Slitherine

How about a pre 1150AD to give the Normans a chance.

Oh and a bit more tightness on the themes. (I personally think Nik et al should have been as well). But we ended with a dark age europe theme filled with steppe armies.

philqw78 wrote:How about a pre 1150AD to give the Normans a chance.

You could do a Heavy Knight armies theme - armies that have at least an option for them (less a couple of lists who would distort the theme).

It might be nice to rerun the Dark Ages pool from this year, but not allow the horse boy armies - well, other than "proper" western European horsey types of Cv with Light Spear or Lance than is.

If you do wish to see Dark Age foot fielded you might also consider changing the table size?

I'm sure the period would work better on a 5' x 3' table - and ban the shooty cav armies too.

But I agree with the other comments you've received - themed periods are so much better.

petedalby wrote:If you do wish to see Dark Age foot fielded you might also consider changing the table size?

I'm sure the period would work better on a 5' x 3' table - and ban the shooty cav armies too.

But I agree with the other comments you've received - themed periods are so much better.

I'm not sure that I could easily modify the table size (would make the draw difficult) - but I can certainly modify the points allowed. 900points in the Ottoman period definately gave the games a different feel and made knights more potent. Think I might run one pool at 800pts, one at 850pts and one at 900pts next year.

How about requiring the teams to bring an 800, an 850 and a 900 point army, but allow the teams to choose which army was each size?

If you wanted a 'dark age hairy' style of tournament perhaps have a rule that says each army must have a certain minimum number of undrilled MF/HF etc. BGs in addition to any date restriction.

Don't understand why narrower tables gives a problem with the draw?

I've suggested elsewhere that an interesting format would be to have a mix of 5 foot, 6 foot and 7 foot width tables, assigned at random (but for teams of three you could have one of each). So table space would be the same (you could pair up the 5 foot and 7 foot tables to make it easy).

hannibal wrote:

petedalby wrote:If you do wish to see Dark Age foot fielded you might also consider changing the table size?

I'm sure the period would work better on a 5' x 3' table - and ban the shooty cav armies too.

But I agree with the other comments you've received - themed periods are so much better.

I'm not sure that I could easily modify the table size (would make the draw difficult) - but I can certainly modify the points allowed. 900points in the Ottoman period definately gave the games a different feel and made knights more potent. Think I might run one pool at 800pts, one at 850pts and one at 900pts next year.

I think 900 points of Dark Ages with no shooty type armies would have a very different feel to most FoG games - no need to change the table size for that

nikgaukroger wrote:I think 900 points of Dark Ages with no shooty type armies would have a very different feel to most FoG games - no need to change the table size for that

It depends what you term a shooty army. I think Nikephorian should be in any dark age Europe theme, fighting over Italy, or wherever it was, along with some blinding of the Russ. But they have a high proportion of shooty troops.

philqw78 wrote:

nikgaukroger wrote:I think 900 points of Dark Ages with no shooty type armies would have a very different feel to most FoG games - no need to change the table size for that

It depends what you term a shooty army. I think Nikephorian should be in any dark age Europe theme, fighting over Italy, or wherever it was, along with some blinding of the Russ. But they have a high proportion of shooty troops.

Nikeforian type shooting armies would probably be OK, it is really the mass shoot & scoot armies that need to be ineligible. So all those Khazar, Avar, Magyar and Alan armies from this years comp for example

Depending exactly what is desired by such a theme you could restrict allies allowed (so no shooty mounted allies even), or say no more than 4 BGs of mounted troops with a "full" missile capability, or whatever you think suitable to make the theme work and be fun for all the players.

I think it fun that people want now to ban shooty Cav after the majority of people in the dark age period took them. if people did'nt like them why take them? you could have taken those HF armies if you wanted, how many Vikings were there?

How is this for an 'interesting' statistic?

Now the results are all in the Hall of Honour (thanks Marc and Martin for sorting it quickly) I have done a quick calculation as to the 'deciciveness' of each of the pools.

Pool 1 had 58% of it's games end with neither army broken, Pool 2 only 44% and Pool 3 56%.

It would certainly seem that 900 point games are no less decisive than 800 point ones on that basis.

Discuss.....

david53 wrote:I think it fun that people want now to ban shooty Cav after the majority of people in the dark age period took them. if people did'nt like them why take them? you could have taken those HF armies if you wanted, how many Vikings were there?

You're rather missing the point of the suggestion for a theme Dave.

hammy wrote:How is this for an 'interesting' statistic?

Now the results are all in the Hall of Honour (thanks Marc and Martin for sorting it quickly) I have done a quick calculation as to the 'deciciveness' of each of the pools.

Pool 1 had 58% of it's games end with neither army broken, Pool 2 only 44% and Pool 3 56%.

It would certainly seem that 900 point games are no less decisive than 800 point ones on that basis.

Discuss.....

Pool 2, with all that shoot and scoot, was the most decisive

nikgaukroger wrote:

david53 wrote:I think it fun that people want now to ban shooty Cav after the majority of people in the dark age period took them. if people did'nt like them why take them? you could have taken those HF armies if you wanted, how many Vikings were there?

You're rather missing the point of the suggestion for a theme Dave.

Yes but I thought someone should say shooty armies are fine not that i use them

Now joking aside why not do what I think some people in Scotland are thinking only using armies that only fought in the UK between say the 5th century and say the 10th century, that way we could all bring our foot toys to play.

Now just a little thought about themed events is now many Serbs were there how many Khazers now many EAP. Now no worry for me playing a simular army but it could become very simular if you take a HF undrilled army and fight 4 other HF undrilled just a thought

nikgaukroger wrote:

david53 wrote:I think it fun that people want now to ban shooty Cav after the majority of people in the dark age period took them. if people did'nt like them why take them? you could have taken those HF armies if you wanted, how many Vikings were there?

You're rather missing the point of the suggestion for a theme Dave.

Not at all now many foot armies were taken in the Dark age pool.

Who wants undrilled HF when there are Cavalry lancers around or bows for that mater not many by the pick of the armies.

Allow shooty cav in any period but add Phil's evade and you take a CT rule. That would make people think.

timmy1 wrote:Allow shooty cav in any period but add Phil's evade and you take a CT rule. That would make people think.

It would make people think for about three seconds and then they wouldn't take a shooty cav army. Which would be a shame.

I think the point is that there must be a way to get a theme that is large enough to allow lots of armies in it, but to have the main troop types as heavy foot.

dave_r wrote:I think the point is that there must be a way to get a theme that is large enough to allow lots of armies in it, but to have the main troop types as heavy foot.

There is use dates instead of books or by area.

dave_r wrote:I think the point is that there must be a way to get a theme that is large enough to allow lots of armies in it, but to have the main troop types as heavy foot.

Just list the area, armies and time scale. e.g. Europe 11th century
Anglo danes
vikings
russ
norman
some early irish type
early scots
frenchy type
spanish types
yugoslavians
nikes
etc

Not allowing Steppe terrain may work
David