Shifting to FOG 2

[paulcummins]

After a year or so of getting Cummins Jr to play war FOW, he has now spotted the glory that is ancients, and wants to play FOG (well done BHGS Challenge)

Having not played for a couple of years and no idea on V2 could somebody give me a brief run down on the changes v1 to 2

are the army lists still valid?
is there a good army list generator?

can you print out the electronic version?

ummmm

thats probably it for the moment

[grahambriggs]

Hello Paul, hope you are well. The changes are listed at http://www.fieldofglory.com/news/4 - you have to do a 'see more' on "More details on FoG V2.0". At top level you'll find that poorly performing troop types have been given a shot in the arm and the manouverability of skirmishers and drilled troop has been reduced. Hence more armies are viable. A good example of that being the BHGS Challenge where there was a wide range of armies entered.

Army lists are still vaild, but the rule book has some list changes in the back of the rulebook itself.

Army list generator is also on the field of glory website I think.

Don't think you can print out the electonic version. And people seem to find the physical rule book more user friendly.

Good job on Cummins junior!

[petedalby]

Lots of good advice from Graham.

It will be good to see you back Paul. LB are possibly better than before!

[davidandlynda]

Can you get up to Games Expo ,Hammys 650pt comp in Birmingham,most players there aren't tigers and would be a small army to start with, I may even let him come close to beating me if we played
David

[paulcummins]

new rules ordered, boxes of ancients dusted off. re education to start soon.

[Eques]

". At top level you'll find that poorly performing troop types have been given a shot in the arm and the manouverability of skirmishers and drilled troop has been reduced. Hence more armies are viable.

Personally I don't like the thinking behind v2 and have stuck with v1 for my private games.

Another, less flattering, of saying the above quote is that all the troop types have been homogenised in response to players who haven't been able to do exactly what they want with their chosen armies.

The result is that the game has lost some of it's historical flavour and challenges - diversity of troop type and quality being of course one of the primary attractions of ancients.

[petedalby]

Lots of people are still playing WRG 6th Edition Ancients - do whatever works best for you.

Personally I think V2 is a much more balanced game.

[MikeHorah]

". At top level you'll find that poorly performing troop types have been given a shot in the arm and the manouverability of skirmishers and drilled troop has been reduced. Hence more armies are viable.

Personally I don't like the thinking behind v2 and have stuck with v1 for my private games.

Another, less flattering, of saying the above quote is that all the troop types have been homogenised in response to players who haven't been able to do exactly what they want with their chosen armies.

The result is that the game has lost some of it's historical flavour and challenges - diversity of troop type and quality being of course one of the primary attractions of ancients.

After over 40 years of playing Ancients and Medieval I'd say that the homogenisation is a built-in tendency as rules are drawn wider - as in 3000 BC - 1485 and now world wide from Japan to central America . By comparison the first and 2nd editions of WRG were 1000 BC to 500AD and even more limited in geography. ( Not necessarily better I should say - it just shows the direction of travel )

Whether FOG(AM) , V2.0 is more or less homogenised than v1.0 seems to me to be relatively marginal in that context but within some of the List books it is very homogenised I agree.

Whether this is a function of the whole design concept that tends to cluster periods round a historical and geographical mid point of the bell curve, or of the comparative absence of hard data on some eras and so the loss of potential nuance , or the introduction of some board game concepts into miniatures to make the games more precise one can only ponder .

But whether that puts you off or not is a matter of taste. Like saying "I don't like Chicken Tikka Masala because it is not " authentic" Indian cuisine". But if you like the taste and aren't a celebrity or S Asian chef...?

I prefer to game within era - which in FOG(N) means within a given book ( a helpful innovation) but find some of them pretty un-stimulating if not quite questionable- Swift as Eagles. Wolves from the Sea and Oaths of Fealty seem to me like food without seasoning , but Rise of Rome , Legions Triumphant and Storm of Arrows work fine for me with texture taste and flavour .

