Making the impact count

[iversonjm]

I don't think that fighting two impacts is a good idea - it is too easy to forget which round of melee you are in and breaks one of the fundamental rules of FoG in that you have to remember something - i.e. when you are in the melee phase you have to remember if you have fought the impact melee.

Also creates many, many more problems like the one Briggs and the Mouse have raised.

The memory issue was raised on the other thread. My response was, and is, that whether or not you charged is no harder to remember then if you dropped a cohesion state during the current or previous turn. Probably easier.

There would be a number of issues to think through, but just because you have to think through them doesn't necessarily mean you abandon the idea.

Using impact POAs in the first melee (and that is how I think of it rather than as two impacts) solves at a stroke (or at lease helps solve) many, many problems that have been raised on this list. For example: barbarians v. romans, impact foot v. everyone else, spearmen v. lancers, armored knights v. mounted, lancers v. non-lancer cav, etc. etc.

It also gives you more flexibility to play with POAs for play balance purposes. As an example (and not necessarily advocating this) you have the POA for foot light spear (which is free) count only in the impact phase, but not in first melee. Alternately, to give a boost to sword-only troops, you could have a swordmen POA count as a tie breaker in the first melee phase in the same way that mounted LS does in the current impact phase.

[dave_r]

True, but it would , be nice if we could get an elegant, refined solution rather than something which looks like it is a bit of a bodge

I am not saying my suggestion is the answer, clearly there are issues and problems we haven't thought about regarding all the ideas.

What I like about fog is that it is simple. It is difficult to play, but the rules themselves are fairly straight forward - I wouldn't like to change that.

[hazelbark]

One way to achieve this would be to say that Grading Re-rolls don't apply in the impact phase. This would thereby make charging in at impact a more risky transaction if you are at a -ve POA.

Would give average Knights and average lots of stuff a purpose before dying.

[iversonjm]

It would also make poor spears one of the most cost-effective troops in the game.

[philqw78]

It would also make poor spears one of the most cost-effective troops in the game.

Poor pike would rock.

[iversonjm]

It would also make poor spears one of the most cost-effective troops in the game.

Poor pike would rock.

Poor anything will rock. Assuming equal POAs, everything poor will fight the same as elites in impact.

The 2 base triarii and Nike cataphracts would shatter like glass.

I'm not loving this idea.

Can we go back to the impact phase in first melee thing?

[GHGAustin]

I have to say, that while I see throwing out the grade re-rolls will make Elite and Superior worse and Poor better, I am not sure I see how it will make Impact more decisive as a result of this. Actually, since all will be in essence Average, there is less likely to be decisive results when BGs of different grades meet.

[TheGrayMouser]

I don't think that fighting two impacts is a good idea - it is too easy to forget which round of melee you are in and breaks one of the fundamental rules of FoG in that you have to remember something - i.e. when you are in the melee phase you have to remember if you have fought the impact melee.

Also creates many, many more problems like the one Briggs and the Mouse have raised.

The memory issue was raised on the other thread. My response was, and is, that whether or not you charged is no harder to remember then if you dropped a cohesion state during the current or previous turn. Probably easier.

There would be a number of issues to think through, but just because you have to think through them doesn't necessarily mean you abandon the idea.

Using impact POAs in the first melee (and that is how I think of it rather than as two impacts) solves at a stroke (or at lease helps solve) many, many problems that have been raised on this list. For example: barbarians v. romans, impact foot v. everyone else, spearmen v. lancers, armored knights v. mounted, lancers v. non-lancer cav, etc. etc.

It also gives you more flexibility to play with POAs for play balance purposes. As an example (and not necessarily advocating this) you have the POA for foot light spear (which is free) count only in the impact phase, but not in first melee. Alternately, to give a boost to sword-only troops, you could have a swordmen POA count as a tie breaker in the first melee phase in the same way that mounted LS does in the current impact phase.

