"The DBM killer?" Topic

Our local gaming group (like so many others it seems) has latched onto FoG in a big way. There is alot of excitement in the air about this one and at least locally it looks like it may take over as the main ancients set played. (For the last year or two it has been Warmaster, but it's died out to a large extent as people has realized what a dog that game is..)

Anyway, I've heard the phrase "DBM killer" dropped a few times.
is it true?
Is FoG on it's way to becoming the default big battle ancient wargame rules?
Thoughts, comments, flames?

TR
Who is franticly painting up an Early German army as it looks like heavy foot armies are actually viable under this set…

I wouldn't say kill… As there wil always be those who think that it is the "be all end all" of gaming systems, just like there are those who feel that way about Warrior/7th and 6th…

So, I would say that it is set to become the dominant system for some time to come.

This maybe a stupid question, but do you believe it is likely to become the dominant games system because it is an incredibly good game to play, or because it is an incredibly nice game to look at? Ie is the gaming or production qualities that people are being drawn to?

NB I am a long time DBx player, also play WAB and have no intention of buying into a new, unknown, gaming system at this time.

To varying degrees, our group got caught up in the hype.
Then the rule books arrived.
The attitude is a lot more circumspect now.

Warmaster would benefit greatly from a second edition, finally clearing up a few points such as skirmishers etc.

As for FOG, I'm not sure if it will take out DBX completely. Even though size doesn't matter, it's clearly aimed at 25mm or gives a very good impression of that.

Given that a lot of DBX players are mainly into 15mm tournament play, there is a good chance they will stick the old classics, just as some WRG die hard did nearly two decades ago.

BTW, I do get a strong WRG vibe from these rules, anybody else have that feeling ?

"BTW, I do get a strong WRG vibe from these rules, anybody else have that feeling ?"

That's not surprising. They are authored by Richard Bodley-Scott who worked closely with Phil Barker on (I think) HOTT and DBM.

FoG is aimed squarely at 15mm as that is the most popular scale in the UK. It also works with 25mm and any small scale which you can either base up for 15mm or else adjust base sizes and distance measurements accordingly.

My feeling is that the next "DBM" has arrived, and it wasn't DBMM.

There is also a backlash against FoG going on. I don't quite know why -- I have read the rules thoroughly and can't find anything major to gripe about. To me, it takes the best bits out of WRG, DBA/M, Warmaster and some other rules, blends them together and welds them into a coherent, easy to learn yet subtle to play system.

It should be remembered that DBX never obliterated other rules. There are still WRG 6th and 7th players, also Warrior and various other systems. Warhammer Ancients seems popular.

FoG is an excellent set of rules, I think it will be the dominant ancients rules set for some time to come.

To clear up a slight misunderstanding although the rules claim any scale it is really aimed squarely at 15mm NOT 25mm.

2 explanations for this.

If you go on the official forum and look at a poll of people who play FoG and have or intend to build new armies almost 5 times as many are 15mm players than 25mm.

The actual movement and shooting rules are in "MU's" which is a silly name for inches. It doesn't matter whether the game is played with 15mm or 25mm the movement ranges and shooting distances for troops are the same….

They are clearly designed for 15mm figures. 25mm is squeezed in. Slingers for example have a shooting range of 4 inches, with 25mm figures that is an awful small distance….

The production quality is excellent and this is a good thing. It means all the shallow people who think Warhammer 40K or flames of war are good BECAUSE everyone else plays it will latch onto these new pretty rules.

As it happens the rules are also excellent in their own right. It is very good news when the "trendy" rules are also the "best qualilty" rules.

Will it wipe out the myriad of other rules sets? No of course not, people will always play older sets because they like them, etc. I am very confident though that by this time next year most ancients competitions and probably most friendly ancients games will be FoG rather than WRG 6th / WAB or DBx

Andy

The core local DBM players will keep playing DBM. It has been implanted so deep – to the point some people twist history to fit in the rules – that it will not simply be replaced. When you reach this stage there is no turning back and some seem 'crystallized' into the system; having frozen in time.
As for new rules, as a player what I look for are new ideas. Rehashing of old news and lack of originality are very lame. Though strong advertising will create the necessity to buy this might not translate into play, the key aspect of any rules.
It is interesting to note that DBM has brought nothing new. The breaking ground set was DBA, introducing the PIP – variable orders system – and the doubling/KK combat system, Stategos like logic imbedded. But DBM still benefited from the outstanding new concept.
The question is – far from the the hype and the flock – I still believe there is a small space for creative rules writing, that's what fascinates me, plus a small but fundamental discerning audience.

