Slitherine

I had kind of assumed that '(except against an army comprised entirely of bowmen)' was implicit....

madaxeman wrote: LH armies who cover the table would still be able to pick spots without enemy bowmen to pick on, but would have a touch less freedom. Bowmen would have a role. LH would not be able to outshoot cavalry as easily. Protected Cv vs LH would become rather more interesting....

Question is would that be their historic role. It is not enough to give (undrilled & average) MF Bows any job, it should be the job they filled historically and that seems not to have been holding the flanks vs. enemy mounted. Granted that might not have been LH, but it's hard to say as historical armies did not really distinguish between Cv and LH which brings us back to abolish most (if maybe not all) LH skirmishers and roll them into the Cv or possibly better, a new Horse Archer class. Maybe peruse Brendans Shattered Lances for some ideas.

Ghaznavid wrote: Question is would that be their historic role. It is not enough to give (undrilled & average) MF Bows any job, it should be the job they filled historically and that seems not to have been holding the flanks vs. enemy mounted.

Agreed. However currently the best troops to fulfill the Bw role of "hanging around all game and shooting at the enemies line of battle troops" are LF and LH, not Bw. which is totally wrong as well. LH & LF also fail to completely replace Bws role, as they do not hang around to follow up their performance of the above role with "..then doing rather poorly in combat against proper combat infantry".

If (protected) Bw could be given a half-decent chance of winning a shooting match with light troops, they might end up appearing a/ on table, and b/ in the main battle line (to help clear away skirmishers). They'd then end up fulfilling their proper role - although they may regret it sometimes

Hi guys

Not wanting to find a new target for attack but last night I fought a nightmare 20 BG army called Medieval Portuegese. It had 14 BG's of mainly poor light foot in 6's, 2 BG's of LH and 4 BG's of hard as nails knights. More through luck than judgement I managed to take 5 BG's from it before I was broken..

Rob

Robert241167 wrote:Hi guys

Not wanting to find a new target for attack but last night I fought a nightmare 20 BG army called Medieval Portuegese. It had 14 BG's of mainly poor light foot in 6's, 2 BG's of LH and 4 BG's of hard as nails knights. More through luck than judgement I managed to take 5 BG's from it before I was broken..

Rob

Yes it's these types of armies that I find are very problematic - mostly air but enough grit that you can't just spread out and push it off table. By the time you've dealt with the grit (if you can) you don't have time to catch the air.

It feels wrong that you might be able to destroy all the knights but the army is undefeated.

grahambriggs wrote:Yes it's these types of armies that I find are very problematic - mostly air but enough grit that you can't just spread out and push it off table. By the time you've dealt with the grit (if you can) you don't have time to catch the air.

It feels wrong that you might be able to destroy all the knights but the army is undefeated.

But doesn't it also feel wrong that you can destroy the 'air' without touching the 'grit' and the army is defeated?

But doesn't it also feel wrong that you can destroy the 'air' without touching the 'grit' and the army is defeated?

No - if you deprive the Knights of all their serfs they'll have to do menial things for themselves. So they'll go home in a sulk.

I think we need to look at the concept of "defeat" and "victory" for such armies, in the context of what type of battle the tabletop game is supposed to represent.

If you take the (classic) Parthians vs Romans matchup, Rome repeatedly marched to the Parthian capital. The Parthians pretty much always harassed them along the entire route, shooting and scooting on the way. You could also say CHinese against border nomads, Crusaders vs Arabs, take your pick really - the idea is the same.

However, almost always the Parthian's didnt just harass, they picked a spot on the way, invested loads of effort and cash in gathering all their top nobles and armoured horsemen, and attempted to smash the Roman army into pieces in a set piece battle (after harassing them for a while to soften them up first of course).

- Sometimes this tactic failed, the Romans marched on (peppered with arrows, but otherwise intact) and trashed Cstephion.
- Sometimes it worked, and the Roman army was destroyed.

IMO the tabletop game is supposed to represent these "set piece" attempts by the strategically more mobile force to pick a suitable spot (I'm guessing on a steppe-like area of terrain) and sort out the plodding pedestrians once and for all.

