Slitherine

The game went pretty smoothly, in spite of my non-standard basing (40mm squares). Early Royalist v Early Parliament, 20mm figures (mostly the Revell 30YW guys).
Slowed a bit by the different troop types and POAs compared to the Ancient rules, of course.

Some questions:
1. Is it right that the only difference Short Range makes for artillery is to their target priority?
2. Commanded shot don't count as light troops - they are still medium infantry?
3. Musket* shoot the same as muskets at long range, but are slightly worse (3 dice v 4 for standard sized units) at short range?
4. Is it ever possible to get ++POA when shooting?

We missed a few things - artillery evaporating on contact, and the option to break off if you are fragmented, plus initially forgot the 'only 1 dice per overlap' rule.
Cavaliers are mad bastards, aren't they? ++POA on impact against Horse, but even POA in melee. As one of the players remarked after seeing them bursting through the enemy line and heading for the camp 'if only there was a word to describe that sort of irresponsible, mad behaviour'

Not sure how you got ++ for the cavaliers against the parliamentarian horse. Assuming the horse had carbines and no impact pistols, the cavaliers should have been + for pistols and the horse - for not having them unless I've been missing something all along.

Blathergut wrote:Not sure how you got ++ for the cavaliers against the parliamentarian horse. Assuming the horse had carbines and no impact pistols, the cavaliers should have been + for pistols and the horse - for not having them.

Correct

pyruse wrote:1. Is it right that the only difference Short Range makes for artillery is to their target priority?

Yes. We started off by giving them more dice at close range in beta, but it made them more than historically effective
so we changed it to 1 dice at all ranges.

2. Commanded shot don't count as light troops - they are still medium infantry?

Correct.

3. Musket* shoot the same as muskets at long range, but are slightly worse (3 dice v 4 for standard sized units) at short range?

Correct.

4. Is it ever possible to get ++POA when shooting?

Probably not. If not we could have simplified the To Hit chart. (Which was, of course, carried forward from FOGAM).

Not sure how you got ++ for the cavaliers against the parliamentarian horse. Assuming the horse had carbines and no impact pistols, the cavaliers should have been + for pistols and the horse - for not having them.

Cavaliers get +POA for Impact Pistols, and +POA for being Impact Mounted
Doesn't matter whether the Horse have carbines of Impact pistols in Impact v Cavaliers:
Horse don't get +POA for their impact pistols, because it doesn't count against Impact Mounted.

pyruse wrote:

Not sure how you got ++ for the cavaliers against the parliamentarian horse. Assuming the horse had carbines and no impact pistols, the cavaliers should have been + for pistols and the horse - for not having them.

Cavaliers get +POA for Impact Pistols, and +POA for being Impact Mounted

Not sure why you think they get 2 impact phase capabilities - nobody gets multiple capabilities for one phase

Royalist horse are (in the lists) Impact Pistol and none are Impact Mounted, which is a different capability.

pyruse wrote:Cavaliers get +POA for Impact Pistols, and +POA for being Impact Mounted

You are perhaps confusing "Shock mounted" with "Impact Mounted".

Shock mounted is not the same thing as Impact Mounted.

"Shock mounted" are aggressively charging troops, and this has various effects, but does not directly affect combat POAs. (Except that they usually do have an Impact Capability that takes into account their charge behaviour).

"Impact Mounted" is a specific Impact Phase Combat Capability. Troops only count as Impact Mounted if that is what is listed in the Impact column of their army list. (Unfortunately the column headers have been mislabelled in some of the lists, but in every case, under Combat Capabilities, the left-hand column is Shooting, the middle one is Impact, the right-hand one is Melee).

As Nick says, we (almost) never give any troops 2 separate capabilities in the same phase. (There is an exception for Impact Foot + Bayonet in some Duty & Glory lists).

However, even if it were possible for them to be Impact Pistol and Impact Mounted at the same time, they would still only get one +, because both capabilities are in the chart section from which only one item can apply. ("Any one of")

pyruse wrote:

Not sure how you got ++ for the cavaliers against the parliamentarian horse. Assuming the horse had carbines and no impact pistols, the cavaliers should have been + for pistols and the horse - for not having them.

