"Field of Glory Renaissance and FoG Napoleonic announced! " Topic

Re-Comrade Knapton's "OK, that being said, can you get this Nappy trash off the purity of our Renaissance board?"

I think he was being amusingly sarcastic. Or maybe sarcastically amusing.

Either way, do calm down old bean. It's not important

re CS's "Either way, do calm down old bean. It's not important"

Can't you spot a urine extraction?

No, no this morning. Last night was a long one :)

"Nappys" does rather set my teeth on edge though

I rather like the term "Nappy Trash." It conveys the appropriate image.

Rich's comments (and mine that preceded it) are not "periodism" in the least. It's the attitude (or trash talking that conveys an attitude) that gives Nappy gamers a bad reputation on TMP and elsewhere about which we complain. These boards generated more Dawghousings than even the old CA Board--and that's a feat of great magnitude!

Re Comrade Holly above.

So if its not "periodism", it's "inverse periodism" which is as bad

Why was this posted on the 18th Century Board? We didn't ask for this! Leave us in peace!

a) Don't blame the respondents look at the initial cross posting.

And he will dwell in the eternal lake of hell-fire and brimstone. For ever and ever, forever and ever, Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

b) You don't have to open the thread

What? you think I could just ignore the weeping of my brothers and sisters crying out for relief from the eternal torments that is Nappy trash.. Who else is going to call these sinners to repentance and welcome them into the purity that is Renaissance wargaming.

c) Most of the postings are about FoG and Slitherines methodology in promoting Renaissance or Napoleonic variants therefore applicable to either period blessed (or cursed) by the prospect of being FoGged.

Yes my dear brother. Did you not see the beautified pontification that was my earlier posting. Oh my brother, open your eyes and let in the light.

d) Using the derogative term "Nappy" (which of course in British usage is equivalent to "diaper") and identifying such postings as "trash" displays severe periodist tendences, which is not politically correct. If we want to kick racism out of soccer then we should likeways kick periodism out of wargaming.

Kick racism out of soccer? But Brother Jeremy, I thought the idea was to kick ze little round ball. But you must excuse me. I know nothing about soccer. And, with god's help I never will. As to "periodist tendencies: no no mon ami, I have been chose to receive a most excellent epiphany. The heavens opened and I saw I that it was sin to wargame in any period in which there are bayonets. So you see this is not periodization, it is simply me walking in the light and truth that is Renaissance wargaming.

As to the term ‘Nappy', you completely misunderstood me. That is because you completely misunderstood the term. My brother, I would never call you a diaper. That would be ignorant to the extreme. No, no, the term I used was "Nappy trash." So, now your heart can be at rest.

And for my vexatious brother Conrad, I here your lament "Nappys" does rather set my teeth on edge though" Let me humbly say, "Hee, hee, hee, hee!"

I stand here with arms stretched wide to welcome you to the promised period. Let your soul no longer be vexed over column or line. Let you no longer be shamed by the wrong piping. Be free of the demented question of what is the maneuver unit. But more important than all, you soul will no longer be tormented, wrack in pain, trying to answer the unanswerable: What Is Napoleonic Wargaming?

May the pike be with you!

Fra Savonarola (aka Rich)

Ya I know. I need to get a life.

Rich

"And he will dwell in the eternal lake of hell-fire and brimstone. For ever and ever, forever and ever, Hallelujah! Hallelujah!"

(and most of the rest of the post). Rich, if you want to preach I think you'll find the religion boards over on TMP Plus!! :-)

Rich

A) Serious point 1- In England we do have a problem with rightwing hoodlums jeering at black footballers just because they are black, even if they are good enough to be chosen for the England team.

B) Serious point 2. Pious periodism (") is a curse of the hobby. Whatever the period we all have a doubting public to reassure of our sanity.

C) Otherwise, whatever happened to everyone's sense of satire and irony.

(* Sorry Mike S, "Periodism" is, like notional bases" another Sutcliffe neologism.)