Hmm, so based on this idea how would it play out in the following scenario: 2b*2b lancers impact a 2b*4b pike Bg..... after impact its in now the maneuver phase where conforms happen and , usually feeding bases into combat..... Now this is where it gets confusing for me. Bg's cant feed bases into melee if they are contributing in any way either thru POA's or dice... now in this situation neither Bg would be allowed to feed any bases in the original rules or the theoretical new rules (assuming the 2nd impact phase only used impact POA's but eligible bases were considered the same as melee) So no real change there
However, what if the lancers were not mere lancers but Knightly lancers that only fight one base deep in melee? Would knightly lancers be allowed to feed bases up to get an overlap in the 2 nd impact/ melee hybred phase ? If not then the knights will be stuck in a crappy position until that players next active turn to feed bases in...


Also, in either situation, what if the active player who charged the lancers in has another BG that is eligable to slide up as an overlap in the maneuver phase? It would seem odd to have the chargers using impact poas in the second impact phase but the overlapper to have to use melee ones..... or would they both use the impact POA's, which seems really odd.....


I guess i just cant envision what this is supposed to represent, for the rules basically define impact as the initial impact at point of contact, things like armour and # of men dont matter... yet in a second impact phase you are still getting impact weapon "action" but get the allocated # of dice for being more that one base deep(ie now the # of men does count?) ? For me, it feels like a contradiction in the basic definitions....

[iversonjm]

Hi Steve. Yes, to follow the logic through, the knights could expand, leaving them fighting with 6 dice (or 8 if they charged 3 wide) fighting at a -- POA. This I think is an improvement over the current situation, where they fight with 6 or 8 dice at a - POA, which gives them a pretty decent chance to win and break the pike block.

As for overlaps, the simple way to do it would be to say that the overlapper uses the POA type of the overlapped base. If it got charged, everyone uses "charging" POAs (old impact POAs, renamed to distinguish them from the "impact phase"), but if it was already in contact, everyone uses "static" (old melee) POAs.

I think what this would represent would be a slightly longer interaction including everything from the initial exchange of missiles to the actual impact up until the point when forward momentum gives way to a shoving or fencing match. This would lend itself well to the nuanced POAs that I was referring to earlier (foot LS and swordmen counting in one but not both phases, for example). It also represents well a larger body of charging cavalry lapping round flanks of a clump of foot, or a smaller body getting swallowed by a solid wall of foot. At the end of the day, however, what it represents is less important than the result it produces. If making the impact (or "charging") POAs count twice produces results that work, we shouldn't get wrapped too much around what it depicts.

[iversonjm]

True, but it would , be nice if we could get an elegant, refined solution rather than something which looks like it is a bit of a bodge

I am not saying my suggestion is the answer, clearly there are issues and problems we haven't thought about regarding all the ideas.

What I like about fog is that it is simple. It is difficult to play, but the rules themselves are fairly straight forward - I wouldn't like to change that.

These are all good points. I guess my response would be that solving a host of issues with one rules change is elegant, even if that change was a significant one.

Also keep in mind that very "different" is not the same as very "complicated." Changing to "charging" and "Static" POAs would be different, but I'm not sure that the end product would be more complicated than what it replaced.

[pezhetairoi]

If we think that impact combat isn't having as much effect as it should (and I'd be inclined to agree) the first thing that comes to my mind is increasing the relevance of the combat results.
If the combat loser is less likely to pass his CT, then the initial win results are more important.
If you increase the CT penalties in impact combat, you make it more likely the loser will fail the test.

This could be done a few ways:
A blanket -1 to the CT for losing impact (a little heavy-handed, but not complicated).
Or a -2 for losing to elephants, scythed chariots, lancers, impact foot, etc instead of the regular -1 (this makes the "shock" troops scarier, but nobody else)(and I'm being lazy in my wording)
Or -2 for two more received than inflicted, instead of the regular -1 (this makes a a bigger win scarier, regardless of troop type).

None of these adjustments would have to play any part in melee.
No additional rules would have to be added, no remembering, no weird circumstances ... just tweak the numbers.

I imagine in a lot of cases, one more -1 is just enough to topple the odds of passing the CT tests.
The enemy passing the CT test is what defeats the value of winning at impact. As an example if 40% of barbarian impact combats are beating the Romans, make that 40% more likely to turn up a "disrupted" Roman BG. If armies like the Celts' or Germans relied on a ferocious charge, lets give them a better chance to profit from a successful one.