Cavaliers get +POA for Impact Pistols, and +POA for being Impact Mounted
Doesn't matter whether the Horse have carbines of Impact pistols in Impact v Cavaliers:
Horse don't get +POA for their impact pistols, because it doesn't count against Impact Mounted.

While Cavaliers are Shock, they are not Impact Mtd. In impact they count as pistols only (tho' give an extra -1 to foes morale roll if they win). To be impact mtd a BG must have the words "Impact Mounted" in the entry for Impact on their list. See Finnish hakkapeliita Pg 44 of BK1 or Early Louis French pg 103 as the only examples of Impact Mtd so far....

Kevin D.

Ah, I was indeed confusing 'Shock mounted' with 'Impact mounted'; the rules don't make the distinction very clear.
I have to say that the troop definitions at the front could be much better explained; for instance stating there that nobody gets two different capabilities in the same phase would have helped.
Is there a list of all the capabilities along with which phase(s) they apply to anywhere? That would help a lot.

I missed the 'any one of' because I find the chart layout confusing (as I did for FoG Ancients); when using these charts I just go down the list seeing what applies.
It would be much clearer if the 'any one of' sections were shaded so that you could see at a glance that they form a group.

I also don't find the charts in the back of the rules a good substitute for a separate QRS which could be printed out and referred to during the game.
I only have one copy of the rules, but we had 4 players - it's a pain to keep passing them round instead of having 1 QRS each.
The charts in the rules are the wrong size to scan and make into my own QRS (I don't want to retype them as there is so much scope for error).
There was a QRS for the Ancients set (although it omits a bunch of useful information like command radii) - why nothing for FOG_R?

pyruse wrote:There was a QRS for the Ancients set (although it omits a bunch of useful information like command radii) - why nothing for FOG_R?

It is on the list of things to do. FOGAM didn't have one when it first came out either.

Osprey elected not to have separate QRS with the rule book, because past experience has shown that any such enclosures tend to get "lost" in bookshops and then the book becomes unsaleable.

pyruse wrote: Is there a list of all the capabilities along with which phase(s) they apply to anywhere? That would help a lot.

P167

p167 - no wonder I didn't find it!
I would have expected it to be in the troop type definition section.

pyruse wrote:p167 - no wonder I didn't find it!
I would have expected it to be in the troop type definition section.

It is. The bit at the front is just an introduction.

The problem is that we cannot fit all the rules that you need for a game in the front 1/3 of the book.

Eagerness to get started is very understandable, but it is inevitable that you won't get it all right until you have read through the rules fully.

Isn't that what Cross-References are for?
'See p167 for more detail'

pyruse wrote:Isn't that what Cross-References are for?
'See p167 for more detail'

Indeed. An issue that you will need to take up with the publisher. However, in the absence of the ability to provide full cross-references, we showed items that are explained later in the book in bold italics, so that at least you know that there is further information later on. This is stated in the intro.

rbodleyscott wrote:

4. Is it ever possible to get ++POA when shooting?

Probably not. If not we could have simplified the To Hit chart. (Which was, of course, carried forward from FOGAM).

It looks to me like artillery enfilading elephants would get ++ unless I'm misreading the chart

**artillery enfilading elephants**

Now there's a visual!!!

First poodles now elephants... is there no end to your animal hatred???

Yes you are correct elephants in enfilade would be shot at with ++, try and get your opponent to walk into your guns arc like that and see how often it might happen

deadtorius wrote:First poodles now elephants... is there no end to your animal hatred???

Yes you are correct elephants in enfilade would be shot at with ++, try and get your opponent to walk into your guns arc like that and see how often it might happen

Now close would they need to get for that to count.

I was thinking to get that close they would be that very close to the guns....

range is irrelevant, the direction of the artillery shot has to be in a position that if the artillery could make a flank charge with the path of its shooting (hope that makes sense how I worded it) then the target is in enfilade.

So you have to be shooting right on its flank from a flank charge position, I am guessing elephants are still two base BGs so they can turn on a dime and keep your guns off the enfilade, or so the elephant player hopes anyway. Guess we shall see when those lists come out.