J

"FoG is an excellent set of rules, I think it will be the dominant ancients rules set for some time to come."

Perhaps in 15mm, and in particular for 15mm tournament players, but I still think that WAB will be the primary set of rules for 28mm players and there is a huge 10mm Warmaster Ancients following in the UK and the continent. From discussion forums it seems that WMA did not catch on as much in the US as it did in Europe. Personally, I only know about 2-3 people who still play DBM or DBMM. I think the fracturing of the 15mm competition DBx community over DBM 3.1 and DBMM created a void in the tournament scene that FoG is going to fill. I doubt FoG will have a huge effect on what games people play at home. I think they will sell a lot of copies to people like me who will buy it because it is pretty and new, but will probably never play it.

Personally I think a lot of the backlash is from people worried about losing their favourite rules. Unfortunately for them I think that FOG is here in a big way and that DBMM will go the way of the NZ Natcon DBMM comp – think Dodo. DBM will continue on in various places much as WRG 6th and 7th/Warrior have. Warrior and 6th players find FOG much more playable then DBx. With GWs probs I suspect WAB will lose more players as well. As far as tourney play goes in 2 years I daresay FOG games will outnumber all other ancients games played.

Hi

I think that DBM has been on the decline for a long time now, perhaps since 2003/4, so there is fertile ground for new rules. See here for some data on the numbers of recorded DBM tournament games:
theiwf.org/rtgs/NatGames.htm
FoG is well marketed/produced and will undoubtely have high penetration. As Jerboa says there will also be people playing DBx for a long time to come.

So, no I don't think that FoG is a DBM-killer except perhaps in the sense of accelerating its already rapid decline in many areas.

rgds
rob

It will be interesting to see if it will convert the WRG 6th and 7th players. I don't think it will.

I know several DBM players who are reluctant to change as well. Some of them have 20+ armies over large periods so for them to buy all the Army Lists books at £12.99 GBP a pop is going to work out very expensive!

At my local club FoG seems to have grabbed the attention of the majority of the DBM players and a lot of the WAB players too. Several WAB players have said that for them the WAB GT the other weekend was their last WAB comp.

FoG is also getting interest from some of the FoW and 40K players so perhaps we will get some new blood into ancients.

In the end players will vote with their time and play the rules they like the most.

DBM still has its advocates but the numbers are dwindling very fast.

FoG didn't generate much interest in the club here. Our Ancients players mostly decided to stick to WarMaster Ancients, though one member is a DBMM fanatic!
As to the FoG backlash, I guess the reason was the huge hype compared to the reality of "just another set of rules", and the rabid fanboy criticism of anyone who said the rules had problems was a turn off. I certainly don't think they're a "killer" of anything.

I don't see whypeople who like DBM (or any other rules) should stop playing just because FOG is out.

Our local club is planning an FOG demo/tryout day, but I expect DBA will remain the most popular set.

To each his own, and let's see where FOG is a year from now after the "shiny" has worn off.

Several WAB players have said that for them the WAB GT the other weekend was their last WAB comp.

Really?

I thought the guys did a great job at making things a more even playing field with the ABC system. While I prefer the themed tourney circuit for WAB, I still had four good games that weekend.

Guy

Several WAB players have said that for them the WAB GT the other weekend was their last WAB comp.

Really?

I thought the guys did a great job at making things a more even playing field with the ABC system. While I prefer the themed tourney circuit for WAB, I still had four good games that weekend.

I don't think they disliked the format, it was more that they were looking for a change. Much like me after 10 years of DBM, I looked for a change with DBMM, FoW and FoG and have settled on FoW and FOG for the moment. The fact I haven't played a game of DBM for about 6 months really isn't bothering me at the moment.

I thought WAB was dead. Huh.

Allen

FoG has been out for about five minutes, suddenly its the doom of all pretenders.

Youthful exhuberance!

