The future of FOG-AM competitions...

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Re: The future of FOG-AM competitions...

Post by madaxeman »

List of players who were in the FoGAM rankings last year but who now no longer appear, showing both the umber of AM events entered last year, and also if they have subsequently played an event under another ruleset in the last 12 months;

Aaron Leslie 1
Andrew Johnston 1
Andrew Wallace 1 ADLG
Andrew Whitby 1 ADLG
Andy Clark 1
Andy Claxton 2 ADLG
Andy McKay 2 ADLG
Bretton Smith 1
Chris Tonge 1 ADLG
Clive Holland 1
Colin Boulain 1
Colin Campbell 1
Darrell Pearce 3 ADLG
Dave Hoey 1
Dave Hutchby 2 MeG
Dave Saunders 7 ADLG
David Baynham 1
David Elks 2
Eric Doman 1
Eric Thomson 1
Glen Harrison 1
Gordon Innes 1
Gordon Jamieson 6 ADLG
Guy Hunter 1
Harrison Pearce 3 ADLG
Herve Ramonet 1 Overseas
Ian Carbutt 1
Ian Speed 1 ADLG MeG
Jason Dawson 1
Jayne Martin 2
John Conley 2
John Legg 1
Lawrence Flint 1
Mark Stanton 1
Martin Routh 1
Martin Wirt 1 Overseas
Martyn Brawn 3
Neil Grant 1
Neil Siddon-Smith 1
Nigel Phillips 2
Nigel Poole 1 ADLG
Nik Sharp 6 ADLG
Paul Freeman 1
Phil Murfin 1
Richard Case 6 ADLG
Robert Ashley 1 ADLG
Ryan Hunter 1
Simon Finney 1 ADLG
Simon Hall 1 MeG
Steve Clarke 1 MeG
Steve Hacker 2 ADLG
Steve Holt 1
Thomas Peters 1

53 players, representing 88 competition entries in total
- 38 of them had only entered one event last year anyway
- 8 more had entered just 2 events last year
- 2 were overseas players
- 19 are still appearing on the circuit under other rulesets
- 29 of the 33 who've apparently evaporated/were overseas players only played one event last year
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Re: The future of FOG-AM competitions...

Post by ChrisTofalos »

Very interesting analysis, Tim. I wonder where the players finished in the rankings (they mostly aren't listed in the current ones)?

Chris
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Re: The future of FOG-AM competitions...

Post by madaxeman »

ChrisTofalos wrote:Very interesting analysis, Tim. I wonder where the players finished in the rankings (they mostly aren't listed in the current ones)?

Chris
With most of these people having entered just 1 competition they will inevitably end up towards the bottom of the rankings. The highest placed played player off the back of only entering 1 event last year came 56th out of 137 in the year.

Here's the list with end-of-2016 positions on it as well

Ranking Name Score Competitions
17 Nik Sharp 67.18 6
33 Dave Saunders 46.36 7
36 Richard Case 42.93 6
40 Gordon Jamieson 36.31 6
43 Harrison Pearce 34.18 3
59 Steve Clarke 24.75 1
61 Darrell Pearce 23.51 3
69 Simon Hall 18.55 1
70 Andy Claxton 18.06 2
73 Eric Doman 17.42 1
74 Thomas Peters 16.27 1
75 Glen Harrison 15.71 1
76 Andrew Whitby 15.61 1
80 Dave Hutchby 14.99 2
82 Jayne Martin 13.81 2
83 Herve Ramonet 12.77 1
85 Guy Hunter 12.1 1
88 Ian Speed 11.22 1
90 Ian Carbutt 10.64 1
91 Gordon Innes 10.13 1
96 Steve Hacker 7.91 2
97 Andy McKay 7.91 2
98 Dave Hoey 7.66 1
100 Martyn Brawn 7.43 3
101 Martin Wirt 7.25 1
102 Paul Freeman 6.26 1
103 Steve Holt 6.26 1
106 David Baynham 5.52 1
107 Lawrence Flint 5.5 1
108 Robert Ashley 5.4 1
109 Chris Tonge 5.4 1
111 David Elks 4.69 2
114 Andrew Johnston 3.29 1
115 Nigel Phillips 2.91 2
116 Ryan Hunter 2.88 1
117 Aaron Leslie 2.88 1
118 Andy Clark 2.72 1
120 Colin Boulain 2.33 1
122 Clive Holland 1.97 1
123 Nigel Poole 1.77 1
124 Neil Grant 1.57 1
125 Mark Stanton 1.57 1
126 Colin Campbell 1.21 1
127 John Legg 1.21 1
128 Bretton Smith 1.21 1
129 Phil Murfin 1.11 1
130 Jason Dawson 1.11 1
131 John Conley 0.5 2
132 Simon Finney 0.25 1
134 Neil Siddon-Smith 0.25 1
135 Eric Thomson 0.25 1
136 Martin Routh 0.25 1
137 Andrew Wallace 0.25 1
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Re: The future of FOG-AM competitions...

