FoG game report

[babyshark]

Hello everyone. Dan Hazelwood and I played two games of FoG this past weekend at Historicon. I decided to write a few words about it here to give the non-Beta crowd a feeling about how FoG stacks up.

The first game was Late Hungarian v. Ottomans, and was very much a newbie game. We both pretty much lined up and went forward. Although we had read the rules we had little idea of how the mechanics would translate into possibilities on the tabletop. There was little in the way of maneuver, as this game was mostly spent getting a handle on how the troops interact. By the end of the game we had largely figured out the charts and tables, and the combats were going pretty smoothly. I will not dwell much more on this game.

The second game, played Sunday morning, was Alexander against Late Republican Rome. We both set up much more intelligently, having now achieved some understanding of what the troops could do. Also, there was vastly more maneuver in this second game than there was in the first. To make a long story short, I sent Alexander's pikes, supported by Elephants on one end of the line and a battlegroup of Companions on the other, at the line of Roman legionaries, while my light troops went after the Roman skirmishers. I had more skirmishers and he had more heavies.

On my right the battle started when two BGs of Roman light foot charged my two BGs of very similar light foot (all psiloi, in DBM terms), while another BG of Roman LF skirmished in front of my BG of medium foot (MF) that was trying to chase them down. Seeing that the BGs in combat were otherwise equal, I moved a general over and committed him to the front lines. That made all the difference, and, after a few bounds of combat I broke the two Roman BGs. In the mean time, there was a BG of Roman MF that was out in the open and I moved up a BG of Companions to ride them down. Dan brought over a BG of light horse to protect them, and I charged in anyway. Turns out that MF and LH both are very vulnerable to lancers.

On my left I had three BGs of light horse facing one Roman BG of LH and another of Cav. We ended up with one of my BGs, armed with light lance, chasing his bow-armed LH all the way to the end of the board. I had sent a general with them which made it hard for the bow-armed LH to disrupt my BG with shooting, and eventually they ran out of room and had to fight. That battle lasted a very long time with little getting accomplished, even though I had a POA, until the Roman LH finally failed a cohesion test and fell from steady to disrupted. After that they fell apart very quickly.

The really interesting aspect of this part of the game was the duel, if you will, between the one Roman Cav BG and my other two LH BGs. The LH could not stand up to the Cav in a head to head fight, but were more maneuverable. They could dance around seeking a flank to attack while the Cav were trying to pin one of them down. I think I had just about managed to get the Cav where I wanted them when a BG of legionaries came up to support the Cav and bolluxed it up.

The heavy infantry fight in the center went pretty much as one would expect. One of my pike BGs broke fairly quickly, the other one broke a legionary BG (by causing casaulties, not by forcing it down the morale ladder; those legionaries are tough). The elephants are fairly powerful frontally--BGs that lose a combat to them take a -1 on their cohesion test--and I expected to see good things from them. Unfortunately I blew a death roll early in the fight and the elephants vanished. They are also fairly brittle. The Companions made little impact on the legions, charging in several times and achieving nothing. That was slightly unlucky on my part, I think, but it does go to show that heavy foot, if steady, can withstand mounted in FoG.

All in all, these were two fun games, even though we were pretty far down the learning curve. I'll make a second post to discuss some of my conclusions.

Marc