Test Game Venetian vs Foderate Roman

[spike]

Foderate Roman (Me)vs Venetian (Dan)

Roman’s or R
1x IC, 3x TC
4 x BG’s of
4x Auxillia as HF, Poor, Drilled, Protected, Light Spear, Sword + 2x LF, Poor, Drilled, Unprotected, Bow- All behind field fortifications

1 x BG of
4 Slingers, LF, Poor, Drilled, Unprotected, Sling

2 x BG’s of
6x Foderatii Cavalry- Cav, Superior, Un-drilled, Protected, Lance, Sword

1 x BG of
6x Catafractii- Cat, Superior, Drilled, Hv. Armoured, Lance, Sword

1 x BG of
6x Horse Archers- Cav, Superior, Drilled, Armoured, Bow, Sword

1 x BG of
6x Horse Archers- Cav, Average, Drilled, Armoured, Bow, Sword

Venetian’s or V
1x IC, 3x TC
4x BG’s of
4x Knights- Knight, Average, ???, Hv. Armoured, Lance, Sword (some were drilled I remember, cant remember how many)
1x BG of
4x Knights- Knight, Superior, Drilled, Hv. Armoured, Lance, Sword
1x BG of
6x Archers- LF, Average, Un-drilled, Un-protected, Bow
2x BG’s of
4x Mt Xbow- LH, Average, Un-drilled, Un-protected, Xbow
2x BG’s of
4x Horses-Archers- LH, Average, Un-drilled, Un-protected, Bow
1x Bg of
4xTurkapoles- LH, Average, Un-drilled, Un-protected, Javelin, Light Spear


R won the initative and chose developed terrain type, taking the enclosed field(comp), and all 4 open areas, V was left with the village(comp), and then chose 2 plantations.

Therefore the final terrain was fairly open, which seems to happen in a lot of games I have played. (Note: suggest terrain rules need looking at, to get a few more items on the table, suggest player may only chose no more than 2 items of the same type as a starter)
So the battlefield looked as follows, with deplyment. (this diagram looks ok on my system but I cant say how it looks on yours- any suggestions on how I can draw map on this?)

-------------------------------------Venetian baseline---------------------------------------------
...............................................PL,PL Baggage
...............................................PL,PL
................knights

................knights ----knights(s)----knights.............knights


turkapoles......LH(xbow)........LH(bow)...... LH(xbow).......LF(bow)....... LH(bow)





............................................................................................PL, PL
............................................................................................PL, PL

cav(bw)sup--- cav(lan)----cat----cav(lan)---cav(bw)av.....................EF, EF ...................................................................................................................EF, EF
..........................................................................................ax, ax...............VIL, VIL
..................................................................................ax .....sl.........ax.......VIL, VIL
.........................................................................................Baggage
--------------------------------Roman baseline------------------------------------------------------

IC’s were both deployed with the main cavalry BL, V TC’s were spread amongst the separate knights and one group of LH on their left. R deployed their TC’s with the bow and lancer cavalry.

Brief description of the action:

V advanced their skirmish line, while moving up the knights with a double move, they also created a small hole between the 2 knights BG’s on the left to allow their skirmishers to retire behind the knights. This was important later in the action.

The R made a double advance towards V, but allows the bow units to get ahead of the strike group which remained as a single line.

V brought skirmishers on their left up in the second bound to shoot at the bow cav on the R’s right, whilst moving knights behind them to support future attack, while keeping the turkapole’s out of range on their left, and moving knights up to support these from their other reserve group. Shooting from both sides did little damage.

R moved up the bow cav on both flanksof their force, wheeling the group on the right so a single group of Lh xbow would be hit by all 6 elements, this caused the xbow to loose 1 element and loose a morale step, but cause no casualties in return. R also advanced again their main mounted BL. Shooting from the other xbow at the cat’s proved fruitless.

V retired the damaged xbow unit and replaced them with a bow unit from the centre and the LF, they withdrew their other xbow unit to charge range of R’s mounted BL, and again withdrew the turkopoles so they were supported by the knights which finaly joined up and supported them. Shooting again was ultimately fruitless. The morale step on the damaged unit recovered in the interbound.

Accuracy now a little distorted as I can’t recall the action exactly but…..

