army for beginners

[ShrubMiK]

There used to be a club tournament (7th edition I think...was mid-to-late 80s so was around the changeover from 6th to 7th?) at Portsmouth that involved in each game both players rolling dice and getting totally random armies, with no restrictions/allowances for chronology or geography. If you found yourself with early numidians facing something chock full of knights, that was all part of the fun.

There were certainly some interesting problems to deal with, which liven sup the game. Figuring out how to make effective use of a large number of Regular D Chinese mixed spear/crossbow is one I particularly remember. When ordered to charge to try to help the rest of my army out of trouble they promptly failed a mandatory waver test, and that was it. I still think of that traumatic experience to this day whenever a discussion on usage of defensive spearmen comes up

The only real downside was that you didn't always have enough figures of suitable type to act as proxies. I still have some stone throwing artillery drawn on cardboard, which my opponent utilised as ambush markers last week.

[timmy1]

As someone who plays Romans a lot, Sassanids are just about your worst nightmare. They can either be small, drilled, and tough in the later version, or huge in the early undriled version. I think that if you have nerves of steel run the later version with Elephants but make those death rolls.

[azrael86]

I always choose my next army in a totally random fashion.

Makes for more fun.

Provided you think of painting as fun.

[elysiumsolutions@fsmail.n]

When I started playing FOG I had quite a few armies from previous rulesets to pick from.
I picked Early Achaemenid Persian as a good beginner army to learn for the following reasons

1) It has all 4 manoeuver troop types, Skirmisher, Drilled, Undrilled Cav and Undrilled other which means you learn what each can do.
2) Potentially everyone having a bow means you won't get frustrated against LH skirmisher armies who foot armies cannot catch
3) Light spear is the most point efficient weapon in FOG
4) The Immortals (worth having just for the name)

Ultimately you will want to move on as Undrilled foot stink and the compulsary cav 6 (effectively at 18pts each are just not worth the points. But you should now have a good idea what army will suit you.

Paul Longmore

[david53]

When I started playing FOG I had quite a few armies from previous rulesets to pick from.
I picked Early Achaemenid Persian as a good beginner army to learn for the following reasons

1) It has all 4 manoeuver troop types, Skirmisher, Drilled, Undrilled Cav and Undrilled other which means you learn what each can do.
2) Potentially everyone having a bow means you won't get frustrated against LH skirmisher armies who foot armies cannot catch
3) Light spear is the most point efficient weapon in FOG
4) The Immortals (worth having just for the name)

Ultimately you will want to move on as Undrilled foot stink and the compulsary cav 6 (effectively at 18pts each are just not worth the points. But you should now have a good idea what army will suit you.

Paul Longmore

My favourite enemy Paul your girly Persians shooting everyone not real men? you've given up them for a morally corrupt army not like my proper troops

[azrael86]

My favourite enemy Paul your girly Persians shooting everyone not real men? you've given up them for a morally corrupt army not like my proper troops

EAP is usually based around immortals and hoplites. The latter are always eager for man-on-man contact

[elysiumsolutions@fsmail.n]

I did used to play the 479BC option which gave me 3 BGs of Arm, off spears.
Dave used to like to play LH armies and therefore regarded an army with lots of foot bows as girley for not just standing and being shot like real men. The immortals are particularly girley against horse archers being armoured and in 8s they are pretty well invulnerable to shooting and being drilled MF are hard to get away from.

Now I play a morally bankrupt Dom Rom army Dave is much happier.

Paul longmore