4 base skirmishing BGs

[philqw78]

and I cannot believe I am sat here defending swarm, I have never used one, but do not see them as a problem. They have more weak points.

[babyshark]

and I cannot believe I am sat here defending swarm, I have never used one, but do not see them as a problem. They have more weak points.

Hooray! I'm with you, brother.

Marc

[AlanYork]

Is the swarm tactic a viable historical one? I can't think of too many examples of Dominate Romans or horse armies heavily outnumbering their opposition. More so, by having more battlegroups has the effect that armies are very difficult to break in a field battle, and I'm not sure if this is historical either.

It seems to me that there are simply too many armies allowed to form "swarm". I've said previously that my Yorkists can form up to 10 or 11 units of 4 bill bases, they in effect become Roman cohorts with bills rather than pila. Sure you can play them like that but it's just out and out WRONG, look at how Wars of the Roses armies deployed if you don't believe me. I actually field my billmen in 3 blocks of 8 because I want it to LOOK LIKE a Yorkist army, not a "tournament tiger". Part of the reason I hardly go to tournaments now is I met too many people who had the "killer army" but who knew nothing about its history and couldn't even name one of its generals and who then went on to tell me where I went wrong after beating my correctly organised and deployed army with their "Shinga Shanga Men of Dinga Danga" who only ever existed on a coin and in a list writer's mind but have the latest super troop or are designed to be unbeatable in the time limit. Well that's fine but at least I know who fought who, when and why when it comes down to my guys, and at least they have some relevance to Macedonians / 15th century Yorkists!!!! (Rant over)

IMO the fault is with lists that don't have "command factors" as in the old WRG 6th edition. (For those who don't go back that far armies paid 10 points for each regular unit and 25 points for each irregular one.) It worked fine as far as I could see.

From my point of view if somebody wants to use a swarm army that's fine, there's nothing wrong with wanting to avoid defeat, but if that's the ENTIRE purpose of an army then why bother? Petrol costs horrendous amounts of money in Britain, why waste all that cash going to a competition just to play for draws? It doesn't matter if you lose, it's only a game. I'd rather lose a good game to somebody who knows about his army, somebody who you can have a friendly chat with about his troops between moves than win a bad game against some of the barely painted monstrosities that happen to be the "latest thing".

[philqw78]

there's nothing wrong with wanting to avoid defeat, but if that's the ENTIRE purpose of an army then why bother? Petrol costs horrendous amounts of money in Britain, why waste all that cash going to a competition just to play for draws? It doesn't matter if you lose, it's only a game. I'd rather lose a good game to somebody who knows about his army, somebody who you can have a friendly chat with about his troops between moves than win a bad game against some of the barely painted monstrosities that happen to be the "latest thing".

Has anybody ever met this person? Even the man that designed and copywrote the first swarm plays it to win. He is also hard to defeat though.

From what I have seen of swarm armies they are harder to finish off. But they aren't brought to competitions to draw with. If you wanted to do that you could bring Spartans.

It seems some people aren't happy with just winning, and when they start to win their opponent must roll over and allow all their BG to be destroyed easily:

"Oh I can't catch that BG of LH. You must be cheating."

[ethan]

Has anybody ever met this person? Even thie man that designed and copywrote the first swarm plays it to win. He is aldo hard to defeat though. From what I have seen of swarm armies they are harder to finish off. But they aren't brought to competition to draw with. If you wanted to do that you could bring Spartans.

Some of this may be a hangover from DBM, but it was IMO very bad for DBM. In DBM I was "this guy", not that I played for a draw -- rather I was quite happy to use Ugaritics in an open comp with three commands of 18.5 -21.5EE (and a 12.5) each of which magically had 6 -7 (or 4) elements of "real" troops that I could afford to lose. If you beat all that you where then a good half a table away from all the Ps(I) that bulked out the army so good luck getting to it to win.

This was "good play" and Ugaritics were quite a common army (and there were many other similar themes using Ottomans, Bedouins, etc) but it was certainly a bad thing for the game. If you committ your army to fighting and "lose" you should lose the game, not being able to run about for the last hour of the game trying ot avoid defeat with a "cleverly" designed army.

I can see some of this in the swarm armies, which I have fought a couple of times. They make the big engagement which if they lose means they start running away with lost of drilled MF and those are not easy to catch with anything mounted or foot. There are two bad things going on here in FoG large BG armies and the "Benny Hill" end game. Neither is positive. I love the game, it has revitalized my interest in ancients but pretending there are no issues at all isn't helpful either.

[lawrenceg]

I can see some of this in the swarm armies, which I have fought a couple of times. They make the big engagement which if they lose means they start running away with lost of drilled MF and those are not easy to catch with anything mounted or foot. There are two bad things going on here in FoG large BG armies and the "Benny Hill" end game. Neither is positive. I love the game, it has revitalized my interest in ancients but pretending there are no issues at all isn't helpful either.

When I took an army of heavy foot and heavy chariots to Warfare, I noticed the "Benny Hill" "end game" started on the first turn in some cases.

