UK FoGR Competition scene heading for a crash?

[madaxeman]

- Numbers for the BHGS Challenge are already more than 50% up year on year, with 5 weeks still to go.
- The Southern League is practically sold out at every venue that's been announced so far.
- Burton looked to be significantly larger than last year.
- Usk was 1/3 larger this year than last.
- There are some very minor, low impact and widely accepted fixes being put in place at competitions for the issues that have been flagged

If there is an underlying issue here, I don't think it's proving to be particularly significant...

[spotteddog]

10 at the recent 1 day event in Perth being the first leg of the Scottish FOG League 2014. Pretty sound so far thankfully.
HH

[david53]

The Armies for the Challenge might be interesting then to see if peoples impressions about mounted armies being chosen over foot.

[nigelemsen]

A view from the bottom:

"Mounted armies being un historical" point... Of course there are historical versions... E.g. Mongols/Tatars and their off spring.. So a min % foot restriction would knock these armies out...

All mounted armies do not auto win... Just look at the various results and I remember Alasdair saying he practiced for well over a year before things started to work out...

I think its a no win for organisers...

You either have to go very tight themes/allowed lists plus some specific requirements. Such as an up and coming one day event. But you could end up with playing in effect "blue on blue" as other than minor tweaks and uniforms your playing the same army again and again..

You do it by book/date as per now players will for the pecieved power list. (Back to the dark days of early dbm )

I find the one day events a possible good solution to try and cater for many tastes and people get to play a number games in their preferred format without any major shift in the main bhgs comps are structured and avoids dangerous tweaks and fiddles to established rules/list sets.

Anyway, as long as I get to bring my random "brave" army choices in "daft" combo's I'll support any event I can get to... When I start to believe ranking/podium is more important than dice/toys and armies that of personal interest, it will be time to find another hobby.

Cheers.

[youngr]

'ere 'ere...

[martinvantol]

A view from the bottom:

"Mounted armies being un historical" point... Of course there are historical versions... E.g. Mongols/Tatars and their off spring.. So a min % foot restriction would knock these armies out...
When I start to believe ranking/podium is more important than dice/toys and armies that of personal interest, it will be time to find another hobby.

Hi Nigel,
Just one or two things in reply that hopefully don't repeat things I've already said.

(1) I think FOGR is not far off being able to achieve that balance, with some very small modifications, and most of those are on the lists.
(2) I don't think there can be much argument against the opinion that army lists are too liberal (the list writers themselves have said this). You're not constrained into putting out a typical army at all. It's too easy to produce a fantasy army that doesn't resemble anything that took the field. And those armies make for poor games (several of the players who turn up with these armies have said this too). I wouldn't intend to knock out Mongols and Tatars ... just to find ways of making it a balanced game in which both sides have a chance of winning and will get a decent game. If that's not possible then we shouldn't have that match-up.
(3) One thought I've started to have more recently on the lists ... is that there are too many superior mounted in all armies. I'm interested in seeing what happens in this London Southern League competition in July (i.e. all armies have to have at least 3 mounted BGs and at least 50% of mounted must be average). Historically not all mounted troops would have been superior, and yet superior mounted are the only mounted troops you've really seen so far. This restriction might be the thing that restores a balance between mixed armies and eastern mounted armies. But I'll admit we have to see how that experiment goes first - at the moment it's still only an interesting idea that we haven't tried.
(4) On your last point ... I totally agree. And I think it's the same for most of us.

Look forward to playing you some time soon ... for the first time!

Martin

[nigelemsen]

Hi martin

Look forward to playing you some time soon ... for the first time!

me, too, but will have to wait till britcon and I'll be bringing a historical army. Maybe we will get to sneak in friendly on the friday afternoon. Currently doing the history research prior to a fig order then painting marathon... Practice games.... "Themselves for wimps"

I would have liked to have made then July 1 dayer... Me thinks it's going to be very bloody... I think the application of "your few superior/veteran" units is going to critical... However the positive should be more bg's on the table which is always good... Excluding 23 BGs of poor of course...

Cheers
Nigel