Slitherine

Please post here issues and comments about the voerall feel of the game. General comments about game balance, the effects of skill and luck. Tactical feel etc.

Tx

Si

I thoroughly enjoyed the competition and the individual games. The quality of the competition was also high and although players had discussions on certain points in the rules these were easily resolved by the players or by consultation with yourself. On this point you did a great job being both readily available and easy to discuss the points with.
From a challenge point of view I thought the decisions to be made did require judgement and careful thought. in many areas this was different from say dbm where you would spend an inordinate amount of time allocating command dice and adding up how many points each command needed. Where with FOG things like how commanders should best be used were more key and probably more reflective of being in command.
As a final point, I was probably less tired than I was after 3 games of dbm on a Saturday in previous competitions.
John

I did feel some of the games felt skirmish-sized - the games lacked that "I'm commanding and army" feel that DBM does have - so I thought why this is. A lot of this is rules suggestions as well but I felt it was all one issue so maybe better posted here:


Too few points on table – for both sides?? o Not many games were filling the table – and most troops are fighting at least 2 deep all the time, so the “a FoG 800pt army has as many bases as 400 ap of DBM” argument doesn’t quite work – you need a few more bases to have the same width, and maybe even more to clog the table to limit highly manoeuvrable units.
o There were not enough points for reserves or multiple lines, which are a historical fact that many games have struggled with. Given the 3” break test rules and instant base removal of units below half strength, multiple lines could easily be a bigger part of / or more viable in FoG than in other sets
o The largest armies I fought had 14-15 BGs. Mine had 11, but the bigger armies were because of having more tiny units of skirmishers
 USE MORE POINTS ?

The VP system is set up BG by BG, so you fight to break the enemy “unit by unit” rather than thinking about breaking one unit to then create a hole to exploit.
 The “you only test for routers at point of breaking, within 3” may be a contributing factor as often it pays for your BGs to abandon a failing friendly BG, leading to battle lines breaking up into single units.
 + IN COHESION TEST FOR BEING IN A BL ?
 UNITS NOT IN A BL TEXT FOR BROKEN FRIENDS AT LONGER RANGE ?

Once troops (especially foot) win a combat, they will break through a line of battle and its then very hard for them to rejoin the line - this was a biggie for me.

o A single unit of foot winning its combat will break through the enemy lines by breaking and pursuing its opponents - even where the rest of its friends in the line are losing. The “breaking through” unit then often prefers to push onwards (to avoid the “inside 3” friends dying” test) as attempting to wheel/turn back to rejoin the line of combat and save its friends is simply too hard to do – and because units rarely fight for more than 2-3 turns, the battle will be won or lost by then anyway
o For undrilled foot this is almost impossible - turning/wheeling to rejoin the line of battle after 1 or two rounds of pursuit is so hard (with CMTs and relative move distances) that it often is not even sensible to try – and if your friends have lost, the enemy will also have pursued so will be even further away!
 LIMIT/MAKE OPTIONAL PURSUITS WHERE YOU ARE FIGHTING IN A BL OR FIGHTING CLOSE TO ENEMIES / FRIENDS?
 MAKE IT EASIER TO TURN TO THREATEN / WHEN THREATENED BY / IN PROXIMITY TO ENEMY / COMBAT SITUATIONS?


Unit sizes – lots of small units means lots of opportunity to act independently MANDATE MORE LARGE UNIT SIZES IN ARMY LISTS
 CMT ADVANTAGES WHEN IN BL FORMATION?

