fortifications

[benos]

firstly has anyone made good use of these and come up with some good tactics for them.
Secondly which armies get the most? I found a number getting up to 24 and some with 16 any army with more than that?

Ben

[Blathergut]

The few times I have, my opponent just ignored them...

[timurilenk]

A few can be useful to deploy further forward - personally I would not use a lot though.

[Rekila]

Hi. I have been using FF systematically on our last battles. In this case it was a battle between Papal/Condotta against French Ordenance. I employ the FF with the artillery; this allows deploying the artillery forward, an important thing with H. artillery but also interesting with the light one. I use the artillery and the FF to make a central bastion to anchor the centre. Is important, to get two extra FF to cover the sides, which make harder to attack it. The enemy will then try to avoid it so has to attack in the flanks. Under the cover of the “Bastion” The Italian men-at-arms here could then redeploy to witch flanks seem more tactical promising. A thing more difficult to do to the attacking side, split as they are to avoid the guns. I have used The FF even with handguners, in this case with the guns in the sides. This give you a cheap strong center that you can still interpenetrate!

[gozerius]

Some armies get a ton of FF. They are good for sticking weak troops in, but will probably be avoided by your opponent. But echoing Rekila, it can channel your opponent to where you want him to go. You can angle the FF to try to create a crossfire effect with artillery. Always fill your FF last so the enemy doesn't know what is defending them until late.
Just be prepared for people accusing you of cowering behind them.

[Rekila]

But we defensive players are made of heroic stuff. You must be when your opponent goes on the full battle talking about, rabbits, mice and chickens!

[gozerius]

Any game is a good game if you are playing.

[hazelbark]

Any game is a good game if you are playing.

Exactly.

[bertalucci]

Or alternatively block up the flanks.
If the Enemy ignores you and fills the centre of the board, you await his advance then jump out on his flank!

[MatteoPasi]

Some are useful but only if you are ready to leave fortification as battle evolve in differnt ways from the one you had forcast, many of Us (me too) has some problem to leave FF once they have deployed and become "slave" of their own FF

[ottomanmjm]

Fortifications can be useful, depending on the army. I have used them with Ottomans and placed them in the centre with H.Art behind them.
There is no need to deploy troops (except Artillery that cannot move) directly behind the fortifications at te start of the game. Troops deployed further back can be moved up if the enemy attempt to storm the fortifications or moved elsewhere if the fortifications are ignored. For exmple, deploy a BG of Azab archers and a BG of Spearmen back from the fortifications and then move up whichever is needed.
Also if you push forward on the flanks past the fortifications then you can run troops in front of your fortifications (LH are good for this) to harass the enemy "flanks" and then draw them into firing range of the troops behind the fortifications.

Regards
Martin

[sergiomonteleone]

firstly has anyone made good use of these and come up with some good tactics for them.
Secondly which armies get the most? I found a number getting up to 24 and some with 16 any army with more than that?

Ben

Playing Later Ottomans I made an army of 796 points so I bought 1 FF.
It's a good idea because, if you need, you can deploy 1 BG of jannissery or 1 BG of Cv (it's better drilled) at 15 MU.
For example if you move first and you want to be aggressive or if you want to reach quickly a terrain good for MF.
In any case you can deploy it and not use it

I don't think it's a good idea playing Ottomans in historical way (Jannisseries in the middle behind FF), because in this way your army is not flexible

Obviously if you play with 100 HYW English it's better to use PF for your longbowmen against KN's or Lancer CV's

Sergio

[jonphilp]

Hi,

This may be a stupid question but is FF shown above legal. In the rules it states on page 121 that "FF have a front and rear and these must be clearly defined" , it looks as the rear is open. Personally I believe it should be legal as an earthwork, but will it be open to challenge in a tournament setting. Also if you need to have flank & rear FF shown, are they included in the points cost per frontage or do you have to pay extra.

[Ghaznavid]

I believe the front and rear relates to each FF 'Base', not any 'fortress' formed by them. It probably is there to make it clear who is actually on the defensible site of a FF (otherwise some "clever" players faced with troops behind FF might move his own troops to contact the FF and then claim he is defending it too).

[jonphilp]

The problem is the rules also state that "Troops defending FF cannot be charged in flank/rear across fortifications" etc which seems to indicate enclosed FF. Hence my question about what you get for your 3 points costing.

[ShrubMiK]

How does that say that all FF must be enclosed? It implies that troops defending FFs which are not enclosed can be charged in the rear. If defending enclosed FFs, they cannot. No contraidiction there with the wording of the statement. (Unless, perhaps, it's a really large enclosed FF and there is room behind the BG for an opponent to get inside the perimenter of FF and then charge next turn.)

[Rekila]

Yes. the “Bastion” here has only FF on front and sides. Unfortunately I also think that for 3pts you only got a base of FF to cover one side of the units base not it all around. (Being a FF fan I hope that will be). As you must made the line of Fortifications with bases, unless you make a straight line you need to put some bases at a 90, making corners to adapt to the rectangular nature of BG bases. The entry “ Troop defending FF cannot be charge in Flank ….” Is there I think to avoid the fact that when charged on Flank/rear the charger got a net ++ POA so the FF comes to nothing. So charged across the FF is treated as charged to the front. But there is an interesting post By Gozerius in the “Rules Question” that if I understand it correctly is based in the “The front edge of The FF counts as the front edge of the BG….”. So a base with 2 FF, one in the front and other in one side will have two fronts to account for. As that should mean that (like here) heavy guns could them fire in two directions is an important one. Related to this, if like here you have a FF side base to be charged on Flank/rear I understand the “If the enemy BG is facing in more than one direction, etc page 56”. Means that all the bases of the charger BG must be behind the line of the side FF to count as making a flank charge.
(My English seems not to be at it best today but I hope is clear enough):)

[gozerius]

3 points gets you one basewidth of FF. Where you put it is up to you. If you want flank protection you need to purchase a few FF sections to cover the flanks. What I'm not entirely sure about is whether flanks covered by FF are treated as the front edge of the bases in contact with it for shooting purposes and for determining whether a base contacted on more than one side covered by FF must count both edges as it's front, thus splitting its dice as is required of battlewagons in the FAQ. Or is it just wording to indicate that bases contacted across FF are never treated as charged in the flank. They still have to turn to face a flank contact after all. Just suffer no penalty for doing so. It would not have occured to me that a base would ever have to split it's dice when contacted on more than one side as page 92 indicates that bases only fight enemy in contact with their front edge. I had initially assumed that one only considered the actual front edge of the base, or in the case of BW that it would fight only on one side or the other, not both. But the FAQ states that a BW must split it's dice, so I was wondering if that applies to troops defending FF as well.