"(* Sorry Mike S, "Periodism" is, like notional bases" another Sutcliffe neologism.)"

Eh? I rather like the word "periodism"!

Periodism, noun. An irrational belief that one wargames period is somehow superior to all others.

Will it make it into the OED next year?

OED? Obviously Eccentric Definitions?

OK serious.

In England we do have a problem with rightwing hoodlums jeering at black footballers just because they are black.

Does this mean you have leftwing hoodlums who want their sisters marrying black football players. I'm challenging your terminology. Bigotry is not the specialty of any part of the political spectrum. You have bigots jeering at black football players. This is a societal problem. It will only end when it becomes too uncomfortable, from a societal point of view, for them to continue these jeers.

However it is not a wargaming problem. To compare it to what you believe is a wargaming problem "periodism" is to trivialize what these bigots are doing. I have no responsibility as to how others perceive me. The attempt to try to manipulate what is not in my control is dysfunctional. I must be true to myself. Because, it is only myself that I can change.

As to ‘periodization' perhaps this is an affliction suffered by some Napoleonic wargamers. I've never seen this phenomenon. I have seen plenty of people who enjoy their period (woops, better change that to wargaming period), who don't want to play any other period; but to put down other periods? no I have not seen that. I don't see it as a systemic problem within wargaming.

With regards to Mike's definition, I know that I do not have that affliction. I KNOW my wargames period is superior to all others. It is not an irrational belief. COME ON, this is wargaming not world peace. If we can't joke with one another what is the sense? If people get offended by this that's their problem not mine. It is not my job to try to insure others won't be offended. Everyone has the choice to be offended or not to be offended. If they choose to be offended then they must take responsibility for it.

As far as I'm concerned TMP could use a big dose of humor. People are so damn serious. It's a hobby. It's suppose to be fun! I don't play Napoleonics because my experience in the period was not fun. I once played in a refight of Bordino. We played for three days and got in 6 moves. I couldn't leave the table and enjoy the rest of convention. Napoleonics has far too many "experts." These are people who really don't have a life and so make this period their life. I feel sorry for them because they really have nothing else. They also seem to have a strong sense of inferiority that must be hidden by trying to make others think they are experts also. So, they will die trying to convince all of their expertise. This is not fun. I don't see this type of person in Ancients, Renaissance, Seven Years War, ACW, WW!, WWII. Now maybe they are there and I just don't see it. But I do see it in Napoleonics. Why? I have no idea. But the sum total is I do not like Napoleonics. For me it's not fun.

I bounced around for a bit then settled on Renaissance gaming (Italian Wars). I love the figures, I love the research, I love the painting (if you get tired of painting the same old uniform over and over again you can come over and paint thousands of figure each of which have a unique combination of colors). I love the people. We have a bit of the "us against the world" attitude but in a good way. We hang together. I like that the armies are small and so varied.

So, brother Jeremy, have you learned your lesson? What lesson you ask. Not to get me into a serious conversation.

May the pike be with you.

Rich

Amen, Brother Rich. Amen!

164 Posts! I have nothing to contribute but just wanted to
help this break 1,000. This should be the 165th!

BTW: Love the way this topic veered into soceer! Go Gunners!

GW got a look in too!

If we could get Wargames Factory in somehow, then many people's joy would be complete!- and since Hype is the topic – I think we can. Wrangling about non-existent rule sets is pretty similar to discussing non-existent plastic figures. Let's analyse FoG Renaissance or Napoleonic rules when they come out – which they will. They have already produced a major set of rules and 8 supplements, unlike…..

Reply to Comrade Knapton

If you think TMP should have a sense of humour then you should read my urine extraction posts in the right sort of way.

Being serious? Leave the high horses to the Cuirassiers!

I'm excited by the concept of an FOGN. Sort of thing the period needs to help spark new interest.
The original FOG has done great things for Ancients.

If you think TMP should have a sense of humour then you should read my urine extraction posts in the right sort of way.