Give it time, least until everyone has had time to chew on and digest the contents. Then we all discover whether its the panacea of ancient gaming or a silk stocking full of shiite!

I thought DBM died of its own miserable weight? Weren't people pretty tired of all the fiddly little millimetrics?

I've played FoG once now and can see that it's way easier and not nearly as fiddly as DBM. So it has a great deal of appeal to me. I doubt I'll need to look at the charts after about 3 playings and there just isn't the need for referring to rules for all the wierd special cases.

I hope it catches on around me as I miss playing ancients.

The Gulf South tournament circuit group that streches with players from Texas to Atlanta plus guest players from overseas, Ohio and CA.

They are still using DBM for the 2007-08 year cycle. They have played familiarization games of both FoG and DBMM as well during the tournament events.

It is my understanding that for the 2008-08 year cycle, they will hold tournments using two different sets of rules. DBM and Fog seem to be the preferred list but it is not a final decision as to FoG or DBMM.

@Demigamer:

Maybe it's a silk stocking full of panacea?

And for tournament players I think freewaegamesrules got it right – it is going to cost $200+ to buy into it with the large numbers of army books and that will likely kill it.

I have played tourney DBM for a long time but I am pretty easygoing about what rules are going to be in a tourney. We played DBMM yesterday at the club but it was still DBM with a lot of twists most of which are likely for the better.

We will still use DBA at conventions as DBM and DBMM are too fiddly to teach to a casual player.

If it didn't cost me $200 USD to buy in I might consider FoG but as I have paired down my 15s to just Central Asian armies they span too many books for me to be interested.

My group plays WAB and I don't see anyone rushing out to buy/change rule sets.

One of the Atlanta groups who wanted to get into tournament play two or three years ago swapped from WAB to DBM.

They do the DBM at 15mm and still play some game day scenarios of WAB at 28mm scale.

Having never played FoG, I am not going to comment on it if it is a great game or not. Is DBM a great game, not in my opinion. What makes a great game for me? It has to be fun to play. It has to allow for good multi-player games. The rules have to be fairly well written, and clear about the game mechanics. It has to have a low learning curve, I want to be able to pick the rules up fairly quickly. I have played DBM a couple of times and thought the game was ok.

I think the people who like the rules they are using won't change just because there are some new rules out there.

Brent

I got mine today along with the lists. DBM is pretty much dead in York, most people switching to playing FoW whilst waiting for FoG to come out. Actually I'm one of the exceptions as my main period outside of ancients is Russian Civil War. There are a lot of ancient armies in our club, I have two and a DBR Italian Wars army that might morph into Italian Condotta so I certainly want to play with them.

To me, what killed DBM was;

1. Player boredom, it's been around a long time and felt stale.

2. The super skirmisher. Rectified somewhat in DBM 3.1 but if you had an infantry army, it was often just skirmished out of it.

3. Obscure armies being killers. Romans, Macedonians and other empire building armies being crap in the hands of the average player.

4. Many battles being decided on the wings whilst the centre, usually infantry, just stood around and did nothing or fought a slog without an outcome. Yes, some historical battles were like that, but not all, and certainly not to the extent shown in DBM. It even led to the "hollow centre" deployment, much beloved by tournament players.

5. You were playing a game, but it didn't feel like history.

I can't say that FoG will fix what I see as DBM's faults, I haven't read them yet, but I'm certainly hoping so.

Ok, a quick clarification…posting at midnight when your tired will cause the kinds of post you see above.

When I say "DBM killer", I'm not talking about total replacement. Rules systems never become totaly obsolete" in the sense that other things do. You are always going to have holds outs who refuse to upgrade when a new version of a rules set is released (for example I still play 1st edition Warhammer 40k on occasion) or those who just prefer an older set. (Once again as an example there are about half a dozen older gamers who still play WRG 5th or 6th edition out of nostalgia ;-p ) My question is if FoG will replace DBM as the most widely played tradional tourny style ancient game?

