Slitherine

Now that all the lists have been published and people have been playing for a couple of years, what is the best army in FoG? I'm thinking in purely a gaming sense, so open competitions. And let's say for 800 points.

There is no single best army.

The best FOG army is always the one that just beat me. So it changes every week or so...)

Bill

nikgaukroger wrote:There is no single best army.

Most boring answer possible.

According to the ELO value, it's Santa Hermandad.

http://www.slithdata.net/files/fog/rankings.html
Sort by ELO, then you could consider the 20-30 first armies as good ones for competition.
But moreover than the quality of an army, an expermented player with a low ELO army will often defeat a beginner with a high ELO army.
As many wargamers, I build armies I like because of the history background, the quality of the miniatures or the tactic I could use with.

I'd agree with Nik. Experience often shows that the best army is the one being used by Oliver Dadier (sp?) or Pete Dalby...

timmy1 wrote:I'd agree with Nik. Experience often shows that the best army is the one being used by Oliver Dadier (sp?) or Pete Dalby...

Or one you can win with....

Mehrunes wrote:

nikgaukroger wrote:There is no single best army.

Most boring answer possible.

According to the ELO value, it's Santa Hermandad.

It might be this week but it will change in the next month or so for sure.

The other month I think it was one of the Hungarian lists.

The simple fact is that there is no single best army. There are a few armies that are not that brilliant but even they can do OK in the right situation when they are led by the right person.

ManU ist the best english football team at the moment. This might change tomorrow but it's true for today.
Rankings just don't lie.

Provided you start the season at the same time, the ManU example is valid. However given that the Santa Claus Army was in book 1 and we now have slightly more than one book published, the Rankings don't lie would be more appropriate if only games since the publication of Lost Scrolls were counted. If the Santa Claus army is still top, I agree with Mehrunes.

However I don't have the data to make that comparison (even then it might be flawed by the percieved success of some armies impacting choices by some players).

Mehrunes wrote:ManU ist the best english football team at the moment. This might change tomorrow but it's true for today.
Rankings just don't lie.

Chelsea are the reigning champions, so are the best english football team at the moment

timmy1 wrote:Provided you start the season at the same time, the ManU example is valid. However given that the Santa Claus Army was in book 1 and we now have slightly more than one book published, the Rankings don't lie would be more appropriate if only games since the publication of Lost Scrolls were counted. If the Santa Claus army is still top, I agree with Mehrunes.

However I don't have the data to make that comparison (even then it might be flawed by the percieved success of some armies impacting choices by some players).

You can't take the ELO rankings of an army as gospel - a really good army might have been used by a really bad player consistently, which would stuff the ELO rankings of the army.

dave_r wrote:

Mehrunes wrote:ManU ist the best english football team at the moment. This might change tomorrow but it's true for today.
Rankings just don't lie.

Chelsea are the reigning champions, so are the best english football team at the moment

You won't say the same for Germany and Bayern Munich? It's clearly Dortmund at the moment. The title is only the reward for the past season and holds no evidence for the current one.

What we can discuss is if the ELO number is the one value that gives the "best army".
Maybe it's the likeliness of being placed or winning tournaments?

Another analogy: What is the best car in the Formula One?
Obviously it's the car which won the constructor's championship.
The cars won this championship because they were used by better drivers. Nobody seems to complain about that.
So why relativise the ELO ranking by pointing out the different strength of the players?

A good army will make more points (or lose less) than a bad army even if led by a bad player. The opposite is also true.

footslogger wrote:Now that all the lists have been published and people have been playing for a couple of years, what is the best army in FoG? I'm thinking in purely a gaming sense, so open competitions. And let's say for 800 points.

its a fairly pointless debate as to what is the best army but something almost as fun to muse is the x factor armies

just to have a crack at it.

something with superior and armour available.
something with drilled cav (if its goign to be cav based 2-3 average LH are handy as well).
offensive spearmen as foot
a few BGs of filler
- poor slingers or javelinmen are nice because they are cheap 8's are good for being almost shooting immune
- 4 packs of handgunners to give a cohesion test penalty with little risk.
1 BG of heavily armoured knights makes any good army better.

To test this you'd need to find armies that match these criteria and see how they do.

- seljuk with the firenk nights?
-ottoman with serbs
- ilkhanid mongol

Now that all the lists have been published and people have been playing for a couple of years, what is the best army in FoG? I'm thinking in purely a gaming sense, so open competitions. And let's say for 800 points.

Take into account that "The Best Army" is person specific, because troops that you are good at using are better value for you.
So the best army for you is the one with the troops and style that you are best at using.

If you don't know what you're best at try multi-national armies like Carthage with mercenaries from all over or Alexandrian and successor armies that mix Alexandrian troops with everything from Egypt too India.

expendablecinc wrote:something with superior and armour available.

Agree

something with drilled cav (if its goign to be cav based 2-3 average LH are handy as well).

The drilled bit is nice but not necessary

offensive spearmen as foot

foot are completely superfluous, except as

a few BGs of filler

- 4 packs of handgunners to give a cohesion test penalty with little risk.

These should preferably be poor

1 BG of heavily armoured knights makes any good army better.

True

To test this you'd need to find armies that match these criteria and see how they do.

- seljuk with the firenk nights?
-ottoman with serbs
- ilkhanid mongol

So really that has turned out Ottomans as the others lack the quality support.

I prefer Mamluks to them. If you're going to go girly you may as well go all the way.

Mehrunes wrote:You won't say the same for Germany and Bayern Munich? It's clearly Dortmund at the moment. The title is only the reward for the past season and holds no evidence for the current one.

Does this not destroy your argument, since all the ELO info is historic and therefore of no relevance to today?

As there is no recurring awarding of titles in ELO ranking, no, it is not destroying my argument. The ELO ranking is the same as one long season.

frederic wrote:http://www.slithdata.net/files/fog/rankings.html
Sort by ELO, then you could consider the 20-30 first armies as good ones for competition.
But moreover than the quality of an army, an expermented player with a low ELO army will often defeat a beginner with a high ELO army.
As many wargamers, I build armies I like because of the history background, the quality of the miniatures or the tactic I could use with.

The ELO value should tell you what armies will do well or badly when played by average players. Not surprising that Santa Hernandad is on the top slot - it's stuffed full of tough stuff. So in a typical "walk forward and fight" encounter between two average palyer it should be fine.

Bear in mind that a lot of the results in the rankings are from limited competitions. For eaxample, the Akkadians do well "in book" but really don't like armoured troops so would do less well in an open comp.

Generally, I'd expect later armies to be more effective than earlier as they get to have heavily armoured knights, whoutare more cost effective than, say, cataphracts. Also, they get firearm light foot in groups of 4 that are very cost effective.

in my point of view :
warring state chinese army is one of the best
good infantry
(mf, drilled, shooter at the second rank, heavy weapon, portable obstacle and armoured! , if superior, we would speak chinese)
good mounted schock troop
(hch with crossbow are funy againts cat)
lf cat killer