[philqw78]

When I took an army of heavy foot and heavy chariots to Warfare, I noticed the "Benny Hill" "end game" started on the first turn in some cases.

So is that their fault for bringing an army that cannot cope with yours, or your fault for bringing an army that cannot cope with theirs?

[madaxeman]

There are two bad things going on here in FoG large BG armies and the "Benny Hill" end game. Neither is positive. I love the game, it has revitalized my interest in ancients but pretending there are no issues at all isn't helpful either.

Here here. Taking a 6' wide "pseudo-swarm" is the only half-decent answer I've come up with to try and avoid both a LH swarm and the Benny Hill end game, and right now I'm frankly not that enthused by the prospect of using similar pseudo-swarm armies again and again for the forseeable future.

However the only alternative seems to be to take something "normal" and have a high probability of having to sit through 1-2 games each competition that are both un-winnable and are tedious to play. Great.

[dave_r]

Define "normal". I am quite confident of a Lydian army taking apart Shooty Cav types. Did it at the club last Monday, absolutely massacred a Sassanid Drilled Shooty Cav type thing.

My army was comprised of some spearmen, some Cavalry, some Light Horse, some Light Foot and some Medium Foot. So combined arms it was.

I didn't even know I was going to face a Sassanid army.

[madaxeman]

Define "normal". I am quite confident of a Lydian army taking apart Shooty Cav types. Did it at the club last Monday, absolutely massacred a Sassanid Drilled Shooty Cav type thing.

My army was comprised of some spearmen, some Cavalry, some Light Horse, some Light Foot and some Medium Foot. So combined arms it was.

I didn't even know I was going to face a Sassanid army.

Both thoseare normal and are not swarms in my book.

[Ghaznavid]

there's nothing wrong with wanting to avoid defeat, but if that's the ENTIRE purpose of an army then why bother? Petrol costs horrendous amounts of money in Britain, why waste all that cash going to a competition just to play for draws? It doesn't matter if you lose, it's only a game. I'd rather lose a good game to somebody who knows about his army, somebody who you can have a friendly chat with about his troops between moves than win a bad game against some of the barely painted monstrosities that happen to be the "latest thing".

Has anybody ever met this person? Even the man that designed and copywrote the first swarm plays it to win. He is also hard to defeat though.

From what I have seen of swarm armies they are harder to finish off. But they aren't brought to competitions to draw with. If you wanted to do that you could bring Spartans.

Sure? If I understood Peter Johnston right that was pretty much the idea of this army here viewtopic.php?t=14483
(there was also another one like it based on early Irish with "only" 23 BGs at the same tournament).

[AlanYork]

Has anybody ever met this person? Even thie man that designed and copywrote the first swarm plays it to win. He is aldo hard to defeat though. From what I have seen of swarm armies they are harder to finish off. But they aren't brought to competition to draw with. If you wanted to do that you could bring Spartans.

Some of this may be a hangover from DBM, but it was IMO very bad for DBM. In DBM I was "this guy", not that I played for a draw -- rather I was quite happy to use Ugaritics in an open comp with three commands of 18.5 -21.5EE (and a 12.5) each of which magically had 6 -7 (or 4) elements of "real" troops that I could afford to lose. If you beat all that you where then a good half a table away from all the Ps(I) that bulked out the army so good luck getting to it to win.

This was "good play" and Ugaritics were quite a common army (and there were many other similar themes using Ottomans, Bedouins, etc) but it was certainly a bad thing for the game. If you committ your army to fighting and "lose" you should lose the game, not being able to run about for the last hour of the game trying ot avoid defeat with a "cleverly" designed army.

I can see some of this in the swarm armies, which I have fought a couple of times. They make the big engagement which if they lose means they start running away with lost of drilled MF and those are not easy to catch with anything mounted or foot. There are two bad things going on here in FoG large BG armies and the "Benny Hill" end game. Neither is positive. I love the game, it has revitalized my interest in ancients but pretending there are no issues at all isn't helpful either.

Exactly! You hit the nail on the head Ethan.

Certainly in DBM armies that conquered the world such as Republican Roman, Alexandrian Macedonian etc were seldom seen at tournaments unless they were "themed" competitions. It wasn't that they were just on an even footing with all those knight, superior cavalry and "super skirmisher" armies, hell an even chance would have been fine, but in the hands of an average player like myself they just seemed impossible to win with.

If turning up with cleverly designed Ugaritic, Bedouin or Asian City States etc armies (not exactly Alexander when it comes to military achievements are they?!) and designing it so that filler makes it impossible to catch and beat was the way to win, well in the end I just saved the petrol money and didn't bother. I didn't possess "killer armies" and had no intention of buying one just to win a tin cup. I think that and general boredom after 15 years killed off DBM. In about 15 or so years boredom will probably kill off FoG, it's the same with all rule sets IMO. Still between now and then we might as well all enjoy ourselves playing.

