FOGN 2nd Edition

[MDH]

And while we're at it....make sure we get those Austrian cuffs right in the artwork or not use Austrians at all. Although I would miss the humour.

OMG just made me want to curl up and die with the sheer embarrassment of it all for not having spotted that when asked what I thought of the pictures My dear and such dreadful haircuts.... who did they go to? To quote from Barry Lyndon " I like the use by the artist of the colour blue."

Reminded me of an old cartoon in Military Modelling. Two old geezers closely inspecting a model of a Spartan Hoplite " The sand between the toes is the wrong colour for Thermopylae."

[shadowdragon]

And while we're at it....make sure we get those Austrian cuffs right in the artwork or not use Austrians at all. Although I would miss the humour.

OMG just made me want to curl up and die with the sheer embarrassment of it all for not having spotted that when asked what I thought of the pictures My dear and such dreadful haircuts.... who did they go to? To quote from Barry Lyndon " I like the use by the artist of the colour blue."

Reminded me of an old cartoon in Military Modelling. Two old geezers closely inspecting a model of a Spartan Hoplite " The sand between the toes is the wrong colour for Thermopylae."

For old time's sake...and just because I know Dan can't wait for it:

viewtopic.php?f=69&t=30434

[MDH]

And while we're at it....make sure we get those Austrian cuffs right in the artwork or not use Austrians at all. Although I would miss the humour.

OMG just made me want to curl up and die with the sheer embarrassment of it all for not having spotted that when asked what I thought of the pictures My dear and such dreadful haircuts.... who did they go to? To quote from Barry Lyndon " I like the use by the artist of the colour blue."

Reminded me of an old cartoon in Military Modelling. Two old geezers closely inspecting a model of a Spartan Hoplite " The sand between the toes is the wrong colour for Thermopylae."

For old time's sake...and just because I know Dan can't wait for it:

viewtopic.php?f=69&t=30434

I kept well out of the " cuff wars" Too busy working on the lists at that time I think .My advice to the original protaganist would probably have involved sex and travel and the acquisition of a life.

The responses do make fun reading though. All hobbies have some obsessives for whom knowledge is a weapon for use in discourse not part of a search for illumination and enlightenment ( yes that is a tautology ) Academics are of course far, far worse!

[ravenflight]

I kept well out of the " cuff wars" Too busy working on the lists at that time I think

But be reasonable, if you can't get the cover art right how in heaven's name can you be trusted to get the rules right?

I ask you.

[MDH]

I kept well out of the " cuff wars" Too busy working on the lists at that time I think

But be reasonable, if you can't get the cover art right how in heaven's name can you be trusted to get the rules right?

I ask you.

Who says I can be trusted ? Slanderous " Trust no-one" ( GoT)

All the covers do ( and most of the pics inside) is demonstrate for me how inadequate my painting is. Pointed cuff or round cuff.- sometimes you can't tell! Cuffs they had cuffs ? Who knew?

[terrys]

I've been a little quite for a few days - enjoying reading input from everyone.
In reply to some of the comments/suggestions:

1. Unreformed infantry should be 1 point cheaper due to their movement penalty (avg drilled unreformed w skirmish attachment cost the same and shoot the same as avg drilled reformed, but move 33% slower - a BIG disadvantage). Unreformed armies that do well seem to max out their cavalry to compensate for over-priced infantry.
2. Abandoned artillery rule is too onerous - you hardly ever see the artillery again and if you do they're probably wavering. Think about not making them drop morale when they abandon, and be able to test as often as they like to return. No-one voluntarily abandons because you're pretty much lost anyway.
3. Moving away in response to fire is messy as you move away from the firers not to your rear - causes unnecessary complexity with units crashing into each other, debates around split angles, etc - just make them fall back to their rear.
4. Similarly clarify/clean up mechanisms when falling back to 3MU from 3 firing hits. And just make it straight back and 3MU from the shooters not all enemy, otherwise you can get some odd situations where units leapfrog miles back.
5. Clunky rules re outcome moves reaching table edges, uncrossable terrain, etc. Mimic tried and tested other FOG systems - leave the table and lost if an outcome move goes over the edge, halt when hitting other uncrossables and fight/destroyed if contacted by pursuers.
6. The less unnecessary base movement, the less complexity - take away artillery pivots to fire, but allow them a two or three base wide zone of fire depending on the range, as in FOG R. Removes odd range changes, tricky pivots, measuring 1MU moves, etc
7. Reduce the complexity of rear and flank support - too many inclusions/exclusions - e.g. skirmishers give flank but not rear, cavalry can support inf but not vice versa, etc. We've been playing for years now and still keep having to look this up.
8. Counter-charges/intercept charges - still unclear whether or not single units of cav can be pulled out of a line of cav - shouldn't be allowed.
9. Cavalry in difficult terrain - LC too powerful & can clear out inf skirmishers. Cav shouldn't be allowed to charge in difficult.
10. Expand indexing on right-hand blue strip on pages to make navigation easier as per FOG R and A/M rules

