Slitherine

Just had our second night of our first game of FOGN and a few questions arose:
1) British cavalry charged a French infantry unit in line. The French unit threw a 6 and formed square. The British HC fought and flowed around the square. Does the cavalry lose 1 base and become spent?
2) Can cavalry which has lost a base through combat charge again? If so does it then lose another base in the next combat?
3) I presume all troops can only charge from their front. If so does that mean that infantry that formed square because cavalry were within 6" must reform into tactical when it becomes apparent that the cavalry (although still within 6") cannot contact them in a charge?
4) Can a square reform facing any direction or only the direction it was facing when it initially went into square?
5) Twice tonight we had wavering units take 3 and 4 hits from firing and all that happened was they retired. I think they should drop a level and break. Are not the hits representative of the casualties the unit is receiving? I don't think it matters whether the unit is at 2" or 7" once it is wavering and a whole lot more fire comes it's way I think it would break.
6) Why don't we have a death roll in these rules like in FOG?
7) We have now played the same game for 2 nights and the first unit has broken. I accept we are feeling our way but how long are most other player's games been on average? I think we have probably played 8 or 9 moves.
Regards,
Khan

Khan wrote:Just had our second night of our first game of FOGN and a few questions arose:
1) British cavalry charged a French infantry unit in line. The French unit threw a 6 and formed square. The British HC fought and flowed around the square. Does the cavalry lose 1 base and become spent?
2) Can cavalry which has lost a base through combat charge again? If so does it then lose another base in the next combat?
3) I presume all troops can only charge from their front. If so does that mean that infantry that formed square because cavalry were within 6" must reform into tactical when it becomes apparent that the cavalry (although still within 6") cannot contact them in a charge?
4) Can a square reform facing any direction or only the direction it was facing when it initially went into square?
5) Twice tonight we had wavering units take 3 and 4 hits from firing and all that happened was they retired. I think they should drop a level and break. Are not the hits representative of the casualties the unit is receiving? I don't think it matters whether the unit is at 2" or 7" once it is wavering and a whole lot more fire comes it's way I think it would break.
6) Why don't we have a death roll in these rules like in FOG?
7) We have now played the same game for 2 nights and the first unit has broken. I accept we are feeling our way but how long are most other player's games been on average? I think we have probably played 8 or 9 moves.
Regards,
Khan

This should probably be moved to the playtesting forum...

1) Yes, they are spent.
2) Yes, they can charge again (only now they're spent and can never get back up to stable). They don't lose another base, as they've already had one removed to show that they're spent.
3) They can stay in square if they want. If they want to change to tactical, they can do; if they're charged again, then they must take a cohesion test again, and will form square and drop cohesion if they fail. If they pass, then they can form square without cohesion loss.
4) I don't think this has been covered, but logically, if they're in square, they have no front, sides or rear, and so should be able to form tactical using any edge.
5) I prefer it the way it is. A possible minor change could be that they take a cohesion test to see if they retire or just break. Maybe have a lower target number than usual (a 4, -1 for general with them, -2 for C in C with them, etc).
6) The troops are unit-based, not individual base-based.
7) We have played several games, usually with about 150-200 points so far to test out certain parts, and we've almost always finished within 2 1/2 to 4 hours - often it's been obvious who's going to win so we've called a halt. We certainly usually end up with units breaking within 3-4 turns or so. If you get your troops stuck in after they've softened up their targets, you should be getting quite a few units breaking. We certainly have. It sounds like a lot of your games have been two armies standing at a distance skirmishing at each other, and no-one closing - we usually have the armies closing to skirmish range, firing at each other for a couple of turns to soften the enemy up, then charging in (preferably with fresh units / joint inf & cav attacks or at least only disordered troops against wavering ones) to finish them off. Some units will retreat to a safe location and manage to reform, while others are routed. Once 3 or so combats go badly for one side, they start to collapse, as fresh units are brought up to attack while the disordered / wavering victors retire to the rear and get themselves pumped up again, while the enemy has his few disordered and wavering units trying to defend with little chance of getting them back into good order.

4) I would think this would be like the Orb formation in FOG and allow the player to form up on any edge.