FoGR changes?

[rbodleyscott]

It [FOGAM] is certainly currently slanted a bit towards mounted armies.

Agree and some of the changes i see (like maneuvre restrictions to infantry) is going to make it worse.

You have to appreciate that FOGR is very different to FOGAM. The balance in FOGR is in favour of pike & shot infantry - which is strong in close combat and can also shoot. Some rule changes were needed to reflect the historical role of mounted troops in that era. Just because something has changed in FOGR does not mean that the same change will be applied to FOGAM.

[marty]

For anyone who doesn't accepts there is a problem with game balance and disappearing HF consider the following. We have just finished a year of competitions. In the UK (the largest and perhaps most competitive competition circuit) we have seen the following armies win 15mm non-team events.

7 predominately mounted armies (Later Serbian, Lithuanian, western turkish, ottoman turk, middle hungarian, Parthian and Mongol).

5 MF "shooter" armies (Ord Frenchx2, 100yw english, japanese, christian nubian)

3 "Fighting" MF armies (Aztec and Catalan companyx2)

3 armies it is hard to be sure what they have without seen the list, but chances are very little HF and possibly quite a bit of LH (Palmyran, SHNC and Dom Roman)

And 2 armies that probably contain significant numbers of HF (Early Successor and later sumerian/akkadian).Both of these HF victories were in "Themed" events.

So 12 of the 20 armies were either mounted armies or the shooters that are often taken as a response to the mounted armies. Only 1 in 10 victories were gained by armies that have significant numbers of HF and always in a themed comp.

The game balance"pendulum" is clearly positioned rather to one side. Any changes that make foot (especially non missile foot) even less attractive are a very bad idea.

I apologise in advance if I have recorded any of this information incorrectly. I got it from the Slitherine rankings site.

Martin

[nikgaukroger]

Just analysing the winners is not meaningful IMO - better to look at the top 1/3 of the table. Not sure why you didn't include team comps either.

[waldo]

For anyone who doesn't accepts there is a problem with game balance and disappearing HF consider the following. We have just finished a year of competitions. In the UK (the largest and perhaps most competitive competition circuit) we have seen the following armies win 15mm non-team events.

7 predominately mounted armies (Later Serbian, Lithuanian, western turkish, ottoman turk, middle hungarian, Parthian and Mongol).

5 MF "shooter" armies (Ord Frenchx2, 100yw english, japanese, christian nubian)

3 "Fighting" MF armies (Aztec and Catalan companyx2)

3 armies it is hard to be sure what they have without seen the list, but chances are very little HF and possibly quite a bit of LH (Palmyran, SHNC and Dom Roman)

And 2 armies that probably contain significant numbers of HF (Early Successor and later sumerian/akkadian).Both of these HF victories were in "Themed" events.

So 12 of the 20 armies were either mounted armies or the shooters that are often taken as a response to the mounted armies. Only 1 in 10 victories were gained by armies that have significant numbers of HF and always in a themed comp.

The game balance"pendulum" is clearly positioned rather to one side. Any changes that make foot (especially non missile foot) even less attractive are a very bad idea.

I apologise in advance if I have recorded any of this information incorrectly. I got it from the Slitherine rankings site.

Martin

Not to mention that of the 6 MF armies 4 are predominantly drilled (not sure about the Japanese I don't have EotD). Same with the HF.

Walter

[waldo]

Just analysing the winners is not meaningful IMO - better to look at the top 1/3 of the table. Not sure why you didn't include team comps either.

To be honest I don't really need the stats of competitions to confirm what I and a lot of other players know from playing the game. We have our own results to go by. Many players have multiple armies and eventually work out which are the good ones in any rule set.

Walter

[philqw78]

I'm just glad you could point out that Dave Ruddock didn't win Britcon.

There should be 2 joint placed Bosphorans on there

[hammy]

I suspect they are suggesting that right now, players who want to win games in competitions are unlikely to choose heavy foot armies.

Oddly it seemed to be the case that for most players in DBM armies comprising cavalry, light horse and fast moving foot much like seems to be the case with FoG.

I suspect that there is a fundamental issue with what wargamers expect from a set of rules and the end result is that armies that can maneuver and project force work more effectively that armies that plod forwards.

Under DBM I used lots of different armies but I cannot remember winning an open tournament with a ploddy infantry force.

