"FoG Napoleonics - What will it be like?" Topic

Well it will be three books I gather but what joy or horror awaits within?

Anyone heard any rumors – it appears to closing in fast!

Will it be wall to wall, army list driven, competition gaming?

How many doubloons is likely to cost and will you have to buy all three books to make any of it work – assuming any of it does!

'will you have to buy all three books to make any of it work'

Hi Trajanus.
If WS&S are right and the first book is Infantry, then yes you will have to buy all 3.

Interested to see how these flesh out. I got on the boards to look at what they were developing. My understanding is that these rules will have NO similarity to other FoG rules, but who knows?

I really think that Napoleon at War will drive more to competition rather than these rules because of the associated figure range. I am hoping to get a game under my belt at Millennium in Austin in 10 days or so :-)

WS&S are wrong. First book is the rules, the other two are biiig books of army lists for all the armies of the Napoleonic Wars.

The only place the infantry / cavalry / artillery division is seen is in the cover artwork.

Pretty sure there's an old saying about judging something like that…

With apologies to Willie Dixon and Bo Diddley,

"I may look like a geek,
but I'm a lover,
you can't judge a book
by looking at the cover"

Just been poking around the Slitherine site and it would appear Smith2404 is correct.

Game will be with Regiments as basic units a bit bigger than Lasalle in what you put on the table in terms of numbers but like them on based on standardized 4-6 based units.

Deffo competition orientated vis this quote:

"The games at Britcon went very well with the rules being well received by all players.

Even the british player, who was extremely disparaging at the start, came round to enjoying the games and is eager to play again. We particularly wanted to test the British in a competition environment because we had a 2 choices of how to best represent them. We used a different option on each of the 2 days, and proved conclusively that the 2nd option was the one to use. Unfortunately it meant that they had a very poor showing on the saturday."

"I was very pleased with how the games played, felt and looked, and although their weren't as many outright victories as I'd have liked, the games will speed up once players get to know the rules. We've also made a couple of minor tweeks since Britcon that will help speed up play."

Hopefully they're more clearly presented than the original fog (lowercase intentional), but I think I've been spoiled by the presentation in LaSalle.

good thing they were playtested to establish the best way to present the British army in the best light.

They were after all the best out there……

Ah yes, another Anglophile! he he This could start a whole new thread… I would argue that it depends on what period and which army you compare the British too. There were certainly periods prior to the Grand Armee that would have had large portions of the French Army being superior to the British army, I would venture. But I am not a Francophile! lol

Glad to hear the game has demoed well. I am a FoG fan. I happen to like the Renaissance version a touch better. I suspect the FoG v2 will make the rules a bit better (although I am in the camp of NOT changing the Roman lists as there are plenty of things that the Romans do NOT match up well against; the whole rock, paper, scissors thing is alive and well with FoG :-)

Anything that gets more players playing the period, is great by me!

You need to buy 3 books to have a game ?…………that's book publishers for you.

no ithink we established that book one is the rules. The others are just army lists

I plan to get it and dusk of my Prussians.

FOG A got me back into ancients, with FOG R I went out and brought my first army in that period, a French army (30 yrs war period) and now building an early French army (Italian war).

Can they keep "Option 1" for the British? I dream of seeing the British flee for their ships at Corunna. Alas, only in my dreams….

"dusk of my Prussians"

Give me Blucher or give me night?

Sorry Blucher cant play tonight, had an unfortunate accident with an elephant.

Basing?!
Any word on base size? 40mm wide by ????
(I'm assuming a 40mm wide base for 15mm)
And will the rules require 'base removal' to indicate casualties / disruption?
One of the things I like about LASALLE is that bases are not removed until the WHOLE unit is routed / broken.
Surely someone knows?
;o)
Cheers

"Surely someone knows?"

Probably not allowed to say if anything like their Ancients and Renn sets (very strict non-disclosure paramaters for play-testers)

Cheers

You can get a lot of info on the Slitherine forums.

You can get a lot of info on the Slitherine forums.

Link?

link

Or google Slitherine forums.

Well I am not going to rebase my mini's again.

Well I am not going to rebase my mini's again

Ha ha I was just thinking I might have them put that on my grave stone. :0P
Max

Sounds interesting, but I think I'll wait until someone gets disgusted with it and sells it on the Marketplace for $10. USD

link

Gosh, I miss dave hollins.

Must get that snipers' scope repaired.