In this context, breaking the "Romans" is a victory for the "Parthians", but having the "Romans" keep marching across the board relatively unscathed, and sweeping most of the "Parthian" LH away in the process represents a "victory" for the "Romans" (as they will march on to Cstephion and get the home fires burning... .)

A big part of the problem seems to be that at the moment in FoG, the Parthians can quickly get to a point at which its clear they will fail to destroy the "Romans" in this "set piece" battle (which they have presumably chosen to set up at a time and location of their choosing) but once that becomes clear, they are allowed to redefine the battle (on the fly) into a "well, we weren't trying to destroy them, this is now just yet another harassing skirmish encounter along their route of march" - which, in game terms ends up as a draw.


If you think of the tabletop game as representing set piece battles at the time and location chosen by the strategically more mobile force, the rationale for the "skirmish, harass and then evade off table unbeaten" draw I think then looks completely unjustified - which is very different to suggesting that this isn't a legitimate tactic for skirmisher armies, but simply that a shoot, scoot and disappear plan isn't the type of encounter which the tabletop game should be representing.

Nice analysis there Tim - and I think correct.

i'll agree there and makes sense of the 2 attrition for falling back off the table idea.

Ben

Very interesting position, but this to be effective should translate in a mechanic of play. The first thing I get in mind is: skirmisher army must choose their tactic before battle starts. If they opt for a skirmish, they pay 1 AP for each BG of their own army which exit from the table and 1 AP for each BG of their opponent which exit from table by the skirmisher long side (I mean, each BG of skirmisher opponent which manage to cross all the table). If skirmisher opt for a battle, they pay 2 AP for each BG which exit evading from the table.
Problem is with skirmishers BG in non skirmisher armies. Should they still pay 1 AP if they exit evading from the table? I think so, and problem shift to define when an army must be considered a skirmisher army. Look an interesting option, but which require a lot of attention in its translation in a rule.

nikgaukroger wrote:Nice analysis there Tim - and I think correct.

Exactly, and Tim's make's the point better than I did for arguing it should be 2AP of the rear table edge. The Roman (or whoever) victory is driving the Parthians from the field. It doesn't necessarily imply they have to rout them all in combat.

marioslaz wrote:Very interesting position, but this to be effective should translate in a mechanic of play. The first thing I get in mind is: skirmisher army must choose their tactic before battle starts. If they opt for a skirmish, they pay 1 AP for each BG of their own army which exit from the table and 1 AP for each BG of their opponent which exit from table by the skirmisher long side (I mean, each BG of skirmisher opponent which manage to cross all the table). If skirmisher opt for a battle, they pay 2 AP for each BG which exit evading from the table.
Problem is with skirmishers BG in non skirmisher armies. Should they still pay 1 AP if they exit evading from the table? I think so, and problem shift to define when an army must be considered a skirmisher army. Look an interesting option, but which require a lot of attention in its translation in a rule.

I think you're missing the point Tim makes. An encounter on the table of Parthains vs Romans is when the Parthians have gathered for battle. The skirmishing "battle" would be on a table 1000 metres deep...

It is very difficult to drive enemy light horse of any of the table edges especially for heavy foot. So victory for the Foot army should result when they reach the enemy table edge. Say 2ap for each batlegroup of heavy foot that gets there. Therefore if the light are to win they must break the enemy army and cant just scoot off.

MatthewP wrote:It is very difficult to drive enemy light horse of any of the table edges especially for heavy foot. So victory for the Foot army should result when they reach the enemy table edge. Say 2ap for each batlegroup of heavy foot that gets there. Therefore if the light are to win they must break the enemy army and cant just scoot off.

I like the idea of attrition/victory points for reaching the enemy base line with battle troops. This could be done in all games, not just against squirmy girly armies. But it would force everyone to fight across the full table width, which may be a bad thing. It would certainly change my games.

philqw78 wrote:

grahambriggs wrote:Yes it's these types of armies that I find are very problematic - mostly air but enough grit that you can't just spread out and push it off table. By the time you've dealt with the grit (if you can) you don't have time to catch the air.

