Lysimachid Army List (2.17)

[Draigcoch]

Whilst converting the Lysimachid DBMM list to DBM 3.2 I found the following line:

"Thracian peltasts - ^ ¼ Irr Ax (S) @ 4ap, remainder all Irr Ax (O) @3 ap or Irr Ps (S) @ 3ap      4-48"

What puzzles me here is the word 'all'.  If the line had said "...remainder all Irr Ax(O) or all Irr Ps(S)" the meaning would be clear.  As it is the singular 'all' would seem to be superflous!

Any suggestions?

[Barritus]

G'day Draigcoch, and welcome to the forum.

The meaning of the line in its current format is clear to me (although I accept I may be alone in this - see below): the troops who are not Ax (S) can only be of one type - Ax (O) or Ps (S).

From my understanding of English grammar and syntax, the second "all" is unnecessary. I read it as

...remainder all {Irr Ax (O) @ 3ap} or {Irr Ps (S) @ 3ap}

That is, the word "all" by itself should be sufficient to explain that the entire selection comes from one category or the other.

And now to the point I was referring to above: Rule books like this need to be clear to avoid disputes such as this one raised by Draigcoch. The fact that the point was clear to me is irrelevant if most readers are in the same position as Draigcoch. Unfortunately the list books are full of inconsistent approaches to issues, leading to any number of problems. I raised this on the DBMM email list a couple of months ago, pointing out some examples and proposing some solutions. For example, date limits are expressed using two mutually contradictory systems: options may be available before a year or until a year, and they may be available from a year or after a year. If you look at the Early Burgundian list in Book 4, you'll see that Swiss Pk (S) are available after 1464, and that Charles the Bold can be downgraded to Inert from 1465; a moment's thought will show that the two lines have identical date restrictions. Add in issues such as whether there are any differences between "replace" and "upgrade", inconsistent formatting and silly typos and it becomes apparent (to me at least) that any project to review the lists would benefit greatly from appointing an experienced editor to develop a style guide and oversee its application to the books.

Returning to the original point, if this discussion doesn't go anywhere, it might benefit from being raised on the email list. It's the sort of example which might help reinforce the point I made on the list. And it might help improve the signal to noise ratio (the poor state of which was the reason I left the list recently).

[Barritus]

I've had a bit more of a think about the question, and I now agree that Draigcoch is right - the line as written makes the word "all" pointless.

My thinking was partly affected by seeing a line in another list presented in the "all X or all Y" format. In that case it's clear what's intended, and that style of presentation should be used everywhere, rather than the hodge-podge approach we have at the moment.

[Draigcoch]

Thanks for the reply - clarification is always helpful.

As my Secretarial teacher used to say "consistency is everything".  She insisted that no matter what document style we adopted that we be consistent and clear in our approach.  Seems like good advice to me!

Trouble is WRG Ancients has always been the most competitive period of wargaming.  As a consequence the rules are written in Legalise/Barkerese.  It may be that the legal professions thrive on such ambiguity but not the rest of us.

Writing army lists is a hiding to nothing.  Trying to interpret ancient sources, reconcile conflicting data and fill in the gaps is bad enough but you also have to deal with factional interest.  The author(s) will always be considered wrong in some regard.

Might the community help here?  Maybe coming to some sort of consensus on which phrases to use would be of benefit to all.  Should this be managed then new Army List editions would not be open to the current misunderstandings and inconsistencies?

[Orcoteuthis]

While I think few would disagree that increased consistency would help, I'm afraid you'll find Phil just doesn't believe it's very important or worth the effort. He tends to believe - and he's not exactly unique in this regard - that if it's clear to him what he meant, it should be clear to everyone. Even if what it's clear to him that he meant may change from time to time.

So, while I'm very much in favour of increased consistency - and even pride myself on having gotten Phil to make the current lists more consistent and less ambiguous than they'd been without my poring through draft after draft - I'm afraid that list revision is currently a distant prospect in the first place, and if and when it does happen, implementing a consistent style for date ranges etc is unlikely to be a top priority. He hasn't shown any interest in issuing an official errata or clarification list either.

There is however the DBMM List Clarifications document, put together by a team of DBMM regulars, attempting to clarify difficult-to-understand points and suggest conventional resolutions to ambiguities. It's available from the Resources page of the main dbmm.org.uk site. It's not "official", but it's used in at least some tournaments. Unfortunately, it doesn't (yet) address the particular issue you raise with the Lysimachid list. (For myself, I believe it's far likelier that a 2nd "all" has dropped out than a 1st one have been erroneously added, so I'd play it you can't mix Ax (O) and Ps (S).)