Slitherine

So, is everybody happy with flank marches? We never see them used on our group. Choosing to fight the battle with one arm tied behind your back and only a 1 in 6 chance per turn of untying it, unless you add a Field Commander to the mix, is a pretty gutsy move. I see few players try it more that once or twice, and then they give up on it.

What is everyone else's experience?

Just like in DBM it is a risky move that can pay off very well.

I might consider thinking about using one if the circumstances fit or I'm really desperate (because of a bad match up for example).

The system as is seems fair enough to me, rough statistics say you can expect the flank march around turn 6,
i.e. around half way through the game.

They never work for me (but I keep trying!) Either they never show up or are easiily delayed by a single enemy unit. The one time I got a flank march to show up turn 1 I promptly rolled a 3 and watched my cavalry straggle away.

I have only flank marched in 2 tournament games ever, and both times it has only been done because of exceptionally strangely placed terrain, and both times it has paid off very well.

I feel like there's a difference between a flank march and a flank march in this ruleset. Putting a couple Cav units on the far edge of the board and rushing them around your opponents flank is one, and actually doing the "flank march" in the rules is the other.

If you consider that the former idea would represent the majority of flank marches, and the latter only represents extreme cases, I think the current rules are fine.

I think Matt Iverson reported flank marching in like 10 consecutive tournament games.

Ideally the fm arrives around turn 4-6 whent he fighting starts. So the odds work well in some ways.

I had a tournament about 6 months back. I flanked march a lancer. The enemy had a phalanx within 6 MU. SO he marched it away. I came on and was about 3.5 MU from his rear. Then I put a foot unit in front of of his superior phalanx.

Yep they charged got intercepted. Broke in melee and started going down perpindicular to his main battle line. UGLY.

I used to flank march frequently in DBM, but do less so in FoG. In both cases I have generally achieved better results when flank marching.

Whether to flank march depends alot on the type of army you are facing. It is much better to FM against a large and/or unmaneouverable army. However, most armies in FoG can react quickly to any flank march. It depends on the army and table size as to whether it is a good idea to FM.

On the plus side
1) you have the advantage of being able to enter anywhere along the edge rather just in your opponents half of the board, so if you opponent turns BG's to face the flank just come on near or behind your own troops.
2) The threat of a flank march will usually force your opponent to keep some reserves to deal with when (if) it arrives so your loss of troops on the table is not that great
3) Your troops can move along the flank near the edge of the board. If the enemy tries to match you then they face the danger of the FM appearing behind them or making them flee

A 1 in 6 chance of arriving is not that bad and I generally do not bother with a Field commander leading the flank march unless I am FM'ing infantry as you don't want the FM to arrive too early.

Also FM'ing when you have PBI is preferable as the enemy will have a move before you roll for the FM.

I am surprised that more people don't FM more oftern

Regards
Martin

I've flank marched a few times. First time was with Early Bulgars vs Byzantine somethings. My opponent was frozen in place not knowing which flank to cover. This allowed my skirmishers to cause all sorts of mayhem until the flank march of 3 BGs of lancers showed up and rolled up his army.
The next time I tried a flank march with a Medieval Burgundian army, two BGs straggled and the third, a BG of average cav, got mowed down by English longbowmen.
The last time I tried a flank march, only one BG straggled.
So sometimes it works and sometimes you've just wasted a big chunk of points.

hazelbark wrote:I had a tournament about 6 months back. I flanked march a lancer. The enemy had a phalanx within 6 MU. SO he marched it away. I came on and was about 3.5 MU from his rear. Then I put a foot unit in front of of his superior phalanx.

Yep they charged got intercepted. Broke in melee and started going down perpindicular to his main battle line. UGLY.

Why did his Pike charge? They didn't have to.

Anyway 2009 Britcon was won by a guy that flank marched 5 out of six games.

Damian Ranasinghe and I won Burton 2010, sending flank marches in 3 out of 4 games.

philqw78 wrote:Anyway 2009 Britcon was won by a guy that flank marched 5 out of six games.

But he bottled it in the last game

hammy wrote:

philqw78 wrote:Anyway 2009 Britcon was won by a guy that flank marched 5 out of six games.

