Slitherine

david53 wrote:

marty wrote:Make MF move 3" and you may as well just rename FOGA "Mounted FOG". HF are already a dying breed in open comp
Martin

Strange in the open event last weekend on the Saturday there were 6 medium foot armies out of 24 entered 25% of entries, on the Sunday there were 8 medium foot armies out of 24 entered over 30% of armies entered.

Yes but that was on 5' by 3' tables - less room for mounted to manoeuvre and potentially a significantly higher proportion of terrain than on the normal set-up. So you would expect more MF armies in that format.

Polkovnik wrote:

david53 wrote:

marty wrote:Make MF move 3" and you may as well just rename FOGA "Mounted FOG". HF are already a dying breed in open comp
Martin

Strange in the open event last weekend on the Saturday there were 6 medium foot armies out of 24 entered 25% of entries, on the Sunday there were 8 medium foot armies out of 24 entered over 30% of armies entered.

Yes but that was on 5' by 3' tables - less room for mounted to manoeuvre and potentially a significantly higher proportion of terrain than on the normal set-up. So you would expect more MF armies in that format.

True the tables were smaller but the armies were also only 650 points so propotionally about the same points per frotage as on a 6' table.

I did suggest it was HF who were a dying breed, not MF. Mf who are drilled and/or with a missile weapon can be viable. I was suggesting if there move was reduced to 3" this would be less the case and a game already slanted towards mounted armies would become even more so.

After all even if 25-33% of armies in a comp have significant numbers of foot this is hardly suggestive of a game system reflecting a wide period of ancient history in a balanced way. Particularly if those foot are predominately MF shooters.

Where are the fighting HF? They are simply too slow to get a decisive result consistently in the competition time frame. A 4" move would be a small step towards remedying this.

Martin

waldo wrote:

timmy1 wrote:Overlaps get 1 dice per file; not count as they normally do. This is THE most important change IMO.

Wouldn't this have the effect of making MF barbarians as useless now as HF barbarians? And take away some of the (meagre) advantage that being cheap has - the extra width.

The 1 dice per overlapping file in FOGR is because of the chequerboard deployments, so that troops suffer less if not in a solid line when close combat occurs.

It won't be coming to FOGAM. (Romans notwithstanding).

I would also suspect that all foot moving at 3MU would make foot armies less viable, even more so with the proposed restrictions on turning and moving. Of course, without testing it, it's hard to prove. The contrary opinion might be if foot all move 4MU then they become too good.

Personally I'd rather see foot classified as determined, normal and defensive, at 4, 3 and 2MU, or even 5, 4 and 3.

Unfortunately I suspect that would require a lot of army book rewriting, and points changes.

A balance might be Guglielmo (Bill) Marlia's suggestion, that foot move 4MU if the move starts more than 6MU away from non-skirmishers, otherwise 3MU (or possibly if they enter within it is no more than 3MU). It would have the advantage of approximately maintaining current shooting interactions, which I assume are balanced on the number of expected turns of shooting before contact could be made.

Or increase a battle line's second move length in good going dependent upon slowest moving troop type.
Lt Arty, BWg 4MU
LH 7MU
Others 6MU

My thoughts on these are inline:

Specifically mentions 40mm MU option for big toys on a big table.

This makes sense.

Determined foot for some types of shock HF. Gives a faster move. Examples might be some Taxis of Alex Mac or Successor Phalanx, and Spartan / Athenian Hoplites. I believe it should only be allowed for troops that are Unprotected or Protected.

Unclear on which troops should get this. Perhaps some MF would be better as DHF (e.g., Meshwesh?)

It has the concept of Grand Battle Groups (GBG). They are worth twice as many APs. They have to be BGs with more than 12 bases. For FoG:AM might make the cut-off as greater than 8 base BG. It would counter some of the swarm ideas.

I'd prefer to revamp the scoring system and victory loss. This change strikes me as a poor stop-gap to address that problem.

LF, MF, and LH all move 1 less MU in most cases. For LH the 3rd march move concept mitigates somewhat. I would not advocate 3rd moves in FoG:AM.

I think this will kill MF, but the LF/LH change might be OK. I also like the idea in another post about clipping these moves only within 6MU of enemy.

Difficult Forward Moves removed.

OK

Double wheels removed other than for light troops and columns on roads.

Not sure about this. If double wheels are a problem, then light troops, particularly LH are the biggest culprits.

Foot battle troops can’t turn 90 degrees and move – they ain’t Prussian Grenadiers on the parade ground! Most GBG don’t turn 90 degrees, they formation change (i.e. CMT).

