Slitherine

Hopefully the above will be nearly readable.

Fourteen turned up in the end, much fun was seemed to be had by all and in the fourteen games that were played we found no real issues.

A note for Mr Ellis, who left prior to the tournament finishing, don't worry your trophy is safe with me

Cheers mate!

I would like to just thank Dave for putting on the event and for both my opponents Mark & Brian for what was 2 excellent games.
The NKE did not let me down learnt alot and need to tweek my composition slightly!
May i also say that those Republican Roman legionaires are HARD Buggers.

Andy.

Thanks Andy.

Fortunately for me, I managed to roll a one on the very last roll of my game (after time had been called), which auto-broke a BG which tipped my army over the edge.

If that had not been the case then we would have had a three way tie for the top! which would have been just too difficult to work out who got what trophy...

I quite like the scoring system in that in my second game we had both lost 10 AP's out of armies that were 12 Battle Groups and (after an hour like that) Matt managed to tip my army over the brink when I threw that one when his poor bow got three hits on my LF. Under DBM that would probably have translated to a 9-1, under FoG this translated to a 21-11, which I thought gave a much better reflection of the game.

Another good day of FoG competition. Two enjoyable games, no rule issues.
I have to confess to a miscalculation of my second score sheet. I think it should have been 30 - 2 not 32 - 0. One broken unit is of course two defeat points, not one, sorry.

Are we allowed a peek at the Parthian order of battle, and some tidbits on how they defeated the chivalry of France not once, but twice?

rbodleyscott wrote:Are we allowed a peek at the Parthian order of battle, and some titbits on how they defeated the chivalry of France not once, but twice?

Matt used Suren Indo Parthian with 18 cataphracts and 2 elephants. In the game against Dave most of the cataphracts died but Matt managed to pick off a couple of BG's of knights and then take out the lesser troops. Agains't Mick I am not sure what Matt did.

The Parthains are Pretty good, when you add a load of generals and are willing to fight with them BG's of 6 cataphracts are really rather scary.

Good to see the Parthians doing so well. I have found 3 x 6 base BGs of cataphracts with enough generals to upgrade them all quite effective too

Si

Nice job with the Hussite Roger. Seems they went pretty well.

Si

My first game at Manchester with the Hussites was a nice example of the wagon rules working. A couple of low rolls stopped the wagons advancing in support of my mounted troops. I, foolishly with hindsight, pushed on unsupported and my mounted units were flanked and beaten.

The second game was against Greeks. I have yet to fight with the Hussites against an army with more than one mouned unit and have only won one game with them. However, they are playable and I will certainly use them again.

About how long did the games last? This is one point I am curious on as people get more experienced.

Again the questions on manuver? 3 BGs of 6 cataphract seem like a shove them forward strategy.


And are we coming to some conclusions about BG size?

bow MF should be 6 or 8?
Superior KN and CV w/bw should be 4?
Most LF should be bigger near 8?
How about the tough armoured HF?

hazelbark wrote:About how long did the games last? This is one point I am curious on as people get more experienced.

Again the questions on manuver? 3 BGs of 6 cataphract seem like a shove them forward strategy.


And are we coming to some conclusions about BG size?

bow MF should be 6 or 8?
Superior KN and CV w/bw should be 4?
Most LF should be bigger near 8?
How about the tough armoured HF?

The Parthians managed a lot of maneuver against Dave's French. The battle looked to me like it ended up being fought in all four corners of the table
In the last game two of the three cataphract BG's died and the other was mauled but the French were unable to contain the rest of the Partian army and lost their lesser troops as a result.

BG size wise:
I am currently working on:
MF bow in 8's
Superior knights and bow armed cav in 4's
Light foot in 8's if possible
Armoured foot in 6's or 8's unless I decide to put them in 4's
Protected foot in 8's or more
Lancer cavalry in 6's if armoured and 4's if protected or worse.
Light horse in 6's unless I am short of points

I would agree with Hammy on this. The bow armed cavalry in 4's is important to enable a quick move to single line and be able to evade.

Lancer cavalry are not looking a particularly good bet if your opponent could have knights, unless you have no other choices. You cannot evade and have to fight two deep, so pay a lot of points for effective frontage that is less effective than knights.

Game time is cetainly no longer than DBM. Between experienced opponents it is probably going to be significantly shorter. There is a lot more action in the time as well.

As to tactics, after a couple of dozen games I would suggest I am only scratching the surface here. Hammy has the best quote on this: "An easy game to learn, a difficult game to play well".

rogerg wrote:
As to tactics, after a couple of dozen games I would suggest I am only scratching the surface here. Hammy has the best quote on this: "An easy game to learn, a difficult game to play well".

With ten games (8 in competitions) under my belt I would suggest the following for beginners:

1. Organize and deploy your army in a historical fashion. Worked then, works now.
2. Holes in your lines leads to isolated BGs which means dead BGs. Keep it tight. A continuous battle lines makes it very difficult for skirmishers and shooters to do any real harm. You have all game to disperse your BGs all over the battlefield so why do it right at the beginning?
3. Don't worry too much about flanks. One unit in support of a flank can secure it for a long time.
4. If you don't know where to deploy a unit then put it in reserve in the middle of the table rather than put it on a wrong flank.
5. Reserves are a must. The less mobile the army, the greater the reserve required.
6. Skirmish screens are a must. Even a couple of BGs thrown forward will give you the space you need to manoeuvre where you want.
7. Put elephants in column with a unit on either side in support to minimize number of a casualties and the risk of an auto-break.

Regards,

Julian

This all seems to make sense. Number 1 is what all wargames rules aim for as well.

Would say however your point number 7 contradicts what you say in point 1. Historically armies did not deploy elephants in long thin columns to reduce incoming fire, so you seem to be recomending people to deploy elephants in a unhistorical formation. I can however see that it does make sense.

I have never felt a need to put elephants in columns, nor seen it done by my opponents. Becasue of the +1 on the death role, elephants being shot at must take 4 hits before they risk a loss. Nothing shoots with four dice on a two element frontage, so providing the elephants have units securing their flanks, there is minimal risk.

When getting elephants in combat I am much happier with both bases fighting. If the elephants are on a plus, 4 dice v 4 dice has fewer freak loss results than a 2 v 2 dice fight. (Tim Porter and his knights with a double six will live with me for a long time.)

rogerg wrote:I have never felt a need to put elephants in columns, nor seen it done by my opponents. Becasue of the +1 on the death role, elephants being shot at must take 4 hits before they risk a loss. Nothing shoots with four dice on a two element frontage, so providing the elephants have units securing their flanks, there is minimal risk.

When getting elephants in combat I am much happier with both bases fighting. If the elephants are on a plus, 4 dice v 4 dice has fewer freak loss results than a 2 v 2 dice fight. (Tim Porter and his knights with a double six will live with me for a long time.)

Oh dear. Guess who didn't notice the +1 to the death roll for elephants. Now I understand why my opponents haven't been worried when my BG of 6 javelinmen headed straight for their elephants.

Duh.

Julian