1) Unreformed are already 2pts cheaper. One of the largely unnoticed value of a unit is the attrition point value. Generally speaking, unreformed armies are larger than their reformed counterparts. With an attachment they may have the same medium range fire as a reformed unit, but spending the points is optional. Austrians are very popular in UK competitions - Players enjoy the different challenge of using them, especially against reformed opponents.
2) Agreed - We'll have to do something about it.
3) Agreed - It is unnecessarily complicated. Not sure how to simplify it as yet
4) Agreed for the same reason
5) Disagree about the table edge, although may change that rule slightly. The main problem is when you fall back to something that needs a CMT to cross (like a river).
6) Pivots were introduce to give Artillery a chance of turning towards enemy who approached from the flank. I'm now not sure they should get (or deserve) this option.
7) I've never had a problem with this, but will review.
Agreed - The rule needs to be written clearer
9) I don't think cavalry are better than infantry in 'difficult'. They should be able to drive off Skirmishers in 'rough' terrain. Non-skirmish formation is much better for moving through rough if opposed by cavalry - getting out of the rough may not be the easiest thing to do though.
10) Not sure that we have a say in this. Something we'll have to discuss with the publishers


On Artillery .......

1. Remove the shoot at medium range and then abandon (the 3rd option) charge response option. Seldom chosen, hard to understand and not necessary.
2. Limit the evade move if limbered to horse artillery only (anyone think of historical examples of limbered foot artillery evading?)
3. Ditch the abandon guns rules altogether. Again, complicated and not required. If artillery runs away, it is dead. IN game terms, even should the die roll required to re-man the guns be made easier, recovering guns would still seldom occur as usually enemy are in/around their position, or it is too late in the game for re-manned (and now wavering) guns to have much effect anyway. It's very rare at the moment that you even get a chance to try and re-man them and if you do, they tend to just get killed the following turn (as they are wavering) anyway.
4. Change the points for a rocket attachment, to about 4.
5. Perhaps give heavy artillery units an extra dice at medium range (they have a longer canister range so more of the 2-6MU bracket would be subject to canister rather than roundshot). Heavy artillery are also, IMO, not quite as cost-effective as medium artillery, so this may balance things.

1) Agreed
2) With an evade move of D6, foot artillery are considered to be lumbering away from the threat. If they roll a 1 they reacted late and will likely be caught. If they roll a 6 they reacted early and moved out of range. They main problem with evades is that there's not enough of a disadvantage if they get caught - something I'm looking at.
3) I've often recovered guns - and not-recovered them. I think we can simplify them greatly by removing the choice to abandon in some situations and reducing the time-limit for reoccupying them (perhaps only in the following recovery phase as for routing troops)
4) I'd rather increase their effect in line with their points. Indeed my approach to the whole issue of re-evaluating the points is to re-balance the effect of the units - although superior/veteran/guard artillery is giving me a headache.
5) Heavy artillery have 2 advantages:- They get 4 dice at long range, and don't lose their POA at any range against buildings. Their only disadvantage is the CMT to limber. I think the 4pt difference is good value. The reason we don't give heavies an advantage at medium range is their slower rate of fire. The range for canister isn't that much different for various calibre of gun. 6MU is about right for an 8lb, with 12lb being perhaps 1MU further and 6lb 1MU shorter. In the interest of simplicity we decided to give them the same range. (given that the depth of the model is more than the difference).

Thanks for your feedback so far. Our problem is a good one to have....How to incorporate good suggestions into the rules without changing the balance or the flavour. Some will make, some will find the waste basket, others may appear in a very modified state, but be assured, they are all valuable..... Terry

[BrettPT]

I don't think cavalry are better than infantry in 'difficult'.

This is the perceived wisdom, most players automatically assume that cavalry are bad in difficult - until some rotter charges their infantry with LC in the difficult, when you discover that LC are the most effective unit to fight in difficult terrain.

Cavalry assaults into difficult are banned in NZ tournaments. When we went to Melbourne last year, the Aussies we played were not conscious of the mounted v infantry in difficult dynamic, and did not have a house rule to cover it. At the end of the first day of the tournament (after some unscrupulous Kiwi massacred some Australian infantry in difficult), the umpire made a ruling banning cavalry assaults into difficult for day 2 of the tournament.