Sorry Jeremy, I'm not a mind reader. You said "serious" and I took you at your word. So please do not tell me what I should or should not do. How was I to know you didn't mean what you said. Now I think we need to move on.

Rich

PS
Sorry I forgot to make the required soccer reference.
Good luck to the Matildas in their game against Italy on Saturday. :oP

Using FOG I can finally have a good historic game with my 1793 Prussians vrs 1812 Canadian Militia.

Glory Glory Man United.

New to site – old to gaming – must have tried them all at least once over the years including FOG – FOG? Much too slow and tedious – designed by rules lawyers for rules laywers – FOG Naps will probably be the same – pass.

Like many of us I wrote my own napoleonic rules years ago – see runtus.org

Make of them what you wish but our small group enjoys them

Trev

Thats the thing Trev "Your small group" as with naps in general there are lots of rules and lots of small groups playing them. At my club there are even more people that have armies that aren't playing at all.I don't really care how good or bad Nappy FoG will be, if they can get more people interested in playing the period thats cool with me. They did it for Ancients. Half our club changed from DBMM to FoG when it came out. Since then 5/6 more people have finished or are working on armies for FoG. The DBMM guys have had no one (new) showing any interest in their rule set.
I say good on them, go hard, talk it up the more the better. I would love to see lots more nappy armies on the table at my club.

Roundie

I agree with you completly Roundboy.

The real revolution came with DBM. After WRG 7th edition, and probably people well before, started dropping out of ancients in droves. What invigorated ancients wargaming was DBM. Now DBM is getting long in the teeth. Up pops FOG. It has long been established that the market for FOG is not the new wargamer but the DBM player. So a lot of the interest in FOG is from those tired of playing DBM. Are they also drawing in substantial new people, I don't know. If I had to guess I would say Warhammer Ancients is drawing in more new people than is FOG.

So the question for FOG Ren or FOG Nap is can they appeal to FOG ancients players to migrate to the Ren or Nap. Perhaps with Ren but I doubt it for the Nap players. Napoleonic wargaming is a completely other genre from ancients and Renaissance wargaming. The issue of scale alone makes Nap gaming completely different. I can play the battle of Ravenna, for example, where each figure unit represents a real unit at the battle. I can do this and only have to represent less than 20 units to a side. That's the whole battle. So at best FOG will only appeal to a small group of Napoleonic players who wish to game within the scope that FOG will present.

Rich

I have seen Ancients. It's the realm of Precision Wargaming. It's where battles are fought on 2'x2' tabletops with 15mm 'armies' and measurements are done with micrometers and lasers. Although the armies have incredibly detailed differences in The Army Lists on the tabletop they are all visually indistinguishable from one another.
You play the game by staring at the table for half an hour whilst your opponent wanders off to look at something else. When the compulsory period of procrastination is over, one moves one troops up to what seems to be a maximum of half an inch. Your opponent returns and after a quick measurement with the micrometer realises that he is a thou out of alignment and declares that he has lost. All in all, just like the real thing – NOT!
Endless post-game discussion about how one army is invincible under the latest version of the rules due to a recent discovery of a shard of pottery in a desert somewhere in the Middle East.

I have never yet been able to figure out why Napoleonic posters need to post to the 18thC board. Perhaps there are some Napoleonic players who read only the 18thC board. Sounds feasible to me. Drawn to the light I guess.

Re-The Hawk "I have seen Ancients. It's the realm of Precision Wargaming. It's where battles are fought on 2'x2' tabletops"

2x2 Tabletops is DBA, I think most DBM, DBMM, FoG, WAB was played on 6 x 4 or more. And N.B. Enough people were quick enough to create DBA variants (with the DBA norm of 12 stands per side) for a wide variety of periods. Check the Free Wargames Rules Site

Re-The interchange 2 and 4 posts above between roundboy and Rich Knapton

I'd agree that DBM (out of DBA) was seen as very innovative when it came out and I suspect it shifted a lot of Ancient gaming from 25mm (The former WRG Ancients norm) to 15mm and a parallel movement probably occured in Renaissance from WRG Gush to DBR.

