Beginner questions...

[Fuzzystrawberry]

Our gaming group has been playing FoG for a few months now. As a group we each have about 6 or 7 games under our belt. I just wanted some input from players who have more games under their belt.

1. Do most of you have a concrete plan for the deployment of your troops prior to any terrain hitting the table?
a. If so do your armies tend to have one really big line or several battle lines spread out?
b. How much does the terrain alter this plan? (besides the obvious moving Kn or Hv foot away from open fields or woods etc.)

2. We are seeing 4 man battle groups being more survivable than larger units as the larger BG has to split its attacks between 2 or 3 battle groups making death rolls better while each of the small BG’s hit in the larger unit making death rolls easier to fail. Does this trend seem to be an anomaly of our group?

3. Combined arms armies seem to have large portions of them not ever seeing combat. The Cav or Knights will get stuck in but the pikemen and/or heavy weapons just get avoided. I know that one dimensional armies (in any system) tend to be easier to pick up as a beginner, but have 1/3 to ½ of your troops not really do anything is disappointing. Does this happen with other people’s armies very often?

4. How many turns do people generally play to finish a game? Maybe we are calling the games too early.

Thanks for any advice you guys may have.

[ethan]

1. Yes, I almost always have a general plan of how the army will fight - maybe more than one (vs foot and vs knights or something).

a) usually I start with sections commanded by the generals, but it is important to stay together for mutual support. In FoG it is easy to be defeated in detail.
b) terrain can be a big factor and you need to have a plan to deal with it (which can sometimes be move quickly past it)

2. It depends. Big BG are vulnerable to accumulating casaulties and getting ground down if winning. OTOH powerful big BG led by generals can do a lot of damage pretty quickly. Little BGs are vulnerable to getting unlucky and blowing up...That said mounted in 4s is very common, foot is somewhat more variable.

3. This is a practice issue, learning how to get value out of slower moving foot is something that takes practice IMO. MF are easier to get the hang of than HF.

[stenic]

1. Not a 'concrete' plan but a general one yes, as ethan says, a plan that suits the army's fighting style relative to their opponent's; then alter to suit the terrain.

2. The trick with large BGs can somethime be to have a narrow frontage (or the same as the opponent) so that you numbers help the Hits per base and you are less susceptable to more hits. It does require some thought to engineer it though.

3. Have unless your generals are all busy with LH running round the table then use them to help the foot double move. Double movingthe mounted only to leave the foot behind... well, that way is madness and death.

4. A result should be obtained in 3hrs of play (800ap in 15s or 650ap in 28s) give or take once you've got a handle on the rules.

Steve P

[babyshark]

The other posters have it right: have a flexible plan to take advantage of your army's strengths (which includes thinking out how to coordinate the faster and slower moving BGs). Large BGs have both strengths and weaknesses; some of the most important are that they tend to be more vulnerable to death throws, but less vulnerable to CTs.

After you have been playing for a while I think that you will find that most 800 point games finish somewhere in the 3 to 3.5 hour range.

Marc

[kevinj]

As people have said, you need a general idea of how you intend to use the army, that should be influencing how you design it.

Large BGs can increase the effectiveness of fighting with a general as more bases will benefit from potential rerolls.

Small BGs can be very vulnerable to shooting.

[grahambriggs]

Our gaming group has been playing FoG for a few months now. As a group we each have about 6 or 7 games under our belt. I just wanted some input from players who have more games under their belt.

1. Do most of you have a concrete plan for the deployment of your troops prior to any terrain hitting the table?
a. If so do your armies tend to have one really big line or several battle lines spread out?
b. How much does the terrain alter this plan? (besides the obvious moving Kn or Hv foot away from open fields or woods etc.)

2. We are seeing 4 man battle groups being more survivable than larger units as the larger BG has to split its attacks between 2 or 3 battle groups making death rolls better while each of the small BG’s hit in the larger unit making death rolls easier to fail. Does this trend seem to be an anomaly of our group?

3. Combined arms armies seem to have large portions of them not ever seeing combat. The Cav or Knights will get stuck in but the pikemen and/or heavy weapons just get avoided. I know that one dimensional armies (in any system) tend to be easier to pick up as a beginner, but have 1/3 to ½ of your troops not really do anything is disappointing. Does this happen with other people’s armies very often?

4. How many turns do people generally play to finish a game? Maybe we are calling the games too early.

Thanks for any advice you guys may have.

1. Unless the army is really easy to redeploy I'll normally have some plan. For combined arms it's often a case of first working out what my battle winners will be, so where do they go, then having the rest of the army support that goal.
a) It depends. For my Merovingian Franks I'd have one long line that the inspired commander can move as a Battle Line and hence do double moves. for more flexible armies, such as my drilled MF Aztecs, they can spread out a bit.
b) The Merovingians have few terrain troops, so bad going can really scupper them. With combined arms the terrain is quite important as it means there need to be decent terrain troops with decent 'open' troops next to them

2. larger BGs have other advantages. put a general in with a 12 base BG and he modifies 12 dice! Also, while a big BG may be more likely to lose a base, a 4 base BG that does lose a base is in real trouble for future morale tests.

3. Getting all your units fighting (if that's your plan) requires timing that comes with practice.

G