Slitherine

Graham Evans seems to do it easily enough...

tgreene wrote: I played a tournament game (of course what other kind would it be) where my opponent's Principate Romans did just that. They turned away from my front 90 degrees and moved away. I was on their flank (the whole line of BG's of my opponent had their sides to my BL's front). We are talking MF battlegroups here.

TG

So to be pinned your within 2mu of each other to turn 90 degrees and move away you would still be within 3mu if you count the wheel and open to a rear charge by anything thats not LF?

tgreene wrote:FoG is a fine game if you are playing a reasonable opponent who abides by the standards of good sportsmanship. You even find some such playing tournaments though rarely. But FoG would be a superior game if it were written so as not to reward cheesy moves that violate the spirit of the rules.


TG

Seems a harsh statement and how many tornements have you played in then?

philqw78 wrote:

tgreene wrote: a player who allows one of their BG's to become restricted or pinned by several enemy BG's should not be rewarded by getting more options how to react and get out of the situation. If anything the reverse should be the case.

TG

Completely agree. Pinning a skirmish BG is F hard. Perhaps too hard.

Never its as hard as it would be in real life, check out the mongols/Skythians/Alans ect. Sure we have done this before Its been at least a month since this was last raised Lets do it again what with Britcon coming up and all. Hang the LH lovers I say Bring the torchs they're hiding in the castle........

tgreene wrote: They were pinned by me, they were in the 2 MU restricted area. They turned 90 degrees and moved far enough to be out of charge reach. That is possible for MF or even HF if there is more than 1 MU distance between them and their opponents as both can move 3 MU.

Move forward and pin them again they are then reacting to you, thats what fogs about.

david53 wrote:

tgreene wrote: They were pinned by me, they were in the 2 MU restricted area. They turned 90 degrees and moved far enough to be out of charge reach. That is possible for MF or even HF if there is more than 1 MU distance between them and their opponents as both can move 3 MU.

Move forward and pin them again they are then reacting to you, thats what fogs about.

No, that's what the hokey-pokey is all about. FoG is supposed to be about ancient warfare, which, last time I looked, involved closing to handstrokes if both armies are basically heavy infantry forces. Seriously though you ARE correct, in such a situation one just keeps pushing them and they are then reacting to you. Problem is, if you are fighting a battle with an artificial time limit, as in a tournament.....In any event I don't think two Roman armies (mine was also Romans in this battle) ever spent an entire battle playing catch me if you can. A steppe army will do that, for sure. And should be able to. In FoG though, even if you catch the pesky LH between your BL and a second group of your BG's say via a flank march or manouevre the LH will still likely be able to wiggle out from it as the restricted zone rules allow the LH to react to the pinning BG of their choice.

Now, it's true that in this case since he placed his rear aspect to my BL when he turned 90 degrees to move away he was risking getting hit in the rear if I charged and rolled up 2 (a six in other words). My point though is not whether this was permitted (it seems to be) under the rules but whether it SHOULD be permitted if the BG doing it starts in the restricted zone. I don't think it should be permitted.


TG

david53 wrote:

tgreene wrote:FoG is a fine game if you are playing a reasonable opponent who abides by the standards of good sportsmanship. You even find some such playing tournaments though rarely. But FoG would be a superior game if it were written so as not to reward cheesy moves that violate the spirit of the rules.


TG

Seems a harsh statement and how many tornements have you played in then?

I have played in four, I think, counting this last one. But I don't agree its harsh. FoG is actually a pretty good set but could have been written with more of an eye to circumventing that certain type of gamer we all have met who always says "well the rules don't say I can't do this" or "partly means even one corner of the base" of course it does which is why partly should be specifically defined in such a case. People like this tend to take the enjoyment out of the thing for the rest of us. Of the twelve opponents I faced in the four tournaments I have played only two were of this type. But I think most would agree two is two too many.

