Low Countries offensive spear = effective bushwhackers

[gozerius]

Last night I learned to my horror that HF OSp are completely not dissuaded from charging MF bow in enclosed fields. Charging in 2X3 they are difficult to disrupt with shooting and once in contact can expand! Yikes
I've played around with this army for a while and never got the hang of it, but loaned it to a FoG newbie and he seemed to instinctively know how to use it. Deploy behind terrain, use all your skirmishers, rear support. Arty makes nice camp guards. The battlefield was wide open on one side of the table, and the other was dotted with open and enclosed fields. I assumed he would accept battle in the clear, but he chose to send most of his OSp on an on-table flank march that quickly overwhelmed my lone BG of archers in the EF. Lucky for me, the battle was halted before he could roll up my flank. In the center he skirmished my line of Cav xbow/sw and a small BG of MF Xbow at the edge of an OF then retreated behind his own MF Xbow. his use of skirmishers so slowed my advance that my main battleline of DSp and right wing of KN never came to blows with his KN flanked by OSp.

[DaiSho]

Last night I learned to my horror that HF OSp are completely not dissuaded from charging MF bow in enclosed fields. Charging in 2X3 they are difficult to disrupt with shooting and once in contact can expand! Yikes
I've played around with this army for a while and never got the hang of it, but loaned it to a FoG newbie and he seemed to instinctively know how to use it. Deploy behind terrain, use all your skirmishers, rear support. Arty makes nice camp guards. The battlefield was wide open on one side of the table, and the other was dotted with open and enclosed fields. I assumed he would accept battle in the clear, but he chose to send most of his OSp on an on-table flank march that quickly overwhelmed my lone BG of archers in the EF. Lucky for me, the battle was halted before he could roll up my flank. In the center he skirmished my line of Cav xbow/sw and a small BG of MF Xbow at the edge of an OF then retreated behind his own MF Xbow. his use of skirmishers so slowed my advance that my main battleline of DSp and right wing of KN never came to blows with his KN flanked by OSp.

They would have been disordered by the terrain, so:
1 - would have lost 1 in 3 dice
2 - would have lost the ability to stop you counting your swordsman (assuming they were Swordsmen)
3 - would have been really crushed on Impact (you would have had TONNES of dice vs his not many for being disordered!)

Ian

[hammy]

Just be thankful you didn't think your longbow swordsmen archers in a single rank in a wood would be a good way to stop enemy knights from picking on them

Terrain in FoG is not as absolutley black and white in terms of combat impact compared to some other games.

[gozerius]

Well, these guys were just your run of the mill protected bow, no swordsman capability, and couldn't shoot their way out of a paper sack to boot. 8 dice needing 5 + 4 dice needing 6 (they were shooting at targets in the enclosed field, remember) vs 6 dice needing 4. He rolled just good enough and I rolled just bad enough that I lost the impact, disrupted, lost a base, then he expanded so he had 8 dice needing 4 vs 5 dice needing 5. I'm most bitter that I beat one of his BGs but with rear support and a general attached, they shrugged it off.