Slitherine

Massed poor infantry... Colourful and Daft as it sounds or a real scare?

Low quality troops seem to fair better in FOGN than in the other FOG rules. This is probably due to a combination of different game mechanics that don't overly favour small units (as in FOG AM) and better point balancing. I've sucessfully used Average Conscripts in large units with rear support as assault troops and Poor Drilled units can almost be used in exactly the same way as Average Drilled as long as you focus on shooting, rather than close combat and are carefull not to let them get exposed to too much incoming. Poor Conscripts I've not tried and I expect they will be a bit more difficult since they don't have anything that they are competative in. They are, however, very cheap and I guess in large units with rear support and with some protection from artillery and/or cavalry to discourage assaults by enemy infantry could hold down a refused flank whilst the Guard did all the attacking. Not sure they'll be very high on my list of armies to invest time and money in, although I may eventually consider using them as an ally to the Austrian in Italy.

Andy D

thanks panda2 for the info.... in general, 6 base units seems to be the way forward.... a bit of kitchen table play testing then a bit of painting....

Large infantry units are are generally a good way to go for low quality troops in my opinion as well.

It can be difficult to recover cohesion losses for low quality troops. Also, if you have two units in a division that are damaged, the higher quality unit of the two tends to get the rally attempt - on the basis that you have a better chance of suceeding.

The net effect of both being difficult to recover, and often not trying, means that gradual attrition can become a real problem for militia. They drop to disordered from lucky long range artillery or skirmish fire, don't get rallied, a couple of turns later they drop to wavering, they are then as good as dead.

The best way to counter this for low quality troops is to try and minimise gradual attrition losses from lucky enemy shooting.
The -1 for a large unit massively reduces the chance of dropping cohesion when shot at by 3 or 4 dice needing 5+, so being a large target means far fewer cohension drops from skirmish shooting/long range artillery.

When taking conscripts, obviously rear support is important to give them 2 dice for CTs. Two large conscript units in front with a small behind providing rear support to both, seems a logical way to deploy conscript armies.

Predominantly low quality armies can get quite big. Fielding large units helps to drop the units-to-commanders ratio in an army, meaning that in your recovery phase you can attempt to rally 30 bases with your 4 DCs + CC, rather than 20 bases if your army was made of small units.

On the minus side, large units are obviously 50% more costly than small. 50% is a lot. They do not neccessary get 50% more dice in every situation. Ignoring a hit is great when the enemy is only firing a few dice but at close range, with more dice and greater chances to hit, this advantage becomes less.

Also having fewer units in your army means that you are less likely to manage 'overhang' at deployment time, by which I mean have units still available to deploy after your opponent has finished deploying his whole army.

So swings and roundabouts for large units, but for my money, large units for low quality units is the way to go.
All in all, lots of things to consider when designing a list!