Roll Call & Challenge themes

[madaxeman]

Bookings for Roll Call (now April 11/12th) and The BHGS Challenge (June 20/21) are now open for bookings 2015 via the BHGS website, however we are still to tie down some of the themes in detail.

With a glut of "early" period events (Warfare, Godendag, Burton) at the end of this year and beginning of next,the current thinking is to make 15mm Roll Call a "ECW/TYW" theme, and have the BHGS Challenge as a "late" theme. Briton and the 25mm period at Roll Call will both remain as "open".

With that in mind, does the online FoG:R hive-mind have any suggestions as to how to define or otherwise tighten up these two periods?

Roll Call - http://www.bhgs.org.uk/roll-call.html
The BHGS Challenge - http://www.bhgs.org.uk/the-challenge.html

Bearing in mind that RBS has added the "6 bases of battle foot per medium or heavy gun" restriction to Godendag, I suspect that will make it into all of the themes as well... but other restrictions, such as on Average/Superior mounted etc are all possible.

[nikgaukroger]

Bookings for Roll Call (now April 11/12th) and The BHGS Challenge (June 20/21) are now open for bookings 2015 via the BHGS website, however we are still to tie down some of the themes in detail.

With a glut of "early" period events (Warfare, Godendag, Burton) at the end of this year and beginning of next,the current thinking is to make 15mm Roll Call a "ECW/TYW" theme, and have the BHGS Challenge as a "late" theme. Briton and the 25mm period at Roll Call will both remain as "open".

With that in mind, does the online FoG:R hive-mind have any suggestions as to how to define or otherwise tighten up these two periods?

Would a "late" period that didn't include the War of the League of Augsburg, etc. be slightly different in terms of "late"? Perhaps a "3rd quarter of the C17th" sort of range? Covers the Frondes, Louis XIV's War of Devolution and the Franco-Dutch War, The Deluge, Saint Gotthard and so on - sort of "Age of Turenne and Montecuccoli"

Roll Call - http://www.bhgs.org.uk/roll-call.html
The BHGS Challenge - http://www.bhgs.org.uk/the-challenge.html

Bearing in mind that RBS has added the "6 bases of battle foot per medium or heavy gun" restriction to Godendag, I suspect that will make it into all of the themes as well... but other restrictions, such as on Average/Superior mounted etc are all possible.

Personally I'd consider the artillery one as a given

[madaxeman]

Would a "late" period that didn't include the War of the League of Augsburg, etc. be slightly different in terms of "late"? Perhaps a "3rd quarter of the C17th" sort of range? Covers the Frondes, Louis XIV's War of Devolution and the Franco-Dutch War, The Deluge, Saint Gotthard and so on - sort of "Age of Turenne and Montecuccoli"

A period that was keeping the LoA Anglo-Dutch out of play, and making C17 figures acceptable might be quite good actually... how would it be defined, and would it include the Eastern European and Eastern "Eastern" armies ?

On the "artillery" topic:
- if "battle foot" was changed to "non dragoon or LF" would it cause any problems? It could help the already-marginal Ottomans be marginally more viable (and historical) by allowing them to field Mob as well as normal foot to meet this requirement. Would it allow any other armies to use Mob inappropriately?
- are there any lists that have compulsory artillery but less than 12 compulsory foot? If so, should they be allowed an exception for using just 2 artillery bases?

[nikgaukroger]

Would a "late" period that didn't include the War of the League of Augsburg, etc. be slightly different in terms of "late"? Perhaps a "3rd quarter of the C17th" sort of range? Covers the Frondes, Louis XIV's War of Devolution and the Franco-Dutch War, The Deluge, Saint Gotthard and so on - sort of "Age of Turenne and Montecuccoli"

A period that was keeping the LoA Anglo-Dutch out of play, and making C17 figures acceptable might be quite good actually... how would it be defined, and would it include the Eastern European and Eastern "Eastern" armies ?

Well the Deluge period mentioned would bring the Poles, Russians, etc. into play and Saint Gotthard the Ottomans - that would be quite a few armies (shall I draw you up a possible list of them?), but I guess you could bring in others as desired really depending on how "tight" you want the theme to be.

On the "artillery" topic:
- if "battle foot" was changed to "non dragoon or LF" would it cause any problems? It could help the already-marginal Ottomans be marginally more viable (and historical) by allowing them to field Mob as well as normal foot to meet this requirement. Would it allow any other armies to use Mob inappropriately?
- are there any lists that have compulsory artillery but less than 12 compulsory foot? If so, should they be allowed an exception for using just 2 artillery bases?

Richard's suggestion on this was for the wording to include:

... bases of Determined Foot/ Heavy Foot/Medium Foot/Warriors or a combination of those, or half the maximum number of those types of infantry that their army list allows if this is less.

IIRC he did this specifically for the Ottoman case. On the other hand I also note he hasn't included it in his Godendag rules.

[madaxeman]

Well the Deluge period mentioned would bring the Poles, Russians, etc. into play and Saint Gotthard the Ottomans - that would be quite a few armies (shall I draw you up a possible list of them?), but I guess you could bring in others as desired really depending on how "tight" you want the theme to be.

