Game length problems

[miffedofreading]

My friends and I played a couple of games last night. Because of limitations of club hours we normally have 4 hours max including setting up tables, putting down etc. Which means we often do not get a lot more than 3 hours maybe 3 ½ hours of play in. Almost without exception this is not long enough to play an 800 point game, and frequently the game ends without the main battle lines actually engaging. Which is most unsatisfying.

There are players seriously considering giving up on the rules at the club, even though they like them very much, because they take too long to play. Some of us have played more than half a dozen games now and are really speeding through it just takes a long time.

In particular with Greeco-hellenistic armies there is usually a long drawn out and ultimately pointless battle between the skirmishers before the main lines finally engage. It is like fighting two battles, nothing wrong with that but we run out of time after the skirmisher engagements, which are always inconclusive anyway.

Next week to speed a game I am playing we have both agreed we will skip all terrain laying and just go straight to deployment for speed. It is a late republican roman V late repuican roman battle so I don’t think the game will lose much by skipping the terrain on this occasion.

I want a better solution though. Has anyone tried playing 15mm games with 650 or 700 point armies instead of the recommended 800 point armies? Does anyone have any other suggestions as to how we could reduce the length of the game??

I really like the game, but the time issue is becoming a major concern

Yours

Andy

[GKChesterton1976]

I am thinking of experimenting with a variety of formats including 600 point 15mm on 4 by 3 table with altered deployment zones. I don't think we should get caught up excessively in the idea of a standard format or formats.

ANW

[rogerg]

Maybe you just need more practice. I arrived at the club at 7:45 last night and had lost by 10:15. The two other games had finished inside three hours as well. Experienced player can usually play very quickly. We rarely need to refer to the reference sheet and I am finding by using the page edge guide the occasional reference to the book is very quick. I expect in a couple of months we will probably be playing without referring to either the QRF or the rules in most games.

[miffedofreading]

We are already referring very rarely to either the rules or the quick reference sheets. Everything appears to flow very quickly, it just takes a long time.

Setting up the terrain takes a while.

I think the biggest wasted time by far is the extensive inconclusive skirmish battle that we have had in every game before the main lines engage. The skirmish lines usually get in the way and the heavy lines have to wait for the skirmishers to finish. OR one player feels his heavy inf is at a disadvantage so will not advance with it. Again this adds considerably to the length of the game

Andy

[carlos]

You could start each army already a few of attrition points down, say 2 or 3. That makes armies more vulnerable and I believe would favour a more aggressive strategy from the players. In our club, Central London, we usually finish games in around 3 hours and, when we don't finish, it is patently obvious who would win in the end although they might be a few points off. Something you can try to speed up the game is have both players moving both troops. For example, if I'm using a HF army, I might ask my opponent to move my HF block 6" forward while I do the trickier LH manoeuvring.

[shall]

Ok Andy I cannot be certain but I tentatively suspect the following might be happening....

• If you play heavy troop armies with some skirmishers then FOG will react to historical tactics.
  In such cases you shouldn't have a long skirmish battle as the main use of skimishers is to shield your heavies not to win the battle.
  So instead try playing the same game but with a mindset that says.. I will retreat my LF as soon as they have done their job shielding my heavies getting close. Then press home with your hoplites say. If you do that enemy skimsihers have to evade. Then you are in combat nice and early.
  The way FOG is set up .. if both players opt to play a skirmish battle out in full then it will indeed take time and slow the result a lot...but it is also set up such that both players have to want to do this.
  If either player presses on with his heavies the skimrish pre-battle is over.
  If you want to win games the only time you should settle for hours of skirmish battle is if you are skirmish army - huns, numdians, parthians etc.

FWIW Terry and I have played with Greeks and the games lasted 2.5 hours. However had we put our skirmishers in front and spent ages trying to both see who won that stage of battle compeletely I can easily see how it would be a draw even at the speed we play at.

I guess the point is that perhaps you are learning that doing that cannot win games, thus stop doing it and go for broke instead.

Of course my radar may be well off as its not that clear a signal but maybe the above helps

Si

[miffedofreading]

Si,

I think you are roughly on track.

