What are THE armies to play....

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Patonius
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What are THE armies to play....

Post by Patonius »

Just curious if any army types are comign to the fore as better than others....

I ask as I have heard some scuttlebut that the Numidians are the worst of the 1st supplement, so wondering if the armies are pretty even, or if certain troop types are starting to dominate....

Cheers

Darren
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Re: What are THE armies to play....

Post by gavin »

Patonius wrote:Just curious if any army types are comign to the fore as better than others....

I ask as I have heard some scuttlebut that the Numidians are the worst of the 1st supplement, so wondering if the armies are pretty even, or if certain troop types are starting to dominate....

Cheers

Darren
Numidians the worse? Why do I always do this to my self and choose the hardest army to win with!! :shock:

On a serious note, I don't think the numidians are the hardest to win with, I just think it;s the army people have the hardest time figuring out how to win with. I think this is because people have trouble getting their heads around the rather different tactical style of them.
Patonius
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Post by Patonius »

I always loved Numidians under DBM, though I only ever played one tourney with them, getting 12th out of approx 40 odd. I just loved playing with them socially. DBM was alwasy great at 350 points, I would assume having a lower value in FoG with Numidians would be better than a higher points game. Leaves those flanks open :)

I haven't played FoG yet, but will have the Numidians and Indians up soon....
Patonius
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Post by Patonius »

I always loved Numidians under DBM, though I only ever played one tourney with them, getting 12th out of approx 40 odd. I just loved playing with them socially. DBM was alwasy great at 350 points, I would assume having a lower value in FoG with Numidians would be better than a higher points game. Leaves those flanks open :)

I haven't played FoG yet, but will have the Numidians and Indians up soon....
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Post by lawrenceg »

If you go onto the AAR subforum and search for Numidians, you will find a number of game reports in which they turn out reasonably well, although certainly not a super-army.
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Post by Scrumpy »

I stick by the advice I was given many years ago. Pick the army you can love even when it loses repeatedly.
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Post by SirGarnet »

Scrumpy wrote:I stick by the advice I was given many years ago. Pick the army you can love even when it loses repeatedly.
Though there is something to be said for the army that always wins, even if you loathe it. I don't think there are any such in FoG though, so your approach is more realistic.
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Post by hammy »

In ancients wargaming assuming that points values are reasonable there are rarely armies that stand out as better than the rest. In DBM tournaments in times past certain armies had reputations as doing really well but actually it was certain players who did well and they tended to use armies that suited their style of play. When others tried to do well with said armies things often came unstuck.

The trick is to find an army that suits your style of play, that is alas eaiser said than done when it is your first or second army as knowing what your style of play is takes time to pin down.

Over the years in DBM I did well with Huns (essentially LH and lancers) Later Hungarians (Huns with attitude), Welsh (totally different to anything I had used before), Sicilian (mediavals with decent terrain troops) and finally Middle Armenian (another different army, nothing like my earlier ones).

In FoG I have found that Santa hermandad Nueva Castilian is good in period but not so hot in open comps. Bosphoran has the potential to be a really good army that can be tailored to a large extent to suit your own style and Seljuk is a very solid mounted bow army. I have yet to experiment with Huns who I think could be a good bet and some of the more oddball armies like Slave revolt and Welsh also have things going for them.

For me I am still trying to find armies that work in period or open comps that suit my style of play. That is more than half the fun of a new game.
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Post by dave_r »

There appears to be several "styles" of army that are in existence at the moment:

- Heavy Foot based
- Shooty Mounted based
- Combined Arms
- Shooty Foot based

If we look at the recent Helsinki tournament, this was dominated by shooty cav type armies. this is mainly because they either faced each other or heavy foot armies - both of which pose little threat to shooting cavalry (they have a high aggression, choose steppes and then just shoot the enemy up until they have had enough).

If certain other armies had been brought - massed offensive spearmen (say Scots Common / Hoplite Greeks) or shooty foot (100 YW / WoTR) then they would have excelled against these Shooty Cavalry armies.

The Challenge was won by a Combined Arms army (Santa hooey doodah) with Wars of the Roses in second and third. The Santa Hooey Doodah if the evidence of Helsinki was to go by does not fare well against shooty cav. However, the shooty foot should do very well.

It would therefore seem that the luck of the draw plays a large part of success or failure - but having said that a good player can usually work out how to win against various opponents using his / her army. Which is why the better players do well with a certain army that the rest of us can't do as well with.