That would be interesting ...please!


On the "artillery" topic:
- if "battle foot" was changed to "non dragoon or LF" would it cause any problems? It could help the already-marginal Ottomans be marginally more viable (and historical) by allowing them to field Mob as well as normal foot to meet this requirement. Would it allow any other armies to use Mob inappropriately?
- are there any lists that have compulsory artillery but less than 12 compulsory foot? If so, should they be allowed an exception for using just 2 artillery bases?

Richard's suggestion on this was for the wording to include:

... bases of Determined Foot/ Heavy Foot/Medium Foot/Warriors or a combination of those, or half the maximum number of those types of infantry that their army list allows if this is less.

IIRC he did this specifically for the Ottoman case. On the other hand I also note he hasn't included it in his Godendag rules.

Not sure how that helps the Ottomans really ... it would only "help" lists with a maximum of less than 24 'proper' foot.

[alasdair2204]

Personally I will play whatever

however it does feel like we are tending towards one style of list, ie an infantry one with lots of firepower as a cavalry army becomes unviable without heavy guns (in the pike and shot era, not true in the pre 1570 era so much) especially if 1/2 have to be average as the smaller units are more vulnerable and also cavalry is more expensive. I know I like cavalry and do well with them but it feels like with many of the recent ideas they are being written out, to be fair the more we vary themes the better and put in restrictions for one off competitions the better but do not feel the 6 foot for one gun should just become part of the rules, to be fair to Richard whilst he puts in the foot to gun restriction he also greatly increases the minimum of mounted which evens it out. Anyway just a warning note.

cheers

Alasdair

[nikgaukroger]

Well the Deluge period mentioned would bring the Poles, Russians, etc. into play and Saint Gotthard the Ottomans - that would be quite a few armies (shall I draw you up a possible list of them?), but I guess you could bring in others as desired really depending on how "tight" you want the theme to be.

That would be interesting ...please!

PM'ed you some thoughts.

[madaxeman]

Personally I will play whatever

however it does feel like we are tending towards one style of list, ie an infantry one with lots of firepower as a cavalry army becomes unviable without heavy guns (in the pike and shot era, not true in the pre 1570 era so much) especially if 1/2 have to be average as the smaller units are more vulnerable and also cavalry is more expensive. I know I like cavalry and do well with them but it feels like with many of the recent ideas they are being written out, to be fair the more we vary themes the better and put in restrictions for one off competitions the better but do not feel the 6 foot for one gun should just become part of the rules, to be fair to Richard whilst he puts in the foot to gun restriction he also greatly increases the minimum of mounted which evens it out. Anyway just a warning note.

cheers

Alasdair

The only idea which is up for definite consideration is the "6 foot per gun" rule, which most players I speak to seem to regard as pretty much being almost an official amendment already.

Anything else would be about creating a more interesting and varied theme. On that basis, any other suggestions..?

[steads]

I like the Burton idea of guns going down first but do not think it should be a "permanent" amendment

[nikgaukroger]

I like the Burton idea of guns going down first but do not think it should be a "permanent" amendment

I'll be very interested to see how that pans out. We originally had it in the rules but dropped it as it appeared to encourage weird deployments to avoid the Art and also made the Art fairly worthless. With a few years more playing experience things may well have changed and, in a way it'd be nice if Art did have to go down early in deployment as that is more historical.

[madaxeman]

OK - time to reality-test the Challenge Theme:

The Age of Montecuccoli and Turenne

Post TYW (ie 1648) until the retirement of the former and the death of the latter both in 1675.

Later Imperial Spanish
Early Louis XIV French
Early Restoration Portuguese
Later Dutch (Requirement for Poor horse is removed))
Hapsburg Austrian Imperial
Later German States
Later Spanish
Later Restoration Portuguese
Later Louis XIV French
New Model Army
Scots Covenanter
Confederate Irish
ECW Parliamentarian (no Eastern Association horse allowed)
Restoration British
Covenanting Rebels
Later Swedish
Later Danish
Later Russian
Later Polish & Lithuanian
Hungarian Kurac Rebellion
Later Ottoman Turkish
Cossack
Tatar
Later Venetian Colonial
Savoyard

6 Battle foot bases (not Dragoons or LF) must be taken for each Medium or Heavy artillery base fielded.

This theme should allow TYW troops to be used as sensible morphs, as well as the frilly cuff Louis XIV figures. Can anyone spot any obvious omissions or problems with this list?


We still need some suggestions for the right start and end dates for the "TYW" period please.

[nikgaukroger]

We still need some suggestions for the right start and end dates for the "TYW" period please.

The early part of the TYW doesn't seem to get much of a look in - from the start of the war until the Dane's have to withdraw so 1618-1629. Catholic list may be too much of an obvious choice though, but perhaps some restrictions like Richard's Godendag ones would help on that score?

[madaxeman]

We still need some suggestions for the right start and end dates for the "TYW" period please.