Post by ChrisTofalos »

Are those scores the average total points each player got in the comps? If so, all bar the top half dozen haven't scored well and the vast majority have averaged less than a dozen points from (presumably) four games per comp, which does suggest they received more than their fair share of drubbings.

Now, FOG-R, which uses the same basic mechanisms as FOG-AM, and has far less variety in terms of choice of armies, still seems to be chugging along quite nicely. But FOG-AM is losing players quite worryingly. Lots of reasons have been suggested for this but I've got to say the figures do seem to point to players getting fed up with the lack of any sort of success, and dropping out/changing rules, rather than boredom with the same old game situations. And I think the reason for this is the high calibre of the top players. The less experienced ones just don't stand a chance, so is it any wonder we lose them?

I've previously suggested a handicap system. Twenty-five or fifty points extra should give the lower ranked players a slightly better chance. And what about leaving out the five extra points for when an army routs? This might lead to there being less incentive for a player to utterly destroy his opponent AND reduce the points gap between the top and bottom of the table. Also, one very experienced (and successful) player I talked to recently suggested themed competitions produce closer and more interesting games, rather than the 'dreaded' free-for-all of open periods. I think he's right.

Just some ideas for players still interested in FOG-AM to kick around but something really needs to be done to prevent further losses.
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Re: The future of FOG-AM competitions...

Post by petedalby »

Please be gentle with me in any comments.
I thought that was a great post Martyn - thanks for taking the time to do that.
Change the score to IWF style, double points for kills.
Winchester have adopted this and it seems to encourage more aggressive play. Is there any reason why we cannot choose to adopt this more widely? Tim - presumably the BHGS could adopt this?

I think we've all been too complacent in accepting 800 points on 6 x 4 tables. Smaller tables and a different number of points can give better games. I also think that themed events are more challenging. Open events can produce horrible mis-matches - but Martyn gives a good rationale as to why open events can be attractive and themed events restrictive. Presumably if we gave more notice of the themes this might help?
Now, FOG-R, which uses the same basic mechanisms as FOG-AM, and has far less variety in terms of choice of armies, still seems to be chugging along quite nicely
Sadly not true. There were insufficient entries for the Challenge for FoGR to feature.
But FOG-AM is losing players quite worryingly.


Agreed - the figures do not lie. And yet despite this FoG AM currently has the largest number of current entries for Britcon. Although I suspect others may pick up more players nearer the time.

I think people have moved on for a variety of reasons - boredom / trying something new / fed up of losing etc etc. There is no single 1 reason. I certainly have no objection in principle to lower ranked players fielding more points. But that is another decision for competition organisers to make. I have fond memories of the Ilford competition where you had to field a 750 / 800 & 850 AP army where you didn't know how many points your opponent would have.

Happy days!
Pete
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Re: The future of FOG-AM competitions...

Post by madaxeman »

ChrisTofalos wrote:Are those scores the average total points each player got in the comps? If so, all bar the top half dozen haven't scored well and the vast majority have averaged less than a dozen points from (presumably) four games per comp, which does suggest they received more than their fair share of drubbings.

Now, FOG-R, which uses the same basic mechanisms as FOG-AM, and has far less variety in terms of choice of armies, still seems to be chugging along quite nicely. But FOG-AM is losing players quite worryingly. Lots of reasons have been suggested for this but I've got to say the figures do seem to point to players getting fed up with the lack of any sort of success, and dropping out/changing rules, rather than boredom with the same old game situations. And I think the reason for this is the high calibre of the top players. The less experienced ones just don't stand a chance, so is it any wonder we lose them?

I've previously suggested a handicap system. Twenty-five or fifty points extra should give the lower ranked players a slightly better chance. And what about leaving out the five extra points for when an army routs? This might lead to there being less incentive for a player to utterly destroy his opponent AND reduce the points gap between the top and bottom of the table. Also, one very experienced (and successful) player I talked to recently suggested themed competitions produce closer and more interesting games, rather than the 'dreaded' free-for-all of open periods. I think he's right.

