we have looked at that 
aspect on multiple occasions.  Ansteorra doesn't bring more spare bows 
than any other kingdom.  In fact as best as we can figure it kinda sways 
it  further towards the  "Ansteorra is not as well equipped as we could 
be" side of the equation.  Just as Trimaris brings more ammo per bow 
than we do, they seem have a tendency to have more bows per archer.  So 
they have fewer archers but their archers are better equipped with more 
ammo per archer and more spare bows to go around if they are needed.

>
> Second, what are the numbers for the two sides, not just our two 
> Kingdoms? I'd be interested to know if they have more 'archer 
> friendly' allies than we do.
Well the allies change every year and the number of archers they bring 
every year changes.  The constant is Trimaris against Ansteorra. So you 
would simply have to sit down and look at it year by year to see who was 
allied with who and how many archers they brought to the field.  What 
our commanders can do is as soon as we know who our allies will be to 
start asking them how many archers they will bring and how much ammo 
they will bring per archer.  If it is important to our plans and success 
for our army to have a higher ratio of archers them it needs to be 
equally important that some of those come from our allies.  If none of 
our allies bring archers and all of the Trimarian allies bring archers 
then the balance shifts.

For instance in 2007 the Midrealm brought more archers to Gulf War than 
they ever have  and they were allied with Trimaris that year.  In 2008 
the Middle  was once again allied with Ansteorra and brought essentially 
zero archers.  That doesn't mean the Midrealm didn't do a completely 
badass job, it just means that did it without Midrealm archers.

Calontir is usually allied with Ansteorra and traditionally they bring 
very few archers.  In 2008 Calontir brought more archers than they ever 
have before.  However remember that Calontir is a Tennis ball ammo 
kingdom.  Their archers typical carry only a handful of ammo and expect 
to be able to glean to refill their quivers.  While this year while the 
brought more archers and ammo than ever before that still only equates 
to 20 or so pieces of ammo per archer.  They get relatively zero chance 
to glean because the other team knows that the only thing a Calontiri 
archer is allowed to use is golf tube ammo so they sure as heck are not 
going to pick it up and shoot it back at  them.  Two members of my war 
company would have shot and killed more enemy than the entire cohort of 
Calontiri archers simply because we had hundreds of pieces of ammo per 
archer.  Of course there is no such thing as a Calontiri that only has a 
CA authorization.  When a Calontiri archer runs out of ammo they pick up 
a sword and scutum and keep fighting.

Also keep in mind that just because a fighters card may say that he is 
from An Tir and just because An Tir is allied with Trimaris, that 
doesn't mean that those An Tir archers will fight with Trimaris.    The 
CoSS hosts An Tir archers each year and they fight with us even if their 
King is allied with Trimaris.

Similarly there are large interkingdom households like the Dark Horde.   
Just because an is archer from the Middle that doesn't mean he will 
fight with the Middle.  If he is a Dark Horde member he will likely 
fight with whoever the Horde is fighting with at Gulf War.

We have also had a situation where a mercenary household made big deal 
of bringing X number of archers to war for Ansteorra.  Of course the 
data that was neglected was that they were inexperienced archers and had 
essentially zero ammo.  So where did they get ammo?  the waited until 
the battle started and then raided the ammo caches of better equipped 
Ansteorran units to fill their quivers.

Allies and what they will actually bring to the battles is complicated  
and it has been my experience often we don't really know until the 
battles start.

Regards,

-EA