The early part of the TYW doesn't seem to get much of a look in - from the start of the war until the Dane's have to withdraw so 1618-1629. Catholic list may be too much of an obvious choice though, but perhaps some restrictions like Richard's Godendag ones would help on that score?

In the interests of keeping it wide, how about 1618-48 ?

[nikgaukroger]

We still need some suggestions for the right start and end dates for the "TYW" period please.

The early part of the TYW doesn't seem to get much of a look in - from the start of the war until the Dane's have to withdraw so 1618-1629. Catholic list may be too much of an obvious choice though, but perhaps some restrictions like Richard's Godendag ones would help on that score?

In the interests of keeping it wide, how about 1618-48 ?

Depends on what you are trying to achieve I guess. I would expect that if you set the dates as the whole TYW (which isn't unreasonable per se) you'll mainly see the usual suspects. If you're trying to get a bit of a different mix from normal I'd go for something else - which was what I was thinking with the early dates suggestion (although I'll happily admit it was more off the top of my head than deeply researched).

[madaxeman]

I think with a "quirky" late period at Vhallenge, a "wide" TYW period is probably a good idea.

[nigelemsen]

My assumption , is the recent restrictions (6 bases) is to try and stop the all mounted popularity... Fine, but no every bhgs comp... Are you in danger of excluding your historical all mounted armies such as mongol? And your high quality troop type armies such as samurai?

As long as there are enough of the more open themes , then we can avoid going to the other end of the scale of everyone bring vanilla foot armies. Let's not end up with FoGR aka DBx (boring)

Of course, I don't win many games so the changes won't really affect my army selections... I can loose with any army

[madaxeman]

Hi Nigel

The "6-bases" bit only applies if you use artillery in your list, so it's not stopping all-mounted armies at all, it's just legislating against armies who turn up with a large artillery park but almost no other non-skirmishing foot, a tactic which is seen by some as game-bendingly a-historical, and which I suspect is going to make it into the next iteration of the official clarifications anyway. The Mongols don't even have artillery in their list, so it doesn't impact them at all - other than meaning that if you come up against any other "mounted" lists who have chosen to field artillery you can be even more confident of outnumbering them in mounted units as they will probably be spending more points on otherwise non-compulsory foot.

The BHGS only organise 4 events out of the 15+ (?) in the calendar each year, and of those 2 are themed, (Roll Call 15mm and Challenge) and 2 are not (Britcon and the Doubles).

As these are some of the bigger events of the year we don't want to pick periods that are so tight that they might exclude some players or put people off (there are enough 1-dayers and other events where themes can be tighter) and so the choice of periods for any of the themed comps is usually variations of any two from "Early", "TYW", "Late", "Eastern Europe" and "Exotic Eastern", with at least one of them being out of the first 3.

Last year we had an "Eastern Exotic" theme at Roll Call, this year we have a very broad "TYW" theme (based on dates, not a set of lists, so eastern armies are also allowed) and a "Late" theme that has a bit of a twist to the normal to try and keep some of the "tiger" Late list out of it and give some of the "Eastern Europe" ones a reasonable chance.

Hope this makes sense

tim

[nigelemsen]

Hi Nigel

The "6-bases" bit only applies if you use artillery in your list, so it's not stopping all-mounted armies at all, it's just legislating against armies who turn up with a large artillery park but almost no other non-skirmishing foot, a tactic which is seen by some as game-bendingly a-historical, and which I suspect is going to make it into the next iteration of the official clarifications anyway. The Mongols don't even have artillery in their list, so it doesn't impact them at all - other than meaning that if you come up against any other "mounted" lists who have chosen to field artillery you can be even more confident of outnumbering them in mounted units as they will probably be spending more points on otherwise non-compulsory foot.

The BHGS only organise 4 events out of the 15+ (?) in the calendar each year, and of those 2 are themed, (Roll Call 15mm and Challenge) and 2 are not (Britcon and the Doubles).

As these are some of the bigger events of the year we don't want to pick periods that are so tight that they might exclude some players or put people off (there are enough 1-dayers and other events where themes can be tighter) and so the choice of periods for any of the themed comps is usually variations of any two from "Early", "TYW", "Late", "Eastern Europe" and "Exotic Eastern", with at least one of them being out of the first 3.

Last year we had an "Eastern Exotic" theme at Roll Call, this year we have a very broad "TYW" theme (based on dates, not a set of lists, so eastern armies are also allowed) and a "Late" theme that has a bit of a twist to the normal to try and keep some of the "tiger" Late list out of it and give some of the "Eastern Europe" ones a reasonable chance.

Hope this makes sense

tim

Arrr.. Right.. I had miss understood the 6bases bit.. I had I correctly had it as "across board". Thank you for clairifying..

[viking123]

Where are we with the theme for Roll Call 15 mm competition?

Bob

[madaxeman]

Where are we with the theme for Roll Call 15 mm competition?

Bob

erm... to be honest, scrabbling around furiously to tie it down after being reminded by someone on the Slitherine forum that it hadn't been finalized....

Any suggestions from the list ?