I'm fairly excited about it. I'm a Warrior advocate. (I was heavily involved in the 7th edition tourny scene and converted to Warrior when it arrived) But the problem is that I could probably count the number of existing Warrior players in my state on two hands and only one of them lives in my area! So for the longest time I played DBM simply because if you wanted an ancients game down at the club, it was pretty much the only game in town. Warmaster in 10mm caught on pretty big locally but after a dozen games, painting up two armies, and my first tourny I realized the system was horrible and dropped it. Two years after it's release most of the local ancients crowd has abandonded it as well and it's died a slow death. We tried out DBMM, but it was basicly dead on arrival. (too much "Barker-ese" for most people's taste)

But the last two weeks FoG has been amazing in the way people have jumped on it. The local retailer has sold out of his stock of the rules twice now and army books are impossbile to get. (I had to break my own rule of supporting the local store were possible and scored a "Rise of Rome" book on Ebay) Repeated readings by the local rules lawyers and a number of test games have not shown any major holes in the system and most (save one die hard DBM advocate) have already embraced it. Personally, as a Warrior player, I like the return of unit based combat and weapon/armour grading.

In short, the only question my local group has now is what scale to play it in…we have a good mix of 10, 15, and 25mm armies.

TR

But as

I visited a local game shop at Lunchtime the other day in Falls Church. They had a copy of FoG and the Medieval source book. Mind you, this is a shop geared toward Fantasy (GW, MtG etc). Those are the cash cows.

The manager and I were talkng about FoG and some of the folks that came in looking for it made the comments about how this would kill WAB. As this is a Fantasy shop, I had no hope of seeing the game played.

I went to The Game Parlor in Chantilly VA on Saturday expecting to see at least one game of FoG. What did I find? 3 games of WHFB and another game of something else…40K maybe. So, at least in Virginia, the game has not slain WHFB or WAB or probably many others.

I think the game looks good. There is some unessessary fiddlyness but the game looks to be playable. I am going to use it for hitsorical battles.

John

I think there's a bit of a divide between WHAB and other ancient games. I expect FoG to compete more directly with rules like DBM/M and Warrior, because of the base sizes.

You're probably early to see a lot of FoG games. It only came out 2 weeks ago.

On a related note, there is an interesting poll currently running in the unofficial FoG Yahoo discussion group (http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/FieldofGlory):

What, if any, is your ancients & medievals wargaming background?

DBM, DBMM – 86
DBA – 67
Warrior, WRG 7 – 45
Armati – 34
WAB – 47
Medieval Hack – 3
Other – 58
No previous ancient & medieval wargaming – 1
No previous wargaming – 1

Obviously there are a large number of rule sets not specifically mentioned in the poll (hence the very large number of votes for "Other"), but it does give some indication of where new FoG players are coming from.

Cheers,
Scott

No, it wasn't FOG that killed DBM, it was Phil that killed the beast.

On a lighter note, this thread about FoG taking over the wargaming world is clocking in around 32 posts or so. The satirical "chicken" thread is over 40. I think that pretty much sums it up.

That's a very interesting survey. Thank you for sharing. I shall have to whizz over and vote for WRG 7th/Warrior.

The WAB – 47 one surprises me, in a nice way though :-)

Hard core DBA players are not inclined to play the large DBM/Fog style games. So that poll result was surprising.

One very large group (50+) that I talk with, all of their members have bought DBM , DBMM and Fog. They are playing them all to see which is better.

Was there only one answer that a person could give or could they say they played more than one system. Such multiple answers can change the survey results drasticly.

They are about half way to the 600+ mark of respondees before a survey can lower its possible error to a low enough number to make it a valid poll.

"So, at least in Virginia, the game has not slain WHFB or WAB or probably many others."

I don't think anyone is claiming that FoG will replace WFB. They are from different genres of wargaming and to a large extent have a different audience.

"On a lighter note, this thread about FoG taking over the wargaming world is clocking in around 32 posts or so. The satirical "chicken" thread is over 40. I think that pretty much sums it up."

Not suprisng, really. Everyone enjoys a good laugh after all.

TR

"As for FOG, I'm not sure if it will take out DBX completely. Even though size doesn't matter, it's clearly aimed at 25mm or gives a very good impression of that."

I don't understand where this idea came from? Because the photos in the book are mostly of 25mm figures?

Take a look at move/shoot distances. They look good for 15mm figures, not 25mm figures. If anything, FOG is for 15mm with 25mm included as an afterthought.

"Was there only one answer that a person could give or could they say they played more than one system. Such multiple answers can change the survey results drasticly."

