cheesy terrain?

[Dyeeles]

Why not just throw in an extra role before the initiative role to see who has strategic advantage? Winner gets to chose who's terrain is chosen from after the initiative role.

[dave_r]

It might be seen as a step too far by some, but on reflection I'd fully back any proposed amendment that successfully legislated against the use of Dave Ruddock in competition.

Why is it that in any discussion regarding "Steppes" or "Horse Archers" my name invariably gets dragged up?

[david53]

I think medium foot armies should have extra terrian choices.

It won't work Dave, I'm supposed to be baiting you. But then again you can have as much difficult as you want with your Scots.

Damm you sir whos baiting who here damm those LH types while I'm at it

[madaxeman]

Gawd! Just found out the dratted river goes down before compulsory terrain !!

[fredrik]

Interesting discussion, this. As someone pointed out earlier in the thread, whatever you do to the rules to change the balance in whatever direction will only create a new super-armytype-of-the-day, it's inevitable when you have thousands of clever competition players world wide spending most of their waking hours pouring over the rules and lists to be able to place better at the next competition. I agree though that it makes the game less interesting in the sense that you end up with just a handful of "viable" army types but that's just the way it is - it's a game, not a military simulation.

I'd say themes are the realistic way to go if you want to change this, take a page from the FOW-player's book and run a tournament with fixed terrain for example, not only would that make the tournament more interesting in terms of army selection but it would be a nice change from all the crappy circular felt terrain that makes our tables look like (poorly executed) post modern art rather than battlefields. It's already done in most other big tournament systems (40K, WHFB, FOW) so why not in FOG?

Barring that, let's just accept the fact that given the vast number of different army types modeled by our rules there will always be matchups that are unwinnable. You can either be masochistic about it, like me, and still bring your favorite HF army to tournaments only to get repeatedly raped by more maneuverable armies for three days, or you can do the rational thing and bring a competitive army.

And finally, how did the invading HF armies beat LH on the steppe in real life? They didn't, because they (practically) never fought. The HF army marched against the LH army's cities and if the LH army didn't succeed in cutting the supply of the HF army in time before the HF reached whatever resources couldn't be carted away in time the HF "won". If not, the HF army eventually disintegrated and got picked apart in the retreat. It's like matching my strategic bombers to your panzerkorps - a matchup that should be played as a grand-strategy boardgame, not using a tactical system like FOG.

[gozerius]

So, let's see. I've got the initiative and want a wide open table and a wide open flank, and I can't play in the steppe. I choose agricultural and take a minimum size compulsary open field, a river(two picks) and a road (one pick) which is designed to not be able to be shifted, and maybe a 12MU diameter open space. You take an open field with a width of 4 MUs and is 16MUs long at its longest axis. Then 3 enclosed fields to hide from my shooters, and a plantation covered hill.
The river goes down first and has a 33% chance of being removed. Next goes down the minimum open field. If the river is still there it has a 33% chance of landing on the opposite side of the table. I'm planting it squarely in the center of whatever half of the side edge it needs to be in, long edge touching the table edge. 50% of the time, it stays there. The rest of the time you get to move it to a more favorable spot. Now you get to roll for the big open field. Even if you dice the same section as the other open field, it fits, jutting into the battlefield a full 16 MUs, with only a 50% chance of moving it away from the edge. Not only that, but a full 66.67% of the time you can place it to block the placement of the road along the flank. What's the argument again? If you suspect that your enemy might try "the bowling alley" there are countermeasures. It's just as likely that all your cover terrain will end up on the wrong side of the table anyway.

[marioslaz]

Interesting discussion, this. As someone pointed out earlier in the thread, whatever you do to the rules to change the balance in whatever direction will only create a new super-armytype-of-the-day, it's inevitable when you have thousands of clever competition players world wide spending most of their waking hours pouring over the rules and lists to be able to place better at the next competition. [...]

I totally agree with you. The questions you exposed in your post are the motives why I don't like tournament and I play preferably campaigns or scenarios. I add another important point. In tournament you usually have match up never happened historically. This is a problem because nations build armies with troop types which can match neighbours' armies. When you make a game between armies which didn't meet on battlefield, an army could be very disadvantaged because it hasn't right troop types to oppose to enemy ones.
There is also another point very important which support your post about terrain. Some match up happened only in a certain type of terrain, which is difficult they could realize with actual rules. We play some game to test different armies and we played them with standard terrain generation rules. I think it's difficult for armies like Celt (Gaul, German, Iberian, etc.) to get a terrain like ones they fought real battles, because with standard rules you can on average put 1-2 terrain pieces in the middle of the battlefield, and your opponent have for each one 1/3 of chances to move it significantly or to remove it.

[davidandlynda]

How about instead of set terrain your table is allocated a random terrain type,you still get to pick and place what you want just not where its based
David

[madcam2us]

There are several of us on these boards that dabble in FoW....

Why NOT preset terrain????

Talk about introducing a whole bunch of caveats and challenges to the generals!!!

