"Fog of War without complex rules" Topic

okay so I'd like some opinions on the fog of war system that has been introduced in our group

basically what we are doing is getting very small miniatures, 3mm. and the only real rule we put on it is no leaning across the table and no asking what that is. players may or may not be provided with toy binoculars. the argument against three millimeter miniatures is that you can't see what they are. I believe this is their strength. I think this really introduces a fog of war into games without any rules represent it.
Thoughts???

Edit: i suppose thus won't work foot skirmish…

Interesting idea – I think that this could be quite useful, especially for non-descript infantry-like units – do they or don't they have an anti-tank gun there? Please let us know how this works in actual practice

Pls post photos of the table when you play…

Well, certainly a good reason to recruit young folks (with good eyesight) into the hobby. I don't think it simulates much, but it sounds like fun.

Interesting idea – some people use similar concept in naval games with 1/6000 figs. You could also use wooden blocks that may or may not represent real units.

Yeah the idea was that you can't tell if them guys are toting bazookas or if that blab of afvs are bmp with infantry or t72s. We did try it once but we played on a 2x2 so it really didn't factor in.

I actually do the same with naval sundance, lol.
one of these ideas spawn the other but I'm not exactly sure which way it went

I have heard of this working in the use of 6mm and below figures in different periods, especially with rules sets that keep players under pressure, so they don't have lots of time to spend carefully surveying the terrain.

An easy solution to the problem.

I've known players to forget some of their own troops in 6mm, with the right paint jobs and terrain.

Hate it. Your making the player identify a unit rather than the units he is commanding identify the unit. I also hate the no pre-measuring rules from most games, my troops are supposed to be figuring out the best range to shoot and not me (the commander some bit away from them).

For better to use generic miniatures and simple spotting roles.
1 to 3 on a D6 you spot.
-1 for really good spotters.
+1 for really bad.
-1 for poor quality spottees.
+1 for stealthy ones.

All done.

I've known players to forget some of their own troops in 6mm, with the right paint jobs and terrain.

I've lost 28mm troops and my only 15mm Tiger 2 in sufficiently dense forests!

But to be honest, I don't totally like the idea, for the same reason that Dynaman gives. That's what your troops are supposed to be doing!

I'm doing 3mm Napoleonics so I can actually have that Thin Red Line instead of a far-too-deep formation of 18mm troops.

and real troops misidentify and fire on, or not, troops all the time… the troops are supposed to do æosts of things which we do for them.
rolling dice can help,in certain areas, but human error is really well represented by human error…

Could you just use 1 soldier to represent a group (so not defining size or equipment) and a tank to represent any (tracked?) vehicle.

That way, you know 'something' is there, but not what it actually is until they make a positive identification roll.

You could be aware of half a dozen vehicles, but not know which one is the biggest threat until you have actual eyes on, so could find you have been carefully maneuvering against a truck until now.

In the same way, a 'soldier' could turn out to be a cow…

How much complexity do you need? Our current game is a complex design using an 8 by 4 board. Fog of war is sufficient to make the game as hard as we could cope with using only map marking for the hidden troops. The recon elements have to declare at the end of a period where they are looking and what they have seen (i.e the observed players decleres) e.g 10 trucks moving supplies forward of point alpha. Defenders mark the positions on a map and only declare them when they are first moved and shopt at, It is possible in some cases to see engineering works while being iundertaken.

Anecdotal eveidence we have acrued is that most of the time recconasence does not find exact positions of troops but areas where they may be present. Spotting normaly takes place if at all over long periods waiting for an enemy to make a mistake, well outside normal game timescales.

I do like that! – Because I use 15mm mosdtly I think I'll make main players stand at least 6 feet from the table them "movers" respond to the "players" orders- the movers of course NOT being on the "same team"
We've also had some success using a floating timescale with "combat moves" and "other actions turns" but this is something we are still exploring

Here is what I've been trying out.
tinyurl.com/o6r2vjt

The actual models are kept off the board on a lettered form that corresponds to the "FOW Chit" on the table. Each chit has a letter, number and arrow. The letter denotes the offboard location, the arrow points towards the location of the unit if it were on the board and the number is number of inches from the end of the arrow. The FOW chit can be placed anywhere in a 360 degree circle around the actual location of the model as long as the arrow points towards the actual location and it is the correct number of inches away. Depending on intel and recon both sides get dummy FOW chits that do not represent an offboard unit.

When it's time to move a unit that is off the board you calculate the movement as if it were on the board and them move the FOW chit to point at the location the correct number inches away. With only the blank sides showing to the opposition movement can look like the FOW chits are just randomly moved around the board. The more dummy chits the better. They can be as small as a penny or a quarter.

Wolfhag

Buy a lot of Dry Ice or invest in a smoke machine!