The future of FOG-AM competitions...

[petedalby]

28mm Swordpoint.

Another set of Ancients Rules!!? How many does that make?

[madaxeman]

28mm Swordpoint.

Another set of Ancients Rules!!? How many does that make?

At Britcon we have 6 being played (FOG, MeG, ADLG, DBA, DBMM, Saga), and at Derby there are also events for 7th, 6th, Impetus, Swordpoint & Armati. For Swordpoint there are maybe 40 players attending events in the UK in the last 12 months

Elsewhere events for War & Conquest and To The Strongest have also been held in the UK in the last 12 months, and I believe Warmaster Ancients also supports a couple of events.

Swordpoint, TTS, ADLG and MeG look to be the ones that are in a growth phase right now, the rest are stable or declining in player numbers.

[pyruse]

I used to play Fog:AM quite a bit (never in competitions, though I have played in DBM comps). I also used to play Fog:R quite a bit.
Our games were mostly 650 points or so in 28mm, on a 6 x 4 table.
We had trouble finishing a battle in an evening's gaming.
So we tried Sword & Spear (which is quite good), and 'To the Strongest', which is excellent. The combination of cards and grid really speeds the game up and avoids arguments.
As well as being great fun to play and reasonably historical, a battle seldom lasts more than 2 hours. Perfect.
So that's why I switched away from FoG.

[navigator]

I am unique!!

The only reason i have not signed up for Britcon is that for the first time in 45 years my football team has reached the dizzy heights of the Premier League.

Football matches and wargames weekends may well clash this coming season- altho thanks to Rupert Murdoch/BT i'm hoping for some free saturdays and sundays.

If someone can get Crystal Palace away switched to Thursday 10th Aug or Monday 14th Aug i will be at Britcon and still a supporter of Fogam ( i will know by 11th July what's happening.)

For what it's worth I am looking forward to Foam am v3 as i do enjoy my weekends away gaming
paul

[philqw78]

I am unique
paul

A far more pleasant way to say it Paul

[petedalby]

for the first time in 45 years my football team has reached the dizzy heights of the Premier League.

Huddersfield? I thought you were further North? And to be fair - you've got to be in with a chance of winning that game.

[navigator]

i live in the frozen wastes on the edge of sea and the north york moors....a mere two hours from Huddersfield

so every trip to a wargames weekend is a massive journey of dedication and commitment....

the words.. 'unsung hero' comes to mind...

[philqw78]

the words.. 'unsung hero' comes to mind...

Again more pleasant than anything I would have said

[navigator]

I Teed that one up for you....

[philqw78]

I Teed that one up for you....

[ChrisTofalos]

We're on 31 for FoG as of today (even without Chris!)

32! I'm in, Tim.

[AlanCutner]

The only reason i have not signed up for Britcon is that for the first time in 45 years my football team has reached the dizzy heights of the Premier League.

For not playing FoG can I use the excuse that I'm too depressed as my team was relegated from the football league?

[fatmal]

Hartlepool ?

[timmy1]

Tim, you also missed DBM where there are two 25mm comps, five 15mm Doubles and one to three 15mm singles comps in Southern Britain alone. This weekend at Attack there are 12 pairs entered, for example. Tim

[RSDPIT]

Some interesting comments: I thought i would add some thoughts from a recent entrant /newby point of view

I rejoined War gaming less than a year ago, went to the Worlds in Belgium, did my first competition in at the Paris open in the autumn, interesting conversations with French opponents who couldn't speak English and myself not speaking French poring over a rule book that neither of us understood, (second day Swiss system,etc. ) but actually a great weekend away with enormous give and take for a new entrant. Training courtesy of Jacques in Brussels, which seemed to be a series of brutal annihilation's, ( apparently you remember better when being beaten up ) but it worked i didn't disgrace myself.