The poll was set up so that respondents could select as many answers as they thought applicable. It's not the way I would have done it, but there you go.

"They are about half way to the 600+ mark of respondees before a survey can lower its possible error to a low enough number to make it a valid poll."

So you are saying that the recent TMP poll on "Most-Played Ancients Rules" did not quite achieve validity, then? ;-)

Cheers,
Scott

"On a lighter note, this thread about FoG taking over the wargaming world is clocking in around 32 posts or so. The satirical "chicken" thread is over 40. I think that pretty much sums it up."

42 posts now, and gaining. ;-)

Cheers,
Scott

Guess I'll have to "beef-up" the other thread!

I don't know, but I have noticed the number of posts on the DBMList yahoogroup is at all time lows. The DBRList post count is at all time highs.

There is definitely some leakage from DBM. How much, how permanent and how significant? I can only guess, but it seems like one way traffic away from DBM at the moment.

I wouldn't say DBM was ever 'dominant', but it certainly had / has a critical mass of players. If it loses that mass it won't die, but the glory days (no pun) will be over.

Now, someone mntioned a thread about satirical chickens?

It occurs to me that, subconsciously, I'm starting to think that the "new noodle" is actually entitled "Fog of War"
Am I alone with this?

Ars belli, Along the guidelines used in politics and other survey polls no it did not. The margin of error would be very high. For some reason about 600 creates a reasonable margin of error regardless of the survey population size.

However specialy polls based upon a specific number of members of the target group can use a percentage of the respondants compared to possible respondants to create a valid margin of error out of a smaller survey population.

i do not think that FoG will replace DBA nor was it intended to do so. I can see the possibility for new DBA army lists based on FoG lists and terminology. Of course that possibility also exists with DBMM as well.

I am in the process of creating FoG army lists for Anceint Korea, Sahel Africa and several other regions that I do not expect OFFICIAL lists to be released soon. I will release these in the next few issues of Time Portal Passages. Korea and Sahel will be in the Spring 2008 issue.

"I went to The Game Parlor in Chantilly VA on Saturday expecting to see at least one game of FoG. What did I find? 3 games of WHFB and another game of something else…40K maybe. So, at least in Virginia, the game has not slain WHFB or WAB or probably many others."

I haven't been in awhile, but Wednesday night was the traditional time for DBx at the Game Parlor. Unless there was a special event going on, you're weren't likely to see ancients of any kind on a Saturday.

Checking the Ancients-in-N-Virginia mailing list, it looks like there have been a good number of gamers giving FoG a try.

- Jack

"However specialy polls based upon a specific number of members of the target group can use a percentage of the respondants compared to possible respondants to create a valid margin of error out of a smaller survey population."

None of which is done for ANY of these informal gaming polls, including the ones on the DBA Fanaticus forum. And since these polls all use the same "invalid" methodology, I don't see the point in criticizing any one particular poll in this regard.

Cheers,
Scott

I think it rather premature to be planting other game systems in their graves, or to be looking for FoG games to be popping up like Dandelions in gaming stores/clubs/etc.

I know that in MANY areas, Ancients had all but died. I couldn't get a regular game of Ancients in Houston or SF to save my life. If I were in Dallas or Austin (or the LA Basin) it would probably be MUCH different. I see few games of any other game systems either, and most WAB players I see in the Bay area live in quite remote parts (Mostly far east bay or south bay).

I haven't seen much rational thought surrounding the arguments either for or against this theory that FoG is a DBx killer (Personally… I HOPE TO HELL that it IS… Personal gripes)… FoG looks to be a freaking good game (considering how close it plays to… well, never mind…), and deserves some incredible success.

It was conceived by a marked successful rules writer, who has not had his shelf-life expire (i.e. his brains are still fully intact), it was very well vetted by ancients players who were both tournament and non-tournament players (I don't think I have ever seen the guy who ran the Historicon demos in a tournament, but then I wasn't looking for him), and seems to have used the best of the best of what is around as well as producing new mechanisms of its own (I cannot say that it has ANY really revolutionary concepts though, as it all can be found in other rules here and there – that is what happens when you are trying to produce something in parallel with other writers)…

I agree with Scott about the polls. They tend to be using some pretty suspect methodology, and aren't really going to tell you anything useful.