Interestingly a small core of gamers has stuck to 25mm WRG 6th and Gush.

While DBM played itself into stagnation, what "rescued" Ancient gaming was WAB, essentially a 25mm/28mm game which was not only enjoyable to play but satisfied those who wanted to create armies in the larger scale (and of course there was an iterative relationship with manufacturers expanding ranges)

During this time Phil Barker was developing DBMM. Reading between the lines, it would appear that there was a divergence of opinion between Barker and Bodley-Scott on the direction to take so Bodley Scott et allii started to develop FoG.

I suspect that Barker moved to actually publish DBMM from its Beta version on his website to get in his development before FoG.

I think this interminable thread (and yes why was it on the 18thC board in the first place?*) demonstrates that although FoG has acquired its adherents (either because of the launch hype or because some can see what they regard as its inherent qualities), it also has its detractors and the strand of criticism from them may well mean that FoG variants outside Ancients will have far less impact than FoG has had inside Ancients.

(*But one makes no apology for this being on the 18thC Board because it is also posted appropriately to three other boards [and as for it being posted to the Australian Board, well that's just not cricket])

They say ignorance is bliss.
"the hawk" must be in a perpetual state of happiness.
I doubt any FOG game ever was played on a 2ft square table.
The figures all look the same to you because of your ignorance of the period.
If you look at the top LHS of the page you will see we are posting on the Napoleonic boards and that it has been cross posted to the 18c.

I agree with Jeremy that after DBM became a bit old, the introduction of WAB saw a marked increase in interest in 28mm ancients. If we were to look, I think we would see that WAB is probably drawing in more new ancient gamers than is FOG. FOG is probably drawing existing ancients gamers to its rules rather than bringing in new plays. If I had a more poetic bent to my thinking I might call FOG the blood sucking leach of ancient rules. However, I have no such bent. My thoughts are very mundane. Besides I would never say such a thing.

Rich

maxshadow, my comments were in jest. I actually have many ancients armies (Romans, Britons, Vikings/Saxons/Danes, Rus, Carolingian, Vendel, and the usual medieval array of Normans, Crusaders, admittedly they are 28's not 15's which is why I can tell the difference). I bought FoG when it first came out and felt badly ripped off by the poor print quality. I have played Ancients for over 40 years since the first days of WRG. I gave Naps away as a lost cause about 30 years ago because of the preponderance of morons in the period. However I still have Bavarian, French, British and Polish armies.
I still don't understand why Napoleonic gamers who have their own board insist on posting to the 18th C board.

While DBM played itself into stagnation, what "rescued" Ancient gaming was WAB, essentially a 25mm/28mm game which was not only enjoyable to play but satisfied those who wanted to create armies in the larger scale (and of course there was an iterative relationship with manufacturers expanding ranges)

I think that is over stating the case somewhat. If WAB "rescued" anything it was 25/28mm Ancients gmaing. I don't think I've ever seen it played in 15mm. Even then it didn't happen everywhere. My own 25mm armies have laid dormant for 15 years. FoG has stimulated a wave of nostalgia for the "good old days" of WRG 6th/7th and everyone is breaking out there old armies.

Reading between the lines, it would appear that there was a divergence of opinion between Barker and Bodley-Scott on the direction to take so Bodley Scott et allii started to develop FoG.

As I understand it FoG developement was well under way before RBS was brought on board I suspect mainly for his army list knowledge than any in depth rules developement work. IIRC he did the DBM 3.1 ammendments less than a year before the first demo tournament of FoG (or Art of War as it was then) at Usk.

Re Fred Cartwright on WAB "I don't think I've ever seen it played in 15mm."

I've played it in 15mm using cm instead of inches.

and "My own 25mm armies have laid dormant for 15 years. FoG has stimulated a wave of nostalgia for the "good old days" of WRG 6th/7th and everyone is breaking out there (sic) old armies."

And mine have undergone a recent rebaiisance to play WAB.