Just some ideas for players still interested in FOG-AM to kick around but something really needs to be done to prevent further losses.
The "scores" are the ranking scores achieved based on where they placed in the tournament(s) they entered - nothing to do with individual game results.

FoGR is - as Pete says - is basically either on life support, or perhaps instead evolving into a game with a different "pace of life" depending on which side your bread is buttered. The number of events and entries has fallen significantly and the era of "rankings" is probably gone forever, but an occasional one-day well-themed event can still pick up decent numbers. I'd say its arguably more played socially than competitively nowadays - and the dropouts have been falling from top to bottom of the rankings tree.
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Re: The future of FOG-AM competitions...

Post by madaxeman »

petedalby wrote: Winchester have adopted this and it seems to encourage more aggressive play. Is there any reason why we cannot choose to adopt this more widely? Tim - presumably the BHGS could adopt this?
It's usually Dave F who sets the parameters for FoGAM events - I just post the details up online, but if people do want something different its easy enough to do. Would the new version have a different scoring system anyway?
petedalby wrote:Agreed - the figures do not lie. And yet despite this FoG AM currently has the largest number of current entries for Britcon. Although I suspect others may pick up more players nearer the time.
Technically its level pegging as of today with 30. The 30 signed up for FoGAM include almost all of the current 'active' player set - 23 (out of a possible 25) players who have played 4 or more events in the past year are signed up for Britcon. Just Paul Johnston and Peter Card now needed for the full set of all 25 !
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Re: The future of FOG-AM competitions...

Post by ChrisTofalos »

With the objective of preventing more lost players, can we possibly poll the Britcon entrants about what they think? Would they be prepared to give the lower ranked players a few extra points or lose the five point bonus for an army rout? These two changes might lead to tighter, more exciting games but if somebody else has some other suggestions, so much the better.
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Re: The future of FOG-AM competitions...

Post by hazelbark »

petedalby wrote: I think we've all been too complacent in accepting 800 points on 6 x 4 tables. Smaller tables and a different number of points can give better games. I also think that themed events are more challenging. Open events can produce horrible mis-matches - but Martyn gives a good rationale as to why open events can be attractive and themed events restrictive. Presumably if we gave more notice of the themes this might help?
EXACTLY.
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Re: The future of FOG-AM competitions...

Post by petedalby »

With the objective of preventing more lost players, can we possibly poll the Britcon entrants about what they think?
So what about you Chris?

You have entered some competitions previously but I've not seen your name recently. What is keeping you away?
Pete
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Re: The future of FOG-AM competitions...

Post by ChrisTofalos »

I'll be entering Britcon this year, Pete. Just saving up for the entry fee! :-p

(I am in three FOG-AM comps at MAWS and that's keeping me busy. Still to register my first draft V3 win though)
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Re: The future of FOG-AM competitions...

Post by madaxeman »

ChrisTofalos wrote:With the objective of preventing more lost players, can we possibly poll the Britcon entrants about what they think? Would they be prepared to give the lower ranked players a few extra points or lose the five point bonus for an army rout? These two changes might lead to tighter, more exciting games but if somebody else has some other suggestions, so much the better.
Probably this forum's posts about Britcon are the best place to ask this question, however there are only 2 players currently signed up for Britcon who would fall outside the current UK Top 45 (around half way), and a grand total of 5 who sit outside the current top 30 - most of which appears to be entirely attributable to these players having only entered 1-2 events each in the past 12 months.

These are the players who would currently benefit if the cutoff was the Top 30:

Brian Espie
Marco Baroni
Paul Robinson
Robert Middlemist
Roger Pitfield
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Re: The future of FOG-AM competitions...

Post by petedalby »

I'll be entering Britcon this year, Pete. Just saving up for the entry fee! :-p
Excellent - good to hear it Chris.

In some ways the decline of FoGAM is similar to the decline of WRG 7th edition. But there are some key differences. With 7th, many of the top ranked players and organisers moved to DBM and those remaining with 7th continued for a few more years. Indeed - there is still a hardcore of players playing 7th. With FoG however, most of the top ranked players still prefer AM.

And of course we are spoilt for choice. FoGAM players have moved to a plethora of different rules sets such as ADLG, MeG, FoGR, Saga, Bolt Action etc - whereas back then DBM was almost the only game in town.