Unfortunately yesterday my opponent had late republican romans and I knew he would field all elite legions which are of course very hard troops. I only have carthaginians and most of their infantry are mediocre, as such I took 3 elephant BG's which counter legions quite well. They are of course vulnerable to missile fire though so I shielded them with everything I had skirmisher wise. In fact I tried to be clever. As the ROmans have protected velites I deployed numidians in front of the elephants to run down the velites. He countered with allied armenian horse archers and it all got very messy, though completely inconclusive.

Andy

[shall]

Ah it would be .. and would be in real life likely too

Try spreading wide, with Ellies in the centre so they can't miss. Then you can pull the legions apart abit to get some extra bases in. Put your skirmishers on the front only in front of the Ellies to shield them. Chuck 1 BG of Numidians FOOT infront of the Ellies to slow the Roman line a bit as it can alaways get out and use it to tempt charges to make him vulnerable. If the Romans hav skirmishers just drop back. Let him come and put 2 x 12s of Gauls HF with a TC 5 wide 3 deep against them. Have Hannibal as an IC in the centre for staying power. Then swamp the flanks like mad to catch other BGS as the elite leiognaires on average grind you down.

What you are possibly missing is this ... against tentative speculation.

To win the game he has to take a lot of your army. A BG of Gauls 5 wide will have a 50% chance of winning at impact and if it does it hurts small Roman BGs. But even if you gradaully lose these BGs then usually 1 BG of Gauls has taken out 2 BGs or Romans for a long time. That will mean your army is not easy to beat and gives you lots to play with elsewhere as he has scored only 4APs from using 4 BGs of legionaries. If he spreads out adn you get overlaps its advantage ytou despite the ++. 8 at -- are better than 4 at ++. by design.

Take a look at my Later Carthagians vs Germans on the AARs for just how much Hannibal can hold the centre againt troops on a ++. He impressed me a lot and held the Gauls vs Pikes while the rest of the army did well. He held them 7 bounds losing every go and losing base almost every time - but not once did they fail a CT....when they finally went it had taken 3 enemy BGs to do it.

Hope that gives food for thought

Si

PS of course if you take rock hard armies all the time you wont get many army routs will you... try Sarmations vs MF Gauls for a quicker game

[miffedofreading]

Thanks for the tips much appreciated

[nikgaukroger]

Setting up the terrain takes a while.

How long? Generally I'm finding that terrain and initial army set up is taking under 30 mins.

I think the biggest wasted time by far is the extensive inconclusive skirmish battle that we have had in every game before the main lines engage. The skirmish lines usually get in the way and the heavy lines have to wait for the skirmishers to finish. OR one player feels his heavy inf is at a disadvantage so will not advance with it. Again this adds considerably to the length of the game

I can't add much to hwt has already been said other than for the skirmish lines to tangle things up it takes both parties activly wanting to fight with their skirmishers against each other for this to happen. I would also note that I've played a couple of games where one player or the other has held back their HF as you mention and they have nearly always been forced to fight before the game ended.

[miffedofreading]

Yep half an hour seems about right, that is quite a long time

I think if you have spent a lot of points on skirmishers, usually because the army lists MAKE you have them, you don'w want to do nothing with them?

Also I don't like to put skirmishing inf too much on the flanks as they can be ridden down there by heavy cavalry.

So for several reasons many people put their skirmishing inf infront of their main battle line. Which is sensible enough, but then causes big game delays....

Andy

[shall]

But only if you don't keep advancing behind them and pull them out when ready .. thats the trick

Si

[stenic]

I want a better solution though. Has anyone tried playing 15mm games with 650 or 700 point armies instead of the recommended 800 point armies? Does anyone have any other suggestions as to how we could reduce the length of the game??

I really like the game, but the time issue is becoming a major concern
Yours
Andy

We've played about 4 games now and yet to finish one. Mainly because we are still double checking rules for bits as they crop up, using different troop types etc... and the fun one with multi BG combats - 5BGs of Roman Brits vs 4 BGs of Saxon with the BGs all offset on Monday!! We re-did the combats twice and still fluffed it but think we have it now. That was aprox 700AP in 15mm so I'm not sure less points makes it quicker for us yet, just knowing the rules and having a plan would help more.

