Brand spanking new player to FoG

Wes1969 · Post by **Wes1969** » Sat Sep 03, 2011 6:08 pm

Hi all,

just a quick question, sorry if this is a little newbie of me.

Am I right to assume that there are no restrictions on which army can face which?

ie. A Kofun Nara army could face an opponent several hundred years from it's time period eg. a Crusader army?

Thanks for your time.

batesmotel · Post by **batesmotel** » Sat Sep 03, 2011 6:23 pm

The rules are written to allow anachronistic matches although many players prefer historical fights or at least ones between roughly contemporaneous opponents.

Chris

Wes1969 · Post by **Wes1969** » Sat Sep 03, 2011 6:37 pm

Many thanks.

peterrjohnston · Post by **peterrjohnston** » Sat Sep 03, 2011 8:18 pm

As batesmotel says, there's no restriction on match-ups, but the rules authors do emphasise getting historical match-ups right.

A better question might be about what do you want to do? Competition gamers are probably the most vocal in the forum, but there's a lot of players are very much just into historically accurate gaming, campaigns, ecc. Anecdotally, non-competition gamers are very much in the majority. Best bet, if you haven't already, is to find a local club and see what they do.

Competition gaming often results in "unhistorical" match-ups, and you can find competitions with large historical ranges for army choice. That said, I do think there's a general trend to make competitions more themed to avoid massive discrepancies. Although I think there's a limit to how far you can go - a competition with only Republican Romans vs Carthaginians would be a little dull to most.

For example, I ran a competition recently with two periods. One was medieval Europe west of the Oder and north of the Po, about as closed down as I think you can go. The other was more open, but fairly historical, with all armies bordering the Mediterranean from 700BC to 106BC.

ravenflight · Post by **ravenflight** » Mon Sep 05, 2011 3:15 am

In addition to those posted, please keep in mind that 'historical matches' will leave a better taste in your mouth, or if not historical something that has a historical feel.

For example, playing Vikings or Hoplites will probably be very similar. They are both Offensive Spearmen, and Hoplites are often undrilled. So, you would probably have a better fight with Vikings vs Achaemenid Persians than you would perhaps something of an similar time period but geographically miles apart... so Vikings vs Mamluk Egyptian may be a boring yucky game. They are pretty close time wise, but geographically miles apart.

It really depends mostly on the tactics employed by the armies as to whether you'll have a good game, not the history.

grahambriggs · Post by **grahambriggs** » Mon Sep 05, 2011 9:17 am

If you want historical match ups then anpother Kofun Nara or a Silla Korean army might be required. While historical match ups are good, japan was somewhat isolated so your options are limited.

If you enter a tournament the organisers will specify in advance what is allowed.

The rules will still work to give you a game against any pre 1500AD army. But all armies have types of opponents that they will struggle against.

DeadKraken · Post by **DeadKraken** » Tue Sep 06, 2011 2:35 pm

I would recommend Nara (later Yamato) over Kofun (Burial Mound, earlier Yamato) as you could fight not just other Yamato & Silla but the Ainu & Tang too, after all the Yamato Empress (Ametoyo Takara Ikashi Hitarashi Hime) sent a massive army of around 30,000 over to Korea to help out the Baekje Restoration forces but the lot smaller Tang navy smashed them in 663CE (in the Asuka period which FOG calls Nara) and the Japanese did no mass invasion for around 900 years after that calamity....but what if the Tang navy did not win and the majority of Yamato troops landed...a fascinating campaign/scenario ^^.