But he bottled it in the last game

Yeah, w*nk*r!

philqw78 wrote:

hazelbark wrote:I had a tournament about 6 months back. I flanked march a lancer. The enemy had a phalanx within 6 MU. SO he marched it away. I came on and was about 3.5 MU from his rear. Then I put a foot unit in front of of his superior phalanx.

Yep they charged got intercepted. Broke in melee and started going down perpindicular to his main battle line. UGLY.

Why did his Pike charge? They didn't have to.

Anyway 2009 Britcon was won by a guy that flank marched 5 out of six games.

Ahh you're right. Forgot. He rolled to not charge the infantry, but he didn't have to because he would have been contacted by mounted. Ironically my flank march included foot so I could have had foot there, but you're right very different.

"Why spoil the beauty of the thing with legality"

philqw78 wrote:

hazelbark wrote:I had a tournament about 6 months back. I flanked march a lancer. The enemy had a phalanx within 6 MU. SO he marched it away. I came on and was about 3.5 MU from his rear. Then I put a foot unit in front of of his superior phalanx.

Yep they charged got intercepted. Broke in melee and started going down perpindicular to his main battle line. UGLY.

Why did his Pike charge? They didn't have to.

Anyway 2009 Britcon was won by a guy that flank marched 5 out of six games.

I know him quite well don't you know.

hazelbark wrote:"Why spoil the beauty of the thing with legality"

Spoken like a true American!

I flank march most times, it seems to work even if they don't come on the only time it did'nt work was when it came on in the first move, always better if it comes on after a few try's.

philqw78 wrote:

hazelbark wrote:"Why spoil the beauty of the thing with legality"

Spoken like a true American!

It actually a line from a movie spoken by an American President.

"The Wind and the Lion" awesome movie. vaguely historical except for the Hollywood changes.

In our group a couple of players usually do flank marches.

I used it a couple of times and in both won the game, though only in one of the games the flank march was important to the result.

However, it happened to me in a tournment game that would decide the 2nd place of a tournment, that my opponent, who was ahead of me in the competition and only needed a draw, made 2 flank marchs and ambushed 3 units, so that the only 3 units (out of 12) appearing on the table, were a couple of skirmishing BGs and a non shock cavalry BG. Curiously one of his flank marched arrived immediatly and it turned out to be one of the best FOG games I have ever made, very exciting and tense but very rewarding.

Nevertheless, I must say it doesn't feel right that it is legal to make such a deployment in a competition game.

I think the flank march rules are ok as they are. If you set-up your army for it they are much better/easier.

VMadeira wrote:However, it happened to me in a tournment game that would decide the 2nd place of a tournment, that my opponent, who was ahead of me in the competition and only needed a draw, made 2 flank marchs and ambushed 3 units, so that the only 3 units (out of 12) appearing on the table, were a couple of skirmishing BGs and a non shock cavalry BG. Curiously one of his flank marched arrived immediatly and it turned out to be one of the best FOG games I have ever made, very exciting and tense but very rewarding.

Nevertheless, I must say it doesn't feel right that it is legal to make such a deployment in a competition game.

I would not have a problem with this as long as my opponent did not then spend 10 minutes per turn moving his 3 BG of troops. As long as you make your moves quickly you should get a lot of turns in and have a goodly chance of taking advantage of his widely split deployment which would have been obvious the moment he deployed no BG in the second batch.

hammy wrote:

VMadeira wrote:However, it happened to me in a tournment game that would decide the 2nd place of a tournment, that my opponent, who was ahead of me in the competition and only needed a draw, made 2 flank marchs and ambushed 3 units, so that the only 3 units (out of 12) appearing on the table, were a couple of skirmishing BGs and a non shock cavalry BG. Curiously one of his flank marched arrived immediatly and it turned out to be one of the best FOG games I have ever made, very exciting and tense but very rewarding.

Nevertheless, I must say it doesn't feel right that it is legal to make such a deployment in a competition game.

I would not have a problem with this as long as my opponent did not then spend 10 minutes per turn moving his 3 BG of troops. As long as you make your moves quickly you should get a lot of turns in and have a goodly chance of taking advantage of his widely split deployment which would have been obvious the moment he deployed no BG in the second batch.

It doesn't feel right that a player that deployed that badly came second. Defeat them in detail.