No issues with how the rules manage cavalry in rough terrain (although I think a useful tweak would be for troops to suffer adverse terrain effects if they are in, or in contact with enemy in, rough/difficult terrain), but consider a unit of small unit of Hussars in a difficult wood facing a small unit of line infantry.

1. The hussars can not be shot at medium range (no visibility) so trot their 4MU up to close range.
2. The infantry shoot them. Get 2 dice at close range, needing a 6 to hit - unlikely to hurt the LC
3. The cavalry charge. No test needed to stand for the infantry, defensive fire is 2 dice needing 5+. Not great odds of stopping the Hussars
4. Combat. Cavalry get 3 dice. Infantry get 2 dice. Both sides need 5+ to hit.
5. The issue is that as soon as the infantry take a cohesion loss, the infantry will retire, d6 halved for difficult, with a minimum of 3MU. So the retirement move will always be 3MU, facing away as this is more than the infantry's usual move in difficult.
6. Cavalry pursue d6+2. Minimum is 3MU, so auto-catch infantry in rear, dropping the infantry a level and (if rolling 4+ in the pursuit) fighting immediately, otherwise next turn. Cavalry need 4 to hit now (rear attack)
7. Repeat step 6 until infantry dead.

8. If the infantry are LI in skirmish formation, it's just as bad for the foot sloggers. They get 4 dice in defensive fire but need 6+ to hit. In combat they get 4 dice but again need 6+. The LC get their 3 dice, needing 5+ to hit the skirmishers. The main difference is that the skirmishers will not likely face the rear when they retire, so take longer for the LC to destroy.

The foot can survive if they can do 2 hits on the mounted before taking 2 hits themselves - but their odds against this with less dice.
If the cavalry happen to have lances, it gets worse for the pbi. If the cavalry unit is a large unit of lancers (6 dice in combat), the infantry are in dire straights.

Things aren't quite so grim for infantry on a step hill, but almost (their 2 dice need 5+ to hit / 4+ in defensive fire) and they get 3 dice in combat, same as the mounted do. It's roughly an equal fight if the infantry up upslope on a difficult hill.

It's not nearly as bad as it was when infantry used to auto-drop for being charged within 2MU in difficult, but I still think this is a serious problem - one of the major 'needs a fixup' in the rules, imho.

[MDH]

Re Cavalry and infantry in difficult or rough terrain I do think as gamers we can get into a bit of a pickle about what we think we are actually attempting to model.

We don't tend to have very many different gradations of terrain in many rule sets for obvious reasons of over -complexity and problems in how you represent them visually and clearly in miniatures gaming . I wrote way back on this forum a piece on woods that I have been in on foot , or gone over in ski pods or in cable cars ( even a helicopter over a whole day in Germany ) in Europe and the UK where mounted troops could fairly easily get through, albeit not in a regular formation, and could have been on pretty even terms with men on foot -no less disadvantaged .

Equally there are woods that even individual men on foot would have problems traversing with ease. Cover and ground are interconnected - in that woods can have lots or very little undergrowth( but varying with the seasons) which affects lines of sight and regardless of that, ground, which may not suit horses at all, with fallen trees, boulders, pitfalls etc . There can be wet and marshy ground and ponds in woods. Woods in Poland Russia different to those in central Europe . Then there can be tracks in them . As I have observed ,also from the air in a light plane, (as well as more closely) woods in N America are not the same - much more "wilderness" . In New Zealand don't know . Spain also different and S Italy

But are really we up for a more complex mix? People did fight in woods of various types and not just on foot. But if we were :

a) Dense woods and open / managed woods ( not the same as plantations like orchards and vines) are two parts of the matrix. Its about density of trees and height of floor cover.

b)Then say 3 ground gradations, easy ,rough and difficult going .

c) Then you have to marry the points on the matrix with capability -impact on movement, disorder visibility, firing and combat by troop type and formation - Oh and command control .

But is that really worth doing? Would it be any better than what we have now?

In broad terms I do think light cavalry in skirmisher order, and role - which is to say irregular as we are probably positing - should be able to traverse most woods save Dense difficult and all troops open easy but with loss of some movement in all cases and some disorder depending on formation. In between is much less obvious. In some circs as I have also said before some confrontations would have no result and be a stand off eg two units of infantry in skirmisher order in dense woods regardless of ground should have little chance of impact when face to face, other things being equal.

[terrys]

The solution may just be to not allow troops to enter difficult terrain unless in Skirmish formation.