This makes sense, but could be better as a within 6MU rule.

Everyone CMTs on an 8.

I like the split between Drilled/Undrilled for CMTs, but they should be harder to achieve. Perhaps changes to how generals affect the CMT are better, namely reducing the bonuses provided by generals.

Shifting limited to ½ a base width.

I don't think the shifting rules are a problem. The current 6MU single shift is useful and not too powerful.

If something blocks a turn it gets moved out of the way (subject to some anti-cheese exceptions) – the rules will need a bit of playtesting because Battle Lines are different in FoG:R.

I don't really understand this problem or solution.

Charges involving a wheel specify the wheel prior to opponent’s response (again with some anti-cheese exceptions)

The Impact Phase is a thorny mess IMO. I hope that FoG 2.0 sorts out declarations, charge targets, charge sequence, outliers, etc.

Elephants get a 4 MU ZoI.

I thought all mounted had 4MU ZoI?

When in the restricted area you can place Portable Defences and form the equivalent of Orb.

Um, OK.

Bow* effects are explicitly stated everywhere, no looking it up in the glossary every time.

OK

Pike only get the melee +PoA in 4 ranks. I am not totally certain this is right as Pk have other uses in FoG:R. Needs to be playtested for balance implications. Pk would certainly have to drop 1 point per base if this is adopted.

Overlaps get 1 dice per file; not count as they normally do. This is THE most important change IMO.

Do they need two ranks? What happens to the rear rank? Can it expand to the other overlap if available? Or is it a dice reduction for overlap fighters (1DP2B)?

HW and SSw equivalent get ++PoA in overlap.

Overlap? Do you mean Melee? Is this bundled with the dice reduction above?

Open Fields removed as a terrain type.

Open Fields or Open Spaces? I am not sure why removing Open Fields is necessary. Removing Open Spaces would be a bad change IMO.

Developed removed as a Territory Type.

Why do this? I might change the details of Developed but don't really see a need to eliminate it.

Terrain choices. The definition of how to choose compulsory types is changed. Some lists have 3 or 4 possible for each player to choose their compulsory from – means in some cases both sides can choose the same compulsory – it certainly feels as if you have a better choice.

Not sure I follow this. Are there still one compulsory piece chosen per player, just with more options?

philqw78 wrote:Or increase a battle line's second move length in good going dependent upon slowest moving troop type.
Lt Arty, BWg 4MU
LH 7MU
Others 6MU

Another option to give the HF a better chance is giving more importance to column formations (which is actually what historically happened: troops marched in column until they were close to the enemy). That way, besides restricting the fighting power of columns to avoid misuses (to always a -- regardless of any other factor), troops in column might be allowed to move up to 5 MU. That would be applied to all troops and in all terrains except for difficult (or situations like crossing a river).

Now, by the time the cavalry wing wins tis combats it is usually too late to do anything in the main line; if a HF BG wins its combats, it is likely that it would lack the movement to contribute to other combats (even the pursiut can leave some of its firendly troops unprotected in the flanks) and only the MF is fast enough to exploit the gaps.

if a HF BG wins its combats, it is likely that it would lack the movement to contribute to other combats (even the pursiut can leave some of its firendly troops unprotected in the flanks) and only the MF is fast enough to exploit the gaps.

That is quite true, many times a BG in the centre of the line breaks it's opponent and it's out of the battle for the rest of the game, considering pursuit and that many times the 2 foot battle lines meet in a late phase of the game. And now with more restrictions to maneuvre, HF will be a kind of one shot weapon, it may break (or not) it's opponent but it won't do anything else in the game.

It is certainly currently slanted a bit towards mounted armies.

Agree and some of the changes i see (like maneuvre restrictions to infantry) is going to make it worse.

marty wrote:I did suggest it was HF who were a dying breed, not MF.
Martin

1 Later Seleucid
2 Late Republican Roman
3 Later Ottoman Turkish
4 Dominate Roman
5 Alexandrian Macedonian
6 Later Carthaginian
7 Santa Hermandad Nueva Castilian
8 Principate Roman
9 100 Years War English (Continental)
9 Early Achaemenid Persian

Top 10 armies on this forums own roll of honor

Later Seleucid,Late Republican Roman,Alexandrian Macedonian and Principate Roman so thats four armies with largely Heavy Foot not including the Santa Hermandad Nueva Castilian who can have a large amount of Heavy Foot. Now thats 4 for sure and possibly another one, would that be a minium 40% and a max 50% of Heavy Foot armies in the top ten most played armies.