I can remember watching in fascinated horror as some of the top players danced around me on the table, in some sort of macabre ritual of slaughter in my first few battles, but the concentration and sheer enjoyment of your army doing its level best to carry out you incoherent commands, failing or other wise more than countered the blood path evolving on the table,

And you do learn, and its up to the players at the bottom as they learn to dance, to not give easy wins, the winners need 25 pts to have a chance at the title, whilst i learn how to manage my armies, i give nobody easy wins, ( an honorable mention to Andy where in my defense i got bored being shot up ) you may not win but you can make the route to the top a very difficult one, ( look at the Lions, a drawn series, the All Blacks considered that a loss, the Lions a win!!) so i'm not sure i want to win with a handicap, i'm almost just as happy for my opponent to dread meeting my plasma armed Chinese on the battlefield, wondering how they will make enough points to stay in the hunt

I play in both UK and Europe and much prefer the scale and feel of FOG, but In terms of FOG vs MEG vs ADLG, there are some interesting dynamics happening in Europe, with Germany almost all playing FOG ( Martyn instilling some Teutonic discipline ), Belgium having converted to MEG and France on the verge. France is interesting, MEG is making inroads into the ADLG community, but at a recent competition i attended in Saumur, where eventually not enough player registered for FOG to make a competition, I played MEG, however virtually every body i played was a reluctant MEG player and would have preferred FOG! and they still play FOG at club level, certainly in Paris where i play MEG, if they play FOG

So why is FOG failing, I can understand the attraction of MEG to ADLG players, the chance to move off a board game with figures onto a table and command a real army etc. but i think the problem with FOG is not rules or versions but marketing, V3 good or bad (I have no idea, I am sure I will have my ass handed to me what ever happens!)

OK MEG has these infuriating cards and weird dice, but hey the rules have to be paid for somehow, the main advantage is it's online, its available, last night their biblical lists came out, nobody could stop talking about how bad Libyans where or how good Egyptians were, the speed and delivery is what is driving it, in contrast FOG has been in forum and argument for ever, and the launch?? "well possibly the rules will be available for purchase at Britcom" .....really??!!!....

The point is if you think FOG is a viable, interesting and competent set of AM rules that does the job and you want to encourage more participation generally, particularly in the younger age groups (look around you!!! ), today not only the younger generation but virtually everybody researches and access's their information online, why not Rules and lists? I don't know the economics of publishing a rule set in hard back, but the amount likely to be sold is going to make nobody rich! To use some very apt analogies " are we still preparing to fight the last war, or are we looking to win the next one?"

The feeling I get from the forum, is that there is a competition to "poach" player from other rules sets by altering the rules to make them more "attractive", the reality is there is space I am sure for alternative rule sets, (as somebody mentioned version 7 is still up and running somewhere!!) but we need to increase the player base, new blood will come and challenge the existing premier league players and make it much more sustainable "if they can access it"

[madaxeman]

More stats...

Looking at publicly posted info (on the MeG forum, and "Tabletop Tournaments") there appear to be 19 people in total who have entered at least one of the five MeG events held so far in France and Belgium.
- Total number of entries is 40
- 5 people make up half of this total
- 7 of them also appear in the all-time ADLG player listings (as in, they have entered a "ranked" ADLG event since 2008)
- 12 of them also appear in the 2017 or 15-16 season French FoGAM ranking (29 and 35 players respectively)
- 2 people appear in all three lists (French Tarts!), one of whom last entered an ADLG event back in 2011, so is arguably best counted as a FoG-only player for this analysis
- Only 2 people in France currently playing MeG do not appear in either the FoGAM nor the ADLG lists.

So, MeG is drawing from both FoG and ADLG, but appears to be picking up more players (in both absolute and relative terms) from the FoGAM pool currently.