And what better way to handle such a situation than to write the rules in such a way that these kind of gamers can't do those sort of things and then they still get to play and participate. Some of them, off the gaming table, are pretty nice guys. Much better than banning them or breaking out the torches and pitchforks, don't you think?

TG

DBM attempted to be written to defeat the players who tried to wring "odd moves" (ahem) out of the wording. It failed despite the best efforts of clever people assisted by those who knew the way these minds work (because they have those minds ).

IMO it is actually impossible to legislate the rules to achieve this aim and still have them as fairly easy to use - it is a circle that cannot be squared.

The FoG authors, therefore, have decided not to try and cover all these cases and attempt to bring a culture change - IMO this has, to a degree, worked and is laudable. They are also quite candid, if you actually talk to them nicely, that it isn't perfect - you will have seen that Richard has said they are working on possible updates already, however, I know this will not include increasing the legalese in the rules, which I applaud.

nikgaukroger wrote:DBM attempted to be written to defeat the players who tried to wring "odd moves" (ahem) out of the wording. It failed despite the best efforts of clever people assisted by those who knew the way these minds work (because they have those minds ).

IMO it is actually impossible to legislate the rules to achieve this aim and still have them as fairly easy to use - it is a circle that cannot be squared.

The FoG authors, therefore, have decided not to try and cover all these cases and attempt to bring a culture change - IMO this has, to a degree, worked and is laudable. They are also quite candid, if you actually talk to them nicely, that it isn't perfect - you will have seen that Richard has said they are working on possible updates already, however, I know this will not include increasing the legalese in the rules, which I applaud.

H
Sadly Nick, I suspect you may well be right. Having said that, I do think it can be done. Sam Mustafa has done it very well with his Might and Reason and La Salle rules. We had a La Salle tournament at the Historicon which just ended. Some of the same people played in both the La Salle tournament and the Field of Glory tournament the day before. What a contrast! Not one argument broke out over La Salle. Everybody was on their best behavior. How did he do it?

I'll give a couple of examples to show it need not involve increasing the legalese in the rules which we all agree, I think, we could use less not more of. Loopholes can actually be closed using fairly basic expedients. One thing is ganging up on one unit with two of yours. In La Salle if two units fight one the two units likely will each get only half their combat dice and the one unit will have to split its combat dice evenly between its two opponents. This is because a unit must either have more than half its bases in contact with the enemy unit OR must cover the entire front of the enemy unit to get all its combat dice. Simple, clean, and stops all sorts of fudging with angling charges just so and whatnot. Now, the order in which combats are resolved (players roll off to see who gets to choose it) does matter because if one unit loses and must recoil the unit fighting two may then get ALL its dice against the remaining unit so there ARE subtleties. Another example is the aforementioned rule regarding bad going (Sam doesn't call it that I use the term since we are all familiar with it from DBM/A/X etc.) Basically if anybody is in bad going then all units fighting in a melee get the penalty whether or not they themselves are actually in bad going if they would normally be handicapped by fighting in bad going. Another example is if any part of a friendly unit, yes even a small corner, is in the firing arc of a unit that unit may not fire if the friends are closer to it than to the enemy it wants to fire at. Forces you to keep your fire lanes clean and ends any potential arguing over how much of a friendly unit blocks a shot or again fudging angles to either facilitate or prevent shooting. So I do think its possible at the cost of some oversimplification which most people who play La Salle seem to find acceptable. Would Richard consider some ideas like these, or just adding some specificity with say one additional word such as half or mostly or directly, in the amendments?

TG

tgreene wrote: In La Salle if two units fight one the two units likely will each get only half their combat dice and the one unit will have to split its combat dice evenly between its two opponents. This is because a unit must either have more than half its bases in contact with the enemy unit OR must cover the entire front of the enemy unit to get all its combat dice. Simple, clean, and stops all sorts of fudging with angling charges just so and whatnot.

