Thoughts on the Orion order of battle:
I think your ships are overrated in point value, more on that later.
Eternal_Freedom wrote:Annnnnd I'm back. Mostly.
Here is a carefully-considered (that's a joke, I'm in the pub while writing this) structure and poitns cost for an Imperial Orion Army Regiment, a Heavy Frigate and a Battleship:
Imperial Orion Army Regiment – 5,350 men, 12,875 points
[snip]
Hm. Personally, I wasn't really counting anything other than line infantry and cavalry units in terms of points per man. Gun crews are effectively part of their guns from my point of view, since you can't have a gun without a crew or a crew without a gun. I was planning on 15 points per four-pounder field gun, but if a 36pdr is worth 18 points in your army, parity suggests I demote mine to, oh, 10 or 12. Which doesn't bother me, by the way.
That said, in Napoleonic armies, the typical ratio of artillery guns to infantry was between three and five guns per thousand men. The Ohioans are pretty close to four guns per thousand but they are very light guns. You are currently at about ten guns per thousand line infantry.
Also, given that you already have at least
two types of support troops who are supposed to be worth 15-16 points per individual man attached at the platoon level, and since your individual platoons are (statistically) about 30-35 men in size...
Honestly, I would recommend thinning out the telepaths. Given that your combat tactics are still going to be Napoleonic or pre-Napoleonic, there just isn't much point in one telepath per platoon, because the platoon is not normally an independent maneuver element in that era. Also because the platoon routinely gets shot at with massed barrages of random fire, and OOC-wise your telepaths are no more bulletproof than anyone else. So they'd get killed a lot. Doctrinally you'd probably do better with one telepath per company, keeping a replacement pool with the regimental headquarters to ensure communication at the regimental level and replace inevitable losses, and have fewer overall telepaths per man in your army. The extras can be kept behind for civilian life, where they are valuable.
Plus, a few questions:
You describe your line infantry as "riflemen." Are they actually using pre-1800 era rifles? Or are they in fact using smoothbore muskets the same as the rest of us plebs?
Do you have a category of horse artillery distinct from field guns? Your 36pdrs-that-weigh-like-a-12pdr are viable field artillery, but historical armies of this era used considerably lighter guns than that for
mobile artillery.
Navy:
Imperial Orion Navy – Battleship (2500 points)
1) Does your navy possess any ships lighter than a heavy frigate? If so you should probably spend points on them. If not, this is a handicap in coastal operations (which can require shallow draft) or on inland waterways (likewise), and makes it crippling to try and maintain a blockade (because you have a small number of individually big hulls).
2) I suggest that your ships be downscaled in point value considerably. Even if we naively regarded each ship as being co-equal in point value to an equivalent mass of land-based artillery, your ships of the line would be worth about 78*18 = 1400 points. Realistically, despite their high speed and performance, one ship of the line with seventy heavy guns will never be as decisive in war as the same seventy heavy guns would be in a land battle, for a variety of reasons. Therefore their point value should be discounted somewhat.
3) Compare your point values to other existing published orders of battle for more guidelines; your ships should not be worth ten times more points than Esquire's ships with comparable weight of broadside. Maybe Esquire's ships should be worth
more than they are, but there should be some semblance of parity. Granted that you have magical enhancements to your ships, but so does he (his enhance armor, yours enhance speed and firepower).
4) "Swivel" guns are placed on a pivot mount and are designed to be not only 'mobile' in the sense of 'easy to aim' but also mobile in the sense of 'easy to pick up and move.' Granted that your cannons are much lighter than conventional artillery, but reducing the weight of a 18pdr by two thirds
still leaves you with a cannon too heavy for a couple of men to lift, likely to break its mount, and (this is important) still with far more recoil than a lightly built swivel can withstand. Orion artillerymancy might let you get, oh, a three to six pounder gun on a heavily built swivel mount, I don't know, but historically swivel guns were
one-pounders if that.
5) Given that your frigates have a little over half the weight of broadside as your ships of the line, I suspect they should have less than 80% of the point value. They're faster, but while speed is important it's not
that important. I wouldn't bet on three of your frigates to defeat two of your liners.
Comment's on Zwinmar's order of battle:
Zwinmar wrote:...
1 Orc Line Infantry=2 points
Fireteam=4 Highly Disciplined Orcs 8 points
Squad=3 Fireteam+leader- 26 points
Platoon=3 Squad+2 officers 80 points
Company=3 Platoons+2O 240 points
Battalion=3 Companies+2O 724 points
Regiment=3 Battalions+20 2,172 points
Division=3 Regiments+2O 6,520 points
It was fairly common to use a broader span of command than trinary unit structures in Napoleonic and pre-Napoleonic times, just for the record. Also, larger formations typically need at least
some staff, if only so that the regimental commander has couriers to communicate with his own formations.
Moreover, the weapons of this period fired and loaded slowly enough, and were inaccurate enough, that a four man team could not cover each other effectively in sustained close quarters combat, and lacked enough firepower to be a useful combat element in open field warfare.
For close quarters in this era it would be more typical to arm the combatant with multiple single-shot pistols, allowing multiple rounds in a short span of time should circumstances warrant it. However, flintlock pistols are so inaccurate that they are
only useful in close quarters.
Conversely, in open battle the tactical unit was typically a section, and a
large section at that, which was at most one unit down the chain of command from the platoon leader.
Placing that because need help figuring out the point cost and the replacement of horses with wolves or buffalo.
I'd rate buffalo as being worth 1.5 points IF they are adequately trained and don't suffer much from the weaknesses of herd animals (stampeding being the biggest one; horses stampede but are liekly to be easier to restrain). Wolves, if they're physically big enough to support an orc-sized rider, might well be two-point mounts, but would pose some real logistical problems because they're carnivorous.
