Playing our 1st game Saturday, anthing to watch for?

smaul1 · Post by **smaul1** » Sat Mar 27, 2010 4:41 am

As a couple of newbies, read the rules once all the way through and now bits and pieces.

Is there any trouble areas for newbies that we should watch for?

Steve

timmy1 · Post by **timmy1** » Sat Mar 27, 2010 7:55 am

Steve

I have found the very best way to avoid trouble when playing your first few games is

1, have the latest Errata and FAQ handy, and

2, ALWAYS follow the sequence of play, line by line - if you do that the vast majority of questions are resolved and intents of the rules made clear.

Having a copy of Andy Bascombe's players index to hand will really help you sort of any 'where does it cover that' questions.

Regards
Tim

philqw78 · Post by **philqw78** » Sat Mar 27, 2010 8:26 am

Tims advice is very good. The main thing is to strictly follow the sequence of play. (at the start errata may not be useful but FAQ will...for the technical bits)

kevinj · Post by **kevinj** » Sat Mar 27, 2010 8:33 am

I would suggest using 2 relatively simple armies so that you can concentrate on getting the mechanics right, and then look to develop all the clever tactical stuff once you're more familiar with the rules. It's probably best if you don't clog up the table with too much terrain.

ShrubMiK · Post by **ShrubMiK** » Sat Mar 27, 2010 9:39 am

It may be worthwhile avoiding pikes and offensive/defensive spearmen to start with...not that they are particularly difficult to use well, it's just that the combats become quite fiddly as they lose bases and you end up with lots of tiny combats all at different POAs.

petedalby · Post by **petedalby** » Sat Mar 27, 2010 9:52 am

Hi Steve - when I first started we tested different parts of the game with BG vs BG to see how it worked.

So, for example, pikes vs Romans. Or Romans vs Cathaginian spearmen.

We did the same with LF javs vs LF Bow and the different types of LH.

Then we increased the number of BGs each side until we were up to 800 points a side.

But whatever you do - have fun and enjoy it.

gozerius · Post by **gozerius** » Sat Mar 27, 2010 2:13 pm

Make frequent use of the examples of play to ensure you are conforming correctly, making legal flank charges, turning and wheeling properly. Try to flush concepts you may have from other games and read the glossary to understand what terms mean in FoG. Don't worry if you don't finish in a reasonable time. You must learn to crawl before you can run. Have fun!

smaul1 · Post by **smaul1** » Sat Mar 27, 2010 2:57 pm

ok, found the faq so printed that but couldnt find the Andy Bascombe's players index

we should be good, thanks all and we will certainly have fun, the guy I game with we like to take our time and get it right while we learn it so we will take it slow.

thanks guys

steve

timmy1 · Post by **timmy1** » Sat Mar 27, 2010 4:05 pm

Steve

It is at http://www.fieldofglory.com/file/EXPANDEDINDEX.pdf

smaul1 · Post by **smaul1** » Sat Mar 27, 2010 10:19 pm

Thanks, it was a fun day, we made some mistakes and didnt have time to finish but we learned a lot so next time should be even better.

hammy · Post by **hammy** » Sat Mar 27, 2010 10:30 pm

Good stuff,

The trick is to read the rules again after your first few games. That way you will find all those things you forgot during your game.

Enjoy your games and feel free to ask questions here.

smaul1 · Post by **smaul1** » Sat Mar 27, 2010 10:57 pm

yeah, sitting down to read them now and Ill fire of some questions later after reading if Im confused.

biggest problem we had in our head was when we had 2 battlegroups impact and melee 2 other battlegroups and they over lapped and how to factor who lost to take cohesion tests etc..

steve

kevinj · Post by **kevinj** » Sun Mar 28, 2010 5:38 am

biggest problem we had in our head was when we had 2 battlegroups impact and melee 2 other battlegroups and they over lapped and how to factor who lost to take cohesion tests etc..

I've found the easiest way here is to work out who's fighting who and at what POA, then roll the dice in groups and put the ones that score hits behind the troops that they relate to, then you can quickly count up how many hits each BG has inflicted or taken.

Lycanthropic · Post by **Lycanthropic** » Tue Mar 30, 2010 2:50 am

Also watch for light horse....

zoltan · Post by **zoltan** » Tue Mar 30, 2010 7:49 am

Lycanthropic wrote:Also watch for light horse....