Because the points values are pretty much bang on as long as you have a plan and do it well then every army can win - you need to understand how to use the army to make it work though.
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Post by peterrjohnston »

dave_r wrote: If certain other armies had been brought - massed offensive spearmen (say Scots Common / Hoplite Greeks) or shooty foot (100 YW / WoTR) then they would have excelled against these Shooty Cavalry armies.
Wouldn't they have the problem of not being able to cover the table (and thus flanks)? I admit
in my limited FoG experience so far it's not a combination I've met yet.
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Post by speedy »

Of course, the trick isn't really in picking the winning armies, as Hammy and Dave say, with the points system being reasonably well balanced all armies are broadly equal against the totality of the rest .... the trick is to figure out what everyone else thinks is the winning army and then take the army to beat that, because then you can find the army that is good value against the subset of troop types that you're generally going to come against.

DBM had been around long enough for this to work, FOG is still way too new ....
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Post by SirGarnet »

dave_r wrote:There appears to be several "styles" of army that are in existence at the moment:

- Heavy Foot based
- Shooty Mounted based
- Combined Arms
- Shooty Foot based
I have been trying to categorize these and would actually break it down more. Thoughts?

FOOT-based:

SHOOTY FOOT (plus supports) - has advantages against some opponents, against others requires high skill. Favored by good supporting troops.

Walking-wall foot armies (such as long lines of spears or Impact Foot) - very frontal - best with enough HF for the open ground but some MF armies have no choice but to try this if they don't get needed terrain

PIKE ARMIES: Different tactical style, it delivers a powerful focused punch against a target it can hit but against evasive opponents its force is diffused and it can get nibbled to death. This means a substantial number of BGs of Pikes and supporting solid foot, not armies with Pikes as just part of the toolkit.

TERRAIN-trapped armies: Any army that usually doesn't like what it sees when it peeks out of the trees. Not so much an army type or style as a predicament when terrain goes badly.

LIGHT FOOT armies (Early Lybian) have not yet been published - the quality of quantity remains to be seen. My guess is that they can win, but just moving 120 bases takes so long that the enemy is not likely to stick around to find out.

MOUNTED-based:

SHOOTY MOUNTED ARMIES: This covers a wide range of armies from Light Horse armies to shooty Cav-heavy armies with a variety of other troops thrown in the mix. These can be broken down into two different tactical styles.

The Hunnic style is focused on wrongfooting the enemy and wearing him down with shooting until his army loses its cohesive organization and BGs can be finished off and broken in succession with local charges if not with shooting.

The other uses the strategy of screen and smash or pin and punch, 2 variants both involving attempts to pin or at least screen the overall enemy line with light horse (sometimes cavalry) and maybe threaten envelopment while a heavy strike force (Lancers would be typical) moves to crush a particular part of the line which was weak or is made weak by effective shooting). The difference between the 2 styles is widespread attrition vs. concentration of force at a point.

SHOCK MOUNTED ARMIES: These are armies heavily weighted to lancers (Knights, Cataphracts, or Cavalry Lancers) that focus on massed charges to defeat their (preferably historically appropriate) adversaries. The other troops are there to help get the attack force to the target, but do not exist in numbers or types sufficient to do a screen and smash – it’s just smash. African Vandals and Medieval French are my favorite examples. Some Sarmatian and similar lists can be played this way.

These armies are fun, dramatic, and the battle should be over one way or the other with time to spare for going to eat or to the dealer’s room before the next round. These are the type I recommend to give to new players to try in their first battle.

I didn’t mention heavy chariots or light spear cavalry in the shock mounted army category since I don’t expect any armies that will be dominated by these types.

COMBINED ARMS: An army that combines substantial numbers of multiple combat arms as principal portions of the army and as key parts of a flexible tactical style that is customized to the opponent. This is a matter of degree and combinations can vary. By arms in this context I mean shock cavalry, missile cavalry, light horse, heavier infantry, light infantry, missile foot, and exotic troops (e.g., artillery or elephants). Simple combined arms armies might have 2 or 3 of these in quantity, complex combined arms would have more. These armies can usually be fielded and played in a variety of substantially different ways. This can make them challenging and fun.