Can't be all bad then, can it since so many play them.

david53 wrote:Top 10 armies on this forums own roll of honor

That's top armies in terms of popularity, not effectiveness, just to be clear. Which is the subject under discussion, effectiveness, ie game balance.

For example, LRR is always going to be popular because, well, historically it was a very good army and is well known, plus Marius, Sulla, Caesar and the like are also well-known historical figures. But with an ELO value 1554 when the starting value is 1600, in FoG it's not so good.

david53 wrote:Santa Hermandad Nueva Castilian who can have a large amount of Heavy Foot.

Unless your surname is Ruddock, in which case it's Santa Hernandad Nueva Skythian

Actually, if you look at armies ranked by ELO value, I would say the overwhelming defining characteristic of most of the top armies is they are drilled, or effectively drilled by being composed of predominantly LH and/or cavalry. The exceptions are a few armies that have some special characteristic, like massed superior bow.

But I'm not sure I'd take the rankings as the best guide - they are a snapshot in time. I seem to remember Later Ottoman Turkish being ranked top at one stage, now it has dropped to 58th.

Even if we thought what had been most popular was all that significant I would point out that all these "Foot" armies are drilled and in the case of the Romans possess the massive advantage of limitless 4 element units. This would suggest a very narrow range of armies with some types of HF might be almost Ok, but still not top drawer. As has been pointed out these (Historically very appealing) armies have been popular but not particularly effective.

I say dont complicate things. There is no need for new troop categories or limits on how fast you move in different stages of the game. Just give HF a 4" move.

Martin

I don't see why MF can move any faster than HF. They are the same troop type in most cases. Just based differently. So move both 4.

Turn and moves need to be limited throughout as well so no added complication there either.

I think thematically there are two areas people think need adjustment.

HF needs to be more viable
LH needs to be more vulnerable and/or LH shooting needs to weaken.

There are lots of other stuff but these are two broad areas that have consensus

We need to be careful that we don't make MF melee troops a poor value. Lots of ways to achieve that, but the game has been build around a number of periods/armies that feature MF - notably all of Asia. If those become a poor value then we will have hurt the game considerably IMO.

philqw78 wrote:I don't see why MF can move any faster than HF. They are the same troop type in most cases. Just based differently. So move both 4.

Turn and moves need to be limited throughout as well so no added complication there either.

I agree with you. In fact, some troops defined as MF are heavier than some HF ones! For example, the thureophoroi or the thorakitai compared to naked gaesati. But I also think that main infantry line should have any plus to make the battle in the center last more. I suggested an extra cohesion level or, as Phil said, letting them being rallied even the turn they dropped a level. Another extra possibility could be letting cavalry deploy as skirmishers, up to 15MU.

Today I played a game and the center line looked like a cheese (it was a very close game, 11-8 ). Anytime I play I try to relate that to an actual description of a battle, but it is hard. In this game both cavalries clashed, one victory per side, crossed and did not have any intervention in the rest of the game (except for the punic cavalry smashing some hoplites in a non intended frontal charge). And for the infantry it was similar, routed what they had in front and that was it.

david53 wrote:

marty wrote:I did suggest it was HF who were a dying breed, not MF.
Martin

1 Later Seleucid
2 Late Republican Roman
3 Later Ottoman Turkish
4 Dominate Roman
5 Alexandrian Macedonian
6 Later Carthaginian
7 Santa Hermandad Nueva Castilian
8 Principate Roman
9 100 Years War English (Continental)
9 Early Achaemenid Persian

Top 10 armies on this forums own roll of honor
Later Seleucid,Late Republican Roman,Alexandrian Macedonian and Principate Roman so thats four armies with largely Heavy Foot not including the Santa Hermandad Nueva Castilian who can have a large amount of Heavy Foot. Now thats 4 for sure and possibly another one, would that be a minium 40% and a max 50% of Heavy Foot armies in the top ten most played armies.
Can't be all bad then, can it since so many play them.

My guess is that "How often they have been used since FoGAM started" is not really the point the prior poster is trying to make.

I suspect they are suggesting that right now, players who want to win games in competitions are unlikely to choose heavy foot armies.

madaxeman wrote: I suspect they are suggesting that right now, players who want to win games in competitions are unlikely to choose heavy foot armies.

Time to change the table size at those UK compeitions. make them 5x3 at 800 points.

hazelbark wrote:

madaxeman wrote: I suspect they are suggesting that right now, players who want to win games in competitions are unlikely to choose heavy foot armies.

Time to change the table size at those UK compeitions. make them 5x3 at 800 points.

Maybe you could organise one that way you'd find out if people wanted it.