starter army

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mwig5
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starter army

Post by mwig5 »

Hi all,

I am looking to start FOG asap, ideally playing the odd tournie or two. Does anyone have any ideas as to a good starter army with ideally not too great a model count (i am an extremly slow painter).


cheers


Mark
petedalby
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Re: starter army

Post by petedalby »

Welcome to the Forum Mark.

Whereabouts are you based and what period(s) do you enjoy the most?

Typically later armies have fewer figures as the troop types are more expensive, but depending upon where you are, you might find that established players are happy to lend you some figures for competition or club play.
Pete
mwig5
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Re: starter army

Post by mwig5 »

Hi Pete,


I'm on the east london/essex borders

I have been looking at the Numidians, nothing concrete, but ideally wouuld like to play an army that isn't too popular just for varieties sake.
grahambriggs
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Re: starter army

Post by grahambriggs »

Hello Mark and welcome to the forum.

A good starter army. I'd suggest you're looking for something that has:

- a small number of troop types: easier to get an understanding of
- with the average points values quite high to keep down model count.
- something you can use in copmpetitions
- somewhat uncommon

As it happens, armies with expensive troop types do quite well in FOG - armoured or heavily armoured superior is usually good, as long as you have some cheaper skirmisher units to bulk the army up a bit. So a 800 point army of 4 BGs of skirmishers, 4 BGs of really good quality battle troops and 4 BGs of capable troops works well.

I'd suggest drilled troops would be better to start with - more expensive but more capable and forgiving of minor errors. And perhaps avoid an army which is mostly undrilled heavy foot - their slow speed means you have to deploy and move them just right to get them in the game so not best for beginners.

I would suggest Numidians you might find frustrating - it's primarily a skirmisher army and a challenge to win with. But Carthaginian with a large Numidian component might work.

Some thoughts of what might fit the bill would be to have the expensive troops as lancers (there are large number of viable knight armies, or earlier cataphract or cavalry lancer armies with various decent support troops). Or you could go down the 'tough foot' route with romans, Hellenistic pike, Swiss or Wars of the Roses English. Another option would be cavalry horse archers (Ilkhanid or other Mongol, Ottoman, Byzantine etc).

Of course it depends to a large extent what sytle of play you want - there's an army for every inclination and they all have strengths and weaknesses.
petedalby
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Re: starter army

Post by petedalby »

I'm on the east london/essex borders
Ilford has or had a large club which used to stage the Rampage event each year - not sure how active they still are though?

Central London is very active if you don't mind the journey in?

I've an idea that Tim Mayall may still be in Chelmsford - I'll ping him a PM and see if he can recommend any clubs / opponents.
Pete
philqw78
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Re: starter army

Post by philqw78 »

Small number of troops, small number of troop types, easy to paint, forgiving to the new user, rarely used.

Before 1000AD Tibetan
Loads of drilled cataphracts. Some support troops.

After 1000AD Post Latin Byzantine
Lots of drilled superior heavily armoured knights and reasonable support troops.
phil
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timmy1
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Re: starter army

Post by timmy1 »

Mark

I am a member of the Essex Warriors club in Writtle. We do get some members travel up from East London once in a while. FoG:AM v2 is not played that often at Essex Warriors but we do have half a dozen or so who play the game. Once in a while David Cutner has joined us as a guest (not too often as he tends to beat us hollow!) I have a wide range of FoG:AM armies from New Kingdom Egyptian to Late Swiss via Seleukids. Some work, some don't. The club also has some armies suitable for FoG if you want to give them a try. We meet on Sundays. PM me if you are thinking of attending and I will see if we can arrange a game for you.

Regards
Tim
IanP
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Re: starter army

Post by IanP »

Hi Mark.

One point I would make to consider when starting out is morph ability.

It can be a trap to spend a lot of time on an army, and then find that it doesn’t work for you, and the figures can’t really be used for anything else. (Painted a whole Thracian army and used it in its own right only once or twice!)

From that point of view two of the armies mentioned are quite good.

Anything medieval can work for a whole raft of armies.

Likewise the various contingents from a Carthaginian army can be used in many Roman and some Greek armies, and can form the nucleus of an army in their own right if you want to expand on them.

Generic Dark Ages or Arab are also good for morphing, but can mean a lot of figures and many undrilled.
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