What if three units fight one unit? Or 2 fight 3? What if a unit is hit on the flank? But I'm sure there is other stuff about unit size, allowed contacts, etc, etc. Doesn't seem so simple now.

I really fail to see the point of this.

Somebody who wants rules in a certain style (lets call it style X) complains that FoG is instead in style Y, he doesn't like playing against its community of players who presumably for the most part like style Y rules, and therefore FoG should be changed to be more like style X? And in fact, doesn't just mention it as an aside, he is prepared to spend ages in the forum pushing the case.

You do seem to recognise this is basically paradoxical.

>So I do think its possible at the cost of some oversimplification which most people who play La Salle seem to find acceptable.

That really sums it up quite well I think. Horses for courses. If you want to play a different sort of game, there's nothing stopping you. There are other ancients rules that might fit your requirements better. Or maybe there's room for an adaptation of Lasalle to ancients?

One problem is that ancients is inherently I think more complex than horse and musket era rulesets, smply because of the greater variety of troop types. (Something the fashion for rulesets that cover 3000 years of history doesn't help with of course, but that's another story!)

Incidentally, your quoted argument and cheese-resistant rules seem to my eyes to suffer from scope for argument ("that unit corner is 0.1mm in the firing arc", "no it's not") and cheese ("one of my soldiers has his left heel in a small bush, therefore the other 999 men in the unit are immune from those nasty cavalry of yours")

IMO the sort of game that gets played depends on the context and the mindsets of the players more than the specific rules. Competitive tournament gamers will always play slightly differently to more casual type gamers having a weekly hack at the club.

There are a number of areas in the FoG rules as written that could be clarified or made more rigorous, that's well recognised - just consult the various FAQs for examples. I expect they'll make it into a published rulebook at some point.

tgreene wrote:

david53 wrote:

tgreene wrote: They were pinned by me, they were in the 2 MU restricted area. They turned 90 degrees and moved far enough to be out of charge reach. That is possible for MF or even HF if there is more than 1 MU distance between them and their opponents as both can move 3 MU.

Move forward and pin them again they are then reacting to you, thats what fogs about.

No, that's what the hokey-pokey is all about. FoG is supposed to be about ancient warfare, which, last time I looked, involved closing to handstrokes if both armies are basically heavy infantry forces. Seriously though you ARE correct, in such a situation one just keeps pushing them and they are then reacting to you. Problem is, if you are fighting a battle with an artificial time limit, as in a tournament.....In any event I don't think two Roman armies (mine was also Romans in this battle) ever spent an entire battle playing catch me if you can. A steppe army will do that, for sure. And should be able to. In FoG though, even if you catch the pesky LH between your BL and a second group of your BG's say via a flank march or manouevre the LH will still likely be able to wiggle out from it as the restricted zone rules allow the LH to react to the pinning BG of their choice.

Now, it's true that in this case since he placed his rear aspect to my BL when he turned 90 degrees to move away he was risking getting hit in the rear if I charged and rolled up 2 (a six in other words). My point though is not whether this was permitted (it seems to be) under the rules but whether it SHOULD be permitted if the BG doing it starts in the restricted zone. I don't think it should be permitted.


TG

I went to the burial of the chap who wrote the hokey-cokey. It all went well until they put the left leg in.

I sense Tom that perhaps you found yourself as a heavy infantry general against a more mobile force and found it a frustrating experience? It can be difficult to catch a more mobile enemy in FoG. It's does get easier with practice. The restricted area rule is useful and with experience can be used to great effect. I found this to my cost last week when my light foot got trapped by advancing pikes and psiloi. I ended up being charged in the rear by both
I did find when I played in the USA there were a lot of mobile armies so I was the bull to their matador.

The problem of course for the authors is that they need Carrhae, Hattin, etc to work while still giving the slower army a chance to come to grips as at Arsuf. Being on the side of the plodders, I naturally feel the mobile guys are too mobile.

