Slitherine

hammy wrote: The Chinese army that has medium foot with light spear bow and regimental guns looks to be very very scary. 39 points for a unit of 6 with a regimental gun looks to be a very good buy.

Iverson took these Qin and did VERY well with them. Mind you people attacked it acorss its front. And they shoud be attacked like you would a bowmeister in the old DBM days. Plow down one side.

Now if you don't get terrain this army would not enjoy facing Swedes.

James,

Most POAs in both sets of rules are conditional. You are just more familiar with the FOGAM ones.

And as you say, being less familiar with the period, the reasons for the conditions may be less obvious to you in FOGR. I submit that that is a fault neither with the rules, nor with you, but with your expectations that everything should work much the same way in FOGR as FOGAM.

Difficulty coping with the FOGR POAs has not been a common complaint on this board.

And if indeed it is all too much trouble for you, I am sure that there are other things you could be doing. FOGR isn't compulsory.

With regard to bow armies, the problem with most of them is that they lack mounted troops capable of standing up to the same types of Western mounted troops that the archers are vulnerable to in the open. There is a reason that your opponent was lurking in the terrain!

John Munro got round the issue by having a large contingent of Tuareg camelry to neutralise the enemy mounted. Another possibility that might be worth exploring is a Hindu Indian army consisting mostly of archers and elephants.

To counter enemy bowmen you need to use a tight formation and either have high quality close combat troops or maximise your own firepower. I didn't get to play John at Britcon, but I suspect that my Anglo-Dutch army had more chance than most of giving him a hard time. On a solid frontage it could match him dice for dice for shooting, and would be getting +2 on death rolls, which he wouldn't. I know that I am constantly being ribbed for my corner deployments (not the same thing at all as corner sitting) but that would be the way to defeat the bow army. (And, incidentally, cavalry armies, but not Swiss!)

hammy wrote:.... as a player who has little understanding of the period a lot of the POAs are actually being a real struggle for me to make sense of.

hammy wrote:When I was explaining FoG:AM to people everything to me seemed very clean and clear. How much of that was that I understood the period and how much was that the rules were simpler I am not sure.

I think these two statements actually comprise a very good summary of why some people find FoGAM overly bland, and also why others prefer FoG:R !

hazelbark wrote:

hammy wrote: The Chinese army that has medium foot with light spear bow and regimental guns looks to be very very scary. 39 points for a unit of 6 with a regimental gun looks to be a very good buy.

Iverson took these Qin and did VERY well with them. Mind you people attacked it acorss its front. And they shoud be attacked like you would a bowmeister in the old DBM days. Plow down one side.

Now if you don't get terrain this army would not enjoy facing Swedes.

Early Swedes perhaps but the later Swedish that don't magically count as armoured struggle against bow. I know mine did.

I appreciate that FoG:R is a different game but when you look at the downsides of bow armies in AM the big ones lacked maneuver which they don't in FoG:R, everything gets to maneuver to the same beat in R. In AM bow are not that devastating because there are a lot of troops that they only hit on 5s while in R they hit the vast majority of likely opponents on 4s and get 33% more dice at effective range. Well played bow armies are hard work to beat in AM, I suspect that they are even harder to beat in R. How many times have these big bow armies gone down in a heap in tournaments play?

I am still thinking that the best way to play against one with a traditional western army is to sit back and let them come out of their terrain or live with a 'draw'.

madaxeman wrote:

hammy wrote:.... as a player who has little understanding of the period a lot of the POAs are actually being a real struggle for me to make sense of.

hammy wrote:When I was explaining FoG:AM to people everything to me seemed very clean and clear. How much of that was that I understood the period and how much was that the rules were simpler I am not sure.

I think these two statements actually comprise a very good summary of why some people find FoGAM overly bland, and also why others prefer FoG:R !

Quite possibly.

At the moment I am still at the stage of the wide eyed look when my opponent tells me that my Gendarmes are being hit on a 4+ by his rubbish archers....

rbodleyscott wrote:Difficulty coping with the FOGR POAs has not been a common complaint on this board.

And if indeed it is all too much trouble for you, I am sure that there are other things you could be doing. FOGR isn't compulsory.

I will keep trying for the moment.

The difficulty with POAs thing came about partly from the comments by more experienced players in this thread that were then corrected because they had made errors in POAs. Then I came to the realisation that compared with AM I really need to look at the tables a lot more than I did before.

hammy wrote:The difficulty with POAs thing came about partly from the comments by more experienced players in this thread that were then corrected because they had made errors in POAs.

I think this mainly arises because most FOGR games are themed. If you don't play in the early period, you really don't need to know Swiss factors, for example. Even in tournament games I have never fought Swiss in terrain, so have had no need to remember that factor.

(I don't know what Dave Allen's excuse is).

hammy wrote:
The Chinese army that has medium foot with light spear bow and regimental guns looks to be very very scary. 39 points for a unit of 6 with a regimental gun looks to be a very good buy.