One thing that does make heavy foot more useful in FoG is increasing the number of points and/or reducing the table size. Dropping the table depth to 3' makes a big difference to the effectivness of heavy foot.

If people really want a 4' deep table then perhaps the 'fix' is not to reduce the move of lights and mediums but to increase the move of heavies.

HF that moved 4MU would be significantly more effective. The downside though is then that it would not be possible for archers to get in three rounds of shooting at effective range against advancing heavy foot, they would instead be limited to two rounds. You could counter this by making effective bow range 5MU but then cavalry would not be able to charge bow from outside effective range which they can at present so something else needs changing.

IMO the best way to make HF armies work is narrower and/or shallower tables, more points or just more themed comps. There are after all very few instances of heavy foot armies defeating massed mounted without bows or a reasonable quantitiy of their own mounted troops.

[grahambriggs]

I've always tended to feel more affinity with infantry armies. Sucessfully in DBM with fanatic berber (plus the Cid) and Akkadian, less so in FoG to date (though I was the winner with Akkadians this year - 48HF and a cutting edge of superior MF.

The challenges in winning with heavy foot are not too different in the two game systems. Generally, it's a case of how many bounds of movement does it take to get to grips with the enemy and do enough damage to win the game. The key elements being:

- good deployment - saves a yomp.
- move quickly don't dither (which means you need to be experienced to save on those 'difficult decisions')
- don't get distracted by sideshows
- have a plan to sort out the enemy's delaying tactics (enough skirmishers, a wing that can move at 4 or 5 MU to pressure the enemy.
- be aware that the enemy might refuse to fight in some areas

The last point is the most difficult as you usually can't cover the whole table. So the enemy can often wriggle away to the area where you are not strong. This is a particular problem for undrilled HF as they are not nimble.

[ValentinianVictor]

I suspect they are suggesting that right now, players who want to win games in competitions are unlikely to choose heavy foot armies.

Oddly it seemed to be the case that for most players in DBM armies comprising cavalry, light horse and fast moving foot much like seems to be the case with FoG.

I suspect that there is a fundamental issue with what wargamers expect from a set of rules and the end result is that armies that can maneuver and project force work more effectively that armies that plod forwards.

Under DBM I used lots of different armies but I cannot remember winning an open tournament with a ploddy infantry force.

One thing that does make heavy foot more useful in FoG is increasing the number of points and/or reducing the table size. Dropping the table depth to 3' makes a big difference to the effectivness of heavy foot.

If people really want a 4' deep table then perhaps the 'fix' is not to reduce the move of lights and mediums but to increase the move of heavies.

HF that moved 4MU would be significantly more effective. The downside though is then that it would not be possible for archers to get in three rounds of shooting at effective range against advancing heavy foot, they would instead be limited to two rounds. You could counter this by making effective bow range 5MU but then cavalry would not be able to charge bow from outside effective range which they can at present so something else needs changing.

IMO the best way to make HF armies work is narrower and/or shallower tables, more points or just more themed comps. There are after all very few instances of heavy foot armies defeating massed mounted without bows or a reasonable quantitiy of their own mounted troops.

I've been saying something similar on another forum dedicated to another ruleset, so the issue with winning with a heavy foot based army is not confined just to FOG.

The interesting aspect to this is that where we do have examples of primarily mounted armies taking on infantry willing to stand their ground, or even willing to take the fight to the mounted, then the result tends to be either a very protracted battle where its not certain the mounted will win, or if they do then it takes many hours or even days to achieve the win, or the infantry chase the mounted from the battlefield.

This has been examined in some depth in this paper by Rance- http://www.duke.edu/web/classics/grbs/F ... Rance2.pdf

[hazelbark]

I suspect they are suggesting that right now, players who want to win games in competitions are unlikely to choose heavy foot armies.

Time to change the table size at those UK compeitions. make them 5x3 at 800 points.

Maybe you could organise one that way you'd find out if people wanted it.

That is too intelligent. I rather just impose my will on the that distraught island. Its much more entertaining, than careful reflection.

[philqw78]

That is too intelligent. I rather just impose my will on the that distraught island. Its much more entertaining, than careful reflection.

Well, since you can't impose it on your own.

[marty]

I only dont include team comps because I'm not sure how the format/s work. Would it change the results significantly?

Given the current popularity of shooting armies (mounted and on foot) I'm not sure reducing their effectiveness slightly against one sort of target is going to be a problem.