The mechanisms may sometimes feel odd, particularly if you play it a different way to others, but by and large, they do work out. Other threads suggest that the authors are aware of some of the problems with the rule set (which is only version 1 so it would be odd if there weren't some wrinkles).

The restricted area is a really handy rule for the slower army, as you can use it to control where the enemy goes. My Merovingian Franks (heavy impact foot and armoued spear cavalry) have used it on several occasions to make holes and then tear up enemy light forces.

ShrubMiK wrote:I really fail to see the point of this.

Somebody who wants rules in a certain style (lets call it style X) complains that FoG is instead in style Y, he doesn't like playing against its community of players who presumably for the most part like style Y rules, and therefore FoG should be changed to be more like style X? And in fact, doesn't just mention it as an aside, he is prepared to spend ages in the forum pushing the case.

You do seem to recognise this is basically paradoxical.

>So I do think its possible at the cost of some oversimplification which most people who play La Salle seem to find acceptable.

That really sums it up quite well I think. Horses for courses. If you want to play a different sort of game, there's nothing stopping you. There are other ancients rules that might fit your requirements better. Or maybe there's room for an adaptation of Lasalle to ancients?

One problem is that ancients is inherently I think more complex than horse and musket era rulesets, smply because of the greater variety of troop types. (Something the fashion for rulesets that cover 3000 years of history doesn't help with of course, but that's another story!)

Incidentally, your quoted argument and cheese-resistant rules seem to my eyes to suffer from scope for argument ("that unit corner is 0.1mm in the firing arc", "no it's not") and cheese ("one of my soldiers has his left heel in a small bush, therefore the other 999 men in the unit are immune from those nasty cavalry of yours")

IMO the sort of game that gets played depends on the context and the mindsets of the players more than the specific rules. Competitive tournament gamers will always play slightly differently to more casual type gamers having a weekly hack at the club.

There are a number of areas in the FoG rules as written that could be clarified or made more rigorous, that's well recognised - just consult the various FAQs for examples. I expect they'll make it into a published rulebook at some point.

Well you have proven my point for me here. Tournament or competition style players will gravitate towards FoG while those who are looking for a bit of fun and some good camraderie wilill gravitate towards something like La Salle. I guess I am not a tournament or competition style player and therefore FoG is not my style of rules. Which doesn't mean there is anything wrong with it, it's just not my cup of tea.

TG

grahambriggs wrote:

tgreene wrote:

david53 wrote: Move forward and pin them again they are then reacting to you, thats what fogs about.

No, that's what the hokey-pokey is all about. FoG is supposed to be about ancient warfare, which, last time I looked, involved closing to handstrokes if both armies are basically heavy infantry forces. Seriously though you ARE correct, in such a situation one just keeps pushing them and they are then reacting to you. Problem is, if you are fighting a battle with an artificial time limit, as in a tournament.....In any event I don't think two Roman armies (mine was also Romans in this battle) ever spent an entire battle playing catch me if you can. A steppe army will do that, for sure. And should be able to. In FoG though, even if you catch the pesky LH between your BL and a second group of your BG's say via a flank march or manouevre the LH will still likely be able to wiggle out from it as the restricted zone rules allow the LH to react to the pinning BG of their choice.

Now, it's true that in this case since he placed his rear aspect to my BL when he turned 90 degrees to move away he was risking getting hit in the rear if I charged and rolled up 2 (a six in other words). My point though is not whether this was permitted (it seems to be) under the rules but whether it SHOULD be permitted if the BG doing it starts in the restricted zone. I don't think it should be permitted.


TG

I went to the burial of the chap who wrote the hokey-cokey. It all went well until they put the left leg in.

I sense Tom that perhaps you found yourself as a heavy infantry general against a more mobile force and found it a frustrating experience? It can be difficult to catch a more mobile enemy in FoG. It's does get easier with practice. The restricted area rule is useful and with experience can be used to great effect. I found this to my cost last week when my light foot got trapped by advancing pikes and psiloi. I ended up being charged in the rear by both
I did find when I played in the USA there were a lot of mobile armies so I was the bull to their matador.