Note that we've not even looked at ambushes and flank marches or similar stuff yet.

It took us 15mins to work out who took the first turn on Monday - it's only mentioned once at the begining of the set-up process and then only as part of the list of 'phases', it goes on to discuss each 'phase' but if you just follow the discussion bits to get the detail you miss that final point from the list!! Doh!

Steve P

[hammy]

So far my game completion rate in doubles comps with 1000 points or 900 on a 6 by 4 table is steady at 50%, these are all in 3 1/4 to 3 1/2 hours and mostly against relatively in experienced opponents so lots of rule explaining too.

Of the ones I have not finished I think at least half were within 2 turns of a result, usually by sacking the exposed and unprotected enemy camp.

I think that as long as one player in a game is experienced the game will crack along. If more than one is then turns can be finished in a few minutes.

I am still finding DBM players feeling that as the game progresse but turns don't take longer that they are missing something. They aren't, in FoG as the game develops turns actually speed up.

[rtaylor]

I am still finding DBM players feeling that as the game progresse but turns don't take longer that they are missing something. They aren't, in FoG as the game develops turns actually speed up.

Provided you run combats efficiently, I find. I still have to walk through the PoAs and such sometimes.

[hammy]

I am still finding DBM players feeling that as the game progresse but turns don't take longer that they are missing something. They aren't, in FoG as the game develops turns actually speed up.

Provided you run combats efficiently, I find. I still have to walk through the PoAs and such sometimes.

Down to experience I think.

One that I have found that speeds things a bit is that when you know a BG is dissadvantaged in melee it doesn't matter if it is a - or -- it stil needs a 5 to hit.

I also have dice in a load of different colours and often roll first then check the POAs. A 1 or 2 are always a miss, a 5 or 6 always hit after all.

[hazelbark]

Like a lot of games with experience this plays faster.

You can find posts from me 4-6 month back saying how I think this is not true the game is quicker than DBm.

But last night in a battle between France and Castille. we were done in about 3:15. With a decisive French victory as a French BG of 6 Average Knights rolled over 4 enemy BGs. 12 points to 9 points in losses respectively.

I found once both playerrs are around 10 games the pace really acclerates. This was actually a problem for a well known smoker in our group as he likes to dodge outside for a quick smoke and can't walk away from the game the way you can in others.

[babyshark]

Like a lot of games with experience this plays faster.

You can find posts from me 4-6 month back saying how I think this is not true the game is quicker than DBm.

I agree. At Cold Wars I ran a 650 point (15mm) tournament. The first round only one game completed in the three hour time slot. Second round about half the games completed. In the third round all but one game completed. I don't know the overall results for the Little Wars tournament last weekend, but two of my three games were completed with an hour to spare. That was at 800 points. I think that the games move a whole lot more quickly once you get some momentum on the learning curve.

Marc

[rbodleyscott]

This was actually a problem for a well known smoker in our group as he likes to dodge outside for a quick smoke and can't walk away from the game the way you can in others.

An interesting observation. This either shows that moves are quicker (than in that other game) or that the non-phasing player has more involvement, or both. Good news whichever, IMO.

I am afraid I have never had much interest in counting turns, so I have no idea how many turns were played in my average DBM or FOG games.

[babyshark]

An interesting observation. This either shows that moves are quicker (than in that other game) or that the non-phasing player has more involvement, or both. Good news whichever, IMO.

I am afraid I have never had much interest in counting turns, so I have no idea how many turns were played in my average DBM or FOG games.

FoG turns do move more quickly than in "that other game." (Perhaps because there is no time spent assigning pips?) Regardless, both players are more involved during the whole of the turn because the Maneuver Phase is the only time in which there is no chance of both players doing something. Another reason to quit smoking?

My DBM games that timed out would have an average of 12-15 pairs of bounds. My FoG games that time out have at least that many, and usually more. Best of all, the number of timed out games is steadily decreasing.

Marc