[SirGarnet]

Whether FOG(AM) , V2.0 is more or less homogenised than v1.0 seems to me to be relatively marginal in that context but within some of the List books it is very homogenised I agree.

So what do you think of using v2 rules and v1 lists?

[MikeHorah]

Whether FOG(AM) , V2.0 is more or less homogenised than v1.0 seems to me to be relatively marginal in that context but within some of the List books it is very homogenised I agree.

So what do you think of using v2 rules and v1 lists?

In the range of armies I use I don't have any particular gripes etc with V 2.0 as compared with V 1.0 and find it a bit easier to use and have not so far found any issues with Lists that make it less playable or enjoyable as a game for me . The armour changes and skilled sword changes seem to disfavour some by comparison and make the later republican Roman army for example a bit expensive to field for little benefit but if you confine it to its historical opponents ( often themselves ) it makes some sense.

But I am one who thinks FOG(AM), in common with most ancients rules ,still puts too much emphasis on technology even if of a "scissors paper stone " variety and less than many previous sets. But in either version it remains subject to the "universal rules set syndrome" which then makes equal things that are or were not- "homogenising" as you say .

To me the significance of relative technology is era specific and between historical opponents. For that reason I tend to think that many/most ancients rules sets, if they work at all , do so best in the period 600BC to about 400 AD and in the Mediterranean and adjoining regions. I just see no purpose or value in trying to equate say Japanese designs of armour and swords with Roman of high medieval ones, and the argument that " it is how they were used that counts" is sophistry. You might as well say the Shaka era thrusting Zulu assegai was like the roman gladius because of the way that it was used so they can be equated. The romans did not face breech loading rifles.

In most other periods of wargaming, gamers are far less willing to adopt this kind of universal semi counter factual technological approach that ancients and by adoption medievals have taken . But this is the way wargamers have chosen to go for ancients and medievals and one lost that argument decades ago in the pages of Slingshot.

I recently wrote a long piece in the Nugget examining charioty and recent research, in the near east up to 1100 BC and the " Catastophe "and then compared numerous rules sets since 1969 to examine their treatment and concluded that while most coped with chariots post 1100 reasonably well, none were convincing on the earlier era and I include Swift as Eagles in that which is disappointing in those terms. FOG(AM) in either version - no more than many others- is not able fully to reflect the nature of chariot warfare in that region and at that time - partly because of the real lack of data and evidence compared with post 1100BC but mainly because it has no need , nor any reason, to make any real effort to do so.

But these are games not simulations and it is hard to make something equally good at both, impossible over 4,500 years in my view . From a historical perspective I tend to ask myself whether a game had a look and feel consistent with one's reading of a period and whether it presented me with the grand tactical problems and issues that they might have had to contend within the context of their military system and methods at that time.

Most folk I think just ask was it fun and why not? So is V2.0 more or less fun than V1.0? Not much in it I would say.

Is it a better simulation? No and just as flawed. But for it not to be flawed ( in my view) it would need to be a very different thing indeed - for which I detect little appetite .

[hazelbark]

". At top level you'll find that poorly performing troop types have been given a shot in the arm and the manouverability of skirmishers and drilled troop has been reduced. Hence more armies are viable.

Personally I don't like the thinking behind v2 and have stuck with v1 for my private games.

Another, less flattering, of saying the above quote is that all the troop types have been homogenised in response to players who haven't been able to do exactly what they want with their chosen armies.

The result is that the game has lost some of it's historical flavour and challenges - diversity of troop type and quality being of course one of the primary attractions of ancients.

I find this an interesting observation. What historical flavor is now gone?
Agree on diversity of troops is neat, but where was this lost going from v1 to v2 ?

[pyruse]

The main change from v1 to v2 was to make skirmishers a bit less powerful, and make it a bit harder for units to dance around.
The impact phase was made more important.

I'd say both of those improve the historical value of the rules.

I suspect the comment from Eques is because the Romans have been made a bit less effective in v2, and as I recall from his previous posts, he thinks Romans should beat all comers.

