Slitherine

Well a bit of both. I distinctly remember 1 overlapping figure on shielded and 3 on unshielded side and it was firmly in the forefront of my mind. One of those details that get seared into your memory...

But yes I was thinking more of pre-7th than 7th though, with the individual figure removal. And you may be right about only one figure overlapping to each side, I just had a quick skim of the rulebook but can't see it stated clearly. (That too is classic WRG )

When I first saw FoG my initial reaction was that it was going back from DBx to something that felt somewhat similar to 7th edition, but simpler. Which, IMO, was a compliment.

FoG recaptures a lot of what I enjoyed about WRG 7th (as well as some of the earlier versions) and avoids many of the headaches that 7th tended to induce . So on the whole I definitely agree with you. (I don't miss the individual figure removal and too many of my troops are still based including a mix of single figure stands to allow for that as well as for forming the devastating wedge formation .

Chris

ShrubMiK wrote:When I first saw FoG my initial reaction was that it was going back from DBx to something that felt somewhat similar to 7th edition, but simpler. Which, IMO, was a compliment.

I like to think of FoG as the type of Ancients wargame I played for the first 20 years of my wargaming life but with 21st century rule mechanisms.

Simpler, cleaner, faster but still great fun.

The hard thing about making a mini FoG is that you have to take a system that has pared quite a lot of things down almost as far as they can be and make is even simpler and cleaner. This means you will probably have to throw a number of mechanisms out of the game completely. The question is which ones can go without wrecking the game?

We have played a number of 400 AP FoG competitions in Ireland where we are trying to fit 3 games into 1 day (akin to the old DBM200 system).
We halve the points costs of generals, with a maximum of 3 generals, and halve the minima and maxima of troop types in a list - however, you can always field one minimum size BG of any troop type.
Armies usually work out at 6 to 8 BGs and we play on 4 feet wide by 3 feet deep tables, with deployment reduced to 7" and 10" from the base edge.
They work quite well.

DavidT wrote:We have played a number of 400 AP FoG competitions in Ireland where we are trying to fit 3 games into 1 day (akin to the old DBM200 system).
We halve the points costs of generals, with a maximum of 3 generals, and halve the minima and maxima of troop types in a list - however, you can always field one minimum size BG of any troop type.
Armies usually work out at 6 to 8 BGs and we play on 4 feet wide by 3 feet deep tables, with deployment reduced to 7" and 10" from the base edge.
They work quite well.

That is not that different to the 650 point on a 5 by 3 with 2 1/2 hours a game format I have used at a number of one day UK events. The only rules I changed are that each player gets a compulsary terrain piece plus 1-3 optional terrain and that compulsary terrain cannot be discarded because it won't fit. No changes to deployment distances and yes that does mean you can charge enemy skirmishers with your light horse on turn 1.

So far in 5 tournaments to this format there is a better than 50% game completion and the biggest issue I seem to have is that the events I am running them at are space limited so I have actually had to turn players away :O

That is not that different to the 650 point on a 5 by 3 with 2 1/2 hours a game format I have used at a number of one day UK events.

As a "customer" of 2 of these (so far) I can only agree. It's just like a real game, only smaller and quicker.

Other reasons for playing 400 AP games was limited space (it is easier to fit in a larger numbe of 4'x3' tables) and limited player experience which meant that games generally completed because of the small army sizes. However, as players over here are becoming more experienced with the rules, we have been discussing playing 600 AP or even 650 AP games. If we can fit the tables in, we may give Hammy's system a go.

ShrubMiK wrote:Well a bit of both. I distinctly remember 1 overlapping figure on shielded and 3 on unshielded side and it was firmly in the forefront of my mind. One of those details that get seared into your memory...

But yes I was thinking more of pre-7th than 7th though, with the individual figure removal. And you may be right about only one figure overlapping to each side, I just had a quick skim of the rulebook but can't see it stated clearly. (That too is classic WRG )

When I first saw FoG my initial reaction was that it was going back from DBx to something that felt somewhat similar to 7th edition, but simpler. Which, IMO, was a compliment.

I recall some manufacturers started making left handed figures so that both ends of the line only got the 1 figure shielded overlap....

I recall some manufacturers started making left handed figures so that both ends of the line only got the 1 figure shielded overlap....

I remember reading that some Chinese units were formed with left and right handed people so as not to present a shieldless flank. But that may just have been some devious type trying to justify his left/right handed figures!

DavidT wrote:Other reasons for playing 400 AP games was limited space (it is easier to fit in a larger numbe of 4'x3' tables) and limited player experience which meant that games generally completed because of the small army sizes. However, as players over here are becoming more experienced with the rules, we have been discussing playing 600 AP or even 650 AP games. If we can fit the tables in, we may give Hammy's system a go.