[BrettPT]

That would create issues for line infantry fighting on difficult hills.
Simply classifying woods as rough (not much undergrowth) would solve much of the problem for woods, however most tables have difficult terrain features on them (plenty of it if a defender has his way). The 'cavalry may not declare an assault into difficult terrain' rule we play seems to work well. There could be an exception for skirmishing cavalry, I haven't worked out the odds on a Cossack combat in difficult.

[MDH]

The solution may just be to not allow troops to enter difficult terrain unless in Skirmish formation.

However difficult presently includes steep slopes which are actually harder for mounted troops than foot to traverse- up down or laterally regardless of formation and role however hill ponies will be alright.

And in the present terrain rules in some regions the defender has a compulsory steep hill as his hill. Unless we re reclassified slopes we would have problems . There is a difference between moving on a steep slope and standing still on one too. Sometimes going down is harder than up as we will recall from our old Lake District walks way back.

My musings were around problems of different forms of woods (not so much difficult ground) that offer different degrees of cover . I guess I was concluding that there are inherent weaknesses in most miniatures terrain classification systems and it is not clear to me that FoG(N) is better or worse on that but it does make debates about who could do what in what terrain a little divorced from the much more varied topography we can actually see around us! We might as well focus on what makes the game work better than what different people imagine or assume a piece of terrain actually to be like!

[hazelbark]

2) With an evade move of D6, foot artillery are considered to be lumbering away from the threat. If they roll a 1 they reacted late and will likely be caught. If they roll a 6 they reacted early and moved out of range. They main problem with evades is that there's not enough of a disadvantage if they get caught - something I'm looking at.

Well caught limbered artillery should just be eliminated.

5) Heavy artillery have 2 advantages:- They get 4 dice at long range, and don't lose their POA at any range against buildings. Their only disadvantage is the CMT to limber. I think the 4pt difference is good value. The reason we don't give heavies an advantage at medium range is their slower rate of fire.

I think this justification is an error, in the sense that historically troops considered enemy 12lbers a far more dangerous thing. It may have been mental, but it was a common perception in diaries and such. Not that they liked standing in front of 6lb gun much either. This alone would justify one extra dice at all ranges.

Also buildings and long range are not common enough, so the wise point decision is almost always to not buy heavies. Which is not a proper historical view. A Corps commander would almost never say take away my Corps 12 lb reserve and give me 6 lb instead.

[hazelbark]

The solution may just be to not allow troops to enter difficult terrain unless in Skirmish formation.

However difficult presently includes steep slopes which are actually harder for mounted troops than foot to traverse- up down or laterally regardless of formation and role however hill ponies will be alright.

You could put in an exemption that allows infantry on bare steep hills. This would be useful in giving infantry an (minor way) increased role.
Need to also answer the artillery. I am trying to recall if artillery ever made it to the top of the various bluff/steep hills at Salamanca.

Overall a slight reform is needed and clarifying of terrain types and what you can have is in order regardless.

[terrys]

terrys wrote:
2) With an evade move of D6, foot artillery are considered to be lumbering away from the threat. If they roll a 1 they reacted late and will likely be caught. If they roll a 6 they reacted early and moved out of range. They main problem with evades is that there's not enough of a disadvantage if they get caught - something I'm looking at.

Well caught limbered artillery should just be eliminated.

Probably the best solution.

5) Heavy artillery have 2 advantages:- They get 4 dice at long range, and don't lose their POA at any range against buildings. Their only disadvantage is the CMT to limber. I think the 4pt difference is good value. The reason we don't give heavies an advantage at medium range is their slower rate of fire.

I think this justification is an error, in the sense that historically troops considered enemy 12lbers a far more dangerous thing. It may have been mental, but it was a common perception in diaries and such. Not that they liked standing in front of 6lb gun much either. This alone would justify one extra dice at all ranges.

Also buildings and long range are not common enough, so the wise point decision is almost always to not buy heavies. Which is not a proper historical view. A Corps commander would almost never say take away my Corps 12 lb reserve and give me 6 lb instead.

I partially agree with you. The destructive power of heavy artillery at longer range was significantly more than the extra dice we give them at the moment. The reason they were feared was the damage they could cause before the troops even got to close range. We certainly don't have enough moves of softening up fire before we get to close range - but the game would be pretty boring if we spent the first 12 moves only firing at long range. We are assuming that most of that fire has already been completed.
At closer range the importance was in the number of rounds the artillery could pour into the attacking enemy, which is where the higher rate of fire of the lighter guns wins out.
When you weigh in the chances of causing a disruption at long range, coupled with the 'sniper' effect of being allowed to target a single unit the extra dice is very valuable.