[grahambriggs]

I suspect the comment from Eques is because the Romans have been made a bit less effective in v2, and as I recall from his previous posts, he thinks Romans should beat all comers.

I would say if anything Romans do better under V2. There are more armies designed for combat, so the Romans can get to grips with them. Knights are often now armoured rather than heavily armoured, so Romans can beat them. True, they have lost their ++ POA against foot barbarian war bands, but they still get a POA, so are fine against them. It's just not the instant victory that you got in v1. Which is historical to my mind. There are few Roman vs warband battle accounts of the "we walked through them with ease" variety; more of the "it was a hard fight but we ground them down over time"

[hazelbark]

I suspect the comment from Eques is because the Romans have been made a bit less effective in v2, and as I recall from his previous posts, he thinks Romans should beat all comers.

I would say if anything Romans do better under V2. There are more armies designed for combat, so the Romans can get to grips with them. Knights are often now armoured rather than heavily armoured, so Romans can beat them. True, they have lost their ++ POA against foot barbarian war bands, but they still get a POA, so are fine against them. It's just not the instant victory that you got in v1. Which is historical to my mind. There are few Roman vs warband battle accounts of the "we walked through them with ease" variety; more of the "it was a hard fight but we ground them down over time"

Also how many games even for fun can the Romans have versus Celts, Germans, Brits and Dacians in V1? The answer is very few because the rules were so imbalanced there was no point in playing. The Romans could walk straight and the barbarians who came forward went into the wood chipper. So the entire game is what can the barbarians do to get around the flanks. It wasn't a game it was hide and seek.
Now drop the table to 5x3 and give the barbarians another 150 points and yea it may be fun.

[MikeHorah]

I suspect the comment from Eques is because the Romans have been made a bit less effective in v2, and as I recall from his previous posts, he thinks Romans should beat all comers.

I would say if anything Romans do better under V2. There are more armies designed for combat, so the Romans can get to grips with them. Knights are often now armoured rather than heavily armoured, so Romans can beat them. True, they have lost their ++ POA against foot barbarian war bands, but they still get a POA, so are fine against them. It's just not the instant victory that you got in v1. Which is historical to my mind. There are few Roman vs warband battle accounts of the "we walked through them with ease" variety; more of the "it was a hard fight but we ground them down over time"

Also how many games even for fun can the Romans have versus Celts, Germans, Brits and Dacians in V1? The answer is very few because the rules were so imbalanced there was no point in playing. The Romans could walk straight and the barbarians who came forward went into the wood chipper. So the entire game is what can the barbarians do to get around the flanks. It wasn't a game it was hide and seek.
Now drop the table to 5x3 and give the barbarians another 150 points and yea it may be fun.

"Hide and seek " - well wasn't that what it was sometimes? I would have thought raise the table to 8x6! I did a version of teutoberger wald in 28mm playing along a 12x6 which was just as you say, but in 15mm on the same table it would be a different story. The more empty space ( even if filled with trees) the better.

But my game was a competition between us two Germans with the Romans " programmed" - both of us still lost

Depends which version of the Romans however. Principate in FOG(AM) as a list is rather too flexible in my view having, by the use of elements/bases ( also true of DBA/DBM) broken the ability to make a link with the standard size and shape of the legions at that time - in WRG 5th/6th you could model it pretty exactly 24 figs = 1 Cohort (9x24 + 1x40 ) = a legion and cavalry alae/ engine ratios fixed etc . Harder now to sustain that model.

Mid republicans ought not to do so well but FoG(AM )again breaks the links between the three types of heavy infantry and the three lines- thinking about the Germans at around 100BC and Arausio.

And FOG(AM) allows anyone to have the best generals unlike FOG(N) where we have treated them rather different in the lists- (OK 140 lists covering 23 years ). Only the Burgundians under Charles the Bold seem to have any limitation - no IC allowed! Another artefact of the widely drawn period not supporting such historical nuance as two daft and uncollegiate consuls in charge of an army!