Is this a wind up?

(Early/Middle/Later) Hungarian

philqw78 · Post by **philqw78** » Tue Mar 30, 2010 8:04 am

zoltan wrote:
Lycanthropic wrote:Also watch for light horse....
Is this a wind up?

(Early/Middle/Later) Hungarian

The horsemen of the Apocolypse. They have ruined the game.

grahambriggs · Post by **grahambriggs** » Tue Mar 30, 2010 8:55 am

smaul1 wrote:yeah, sitting down to read them now and Ill fire of some questions later after reading if Im confused.

biggest problem we had in our head was when we had 2 battlegroups impact and melee 2 other battlegroups and they over lapped and how to factor who lost to take cohesion tests etc..

steve

The way we keep track is to break it into sections. e.g. say you have a BG that is 2 wide, one that is 4 wide and one that is 2 wide (abc below) and your opponent has two BGs both 4 wide (d and e) filined up figthing against them:

aabbbbcc
ddddeeee

This needs to be broken up into four different sections: aa vs dd, bb vs dd, bb vs ee, cc vs ee. Calculate the factors for each section then roll dice for each section. Ideally used different coloured dice for each, but at least make it clear wich dice go with which section. As you get hits, put the dice which have hit behind your troops in the relevant section.

Once you're done rolling, look at each of the 5 BGs in turn, comparing hits inflicted with hits received. Those with more received than inflicted need a cohesion test and death roll. Others may need death rolls if they've taken a lot of casualties.

It sounds long winded written out like this but it's the same every time so with a bit of practice it will only take a few seconds.

smaul1 · Post by **smaul1** » Tue Mar 30, 2010 2:19 pm

grahambriggs,

this is the exact one we had that we were confused about, I follow all of what you said and that is how we did it, but we were not sure on one thing

lets say the hits worked like this. (Ill put the hits so AA vs DD 1-4 would mean AA got hit once, DD got hit 4 times)

aa vs dd 4-1
bb vs dd 1-5
bb vs ee 3-2
cc vs ee 2-2

so the question is this, aa took 4 hits and dd took 1 hit from them, but we didnt know if you counted all of the hits involved so if you take the hits from the 2 stands of bb then that means that dd took a total of 6 hits but only inflicted a total of 5 hits on aa and bb so which do you do? do you treat each match up as a separate issue? Like aa lost so makes a cohesion test because it was 4 hits to 1, and then dd takes a cohesion test for taking more hits than it gave to bb? or as before, do you combine them all so total hits was 5-6 in favor of aa & bb vs dd?

Also what about dd & ee, vs bb? Would it be possible that dd losses to bb but ee causes bb to check? Theoretically this could lead to a BG causing one unit to check and then having to check from another BG if say there was only 2 battle groups a side, you could have all 4 having to take a Cohesion test cause they lost vs one set of stands but beat the other.

Hope that is clear at it can get.

other than that we did pretty good, just need some clarification.

steve

ethan · Post by **ethan** » Tue Mar 30, 2010 2:23 pm

What really helps in FoG is to think of all combats in the following way.

"Winning" a combat doesn't matter, in fact there is no such concept as "winning"

Instead you either lose or didn't lose.

If you take more hits than you inflict you "lost" otherwise you didn't lose. So add up all the hits a particular BG takes from all sources and compare to what it did to anyone else.

This has some large strategy issues as well as it is quite possible for both sides of a combat to be in position to "lose."

kevinj · Post by **kevinj** » Tue Mar 30, 2010 2:45 pm

aa vs dd 4-1
bb vs dd 1-5
bb vs ee 3-2
cc vs ee 2-2

As Ethan says, it doesn't really matter too much if you win, it's losing that causes the real problem. So:

aa did 4, took 1. Nothing happens to aa. (It would be subject to a Death Roll for the hit it took, but as it gets +2 having won or drawn, it's irrelevant).

bb did 4, took 7. It has lost and will need to take a cohesion test. However badly this goes, it can only drop one level of cohesion as it has only lost by one hit. It will lose a base and will also take a death roll and will lose another base if it rolls 1.

cc did 2, took 2. Nothing happens to it.

dd did 6, took 5. It has won so does not take a CT. It will take a Death roll at +2 so will ose a base on a 4 or less.

ee did 4, took 5, so the same as for bb applies.

Hope this helps.

Kevin