The problem of course for the authors is that they need Carrhae, Hattin, etc to work while still giving the slower army a chance to come to grips as at Arsuf. Being on the side of the plodders, I naturally feel the mobile guys are too mobile.

The mechanisms may sometimes feel odd, particularly if you play it a different way to others, but by and large, they do work out. Other threads suggest that the authors are aware of some of the problems with the rule set (which is only version 1 so it would be odd if there weren't some wrinkles).

The restricted area is a really handy rule for the slower army, as you can use it to control where the enemy goes. My Merovingian Franks (heavy impact foot and armoued spear cavalry) have used it on several occasions to make holes and then tear up enemy light forces.

There were two separarate battles both tournament games. One was Romans vs. Romans. I was Romans. So was he. The other was Byzantines vs. Mongols. I was Byzantines. We both had lots of cavalry. I do think it comes down to preferred style of play as noted by another post further on. I think I prefer a style that attempts to simulate with some accuracy the period of history (with obvious distortion entailed by using miniatures) as opposed to a much more elaborate version of chess.

TG

philqw78 wrote:

tgreene wrote: In La Salle if two units fight one the two units likely will each get only half their combat dice and the one unit will have to split its combat dice evenly between its two opponents. This is because a unit must either have more than half its bases in contact with the enemy unit OR must cover the entire front of the enemy unit to get all its combat dice. Simple, clean, and stops all sorts of fudging with angling charges just so and whatnot.

What if three units fight one unit? Or 2 fight 3? What if a unit is hit on the flank? But I'm sure there is other stuff about unit size, allowed contacts, etc, etc. Doesn't seem so simple now.

If three units fight one the three units probably each get half their dice unless one of them covers the single enemy unit entirely with its front (then it gets all its dice) while the single unit gets all its dice but has to split them among three opponents. Not complicated. Same with two fighting three. It all depends on whether more than half the frontage is covered. Units hit in the flank halve their dice. Halving is not cumulative. So a unit hit on the flank would fight with half its dice and if fighting more than one unit would dived those dice among the units it is fighting. Again not complicated.

TG

tgreene wrote:

There were two separarate battles both tournament games. One was Romans vs. Romans. I was Romans. So was he. The other was Byzantines vs. Mongols. I was Byzantines. We both had lots of cavalry. I do think it comes down to preferred style of play as noted by another post further on. I think I prefer a style that attempts to simulate with some accuracy the period of history (with obvious distortion entailed by using miniatures) as opposed to a much more elaborate version of chess.

TG

I find FoG does historical match ups reasonably well, despite the time span of the rules. However, I also found that it took me a long while to understand how to do what I wanted to do. And I do think it's a little too easy to refuse battle. I'm surprised that you find WAB closer to the historical end though - most people who've played both seem to think the reverse.

If you like historical feel/chrome (delete as appropriate) and played DBM another option to look at could be DBMM, the second version of which has just been released. Haven't played it myself but it seems (in the UK at least) to appeal to a hardcore of history minded gamers.

tgreene wrote: Well you have proven my point for me here. Tournament or competition style players will gravitate towards FoG while those who are looking for a bit of fun and some good camraderie wilill gravitate towards something like La Salle. I guess I am not a tournament or competition style player and therefore FoG is not my style of rules. Which doesn't mean there is anything wrong with it, it's just not my cup of tea.

TG

With all due respect you've a bit off a check coming on here and saying if you want camraderie and good fun you'd stay away from FOG< now many fog games again have you had?

TBH I think some people are bending over backwards to help you, considering they must be unfriendly as they play FOG.

I can't figure out what you want on here the rules are'nt going to be changed for you you don't like them so why play them no ones forcing you

As someone elese on here said you want to play one way and the majority of people on here want to play another.