I accept that all Graham's advice is helpful and valid but I would contend in an open comp, with the standard 800 point on a 6x4 table, you are still going to fail against the ever popular "air and Grit", or whatever people want to call it, most of the time.

The only real problem with giving HF a 4" move is the effect it has on the relative value of fighting MF. Archers will still be fine as shooting is so effective.

The issue of drilled vs undrilled is perhaps even more vexing. 1 point to make foot drilled is a no brainer at the moment. Simply fixing this by making drilled foot less effective (the most common suggestion seems to be no turn and move) doesn't really help undrilled fighting foot who will still be unviable and rare as hens teeth but will certainly help the overwhelmingly popular mounted armies who really dont need any further assistance.

Martin

[timmy1]

While I prefer the FoGR Determined foot idea, most DF will be drilled so don't see that helping the great unwashed (sorry undrilled). If the 4" move were limited to protected and unprotected HF, that would help some of the undrilled types and at least have a historical justification of sorts (movement over time without armour etc).

However the simplest fix might be to make Poor and Average Undrilled HF cost 1 point less per base. This would not even need to wait for v2.0. However given the number of lists with such troops it would be a thumping big errata.

[madaxeman]

HF that moved 4MU would be significantly more effective. The downside though is then that it would not be possible for archers to get in three rounds of shooting at effective range against advancing heavy foot, they would instead be limited to two rounds. You could counter this by making effective bow range 5MU but then cavalry would not be able to charge bow from outside effective range which they can at present so something else needs changing.

But if one accepts the view that non-skirmisher bow are hard done by at present, making such a change to the Bw/Cv interaction might actually be a good thing...

[dave_r]

HF that moved 4MU would be significantly more effective. The downside though is then that it would not be possible for archers to get in three rounds of shooting at effective range against advancing heavy foot, they would instead be limited to two rounds. You could counter this by making effective bow range 5MU but then cavalry would not be able to charge bow from outside effective range which they can at present so something else needs changing.

But if one accepts the view that non-skirmisher bow are hard done by at present, making such a change to the Bw/Cv interaction might actually be a good thing...

Yeah, the Christian Nubians and all those Longbow armies prove that MF Bow are rubbish...

[madaxeman]

I've always tended to feel more affinity with infantry armies. Sucessfully in DBM with fanatic berber (plus the Cid) and Akkadian,

In that "other" ruleset though -

- LH and skirmishers didn't actually shoot, so deploying 1 deep (even with "protected" troops) was a more viable way to fill the table
- LH and skirmishers didn't actually shoot, so they had to accept a higher degree of risk in engaging with enemy HF if they wanted to try and beat an army primarily made up of them
- you could pin a faster moving enemy with your own speedy troops, and then choose to invest command and control capacity to make time for your HF to "catch up" with the main area of fighting more effectively (even when it was reduced to a maximum of 3 march moves, 3 HF moves were 50% further than 1 Cv normal moves)
- the combats they were trying to catch up and join could take longer to resolve*
- it was far harder for enemy bases to disengage from the line of battle, and the no-march/no 2nd move zone once the HF arrived on the scene
- you could insert single bases (of HF) into an existing line of battle to tip the balance

tim

* HF in FoG really struggle to "join in" with an existing combat -
- Combat takes place initiated by the enemy (impact + melee)
- HF march up to 4" (round of melee)
- (enemy turn - round of melee)
- move into charge range (round of melee)
- (enemy turn - round of melee)
- charge in - if anyone is still left...

I know the skill of the game is all about co-ordination and timing, but this is still a bit on the slow side - especially combined with a game design that sees combat resolution deliberately accelerated, and where we seem to be seeing mobility emerging as a key capability to look for in a successful army design

[philqw78]

In that "other" ruleset though -

Blah Blah blah

Blah Blah

blah

I just couldn't be arsed to read past the first couple of lines Tim as you are not comparing like with like.

[madaxeman]

I just couldn't be arsed to read past the first couple of lines Tim as you are not comparing like with like.

I think you are missing the point. This is a discussion on an internet chat board, so the more spurious and irrelevant the comparison is the better.

I look on the train of thought in threads on this board as a sort of a Mornington Crescent for ancient wargamers ...

[HannibalBarca]

You can't quote Phil. You're still in Nidd.

[david53]

making such a change to the Bw/Cv interaction might actually be a good thing...

Or not of course or you do that and I'd make it harder for drilled MF to move around the table like chess pieces.