I think that you can get a decent game with a 600 point starter army on a 4 by 3 table. 5 by 3 is plenty of space for 650 points, 4 by 3 might be a little tight for 600 but it should work.

@DavitdT: Please check your PMs, thank you.

grahambriggs wrote: I recall some manufacturers started making left handed figures so that both ends of the line only got the 1 figure shielded overlap....

:O

V. cheeky, if true!

Tenuous link to...

I suppose there is some justification for this sort of thing. Falkland Palace in Fife, Scotland has spiral staircases which go round the opposite way to the usual. The reason supposedly was that the owning family had a high incidence of left handedness, and when you are defending from higher up staircase it is easier if your weapon hand is at the outside of the spiral not the inside.

(I wasn't entirely convinced by that explanation...in a left-hander vs. right-hander confrontation in a spiral staircase, whichever way the spiral goes they are either both going to be advantaged or disadvantaged.)

ShrubMiK wrote:I suppose there is some justification for this sort of thing. Falkland Palace in Fife, Scotland has spiral staircases which go round the opposite way to the usual. The reason supposedly was that the owning family had a high incidence of left handedness, and when you are defending from higher up staircase it is easier if your weapon hand is at the outside of the spiral not the inside.

(I wasn't entirely convinced by that explanation...in a left-hander vs. right-hander confrontation in a spiral staircase, whichever way the spiral goes they are either both going to be advantaged or disadvantaged.)

Stairways would would be defended from the top, so anticlockwise looking down. (for right handers.) Obviously not for these porridge eating freaks.

I have nothing against people that eat porridge, just freaks

philqw78 wrote:

ShrubMiK wrote:I suppose there is some justification for this sort of thing. Falkland Palace in Fife, Scotland has spiral staircases which go round the opposite way to the usual. The reason supposedly was that the owning family had a high incidence of left handedness, and when you are defending from higher up staircase it is easier if your weapon hand is at the outside of the spiral not the inside.

(I wasn't entirely convinced by that explanation...in a left-hander vs. right-hander confrontation in a spiral staircase, whichever way the spiral goes they are either both going to be advantaged or disadvantaged.)

Stairways would would be defended from the top, so anticlockwise looking down. (for right handers.) Obviously not for these porridge eating freaks.

I have nothing against people that eat porridge, just freaks

'Tis true. I have actually got some combat experience fighting up and down spiral staircases. Almost all the stiarcases in the castle I fought in were the wrong way and it was actually quite hard to defend if you were right handed.

hammy wrote:'Tis true. I have actually got some combat experience fighting up and down spiral staircases. Almost all the stiarcases in the castle I fought in were the wrong way and it was actually quite hard to defend if you were right handed.

Obviously they were designed to defend vs. Dragon delivered, air-borne, assault troops.

Just a random thought but has anyone tried/thought of a much more compact 'DBA style' approach to mini FOG?

I have not thought this really through but starting with things such as:

* Just use one base per unit and then use book keeping/a sheet for how many bases an element really has. Alternatively, elements could be 4 normal FOG bases -but that limits some unit/army formations an army list mapping.

* Dead "bases" are marked with tokens in a similar style as cohesion or are just kept track on in book keeping

* Always assume the unit is always in the best format for combat. 2 deep/3 or 4 deep etc for POA

* MU's would be in cm's

* Flanked units do not turn to face and fight with a max of 1/4 of the bases in the unit

* TC's would have a command range of 1 CM. FC would have 5 cm and IC 9 cm - to allow for the different sizes of units vs commanders.

* Elements would not automatically align, but would fight with 1/2 their base equivalent in they are not corner to corner and front edge to enemy aligned

* Table size of 24" and I'm not sure what the initial deployment spacing would be.

This is just an idea at this point, but with some refinement could be a viable small scale FoG game. It could be used as a teaching aid/intro to FoG and also allow for games in a much smaller space and quicker to set up/play, as well as a way of playing games with significantly less figs.

Well as stated just a random collection of idea's...

I've done a few intro games at 250pts without any changes to the rules -- other than removing battle lines and 2nd moves. I chose both armies, ignoring the BG requirements but maintaining the usual number of bases. I made the armies as "plain" as possible, but made sure that battle groups were never duplicated.

Alexandrian Macedonian
Alexander -- IC
12 Phalangites
6 Thracian Peltasts (LS/SW)
4 Companion Cavalry
points = 256

Late Achaemenid Persian
Darius III -- FC
8 Mercenary Hoplites
8 LF archers
4 Skythian Horse archers
4 Cavalry (Arm, Sup, LS/SW)
points = 258

This worked out really well. The new player got a "taste" of many different unit types, a battle that felt semi-historical, and the choice of two decent armies without being overwhelmed with rules. It was fast (for a new player) and fun.

No rules had to be changes -- just some more complicated ones were left out.