[davidandlynda]

As the apparent FOGAM guru a few comments
Of the BHGS comps Challenge, Roll Call and Britcon only Roll Call is tightly themed, Challenge has always been open and Britcon always two wide themes, this year only one due to the numbers of other ancient rule sets. To fair they are all 800pts and 6x4 ish, this is probably because it is tried and tested and easy to organise, we have normal lives as well
I would be happy to consider any suggestions and ideas, within reason , it is always difficult to please everyone.
I to enjoyed the multi list comps but we would have to consider our venerable list checker ,Andy.
I've tried a few variations with the Doubles ,which I think went ok but were time consuming to run.
Hopefully we can get together at Britcon and throw some ideas (and volunteers)my way
David

[hazelbark]

OK MEG (snip) the main advantage is it's online, its available, (snip) , the speed and delivery is what is driving it, in contrast FOG has been in forum and argument for ever, and the launch?? "well possibly the rules will be available for purchase at Britcom" .....really??!!!....

particularly in the younger age groups (look around you!!! ), today not only the younger generation but virtually everybody researches and access's their information online, why not Rules and lists?

While what you say is on track in many ways, I would caution. there is clearly a significant chunk of people who DON'T always go on line. As a list checker over there years, I can tell you even when you post mandatory must use the army builder or excel sheet, I still saw over at least 10% that did it there own way. And of those who used on line stuff it was clear many more used older versions. There is a large slice that don't connect on-line or interact except for everyone few months. Then when you get across international languages more arise. It is the nature of on-line communities to think everyone is on-line, but as you require that, you lose some people.

Also for every person who likes the frequency of adjustments online there are people who don't like "rapid" changes.

As you say, there should be enough to go around and everyone should be able to play what makes them happy.

[grahambriggs]

Some interesting comments: I thought i would add some thoughts from a recent entrant /newby point of view

OK MEG has these infuriating cards and weird dice, but hey the rules have to be paid for somehow, the main advantage is it's online, its available, last night their biblical lists came out, nobody could stop talking about how bad Libyans where or how good Egyptians were, the speed and delivery is what is driving it, in contrast FOG has been in forum and argument for ever, and the launch?? "well possibly the rules will be available for purchase at Britcom" .....really??!!!....

The point is if you think FOG is a viable, interesting and competent set of AM rules that does the job and you want to encourage more participation generally, particularly in the younger age groups (look around you!!! ), today not only the younger generation but virtually everybody researches and access's their information online, why not Rules and lists? I don't know the economics of publishing a rule set in hard back, but the amount likely to be sold is going to make nobody rich! To use some very apt analogies " are we still preparing to fight the last war, or are we looking to win the next one?"

The feeling I get from the forum, is that there is a competition to "poach" player from other rules sets by altering the rules to make them more "attractive", the reality is there is space I am sure for alternative rule sets, (as somebody mentioned version 7 is still up and running somewhere!!) but we need to increase the player base, new blood will come and challenge the existing premier league players and make it much more sustainable "if they can access it"

Hello, glad to see you have come back to ancients gaming - that's the most important thing. In terms of speed of delivery, all wargames rules have that issue. MEG had a development cycle, and has had a bit of post release change as well. But I think you are mistaken if you think it is online. The army lists and points values are (a good thing) but the rules themselves are not. And that's because Simon, the owner, has spent out money developing the system and needs to get it back.

A difficulty for FOGAM is that the people who own the game no longer play it, though they do provide this website for free. Hence the initiative for change comes from the current player base, including the one original author who still plays the game. However, we're just players, like yourself (and umpires, tournament organisers, list checkers, rankings monkey, etc.). What has happened, though, is to develop a version 3 that is better than the previous versions - in that we started by polling current and previous players as to what needed fixing and have fixed a reasonable chunk of the issues.

The other thing that needed fixing is army lists. There were some problems; far too many books, some of which were out of print, and because the points per base are printed in the lists, that was restricting the rules development. By the latter I mean there was the "cart before the horse" issue of certain troop types being good or bad value in V2 - if you can't change the points values you end up changing the rules to fit the points values which compromises the history. So in addition to a new rule book we will have three new army list books to cover the whole period.

Will all this encourage players to play the game more? Hopefully. It should be a better game after all.

[madaxeman]

Is there any visibility as yet on when the new version will be published?

(I had heard talk it would be in time for Britcon, so if that is the case it would be good to know so I can promote that to players and show attendees)