"L'Art De La Guerre" Topic

Lately the group I play Ancients with in Northern California has switched from FoG to LADG. I liked FoG, but ancients rules come and go and FoG seems to have run its course.

The advantages of LADG so far seem to be that about 1/2 as many figures are needed, the rules are easy to learn but fairly nuanced, the games only take 2-2.5 hours to complete, and lots of armies which couldn't compete in older sets seem to do OK in LADG.

I am curious to see if others have begun playing these rules. I am not trying to claim that LADG is 'better' than any other set, nor to trash anyone's favorite pastime, just to see how widespread this set is. While they are fairly new in English translation, i understand they are on their 3rd edition in the original French.

How are casualties handled? I have all my ancients mounted for Impetus. I like the large bases and do not like to handle a bunch of little bases to pull casualties off the board or count each figure to calculate attacks.

I found a nice write up here.

link

Looks like it's Cohesion hits and if both sides have large bases it will work. I'll have to try them out.

At Historicon this year there is no FOG tournaments, but there are Friday and Saturday LADG tournaments. So I'd say that's a good indicator. I do miss the days when there would be 50 people playing DBM (but I don't miss those rules).

Steve

Basing is generally consistent with FoG/ Warrior/DBx, although infantry other than lights are generally on double deep bases.

There is no figure removal; one keeps track of attrition with cohesion markers on individual units.

I miss the days of a basketball court full of WRG 6th edition games, when a unit of Byzantine "flame throwers" would make your life hell if you went into the woods, don't miss "unshielded side" though.

Cut my teeth on the WRG 6th still love the Cantabrian circle rules :)
Cheers happy gaming.

Big fan of the rules. Down here in the South it looks like were going from FoG to LADG.

All my ancients are based for Impetus. Basically two FOG/DBx base with wide and one or two base with in depth. I don't know how that would work for LADG…

One thing putting me off is the need for markers… I hate markers.

I thought FOG was supposed to change the face of Ancient Wargaming. Players were supposed to abandon fantasy systems and new recruits were likely to pour in off the street. I remember locals singing its virtues with great frequency…

Strange to hear that support is not as strong as it once was.

The 'Beltway bandits' one of the US top FOG teams ( who have played at multiple world team championship thingys ) has stopped playing FOG ancients altogether and gone over to ADLG, which should say something about FOG player numbers.
Hence the lack of FOG at the Lancaster or Historicon 'cons.

From what I am seeing is very small games like DBA. What is the average size of units? Is it variable sizes or fixed? Is this strictly a tourny style game or does it do well with large games and multiple players?

Units are all basically the same size, with most troops one base per unit. Foot other than lights are two bases per unit (usually double based) except pikes, which have 3 bases. Armies average around 20 units depending on leadership and troop types. So far we have been playing one-off tourney style games, but there are good rules for multi-player games and big battles. We just haven't tried 'em yet.

This reminds me of Armati. Mind you, I have not scene play in person.

The next UK tournament (BHGS Challenge) will be played at 300 points / 4 generals – which is a lot closer to a "traditional" DBM/FoG sized army than the 200 point "French competition standard" size.

Will be interesting to see how it pans out – the rules seem to work OK at both scales, so you can choose your own balance between 300 point games for those players who are wanting a few "meaty" games vs being able to finish 2 x 200 point games early (or fit in more games in a day!)

In the USA, we're still playing 200 point tournaments, but in our club, we're starting to play 300 point games. I'm very interested to see how fast a 300 points game takes, as with 200 point armies, a game is usually finished in 2 to 2.5 hours, which is pretty good, for a conclusive finish.