Imagine, not only do we get the chance to pour over our army lists, but once we get to the tournament, we get even more fun in seeing how well we can adjust to the battlefield conditions.

Since nearly all terrain is cut felt (or at least we are all used to playing with it) the TO is not going to have too much additional work to do.

My next event, this may just be what I try out..

Madcam.

[kevinj]

My experience of preset terrain (based admittedly on other ancient rulesets) is that it is generally a very poor option. If the organiser attempts to make it "interesting" then it produces terrain that is likely to suit nobody. I remember a competition some years ago where one table had a wide horizontal river that practically guaranteed a draw, although that looked quite reasonable compared to the table that allowed the player randomly allocated to one side to deploy their army on an island in the middle of a lake!

Conversely, if the orgaqnisers try to make it balanced then all of the terrain tends to be formulaic and bland. There is no guarantee either that preset terrain will improve its appearance, especially at large showpiece tournaments where there may be 40+ tables, as all that the organisers are likely to have access to is a larger box of felt pieces.

Kevin

[philqw78]

You picks your army and takes your choice with all its ups and downs. Terrain choice or lack of included.

[madcam2us]

My experience of preset terrain (based admittedly on other ancient rulesets) is that it is generally a very poor option. If the organiser attempts to make it "interesting" then it produces terrain that is likely to suit nobody. I remember a competition some years ago where one table had a wide horizontal river that practically guaranteed a draw, although that looked quite reasonable compared to the table that allowed the player randomly allocated to one side to deploy their army on an island in the middle of a lake!

Conversely, if the orgaqnisers try to make it balanced then all of the terrain tends to be formulaic and bland. There is no guarantee either that preset terrain will improve its appearance, especially at large showpiece tournaments where there may be 40+ tables, as all that the organisers are likely to have access to is a larger box of felt pieces.

Kevin

LOL... Most terrain for ancients I've seen in my years of this hobby ARE formulaic and bland.... One of the reasons many of us opted out for FoW and their gorgeous battlefields...

And really, 1-2 yards of green felt goes quite far. Throw in some brown felt and watch out!

madcam

Transverse rivers should NEVER be part of preset options. That's a TO issue.

[jlopez]

Why change the rules? Nothing prevents competition organisers from specifying in the competition rules that the terrain can be placed under rivers/roads (with logical exceptions). I seem to recall one international competition that successfully banned the use of kinking in DBM by simply saying anyone using it would automatically forfeit the game.

Julian

[david53]

You picks your army and takes your choice with all its ups and downs. Terrain choice or lack of included.

Thats what the game is about your choice of army affects the terrian choice, simples

[philqw78]

Why change the rules? Nothing prevents competition organisers from specifying in the competition rules that the terrain can be placed under rivers/roads (with logical exceptions). I seem to recall one international competition that successfully banned the use of kinking in DBM by simply saying anyone using it would automatically forfeit the game.

Julian

But that only really affected one player and did not affect his army choice. This change would affect army choice for a lot of players

[david53]

Why change the rules? Nothing prevents competition organisers from specifying in the competition rules that the terrain can be placed under rivers/roads (with logical exceptions)

TBH if competition organisers are going to do this whats the point of having it in the rules then, what other rules can we drop that we don't like then. What is the problum here, is it that you don't want to have to spend 80 points to have a chance with the terrian while you still get to move first through terrian you can pick. Am I the only one that thinks this a tad unfair. If I don't pay for an IC I can't complain if i fight in terrian that might not suit me it seems very clear to me.

[hazelbark]

There are several of us on these boards that dabble in FoW....

Why NOT preset terrain????

I think better as pre-set scenarios. You Flamers can use your nuclear rocket launchers and death rays from serpent eyes and Ohio jellybelly bounceers, they don't care about terrain.

I think there are many interesting ways to spice up the game. Preset could work for a fun event particular for beginners or themed. You just have to use discretion.

I do think it is a good idea to have terrain more visually interesting than felt bits.

[philqw78]

TBH if competition organisers are going to do this whats the point of having it in the rules then, what other rules can we drop that we don't like then. What is the problum here, is it that you don't want to have to spend 80 points to have a chance with the terrian while you still get to move first through terrian you can pick. Am I the only one that thinks this a tad unfair. If I don't pay for an IC I can't complain if i fight in terrian that might not suit me it seems very clear to me.

Strangely Dave I fully agree with you. Want terrain get an IC and some horses.

[madaxeman]

All well and good, however many of those who most "want" terrain often don't have the option to have horses.

Whichever way you cut it, there seem to be more game mechanics to help you end up with minimal terrain than there are to help you get a heap of terrain. That in itself might be a very legitimate design objective, but with 800ap armies I fear it risks restricting army choice - i know that a percieved need to be able to fight on a near- bare table against lots of LH shooting is a major driver affecting my choices.

[philqw78]

All well and good, however many of those who most "want" terrain often don't have the option to have horses.

And many of those with horses do not get viable terrain troops. Mongols would never appear if there was more terrain