R eventually charged the xbow in the centre but the hole left was too narrow, and they were hit in the rear by the lancers (who also contacted the knights on the right of the V BL) and the cat’s also made contact, this routed the xbow in the centre, and the knights in contact failed its “see friends break” check and lost a morale step, then superior knights were hit in the follow up, by the cat's, these had the V IC in control. He was lost in the following bound, as the cats rolled a 12 even as they lost all their remaining combats (see issues).
Eventually both the R cats and one of R’s lancers lost to V knights, but not before causing element losses, leaving V knights weakened, in addition to the loss of V's IC, the last remaining lancer unit ended up with both a roman IC and TC, with the TC leading the line and IC bolstering morale!, this managed to survive and eliminate 2 of the 3 knight commands, which had been weakened in the previous combats, but whilst surrounded on 3 sides!
R bow on their left began shooting at the turkopoles and knights, while on the V turn they would charge and the bow would evade. Eventually the turkopoles caught the cav but the supporting knights failed to keep up and even a morale step down the V lost the combat and routed as the TC in the frontline gave R’s bow effective elite status in the ensuing combat, all before the knights could rescue them. The turkopoles eventually recovered morale back to fragmented, before they fled the field.
The other R bow continued to shoot and evade almost to its own baseline, until the games end, and eliminated another command of LH in the ensuing action.

Result V eliminated 3 R BG’s, whilst suffering 4 losses, and having one unit fragmented, so 6-9 to R. Game started at 8pm and players shook hand on the result at 11:15, approx 9 bounds each. Both player fels that on the whole it was a good game, and only 1 bit of luck seemed to intervene when the V lost their IC on a roll of 12.

Rules issues hi-lighted

Terrain
To easy to ensure there is very little terrain, which was as almost as featureless as a desert in this game, with very little in the centre of the table.
Suggested earlier terrain rules need looking at, to get a few more items on the table, suggest player may only chose no more than 2 items of the same type as a starter with the current system, to stop open terrain being over used to stop terrain placement. Terrain often a large feature in historic, rivers, hills or vast forests feature in many historic texts, and commanders have to be aware of their restrictive nature.
Perhaps attacker chooses terrain to attack through, which dictates max/min number of items , but defender chooses all terrain items( ,after all it probably his country being invaded). Defender rolls all placement dice, but attacker rolls all terrain movement dice is a suggestion we could try as an alternative.

Troops
Catafracts
In 2 games have failed, absolutely abysmally! This time 6 of them superior were defeated by 4 average, undrilled knights! (19 points for an average, undrilled knight so 76 points, vs 20 for a superior drilled catafract so 120 for the command, so knights are 1/3 cheaper and they never lost a round of combat!). I’d rather have more ordinary lancers which seem to have similar chances for far less cost, or use the available Huns on the list instead for more horse archers, which seem much more effective!
Catafracts seem to be severely disadvantaged, in comparison against knights, and there not so hot vs heavy foot either. Will try them again but have reservations about their costs vs other troops available.

[rbodleyscott]

Terrain

We are addressing this issue by reducing the number of permitted open areas.

Cataphracts

It is our intention that Cataphracts should be very poor vs medieval knights. They were, after all, largely obsolete by 7th Century AD. Unfortunately DBM-fuelled expectations have led to a number of players being shocked at the result when they try to take on knights with cataphracts.

Cavalry are also very bad (in close combat) against knights (even worse than cataphracts) - but people don't find that so surprising.

Against contemporary cavalry (including lancers), however, cataphracts are very effective.

We are rejigging their points cost somewhat in the new version. However, like all troops, they are not worth their points against an equal points of troops they are not intended (in the game design) to challenge. Against their proper opponents they are.

Whether they are cost-effective in non-historical conflicts remains to be seen. They are cost-effective in historical conflicts.

We are hoping that Field of Glory will see a rise in the prevalence of themed tournaments. The army list books are organised on a thematic basis to facilitate this.

[davidandlynda]

Seeing the last sentance," we are hoping for a rise in themed tournaments",I hope that the rules are not going to be so slanted towards that instead of open ,because that would seriously affect the major international events ,the IWF for example,and possibly lead to them not being adopted internationally.
I for one don't favour themed events,I believe it would reduce the players abroad,south africa for example ,they don't have the easy access to large amounts of figures that we do
David

[spike]

Terrain


Cataphracts

It is our intention that Cataphracts should be very poor vs medieval knights. .

Agreed that this should be reflected in the combat system, but the points is something which should give an element of balance. It should not be the case that troops costing 1/3 less should ever be as effective such that the more expensive group are unable to even provide them with a contest

[rbodleyscott]

Seeing the last sentance," we are hoping for a rise in themed tournaments",I hope that the rules are not going to be so slanted towards that instead of open ,because that would seriously affect the major international events ,the IWF for example,and possibly lead to them not being adopted internationally.

The rules are fine for open tournaments, but some troop types or armies may be less effective in open tournaments than in themed tournaments.

[hammy]

Seeing the last sentance," we are hoping for a rise in themed tournaments",I hope that the rules are not going to be so slanted towards that instead of open ,because that would seriously affect the major international events ,the IWF for example,and possibly lead to them not being adopted internationally.

The rules are fine for open tournaments, but some troop types or armies may be less effective in open tournaments than in themed tournaments.

Absolutely, don't expect to see me taking Later Swiss to an open FoG tournament any time soon

[markm]

Hammy,

you're a spoil sport