Iverson took these Qin and did VERY well with them. Mind you people attacked it acorss its front. And they shoud be attacked like you would a bowmeister in the old DBM days. Plow down one side.

Now if you don't get terrain this army would not enjoy facing Swedes.

Or Swiss. First time I used Italian Wars French was against the Chinese(the only opponent available) and didn't do well. Second time I had learnt a few lessons and the Swiss went through them and their field fortifications like the proverbial knife...

Not trying to complicate things further but the -1 for being shot at also applies to LH as well as exotica like elephants and camels.

Don't be put off Hammy, these rules do work for the Renaissance even if you have had your Spanish Arquebusiers shot to pieces by french crossbows. Doh!

hammy wrote:The Chinese army that has medium foot with light spear bow and regimental guns looks to be very very scary. 39 points for a unit of 6 with a regimental gun looks to be a very good buy.

Check out the Later Jin and Qing armies - similar with many more Average archers, still has Regimental Guns, but fewer compulsory Poor troops. I'd be scared...

Dave

rbodleyscott wrote:I think this mainly arises because most FOGR games are themed. If you don't play in the early period, you really don't need to know Swiss factors, for example. Even in tournament games I have never fought Swiss in terrain, so have had no need to remember that factor.

(I don't know what Dave Allen's excuse is).

If you recall, I tended not to use my Swiss four deep

Another possibility that might be worth exploring is a Hindu Indian army consisting mostly of archers and elephants.

I keep gazing longingly at the Indian lists trying to persuade myself I could make it work but elephants look like kind of a bad bet. Pretty bad in ancients, the same cost in Ren but if they even go near any sort of firearm they die (hit on a 3, death test with only a +1 any fail and the unit simply disappears!). I keep thinking that maybe out on the flanks the restricted deployment might keep them in the game but even out there they have to deal with dragoons, mounted firearms, commanded shot and worst of all artillery angled to shoot out in to the flanks (cant even screen with Lf).

I'd love to hear I'm wrong but really cant see them working.

Martin

hammy wrote:At the moment I am still at the stage of the wide eyed look when my opponent tells me that my Gendarmes are being hit on a 4+ by his rubbish archers....

I think if you are fully armoured the bow get a - POA. You just aren't taking proper Gendarmes.

marty wrote: I keep gazing longingly at the Indian lists trying to persuade myself I could make it work but elephants look like kind of a bad bet.

I'd love to hear I'm wrong but really cant see them working.

I've run them a few times. You are right that if you lead with the elephant they explode.

On the other hand I had one elephant crush a Early tercio by coming in on the side.

They also are handy against mounted.

What I've had trouble doing is having them work in unison with the rest of the army. I wanted to have them guard an artillery line, but that doesn't work several different ways. (can't charge through, not shielded from enemy gus and can't prevent gusn from falling into enemy hands)

I've run them a few times. You are right that if you lead with the elephant they explode.

Pretty much what I thought.

The obvious thing to do is deploy them on the flanks behind LF to keep them safe from most shooting but all this does is discourage the enemy from charging the LF who will still struggle to achieve much quickly. Its a very expensive way of achieving very little. Against many opponents the LF will slowly die and expose the elephants to their fate in turn.

They are probably the most unreasonably priced thing in the game but as they're not exactly central to renaissance warfare not a giant issue (unless you liked the idea of an Indian army)

Martin

This is pretty much my experience. You need to deploy them behind something that will stop them getting shot by artillery and then move them into place. They are most effective against mounted, but can't deploy in the outer 12 MU of the table so it takes them a while to get into place moving a maximum of 8 MU in a turn. Even the much derided LF with arquebus will scare them.

marty wrote: They are probably the most unreasonably priced thing in the game but as they're not exactly central to renaissance warfare not a giant issue (unless you liked the idea of an Indian army)

Well I am not sure how unreasonable priced they are.
I do think that being able to buy them in 3s would have made sense here at the current cost. I think the 2 per unit s exceedingly vulnerable here as opposed to ancients. They are fun in some way because both sides obsess about them. I think there was one game that 4 of my first 5 lost BGs were Elephants lost to long range fire. But I was leading with them.

I plan to take them out some more, because I have a "cunning" plan or at least a new theory of how to get them into a fight. And since according to another thread Hammy is going to hid his masses of bows in rough terrain that is the PERFECT Target for the massed Elephant stampede.

If only these guys were available, Qing Dynasty Chinese :

viewtopic.php?f=70&t=27467

I've run HIndu Indian twice in competitions and come 8th out of 20+ twice.

Army make up is very important. Mine has changed greatly in both comps and will change again for the next one.

May not be the best army, but it does give you something very different to play with.

Don

but can't deploy in the outer 12 MU of the table

As mounted I would have thought they could deploy out there.

Martin

Elephants are neither foot nor mounted in Fog R.