FoG was a slow burner for me, at the start I thought it was horribly indexed, had far too many pages to take in and looked and felt like a Haines car manual. Games seemed a bit dull and long winded too. I almost gave up and bought Impetus. Since then my opinion has changed somewhat, the indexing and layout is still poor IMO but FoG has grown on me and I'm starting to appreciate and enjoy it more the more I play it. I would like to enter a few tournaments later this year, but with petrol being the insane price it is in the UK I'd want to be sure that I have an even chance of winning with a "normal" army before making the trip. There does seem to be an issue here and I believe "command factors" ie points per unit is the way to fix it. I'd not want "swarm" to be the issue in FoG that the "super skirmisher" was in DBM.

[benos]

unfortunatly this is i thiink a product of competitions.
It seems to happen in every system that there are a couple of tactics that can either make it seem too easy to win or too difficult to lose with a particular army. dBM had the breakpoint issue (ethan's ugaritics as mentioned) fog seems to have swarms. Wab has the nomad horde of uncatchable move shoot move cavalry.
The thing is some players will always try and get that extra bit out of thier army. And often those looking to do this but with less skill try to make the army unbeatable. Often the annoying situation isn't the first time this happens but when it becomes commonplace. The answer is the evolution of the game. I personally would rather go for a win and lose horribly than dance around trying not to lose troops. But some people take the game that seriously.
Anyway the challenge is there. Those competition gurus out there. Tell us how you beat the uncatachable swarm?
And make the game about who plays the army better not who has more battlegroups.

ben

[nikgaukroger]

IMO a scoring system as Richard suggested would be a good thing to give a go over a number of goodly sized comps, especially in GB. IMO it won't disadvantage those who use largish number of BG armies and who play to win (Mr Ruddock for example) as they win or lose anyway, and will quite possibly reduce the Benny hill moments (as Ethan suggests) which are a known bad feature of FoG. It would really only disadvantge those who are using large numbers of BGs as an insurance against defeat - and that has to be a good thing.

It might also shut the boy Porter up, as he has now exceeded Hammy on the "Wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah ..... and then X happened" stakes

[madaxeman]

I'm already choosing to do less competitions this year as a result of this sort of thing - I have to have something else to make up the time

[philqw78]

I'm already choosing to do less competitions this year as a result of this sort of thing - I have to have something else to make up the time

Tim, I honestly think you are making this up just to have something to whinge about.

At Britcon you played against
Principate Roman; too expensive to swarm
Foederate Roman; maybe max 15
Sassanids; 13 or 14
Ostrogoths; 12
Dominate Roman: 19, 4 of which LH
Nikes; 12 or 13

Where's your problem? Most of your opponents you outnumbered in BG, and the army with the samllest number beat you*. Although he had 4 BG of LF. One of which charged your Armoured Aux.

*slightly

[ethan]

IMO a scoring system as Richard suggested would be a good thing to give a go over a number of goodly sized comps, especially in GB. IMO it won't disadvantage those who use largish number of BG armies and who play to win (Mr Ruddock for example) as they win or lose anyway, and will quite possibly reduce the Benny hill moments (as Ethan suggests) which are a known bad feature of FoG. It would really only disadvantge those who are using large numbers of BGs as an insurance against defeat - and that has to be a good thing.

Might be interesting/helpful if the authors would explicitly list this as "something we are interested in seeing tested." I think the limits suggested (10 attription points at 650AP, 13 @ 800, 15 @ 900) are pretty good choices.

[nikgaukroger]

IMO a scoring system as Richard suggested would be a good thing to give a go over a number of goodly sized comps, especially in GB. IMO it won't disadvantage those who use largish number of BG armies and who play to win (Mr Ruddock for example) as they win or lose anyway, and will quite possibly reduce the Benny hill moments (as Ethan suggests) which are a known bad feature of FoG. It would really only disadvantge those who are using large numbers of BGs as an insurance against defeat - and that has to be a good thing.

Might be interesting/helpful if the authors would explicitly list this as "something we are interested in seeing tested." I think the limits suggested (10 attription points at 650AP, 13 @ 800, 15 @ 900) are pretty good choices.

What has it got to do with the authors? IMO scoring systems are for comp organisers - is anyone using the one in the rules for example?

[hammy]

Might be interesting/helpful if the authors would explicitly list this as "something we are interested in seeing tested." I think the limits suggested (10 attription points at 650AP, 13 @ 800, 15 @ 900) are pretty good choices.

What has it got to do with the authors? IMO scoring systems are for comp organisers - is anyone using the one in the rules for example?

I would be very happy to run a 10 BG max for scoring purposes in the 650 point comp I am running at Birmingham. That said not many armies have more than 10 BG at 650 points. For that matter I rarely use more than 13 at 800 but that is beating a dead horse in this thread.

Personally I still favour a scoring system where every lost AP up to 10 costs you a VP. It is simple and penalises large armies. It won't stop Graham winning comps with a swarm though.

[peterrjohnston]

What has it got to do with the authors? IMO scoring systems are for comp organisers - is anyone using the one in the rules for example?

No, and I wish we did, because it seems eminently sensible as I already stated somewhere in the depths of this discussion. It rewards wins, with a second objective of minimising losses. Which is surely what winning battles was about.