I'm sure I would'nt go on the MM site and say change the rules I don't like them you lot arn't fun or friendly like FOG players and expect them to help me. if I did I could tell you they would'nt try and help me like some furiendly FOG players are doing with you.............

ShrubMiK wrote:I really fail to see the point of this.

Somebody who wants rules in a certain style (lets call it style X) complains that FoG is instead in style Y, he doesn't like playing against its community of players who presumably for the most part like style Y rules, and therefore FoG should be changed to be more like style X? And in fact, doesn't just mention it as an aside, he is prepared to spend ages in the forum pushing the case.

You do seem to recognise this is basically paradoxical.

>So I do think its possible at the cost of some oversimplification which most people who play La Salle seem to find acceptable.

That really sums it up quite well I think. Horses for courses. If you want to play a different sort of game, there's nothing stopping you. There are other ancients rules that might fit your requirements better. Or maybe there's room for an adaptation of Lasalle to ancients?

One problem is that ancients is inherently I think more complex than horse and musket era rulesets, smply because of the greater variety of troop types. (Something the fashion for rulesets that cover 3000 years of history doesn't help with of course, but that's another story!)

Incidentally, your quoted argument and cheese-resistant rules seem to my eyes to suffer from scope for argument ("that unit corner is 0.1mm in the firing arc", "no it's not") and cheese ("one of my soldiers has his left heel in a small bush, therefore the other 999 men in the unit are immune from those nasty cavalry of yours")

IMO the sort of game that gets played depends on the context and the mindsets of the players more than the specific rules. Competitive tournament gamers will always play slightly differently to more casual type gamers having a weekly hack at the club.

There are a number of areas in the FoG rules as written that could be clarified or made more rigorous, that's well recognised - just consult the various FAQs for examples. I expect they'll make it into a published rulebook at some point.

Agree with you

If you don't like a set why play them

Why go on their forum and tell them they are unfriendly

Mind you I'm feeling unfriendly its nearly football time again

This thread seems to have wandered somewhat away fron the original topic.

IMO FoG clearly defines what is and what is not allowed. In the majority of situations then everything is absolutely fine but if you are looking at a position where something is right on the limits of what is and what is not allowed there can be some rather 'interesting' results.

The turn 90 and move option can result in some rather odd manuevers. If anything changing the turn 90 and move to turn 90 and move half speed would be a lot more reasonable at the edges of the envelope.

In any game where there is a strict definition then there will generally be ways to exploit the boundary conditions. It is one of the things good players of any game tend to be good at. Much like in DBM where getting a tiny corner of one of your bases behind an enemy base massively changed things. This was countered partly by the introduction of the 'gap' rule where entering a gap less than a base wide was not allowed. This in turn created a whole new set of odd situations. In any game this tends to happen.

So far in FoG these 'strange' situations are in my experience not that common and when umpiring I don't get called over for them very much so either every one is happy or there is not much of an issue.

tgreene wrote:

david53 wrote:

tgreene wrote:FoG is a fine game if you are playing a reasonable opponent who abides by the standards of good sportsmanship. You even find some such playing tournaments though rarely. TG

Seems a harsh statement and how many tornements have you played in then?

.... People like this tend to take the enjoyment out of the thing for the rest of us. Of the twelve opponents I faced in the four tournaments I have played only two were of this type. TG

Well that contradicts your statement above where you say reasonable and sportmanlike opponents in tournaments are rare. I'd hardly call ten out of twelve rare.

tgreene wrote:"partly means even one corner of the base" of course it does which is why partly should be specifically defined in such a case. TG

Again you contradict yourself. As you say, of course that it what partly means. So it doesn't need defining. If a word is used according to its normal English usage, it doesn't need to be defined within the rules. If you want to check a definition of a word you don't understand you can use a dictionary.

It seems like you're getting your knickers in a twist because you think a rule should be played a certain way whilst everybody else plays what is written and is happy with it like that.