"Au Revoir Field of Glory - Hello Warrior" Topic

Scott, I did read FoG very carefully. I'm still not satisfied that your answer is easily derived from the rules but I accept that that is how you play the game. Great.

I guess it's another example of shoot the messenger. Sorry Scott, the rules are not perfectly put together. Far from it.

"Sorry Scott, the rules are not perfectly put together. Far from it"

I can't remember when anyone claimed that FOG was perfect…..although I can see why some might see them that way when compared to other sets. :)

Note to self…MUST…..NOT ……..FEED………TROLL

In response to the original point.

Warrior was a big clean-up and refinement of WRG7th and I did like it – different, much more tactical feel than DBM – though I was never thrilled about Fatigue point accumulation (you can't become unFatigued).

Field of Glory has mostly sound and simple but elegant mechanisms and a straightforward sequence of play that on the whole seems fairly simple to a new player but also has the feel and tactical/planning depth I like (such as that in Warrior, or in DBX) while being easier to remember than those sets. The order of march/battle setup/deployment approach I also like a great deal. The rule book was a pleasure to read, though it's possible to miss things and misinterpret as always.

One big selling point is that it handles touchstone troop types and historical matchups well – something the originally simple DBM mechanisms struggled with by adding modifiers and special cases, burdening the system. Repesenting legionaries is an example. It devalues hard won skills of microfiddling, but that's fine.

Providing for use of existing DBM armies is a good point, and good point balancing and the greater relative balance between armies is also a selling point – by this I mean that any army, played with skill, is worth playing and has a reasonable percentage chance of winning.

There are some cherished details (recoils for example) which were simplified out of the system, but there are clear benefits of simplification.

I think it does as well as a rules set spanning several millennia can be expected to do, in a pretty streamlined way in terms of rules/procedural overhead and general fiddliness.

Mike

Mike,

Thanks for the summary – I've been looking for just that level of judgment amidst all the pros and cons that are being debated back and forth. It helps.

Rick

Now that we are back to the original point of the thread, I agree largely with MikeKT. I played a lot of WRG 7th. People got tired of it and switched to DBM. I didn't want to give up on playing Ancients, so I switched to DBM.

When DBM fell from grace, I switched to WAB, and then to Warrior. Now that Warrior games are well-nigh impossible to come by and FoG games easy to find, I am playing FoG.

My personal favorite among all these is Warrior; the reasons are not important. FoG is a fine game, it plays smoothly and is a lot of fun and produces fairly historical outcomes. I may beleive that my favorite is the best and deserves more playing time, but when push comes to shove I like to play Ancients. Playing a good game is more important than playing the best game. If only everyone would see reason and agree with everything I say, life would be better. Things being what they are……..I play Fog and have a very good time.

DBM hasn't really fallen from grace yet tho – DBM players outnumbered FoG at the world champs, and they still seem to outnumber FoG and DBMM combined in competition in the UK.

I've been playing DBA,MOA,FOG and Impetus. I've had a set of DBM for years but never played it-I'm going to give it a go!

I think the Britcon numbers will be the real litmus test for many in GB – and we'll see how they've panned out in a couple of weeks.

"DBM players outnumbered FoG at the world champs, and they still seem to outnumber FoG and DBMM combined in competition in the UK."

While DBM was by far the biggest pool in Helsinki, DBM did not outnumber FoG and DBMM combined at the BHGS Challenge. The numbers at the Challenge were: DBM 15mm – 28, DBMM 15mm – 10, FoG 15mm – 41, FoG 25mm – 10

There were I think a couple of 25mm players who wanted to play DBM or DBMM but switched to FoG as there were not enough to make 25mm DBM or MM comps viable.

Three weeks to go to Britcon so we will see soon how things have moved on.