From the point of view of army choice, I'm thinking of these on a spectrum from toolkit armies, with troops that can be skillfully used with combined arms tactics to take apart most foes, to kitchen sink armies with a bunch of different troop types that seem situationally useful or otherwise don't quite seem to fit together well. My theory is that good troop and ally choices and solid doctrine can move most kitchen sink armies up he spectrum of usefulness and playability. It just takes more work. Combined arms armies are where thought and skill really make a huge difference – as a corollary to this, the more complex they are, the more complex they are to play well and the more frustrating for a new (or old) player. That said, there are armies that can be initially built and played in a simpler style and then evolve to more complex combined arms.

ELEPHANT ARMIES: These are those few armies where Elephants dominate the player’s tactics and his opponent’s mind. This means at least 4 BGs of elephants, enough to form two brigades of 2 BGs of Elephants each plus supporting troops to keep the Elephants from being flanked or subjected to converged shooting. Elephants are strong but brittle, so there are no sure things when Elephants are committed except that it will be interesting.

What did I miss saying?

Mike
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Post by hammy »

peterrjohnston wrote:
dave_r wrote: If certain other armies had been brought - massed offensive spearmen (say Scots Common / Hoplite Greeks) or shooty foot (100 YW / WoTR) then they would have excelled against these Shooty Cavalry armies.
Wouldn't they have the problem of not being able to cover the table (and thus flanks)? I admit
in my limited FoG experience so far it's not a combination I've met yet.
Smoething like scots common can actually field enough protedcted offensive spear to completely cover the table at 800 points. They are only 7 points a base after all. The table is roughly 44 bases wide so 2 deep it will only cost 616 points. Add in an IC and some other generals and it is perfectly possible.

Scots common also has a few decent shooty foot to cover terrain or the flanks. I wouldn't like to have to fight this with a shooty cavalry army.

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Post by dave_r »

Something like scots common can actually field enough protected offensive spear to completely cover the table at 800 points. They are only 7 points a base after all
And have done so 8)

In fact they have smashed a couple of shooty cav armies of the back of the table 8)

The longbow allies also help. The key is to go for difficult going if you have heavy foot not rough going - Rough going disrupts spearmen much more than cavalry, whereas in difficult they are both goosed. That way you can channel the cav where you want them.

In BG's of 10 then you need 4 hits to even force a test from shooting and five to get a minus. If you have an IC (an absolute must) and rear support then you are passing on a 4+ on two dice!

If you come across somebody with armour on foot it can hurt :(
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Post by Quintus »

MikeK wrote:TERRAIN-trapped armies: Any army that usually doesn't like what it sees when it peeks out of the trees. Not so much an army type or style as a predicament when terrain goes badly.
Less an army and more a "predicament" - very apt and very funny.:D
MikeK wrote:SHOCK MOUNTED ARMIES: ..................................These armies are fun, dramatic, and the battle should be over one way or the other with time to spare for going to eat or to the dealer’s room before the next round. These are the type I recommend to give to new players to try in their first battle.


I have long had a fascination for the African Vandals. I know it's a bad army but it's probably the nearest thing to the Riders of Rohan.:wink: I wonder if the list is out yet?
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Post by nikgaukroger »

They'll be in the Byzantium & Islam book (or whatever silly name Osprey have given it) IIRC.
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Post by ars_belli »

According to Osprey, the African Vandal army is listed for publication in Decline and Fall: Byzantium at War, which appears to be scheduled for release in October 2008: http://www.fieldofglory.com/catalogue/15.html .

Cheers,
Scott
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Post by SirGarnet »

Quintus wrote:I have long had a fascination for the African Vandals. I know it's a bad army
How bad?
Quintus wrote:but it's probably the nearest thing to the Riders of Rohan.:wink: I wonder if the list is out yet?
Well, unofficial Rohan lists are :) . Should play them in period too.

Any other comments on army types?
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Post by hazelbark »

I think Ruddock gives a good review of categories.

Of course remember all his advice is bollux when the dust storm is in his eyes.

I think there is a slight bias currently in favor of shooty armies among ex-dbm players because it is a new feeling. But there tends to be a good assymetrics in match ups these days. The English long bow armies are nice, but not sure if they would enjoy encountering the Roman legion or swarms of heavy foot gauls.

Also the shooty armies working on to someones flanks remind me of the DBM tactics of trying to get onto someone's flanks.

Lastly the style of players in your local group has a profound effect. I notice my group tends to keep BGs side by side to a higher degree whereas many of the reports with photos on the AAR section seem to have a more open attack.
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Post by nikgaukroger »

It is quite clear to me that the army of choice at present is Seljuq :lol: :lol: :lol:
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