Ha ha ha. I just followed your link Ochoin, thanks for the laugh.
I love the other posters nonplussed reaction to Daves comments. :oP

Hmmmm I wonder if Napoleon's Battles might get a relaunch on the back of this…. Osprey for some reason remind me of them.

One book rules (and not bad ones at that) , One book Scenarios (some good stuff in it), one book ratings and army data.

Ebay price for a tenner…. and there you are (heheh)

I picked up a copy of these today.

I haven't had time to read them fully and any comments below are based on a quick scan through. This is not a review. Just thought some readers may be interested in a few first impressions.

In appearance and production values they are exactly like all the previous FOG family i.e. very nice.

As stated in all their advertising material these rules are based on a unit on the table being a regiment. I find this type of concept very difficult as a regiment was not a tactical entity. There may have been several battalions from the same regiment in a brigade, sometimes not, but either way they were not a tactical unit. I can understand rules based on battalions, brigades or divisions as units on the table but regiments?

The number of bases in a unit is the factor that affects firing and combat not figures. There is no casualty removal. Movement and firing distances work on base widths like Lasalle so any consistent basing will do. No need to rebase figures. The recommended basing if you are starting from scratch is consistent with Lasalle.

Formations are somewhat abstract i.e. there are no discrete infantry columns lines or squares etc. The main formation is called Tactical, which could be a group of units in line, column or a combination of both.

Move sequence is alternate with:

Command Point Allocation
Assault Phase
Firing Phase
Movement Phase
Combat Phase
Recovery Phase

There are no arcs of fire (small exception for artillery) similar to Lasalle. Movement has a Simple and Complex set of movement types a bit like Napoleon at War.

They look like a competition style set of rules if that is your thing.

Impossible to tell how it will play from a quick read through.

Bit of a non-starter for me as I prefer rules that use a battalion as the basic unit for this period. Your preferences may well be different.

@ Alan

Thanks for the summary. I game FoG ancients so it sounds similar.

I'm still not sure about the regiment Vs battalion set up, myself. For me, the rules are a bit dear to buy for " a look" so I think I'll hold off for a while to hear more before I make up my mind.

Here's a dumb newbie question for y'all: what's the difference between a "brigade" and a "regiment" in this context?

The "Spanish Regiment" (Joseph Napoleon) had 4 combat and 1 depot battalions. That sounds a lot like the organization of an infantry brigade. I assume it's a distinction with a difference, though.

"You need to buy 3 books to have a game ?…………that's book publishers for you."

Still better then FOW where you have to buy new books every few years as they change up either some unit of small bit of the rules.

@mithmee

The rules are all in the first book including some army lists. The second two books to be published later this year are just army list books.

@requete

When you read accounts of Napoleonic battles the tactical units that are commanded to do things are batallions, brigades, divisions and corps – hardly ever regiments. A regiment by coincidence may equate to a brigade in some instances, but this was the exception rather than the rule. Using regiments as a wargame unit will mean that the game on the tabletop will not, in my opinion, visually look anything like a Napoleonic battle.

@ochoin

Amazon are the best source for a good price. About £15.00 GBP as opposed to £25.00 GBP However they do not have stock yet. I got mine from Caliver Books for £20.00 GBP

@ Charles: OK that's affordable.

The FoG ancient rules are pretty good so a look at the Naps version shouldn't kill me.

Here's a dumb newbie question for y'all: what's the difference between a "brigade" and a "regiment" in this context?

I can't say for certain but;
A Regiment was an administrative organisation. A brigade was a tactical fomation consisting of battalions etc IIRC.
A Regiment of 3 or 4 battalions could form a Brigade, (I think).

As trailape said,
a regiment is an administrative organisation consisting of one (eg a lot of British regiments) or more battalions. The French in the napoleonic period could have up to 5 or even more. This doensn't mean that all the battalions of the regiment served together. They could serve in various war theatres (eg 2 in Spain and 2 in Germany) or they could be used to form a depot where new recruits were trained.
The brigade was a tactical unit in the field consisting from 2 tot 6 battalions (who could be of the same regiment but that doesn't have to be).
Various brigades could be combined into a division (mostly then artilery, engineer companies etc would be added).

Although I admit I have not seen these rules, if the writers don't understand basic stuff like the difference between battalions, regiments and brigades, I just wonder what else they get wrong.

It seems to me from what has been written above that they are unlikely to be very good, unless all one wants is a generic 'dice throwing' game.