I know several players currently playing ADLG who say they prefer FoG but can't get a game because everyone else in their club has moved onto something else.

The encouraging thing for me is that the core support for FoGAM continues to be very strong. V3 will either kill us off or breathe new life into our numbers.
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Re: The future of FOG-AM competitions...

Post by LEmpereur »

petedalby wrote:... V3 will either kill us off or breathe new life into our numbers.
Kill us ! :(
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Re: The future of FOG-AM competitions...

Post by ChrisTofalos »

I know several players currently playing ADLG who say they prefer FoG but can't get a game because everyone else in their club has moved onto something else.

The encouraging thing for me is that the core support for FoGAM continues to be very strong. V3 will either kill us off or breathe new life into our numbers.
I'm hopeful that V3 will breath new life into FOG-AM. The draft we've been using at MAWS seems to produce slightly quicker games, mainly because of greater base losses, due to the extra dice at Impact, and the fact that percentage losses now immediately count for Cohesion Tests. There are lots of other neat touches, too, and those who complained about 'dancing pikes' finally have their prayers answered.

There haven't been many comments from the top players about making comps fairer for the less experienced. That's a bit sad, because if nothing is done even the pool of top players is eventually going to dwindle. The options are pretty clear: carry on regardless, which is a bit of a self-centred approach, or find a way of encouraging players back...
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Re: The future of FOG-AM competitions...

Post by petedalby »

Kill us ! :(
To be fair Guillaume FoGAM appears to be dead in France already. I'm not sure you can blame V3 for that.
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Re: The future of FOG-AM competitions...

Post by madaxeman »

ChrisTofalos wrote:There haven't been many comments from the top players about making comps fairer for the less experienced. That's a bit sad, because if nothing is done even the pool of top players is eventually going to dwindle. The options are pretty clear: carry on regardless, which is a bit of a self-centred approach, or find a way of encouraging players back...
There are (as of today) already 5 more ancients players signed up to play one ruleset or another at Britcon than we had in total last year, so the overall numbers of ancients players is actually increasing. I could see us ending maybe 10-20% up in ancients players this year if things continue as they are currently going along.

We're on 31 for FoG as of today (even without Chris!), compared to 24 + 10 last year, so again there seems to be a fairly good chance that the number of AM players at Britcon will be a smidge bigger than last year too.

I imagine a new edition and new lists should at least temporarily level the playing field a little between those experienced and less experienced players too, so events should naturally become more balanced in the next 12 months anyway.
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Re: The future of FOG-AM competitions...

Post by berthier »

hazelbark wrote:
petedalby wrote: I think we've all been too complacent in accepting 800 points on 6 x 4 tables. Smaller tables and a different number of points can give better games. I also think that themed events are more challenging. Open events can produce horrible mis-matches - but Martyn gives a good rationale as to why open events can be attractive and themed events restrictive. Presumably if we gave more notice of the themes this might help?
EXACTLY.
This was a challenge that we faced in the GCC. We held multiple tournaments with 600, 650 and 700 points on 5x3 tables that in general worked well but several players started refusing to participate because they did not like the smaller points or tables.

Themes were best but only a few of us were willing to set them up. For HUBCON, I ran themed events in 2011 (Heyday of the Hellenes 900 points - 11 players), 2012 (Rise and Fall of the Hellenes 900 points - 13 players), 2013 (Light Chariot Theme 800 points - 8 players) and 2014 (Kingdom of Outremer 850 points - Early Crusade - 16 players). All of these were played on 4x6 tables. All were announced at least 9 months out. The 2014 event included short articles in the Gulf Coast Monthly on the historical commanders allowed with options for army lists, i.e., the Christian players were not limited to playing only Early Crusader but had choice. For instance, Robert Curthose could play either Early Crusader or Norman while Bohemund of Taranto could play Early Crusader or Italo-Norman. In the months leading up to it, I ran the list of lords and denoted who had picked whom.
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Re: The future of FOG-AM competitions...

Post by AlexandersChiefEunuch »

I have switched (at least for the upcoming Derby Worlds and Warfare) to 28mm Swordpoint.
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Re: The future of FOG-AM competitions...

Post by LEmpereur »

petedalby wrote:
Kill us ! :(
To be fair Guillaume FoGAM appears to be dead in France already. I'm not sure you can blame V3 for that.
It is a fact Pete V3 come at the same time don't help and surely participed effectively... :(
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