Newbie question - how long does a game take

[imrael]

Hi

Possibly a silly question, but I game in mid-weeks and often have early starts the next day. How long does a typical FoG game take once the players are reasonably familiar with the rules. A friend and I are trying the game out, and plan to work up from about 400 points to 800 in 15mm. I was a bit alarmed at mentions of 4 hours being typical and tournaments with a 3.5 hour time limit struggling, since I cant really support an 11.30pm finish then half hour drive home on a weekday.

Thanks in advance

[Brainsnaffler]

Well, depends on lots of things like size of the army, familiarity of the rules etc.

The typical playing time is supposed to be 3 hours, but you can bet it will be longer the first few times you play. There is another thread somewhere on here where people have raised these issues.

If you are really pushed for time though, you could try to:-

A) use smaller armies 400-600pts

B) Make sure you use battle lines to move your infantry up a lot quicker and thus get into combat quicker

C) Simplify the setup procedure or agree it before the game day, and so you just have to bang your army down and off you go.

The main rules mechanism is really streightforward. It just takes a lot of practice and patience to remember all of the instances where the more complex rules might come up.

Hope this helps

[Brainsnaffler]

Oh, and use a quick reference sheet - it saves tons of time!

[hammy]

It depends on a lot of factors.

As players get more experienced games go faster.

Less skirmishy armies play faster

Less points playes faster.

I would say that a 600 point game between a couple of players who have played 4 or 5 games should take no more than a couple of hours and quite possibly less.

At the moment I have a 50% completion rate (one army or the other broken) in 900 or 1000 point games with a 3.5 hour time limit.

If you want a faster game, start with smaller armies on a smaller table say 450 points on a 4' by 3' table or 650 on a 5 by 3.

[carlos]

Or start w/ a handicap of say 4 attrition points for each side, so a 12 BG army needs only to lose 4 BGs to break. This might impact the game balance negatively though, so try it at your own risk.

[Andy1972]

my first game, we played with 600 points.. and finished in 5 hours.. We were learning the rules. The next game was with 800 points.. It took like 7 hours.. But we were very laid back, chatted alot and looked up everything and took our time. The last game i played we were done in like 4 hours. That was like my 6th game.

[peterrjohnston]

was a bit alarmed at mentions of 4 hours being typical and tournaments with a 3.5 hour time limit struggling

At the Challenge, the largest FoG singles tournament I'm aware of, at least 55% of the games had a conclusive
result, ie one player getting greater than 20 is definitely a result. It's also possible anything over 16 was a result.
That's quite a high percentage in a tournament.

So the idea games are struggling in a 3.5 hour time limit is a bit of red herring; not sure where it's come from.

since I cant really support an 11.30pm finish then half hour drive home on a weekday.

I have a similar problem living some distance from where I can game. Set a time to finish (I find FoG helps in this
respect as individual turns are fairly quick, compared to later stage DBM turns, so stopping at 11pm say generally does
mean stopping at 11pm), relax and have fun . It's not compulsory to finish a game, and it's often obvious where
a game is heading.

Rgds,
Peter

[DVeight]

Had about 20 games to date. Started of slow where we played for about 5 hours but now we are at a point where we finish a 800 point game within 3 hours. As talked about above, its all about how familiar you are with the rules and using a reference sheet is a must so you can quickly refer to the right tables and resolve the situation.

[meledward23]

I had around 4 complete games before a tourney. I think in the tourney the games steadily become more rapid. Overall that cycled seemed to persist for all players. I would say on average 1/2 the games were done early. I am sure 2 of mine were over around 2.5 hours of play.

[SirGarnet]

How much do you see flank marches, outflanking maneuvers, or trying to skirmish/shoot down the enemy slowing the game and adding turns because one side delays closure until its plan matures?

[hammy]

A quick bit of lateral thinking on the Challenge results and I came up with the following:

In 15mm there were 41 players so 20 games a round, 5 rounds so 100 games. There were also 5 byes which are scored at the maximum.

Summing the player scores and subtracting the 125 points from byes gives 2285 points scored which translates as 57% of games completed. For a first big tournament that is IMO a good percentage.

In 25mm 21 out of 25 games completed in the time available. This is IMO mainly down to lower point armies.

At the first round of the doubles only 9 games out of 24 completed in the alloted time but that was 1000 point armies and less experienced players. It will be interesting to see how things go this weekend.

If you want a quick game play less points, then gradually add points as you get faster.

[peterrjohnston]

Summing the player scores and subtracting the 125 points from byes gives 2285 points scored which translates as 57% of games completed. For a first big tournament that is IMO a good percentage.

Just counting the 20 plus scores and taking the percentage of games played gets the same. Of course, it's
possible scores of 16 to 19 were also win/loses as well, so the final percentage may be higher.

Either way, as you say, the percentage is relatively high.

Rgds,
Peter

[neilhammond]

How much do you see flank marches, outflanking maneuvers, or trying to skirmish/shoot down the enemy slowing the game and adding turns because one side delays closure until its plan matures?

Not too many FMs. I've done it once but it wasn't effective for various reasons. I've not seen it done very often, which is probably good.

Outflanking attempts are relatively common as most armies don't stretch across the table. It's an important option for LH/Cv armies who usually can't take out foot armies frontally.

I've used a skirmishing army in my last comp (Numidians). They were fairly successful and skirmish armies can work.

The important point for either skirmishing armies or flanking attempts is that you want to move the game along quickly, not slow it down, to get a result. Melee tends to be more decisive than shooting so if you're relying on shooting you need lots of turns in which to shoot and consequently force CTs.

You can delay part of an opponent's forces with lights whilst you try an overwhealm another part of the line - but only to a limited extent. You need to win quickly otherwise you'll find your delaying troops driven off the table or run down and you're suddenly losing BGs at an excessive rate.