It feels wrong that you might be able to destroy all the knights but the army is undefeated.

But doesn't it also feel wrong that you can destroy the 'air' without touching the 'grit' and the army is defeated?

Yup - good point.

I´m sure designers meditated deeply and from many points of view about giving only 1 AP to BG fleeing off the table. You´re considering to change a core rule only from the side of facing speculative players that are more interested in a draw than in a proper battle. I think that´s not the way.
Why would someone play in that way? Well, in single games, that player may only play a few games before his friends say: "OK, when you decide to stand for a real battle, call me. Until then I´m not playing with you anymore". So that kind of games tend to stop by themselves.
But in a tournament, those players still get POINTS. That´s why they play in that way. So, I really think that changing scoring systems in tournaments is the way to make these boring games dissappear (which is the main issue, of course. All about getting bored while playing).

caliban66 wrote:I´m sure designers meditated deeply and from many points of view about giving only 1 AP to BG fleeing off the table. You´re considering to change a core rule only from the side of facing speculative players that are more interested in a draw than in a proper battle. I think that´s not the way.
Why would someone play in that way? Well, in single games, that player may only play a few games before his friends say: "OK, when you decide to stand for a real battle, call me. Until then I´m not playing with you anymore". So that kind of games tend to stop by themselves.
But in a tournament, those players still get POINTS. That´s why they play in that way. So, I really think that changing scoring systems in tournaments is the way to make these boring games dissappear (which is the main issue, of course. All about getting bored while playing).

Well, in effect I'm not interested to play in tournament. I'm interested to host a FoG tournament in a convention I'm organizing. This likely can product a distortion because my idea is "What I would like if i played in a tournament" and not "What real people who play in tournament want". Anyway, my very rough idea was about to give a scenario like form to a standard tournament game, with the aim to transform a boring game in a thrilling challenge for both players. Not sure it's what are searching for people who want to play for a draw...

>it would force everyone to fight across the full table width, which may be a bad thing.

Agreed. One of the things I like less about FoG is how there seems to be an insidious pressure to stretch armies out as wide as they will go, which results in no reserves, which in turn means that once a unit or two is broken on each side you inevitably immediately get into some sort of weird freewheeling wrestling match.

In reality armies would typically be following some sort of defined route - whether it be a made-up road, a dirt track, the bank of a river through the badlands. The invader is trying to go somewhere and therefore needs to continue across the table and continue to follow the route they are on. Or destroy the opposing army so they cannot impede progress for the forseeable future. The invaded need to impede progress, or again destroy the opposing army.

But without recognising the concept of who is invader and who is invaded in a particular table-top battle I'm not sure you can implement this sort of thing with any realism. And to do that properly really needs scenarios. Which, don't get me wrong, are great - but perhaps not best suited for competition play. A simple encounter battle between two forces, with whoever gets most units off the opponents side of the table winning, doesn't seem to have much real-life relevance.

I think the camp should be made more important. If either army loses its source of supply it will find it hard to continue the campaign, regardless of the casualties caused in the current battle. Or if the paychest was looted, troops might lose determinination to push forward. Or if the siege engines are destroyed, the city they are headed for cannot be taken. Or important hostages are taken and used to negotiate a favourable peace treaty.

Or, even more abstract, the camp is a representation of the end of the route of march taken by the army on its way to the battlefield, so looked at from the other direction represents the place where the opponent needs to get units exiting the battlefield in order to press on quickly to their strategic objective.

(Yes I know the camp can be set up away from the table edge if desired!)

Encouraging players to make more effort to safeguard their camp might* lead to several things...the need for a bit more grit in an army because too much reliance only on skirmishing will require a lot of luck destroy opponents quickly enough...fortified camp becomes a bit more of an attractive option...more important to keep a reserve unit or two to stop a breakthrough from sacking the camp, especially if playing defensively or relying on skirmishing (when the action is likely to be taking place much closer to your camp than the opponents)

how about half the army attrition points in the camp and each destroyed/fled bg only worth 1 ?

Pretty radical compared to other suggestions but the camp becomes pretty vital

Ben