I could consider giving heavy artillery an extra dice at long range, but compensate that by making them only pass a prolong roll on a 6 - IF they are already within long range fire of a target. A unit of Heavy guns is only 8pts more than medium guns after all. for 20% more points you get a 60% higher chance of causing a disruption at long range.

[hazelbark]

At closer range the importance was in the number of rounds the artillery could pour into the attacking enemy, which is where the higher rate of fire of the lighter guns wins out.
When you weigh in the chances of causing a disruption at long range, coupled with the 'sniper' effect of being allowed to target a single unit the extra dice is very valuable.

Game effect:
Which do I want veteran medium artillery or Drilled Heavy artillery?

I think the veteran is immensely better. Now you don't have that as an option as often as you may want. But for players to think heavy artillery is a long range sniper role and a building role, just doesn't do them justice.

Also while I enjoy the laugh of the long range sniper bit, it is not really worth it, and since units have no attrition it really is a move delay if you get a lucky hit and you deployed max in and so did your opponent.

I think you are letting the "rate of fire" wage the dog. But I will move on.

[terrys]

I think the veteran is immensely better. Now you don't have that as an option as often as you may want. But for players to think heavy artillery is a long range sniper role and a building role, just doesn't do them justice.

Also while I enjoy the laugh of the long range sniper bit, it is not really worth it, and since units have no attrition it really is a move delay if you get a lucky hit and you deployed max in and so did your opponent.

The value of the guns depends heavily upon the way you plan to use them.

Heavy artillery is generally used as long range fire for softening up the enemy before you approach to with medium range.
They are much better than medium artillery for this role. If you want to disrupt an enemy unit (2 hits) before moving into medium range the odds are:
Heavy artillery ............... 42%
Medium Artillery ............. 34%
Veteran medium artillery ... 27%
Veteran medium artillery has a better chance to prolong into medium range - but that wasn't heavy artillery's primary role.
Depending on what I'm using them for I prefer the heavies. In defence they have a much higher chance of causing at least 1 hit that could disrupt you enemy's advance. In attack they're usually firing in support of the infantry where even 1 additional dice is important, but they can also threaten the building that you opponent is hanging his defence on.

It's really all about play balance and the combination of artillery fire and infantry fire (ignoring the effect of cavalry for the moment).
If we gave Heavy artillery 1 more dice, they would cause a disruption almost every move, and could cause the enemy to retire just on dice roles - even without the threat of infantry.
5 dice at long range would have them causing a disruption 55% of the time, and a large unit with 6 dice having a 65% chance.
A small unit of artillery only represents 12-19 guns (2-3 batteries) and are firing at a regiment of up to 20,000 men (for a small unit). Given that we don't allow the target any defensive action (like lying down), I think that effect is about right.

[marty]

I think a couple of your numbers may be a little off.

Maybe 37% for veteran medium artillery?

and 2,000 men in a regiment.

Martin

[terrys]

I think a couple of your numbers may be a little off.

Maybe 37% for veteran medium artillery?

and 2,000 men in a regiment.

Agree about the 2,000 men .... Disagree about the percentage.
I make it 33.6 for veterans and 25.9 for non-veterans.

Although the important thing is that it's notably less than for drilled heavies.

[hazelbark]

Heavy artillery is generally used as long range fire for softening up the enemy before you approach to with medium range.

It's really all about play balance and the combination of artillery fire and infantry fire (ignoring the effect of cavalry for the moment).
If we gave Heavy artillery 1 more dice, they would cause a disruption almost every move, and could cause the enemy to retire just on dice roles - even without the threat of infantry.

I think the long range fire isn't significant enough because you win at medium and close range.

But the other part about I am talking about giving them NOT an extra dice at long. They have that. I mean give them an extra dice at medium and close. In probably over 1/2 of the medium range shots the fire is split.

[shadowdragon]

Heavy artillery is generally used as long range fire for softening up the enemy before you approach to with medium range.

It's really all about play balance and the combination of artillery fire and infantry fire (ignoring the effect of cavalry for the moment).
If we gave Heavy artillery 1 more dice, they would cause a disruption almost every move, and could cause the enemy to retire just on dice roles - even without the threat of infantry.

I think the long range fire isn't significant enough because you win at medium and close range.

But the other part about I am talking about giving them NOT an extra dice at long. They have that. I mean give them an extra dice at medium and close. In probably over 1/2 of the medium range shots the fire is split.

I would rather see close and medium range extended for heavy artillery than an extra dice at those ranges. (1) artillery is already pretty effective at those ranges and (2) longer range effectiveness is more historical than increased lethality.