Well, for a lazy $25 USD AUD I've ordered a copy from Amazon. I'm an 'entrenched' LASALLE player, but FOG-N might get some legs here in Australia,…
We shall see.

@trailape & @brownbear

The fact that the regiment was an administrative organisation and not all battalions of the same regiment necessarily served together are the reasons I think that picking a regiment as a unit for this period is very odd.

There is actually a section in the rules where the authors explain why they selected the regiment rather than the battalion or brigade as the basis of the rules but unfortunately their reasoning doesn't seem to make much sense.

In fact the way the game works as far I can see is that the player is arbitrarily lumping a number of battalions together and calling them a 'regiment' even though in reality they may not be from the same real regiment. This lumped together group of battalions is then used as the manoeuvre and fighting unit in the game.

The 'Division Commanders' then command these 'regiments'. The 'regiments' can move individually or as part of a 'brigade group' – again nothing to do with real brigades as the units comprising the 'brigade group' could come from completely different formations.

It may make a for an entertaining game but any relationship to Napoleonic warfare may be purely coincidental.

@XVbrigada

Some of the historical fluff in the book is inaccurate as well. As you say – doesn't fill you with confidence that the authors know their period.

This makes no sense. As mentioned above, regiment make up varied greatly accross different armies. A british regiment would always be one battalion on the field while a Prussian, three. How the hell is that going to work?

My guess is that they are just bathtubbing for larger armies and we will see regiments behave just like battalions.

The dumbest unit representation possible. Others have been too kind calling it "odd". It is dumb imo.

@blucher

I was hoping that it would be possible to play these rules on the basis that I could pretend one of their 'regiments' was a battalion for my purposes. However, as units cannot make individual tactical deployments into line, column, square etc. it is not possible to play these rules as a battalion based set.

These rules are beginning to sound really good.

For those who've played them, are the FoG and FoG:R rules good? I like well-written clear rules that explain things and don't leave too much to gentlemen's agreements, player interpretation and tossing a coin.

Regards

This makes no sense. As mentioned above, regiment make up varied greatly accross different armies. A british regiment would always be one battalion on the field while a Prussian, three. How the hell is that going to work?

Well it seems clear that by 'Regiment' the designers mean a group of battalions which might or might not coincide with a historical regiment, or a historical brigade, or half a historical brigade. Howard Whitehouse's excellent Old Trousers Rules did much the same.

Regards

So the game unit is made of battalions grouped together? Sounds like a brigade to me. So despite the terminology used in the rules could we not just consider the unit a brigade?
Cheers,
Andy

by having regiments, you can avoid having to complicate the rules with formations – so the game goes quicker and the rules are less painful for a novice player.

but for me, its a big part of the period, so I will need a lot of convincing .

But I can see the logic in the choice – none of the complications and an immediate break point to stop those guys (me) who will say that such and such is just nonesense as a rule – since you have introduced an abstraction which covers all get out clauses in that area that anyone could need.

And it allows more cavalry than you would expect on an average table (I bet the cavalry are also regiments), without having to try to cope with a table big enough to do Waterloo as a natural sized game as you do when you use a brigade sized unit.

the 'unit = brigade' thing is pretty well covered by Grand Armee and Napoleons Battles, so only a brave man would venture into that with a new publication.

There are lots of reasons I can think of for picking Regiments for FoG N.

for me, however, Napoleonics is a period I want to do right or not at all, and I already have my 'just a game for kicks' set – Lasalle, so unless someone else introduces me to FoG N, I don't see it getting traction down my way.

Good luck to it though . I'm sure it plays well, or they wouldn't have gotten it to print.

For those who've played them, are the FoG and FoG:R rules good? I like well-written clear rules that explain things and don't leave too much to gentlemen's agreements, player interpretation and tossing a coin.

Yes they are good, and they are tightly written "tournament" rules that don't leave things to interpretation and coin tosses. We have played nearly every week for four years and I don't think we have ever tossed a coin (or rolled) a dice to settle a rules dispute.

@marshal mark

I would agree that these are definitely rules aimed at the competitive player / tournament player. They were extensively play tested including a couple of closed door min-competition events at Britcon.

Their style is suited to the player who wants tight control over his units with predictable outcomes of movement, shooting and hand to hand and the minimum friction of war. The opposite of say Two Fat Lardies type rules, where friction and controlling the chaos of conflict are dominant.

For the type of player they are aimed at I suspect they will be quite popular.