Playing the Lace Wars period with FOG

[KIWICOLOURSTUDIO]

Hi all

I was wondering if anyone had tried to use the FOGR (or possibly FOGN) rules to play the Lace wars period. Specifically the Seven Years war. If so id be very interested to know how they went about it.

Cheers

Mark

[rbodleyscott]

Here is a thread about using FOGR for the War of the spanish Succession, some or most of which may be applicable to 7YW.

viewtopic.php?f=70&t=27342

[batesmotel]

FoG(N) might be better for the 7YW. (I haven't played FoG(N) or read anything except the intro scenario so don't have any opinion of them for Napoleonic battles, so this is just a guess.) The 1805-6 Austrian army and the 1806 Prussian army were essentially using 7YW tactics and military systems so if FoG(N) handles those well it should do fine for 7YW.

Chris

[KIWICOLOURSTUDIO]

Hi Guys

Thanks for the info. Chris I you may be right regarding FOGN im working my way through the book now and although a little more complex than standard FOG:AM i am liking what im reading so far. FOGN seams to handle shooting better than FOGR does (that's just my impression - please correct me if im wrong). Ive started looking at re basing my old SYW armies. I may just tack them onto bases for the moment and try out both rule sets and see which i think gives the most flavour to the SYW Period.

[shadowdragon]

Hi Guys

Thanks for the info. Chris I you may be right regarding FOGN im working my way through the book now and although a little more complex than standard FOG:AM i am liking what im reading so far. FOGN seams to handle shooting better than FOGR does (that's just my impression - please correct me if im wrong). Ive started looking at re basing my old SYW armies. I may just tack them onto bases for the moment and try out both rule sets and see which i think gives the most flavour to the SYW Period.

Being the one that started the thread on using FoGR for the WSS and now having now also played some FoGN. I agree that adapting FoGN for 7YW is probably the way to go. Whether or not FoGN is better for the WSS depends, but I'm not really looking at using it for the WSS since I've already re-based my units on the FoGR system. Note that one advantage of that is that I can also use the same armies for 1690's FoGR armies (my foot units have 7 bases so that they can deploy as 6 musket or 5 musket-1pike).

Two obvious areas where FoGN is better for representing the WSS is the passage of lines and fighting in built up areas. I probably won't adapt the FoGN approach for passage of lines for FoGR-WSS because it's very dependent on FoGN's command and control mechanism which is a fair bit different from FoGR. Adapting the "fighting in built up areas" is somewhat easier....a successful CMT is required for a foot unit to "defend" (versus "occupy") a built up area which gives the foot the equivalent benefit as if fighting in fortifications (i.e., cover, no dice reductions, can fire with normal number of ranks, etc.). However, the full FoGN solution is too dependent on the FoGN system.

Even though I won't now change from FoGR for WSS, it would be interesting to read other people's ideas of what changes are needed to adopt FoGN for the WSS or other pre-French Revolution wars.

[MikeHorah]

As a FOGN) author I am not at all sure that it works for the earlier part of the 18th century but when the second lists book covering 1792-1804 comes out and people have a go at those we can see what the reaction is.Virtually all the armies of that period are unreformed so it may be feasible to do a FOG(N)(-) if that makes sense. Perhaps more formalised -always deploying on and from the right for example and maybe returning to battalions. Lots of FOG(N)) would have to be ditched in my view and personally I tend to prefer starting with a blank sheet and only cribbing stuff that is in fact similar in concept eg POAs CMTs and Cohesion Tests even if the numbers and factors differ hugely.

But it will need to cover North America and India and non European armies and there will be - at a crude guess - some 50-60 lists and a lot of research as there are a lot of obscure conflicts I, at least, know very little about.

[KIWICOLOURSTUDIO]

does this mean that is is a possibility of an official lace wars period FOG 1700-1786?? on the surface many of the FOG:N rules look like they will work to me. The difference between the fighting styles of the french revolution and the syw battles seams very small of the surface so the FogN rule for unreformed troops works well. Once I've tried out a few games ill let you know how it goes. (even in rough format it has to be better than Koneig Kreig V3)

[Rekila]

We play various games of SYW with FOGR last year and liked all of them a lot. Didn’t need to make any rules change, to get an excellent “period” effect. I have adapted the WRG list for FOG without problem and the armies work very well. I have been expected to have FOGN to see what set or rules fits better for the period. Having read the rules but not playing any game yet I can’t have a definitive opinion , but FoGN seems to focus around the importance of Corps and Divisions, a think I found excellent for the Napoleonic era but incorrect for the SYW. Also the unit scale seems too big. The element that have worried us more: the need to deploy foot in two ranks for fire, have not improve much in FOGN as now you have two ranks for base and formations looks equal or even deeper. I suppose play testing would give a definitive answer but having the XVIII century out of Fog is a pity