dates for 1st Round of the Northern Doubles League 2013

[CLAVDIVS]

Round 1. Sunday 24th of February 2013 at Emlyn Hall
on Emlyn Street, Walkden Manchester M28 3JZ at the Manchester Area Wargames Society
meeting hall see web site for Map to the hall for map.

Players to arrive at 09:00 am for a 9:30 start to the games.

Army list to Colin or Geoff by the 09/02/13.

The DBMM Competition will be Doubles (singles will be allowed)

The FoGam V1 Competition will be Doubles.

The FoG-R Competition will be Singles (If we have 6 or more players)

[Robert241167]

Hi Colin

Is the FOG V1 going to be for the full year or will it switch to V2 once the rules have been out a little while?

I know a few who won't be attending if it is V1 for the full year so this may be better addressed sooner rather than later.

Thanks

Rob

[philqw78]

Erm, why is it V1?

[CLAVDIVS]

Yes for the full year sorry about that

[philqw78]

What?

[CLAVDIVS]

I have not played a game of FOG am V2 so far and I would think there are a lot of players out there now who are in the same boat and just getting round to playing V2.

Also we have done this over the 15 years of running the NDBML & NDL what version of the rules we start the year off playing we play all year until the end.

Yours Colin B

[MatthewP]

Seems a little dogmatic to me Colin, just because you have kept the same system in the past doesnt mean you have to necessarily do the same in this case. I agree FOG AM ver 2 has only just become available to the masses, but the changes are not particulaly radical and anybody familliar with version 1 could soon pick them up. You could even provide the players with the list of changes that are freely availbale on this site, to help with the conversion.

Personally I would not be particularly enthusiastic about playing version 1, although will probably play FOG R regardless.

matthew

[nikgaukroger]

Dumb decision since the new version has been released (effectively) so early in the year - and in reality before the year. I could understand if they were released half way through - and "we've always done this" is a lousy justification.

[paullongmore]

I can see the logic behind wanting to play all the rounds with the same version of the ruleset.

I also agree that we won’t have had long to get used to v2 by the first round in February (I also haven’t played a v2 game yet)

However, I think by the later rounds it will be a bit strange to be playing at V1 when we will have been playing v2 for nearly a year.

The v2 rules are evolution rather than revolution. It won’t take any time to understand the rule changes (although it would have been nice to have change bars). What will be interesting is the period while we all try and work out the optimum army type with the v2 rule tweaks, which should lead to some armies that have been put in cupboards seeing the light of day.

Personally therefore I would prefer to use v2, (even though several of the army list changes introduced are specifically to emasculate the armies I play).

On the other hand I really appreciate the effort organisers of competitions put in to allow me to enjoy my hobby and will happily play whichever version.

Paul Longmore

[ShrubMiK]

I certainly wouldn't want to have to try to stay current with two subtly different versions of the rules.

I don't really see what the purpose is of delaying the switch-over, at whatever point it happens there is going to be a period of time in which people are adjusting from one to the other.

Seems like this is a decision made by people who actually want to stay on v1?

If you don't want a fragmented player base, then surely accepting that v2 is here and playing an active part in encouraging people to switch ASAP would be helpful?

[titanu]

Richard Bodley-Scott has a sheet sent to all Godendag players with the changes between V1 and V2 which could be made available.

[CLAVDIVS]

We will wait and see after the 2nd round if all the active players in the NDL wish to switch to FOG am V2.

As for me I will not be getting V2 FOG am this year, next year or the year after that, as I have a lot of family things to do over the next 2 or 3 years with Jackie my significant other half so wargaming is at the bottom of the very big list of things to do over the next 2 or 3 years.

[dave_r]

We will wait and see after the 2nd round if all the active players in the NDL wish to switch to FOG am V2.

As for me I will not be getting V2 FOG am this year, next year or the year after that, as I have a lot of family things to do over the next 2 or 3 years with Jackie my significant other half so wargaming is at the bottom of the very big list of things to do over the next 2 or 3 years.

Colin,

I think it's very good that you have listened to the customer base. i.e. the chaps who are largely likely to compete in the Northern Doubles.

I think it would be best to play the same verison all year, but as a compromise would it be reasonble to play v1 at the first round and v2 at the rest of the rounds?

[david53]

Richard Bodley-Scott has a sheet sent to all Godendag players with the changes between V1 and V2 which could be made available.

This being the case why a new rule set then.

A sheet seems cheaper.

regards

[dave_r]

Richard Bodley-Scott has a sheet sent to all Godendag players with the changes between V1 and V2 which could be made available.

This being the case why a new rule set then.

A sheet seems cheaper.

regards

The Devil is in the detail.

[Sarmaticus]

Richard Bodley-Scott has a sheet sent to all Godendag players with the changes between V1 and V2 which could be made available.

This being the case why a new rule set then.

A sheet seems cheaper.

regards

As I understand it from posts to this forum, a crib sheet isn't a product that can be sold to bring new players into the hobby. Making a crib sheet readily available might reduce the take-up by existing players of books and downloads, thus reducing the customer base and economic viability of the product. An expanded digital product package with a printable crib sheet (at least) would be a better way to go IMvHO: giving Slitherine a saleable product that could be delivered as a download and, with campaign stuff etc., making good use of skills they must already have in house. As it is, there are two products which don't really feed into each other.
I'm not a competitor (nor Northern) but it would be odd to require V1 for those who are: precisely the constituency most likely to own V2.

[prb4]

I know this is a bit of a radical idea but would it be too difficult to have a vote for the players actually playing in the Northern doubles to determine what the consensus is?

People might not know the rules that well in the first round but everyone will be in the same boat.

Peter

[philqw78]

I think it would be best to play the same verison all year, but as a compromise would it be reasonble to play v1 at the first round and v2 at the rest of the rounds?

I think it would be ridiculous to play V1 all year.

[paullongmore]

Colin said

We will wait and see after the 2nd round if all the active players in the NDL wish to switch to FOG am V2.

Peter said

I know this is a bit of a radical idea but would it be too difficult to have a vote for the players actually playing in the Northern doubles to determine what the consensus is?

The easiest way to canvas all the active members would seem to be at a round of the Northern Doubles. I would suggest that the first round would the sensible one at which to do this rather than the 2nd (Not sure where the 2nd round is this year, last year it was at Sheffield).

So I suggest a show of hands at 1st round to decide what version we use for the rest of the year.

[kevinj]

So I suggest a show of hands at 1st round to decide what version we use for the rest of the year.

One problem with this is that it will exclude anyone who doesn't enter round 1 because they don't want to play V1. I think any debate would be better conducted through this forum so people can consider the various views.

Personally I think people will pick up the V2 changes much quicker in a competition environment, and the more relaxed style of the NDL is ideal for this. Regarding timing, there are 2 substantial tournaments (Godendag and Burton) before the first round of the NDL, both are using V2.