 Skirmishers & Cavalry very obviously manoeuvre “like units” and have little incentive to stick in BL’s as they have the move distances to form a BL in combat – or avoid it - anyway
o Mounted troops can do lots of 90 & 180 degree turns (often without taking CMT’s) and were using their superior move speed to simply get away “at the last minute” from anyone nasty coming after them.
o These sorts of units were also being withdrawn and re-formed by generals, and used as padding to boost the break points of armies so capital units were expendable – again, very “unit-ey” behaviour
 SHOULD CMT’S BE MANDATORY FOR MORE TYPES OF UNITS, ESPECIALLY WHEN ENEMY ARE CLOSE / THREATENING FLANKS ETC?
 REDUCTION IN MOVE DISTANCES WHEN A TURN IS INVOLVED?
 SHOULD HIGHLY MANOEUVRABLE UNITS (LF/LH) BE RESTRICTED TO LARGER UNIT SIZES TO MITIGATE THEIR ABILITY TO SQUIRT THROUGH GAPS AND ESCAPE ETC ?

madaxeman wrote:I did feel some of the games felt skirmish-sized - the games lacked that "I'm commanding and army" feel that DBM does have - so I thought why this is. A lot of this is rules suggestions as well but I felt it was all one issue so maybe better posted here:


Too few points on table – for both sides?? o Not many games were filling the table – and most troops are fighting at least 2 deep all the time, so the “a FoG 800pt army has as many bases as 400 ap of DBM” argument doesn’t quite work – you need a few more bases to have the same width, and maybe even more to clog the table to limit highly manoeuvrable units.
o There were not enough points for reserves or multiple lines, which are a historical fact that many games have struggled with. Given the 3” break test rules and instant base removal of units below half strength, multiple lines could easily be a bigger part of / or more viable in FoG than in other sets
o The largest armies I fought had 14-15 BGs. Mine had 11, but the bigger armies were because of having more tiny units of skirmishers
 USE MORE POINTS ?

This post--and several others raising similar points--got me thinking. Without addressing the question of whether the game has a "skirmish" feel as opposed to an "army" feel I will say that I like the ability of skirmishers and cav to operate independantly. It provides an opportunity for the players to maneuver their troops to seek an advantage, instead of merely lining up and going in.

Marc

I'm hoping/planning to post some post match reports on my website - the first one is now done, but of course I'd want the authors views on confidentiality etc before I release this or indeed any future pages to the world outside this beta test list.

The first report is here. In retrospect it seems John & I had a really good game - wish I was sober throughout !

http://www.madaxeman.com/game_reports/Britcon_07_1.htm

Si/JD - if you want to drop me a line off line to the forum on how this gets published and how we approve it please do so

Tim

EXCELLENT REPORT AS EVER TIM

DON

Great stuff Tim

My only other comment ............ to be uphill one has to be entirely on a hill with some part "uphill" ......... so those Bowmen weren't uphill but on evens ... hope it didn't make too much difference !!

Si

Tim

Contact me on skype or by PM

Regards
JDM

A well the uphill bowmen was another learning point then. It probably did make some difference albeit some of them were uphill. I do not feel too guilty as my valiant opponent persuaded me that his auto break troops did not actually break until the end of the last turn and as there was no interface it did not count as a broken unit for victory.
John

There are bound to be a few things like that as we all progress .... I am sure it all comes out in the wash adn can't iamgine anyone being too bothered about any such thing at this stage - having fun and challenging the rules were the most important jobs!

For what its worth to claim uphill a base must be "standing entirely on a hill" etc. - see the glossary

Si

Aaaa! Good to see these rules have reintroduced 7th style cheating John!

Well I see you are a believer in the philosophy of not hitting a man when he is down as kicking him is easier!!

if you not ok with this philosophy , let your hears grows and get out of your boots

thefrenchjester " working class hero "

smells like the 7th but by far better for spirit ( and if somebody says " of 69 " , he made mistakes while I thought about game spirit

thefrenchjester " view from the hill "

Steady now!

John, lest you don't know Tim well, he has quite an acerbic wit - so don't take his comment as critical, more jocular. It is Tim's raison d'etre to challenge all establishment and I for one would miss him greatly were he to stop.

Si

Simon, rest assured my response to Tim was also supposed to be jocular - failed dramatically there then!! I do have previous know;edge and experience of him.
It seems telling to me that Tim is the Mad Axeman but no where does he disclose the size of his actual chopper.

I thoroughly enjoyed Britcon.

All 6 games were played in a very good spirit and I learnt a lot.

I made loads of mistakes in terms of deployment and tactics but it should hopefully help me next time around.

Pete