[philqw78]

Why bother fighting 2 "impact" phases, just roll twice as many dice in the one we have now and adjust CT modifiers to be more effective as above.

[Strategos69]

Why bother fighting 2 "impact" phases, just roll twice as many dice in the one we have now and adjust CT modifiers to be more effective as above.

Actually something similar was coming to my mind: increasing the number of dice will make this combat more brutal (it will be more likely that bases are lost). It should be added to the CT, though, that the raw number of impacts has an effect on the CT. I agree with Dave that the actual mechanism is very neat: impact phase, impact combat and then the rest. In the other hand, I find that melee combat should be less resolutive (aka, last more). Some more plus to the CT should come into play.

[zocco]

Surely the simplest thing to increase the impact effect would be merely to add an additional -1 tio the CT if lose in impact. That would make lancers and impact foot a bit more worthwhile than present.

[philqw78]

add an additional -1 tio the CT if lose in impact. That would make lancers and impact foot a bit more worthwhile than present.

Yeah, lancers need aboost as far as I'm concerned. Though I doubt many others would join me in that opinion.

[iversonjm]

I imagine in a lot of cases, one more -1 is just enough to topple the odds of passing the CT tests.
The enemy passing the CT test is what defeats the value of winning at impact. As an example if 40% of barbarian impact combats are beating the Romans, make that 40% more likely to turn up a "disrupted" Roman BG. If armies like the Celts' or Germans relied on a ferocious charge, lets give them a better chance to profit from a successful one.

Note this actually increases the Roman's advantage, as they win the impact combat 60% of the time. The barbarians thus end up suffering the penalty more often, and because they are generally not superior, are more likely to disrupt as a result. They are also significantly more likely to frag as a result.

This is generally true across the board - the -1 increases the variability of the result of equal POA'd impacts, with the general advantage shifting to the better quality troops, who are less likely to lose and less likely to be harmed by the penalty.

Maybe this is a good thing. Don't know.

Means that cav/kn charging steady spears/pikes are more likely to disrupt after losing, which is a good thing.

[MatthewP]

Yeah, lancers need aboost as far as I'm concerned. Though I doubt many others would join me in that opinion.

I would. CHARGE!!!!!! always one of my favourite words.

[TheGrayMouser]

My idea in the Warband vs legion poll/thread was to simply allow Undrilled Heavy/Medium Impact foot to roll their impact dice as if they were one Quality level higher
Thus average warbands will be, at least for the impact phase, equal to their superior Roman foes...

[pezhetairoi]

Note this actually increases the Roman's advantage, as they win the impact combat 60% of the time. The barbarians thus end up suffering the penalty more often, and because they are generally not superior, are more likely to disrupt as a result. They are also significantly more likely to frag as a result.

All very true. I think this is something likely to happen anyway if the barbarians lose ... but it does speed up the clock.
As I see it now, the barbarians might win at impact, but gain nothing for it. This would give them a better chance to "sweep the enemy away". I also feel it's a subtle enough change to not completely unbalance other interactions.

Yeah, lancers need aboost as far as I'm concerned. Though I doubt many others would join me in that opinion.

I mostly agree with you. They could sure use a boost in impact ... but a drawback in melee (oooooh! Can'o'worms!).

[Strategos69]

Note this actually increases the Roman's advantage, as they win the impact combat 60% of the time. The barbarians thus end up suffering the penalty more often, and because they are generally not superior, are more likely to disrupt as a result. They are also significantly more likely to frag as a result.

All very true. I think this is something likely to happen anyway if the barbarians lose ... but it does speed up the clock.
As I see it now, the barbarians might win at impact, but gain nothing for it. This would give them a better chance to "sweep the enemy away". I also feel it's a subtle enough change to not completely unbalance other interactions.

Some problems cannot be fixed with a single solution and maybe that is where the problem lies. It is like thinking that taking away the skilled swordsmen for Romans will fix the Barbarians instantly. In this particular case, what is striking to me is that Barbarians are not a PoA up at impact. Then, that proposal altogether with some of these changes could modify the whole interaction in favour of the Barbarians (and maybe then the skilled swordsmen capability could even remain where it is).