However my preffered Ancients rules are without doubt Bob Bryant's Might of Arms.

To return to points made earlier in the thread. FoG was an over hyped set that leaves me cold.

And mine have undergone a recent rebaiisance (sic) to play WAB.

Why the need for rebasing? I've seen WAB played with DBx based armies.

However my preffered (sic) Ancients rules are without doubt Bob Bryant's Might of Arms.

Mine is Impetus.

The typo changed renaissance to rebaiisance. Rebasing is rarely an option and wasn't in this case. It just meant curtain rings for casualties

I think the above posts are right across the board (WAB has got a lot of new gamers into ancients). It's hard for me to see this as no one plays these rules at my club (for good or bad). This is because my club was strong in DBM and changing to FoG required no re-basing. Still we have picked up 5/6 new ancient players because of this change. The point of my post I guess is change is good, new rules are good anything that adds more to the hobby is good, even bad rules are good in a way because we can look back and see where things went wrong write better stuff and move on. To poo poo an idea before it's even out just seems a little strange to me, thats all

There are a good many ideas that really ought to be poo poo'd before they are ever brought to realization.

Gopher cavalry comes to mind.

England's team has Englishmen? Or I am thinking of the Premiership?

Just as a matter of interest I wonder what they will call the Napoleonic variant? IIRC "Fields of Glory" is a Shako supplement.

Fields of Napoleon, of course.

But Napoleon lost. Why would it be named after the loser?

Who won the Zulu Wars? Did Opium win their war? The Boxers?

Was not the planet the loser in WWII also? hrmmm?

FOG is a top down game and if the Napoleonic game (Field of Eagles? surely not Field of Nappies) can deliver full battles with 50-100 or so bases organized into meaningful divisions and corps equivalents and good tactical feel then I'll be well pleased at the chance to play Napoleonics again.

I don't expect a port since the mechanics won't just carry over – I hope applying the same design philosophy and development process will produce a good high-level game.

I'm very optimistic for Renaissance – I've thought about it before and a port with some changes to the mechanics would serve very well – much more accessible than Gush and avoiding the inherent DBX kinks of DBR.

Some troops outside Europe looked much the same in 1815 as they did centuries earlier, so I hope and expect the approach to basing won't change, and that any basing system would continue to work so long as the opposing sides are consistent.

Mike

Re-"(Field of Eagles? surely not Field of Nappies) "

What would we want a field of diapers for?

I look forward to seeing teh rules when they appear. I doubt I will get to plya them much as my club is a settled old club with guys who have been playing for 30+ years and use WRG with club amendments. We rarely argue rules, none of us are button counters and every club meeting we have a game usually with 3 or more per side fighting out a battle from one of our 2-3 Napoleonic Campaigns running at any one time! Peninsula is our favourite and between us all we have prewtty much got the whole continent covered in 1:50 except for some minor states, which i myself am trying to build. So tar all of us "Nappy" players with the same brush for us its more about the period and the look than the rules and we have great fun!

I don't know, "Field of Nappies" does have a certain ring to it.

What level of Napoleonic gaming do you suppose FOG will bring to Napoleonic gaming?

Rich

FOG is a top down game and if the Napoleonic game (Field of Eagles? surely not Field of Nappies) can deliver full battles with 50-100 or so bases organized into meaningful divisions and corps equivalents and good tactical feel then I'll be well pleased at the chance to play Napoleonics again.

Actually my one criticism of FoG is that it is not a top down game, it is a bottom up game, which is why it feels a lot like WRG 6th to me. Interesting article in this months Slingshot which says bascially the same thing. FoG is a low level game. The battlegroups are in fact units of around 4-500 men, giving a typical FoG 800 point army about 5,000 men. At that level it makes sense, but not as a whole battle between 30 or 40,000. That doesn't make it a bad game or any less fun of course, just different.

Actually my one criticism of FoG is that it is not a top down game, it is a bottom up game,…

I agree. Having played it several times, it definitely seems like it was designed from the bottom up.

BUT

Will it use command radii?