March 25, 2012

Well another game system has turned up on my doorstep - this one being the long awaited Field of Glory Napoleonic (henceforth known as FOG:N).



Ive seen a few rather off-putting comments on TMP and a few blogs regarding this rule set and i was a bit worried until i actually had a chance to look at the book.  Judging by what ive read from the book so far i believe these bad reviews are either overly harsh or haven't bothered looking over the rules at all - this is just my opinion and i may be wrong.

The first negative comment I saw was that the layout of the book was bad.  I own both of the other FOG rule sets and this book is as nice as the FOG:R (Renaissance) book which was a vast improvement over the FOG:A (Ancients) book. The second negative comment I read was that the index was really bad. This really depends on what you consider bad. Some rule sets have no index (Firestorm Armada) others have very detailed indexes (Battletech's new rulebooks). I think that the FOG:N rulebook falls somewhere in between. It has a index and although not massive it seams comprehensive. I suspect that playing of the game will show that it could be more detailed but i don't think that its a bad index (if it is then pretty much every game in my rather extensive collection would fall into the bad category. FOW 3rd edition and the new Battletech rulebooks being the only exceptions).

The quality of the book IMHO is excellent. Its a nice clean style, good use of colour and excellent osprey artwork helps bring the period to life and makes it a really nice book to look at and to read.

The book has rules for point based games that will be instantly familiar to anyone who has played any of the other FOG rule sets as well as Historical re-fights for The battle of Plancenoit (18th June 1815, between the Prussian and French) and the battle of Sacile16th April 1809, between Austria and France). The format they have used looks like they could expand upon this a lot in the two supplemental books that are planned.
Unlike previous FOG rulebooks the FOG:N book gives you detailed army lists for all the major countries involved in the wars. French, Austrian, Russian, Prussian, British, Spanish, Portuguese and Ottoman Turk armies are present. Its only one list per country but they allow enough options for you to get started right away without having to wait for the supplement army list books to come out.     
It will (Unfortunately) be a while till I can get an army together and play a few games and be able to review the game properly but hopefully this gives anyone who was slightly interested in this game a more positive impression than others have posted so far.  If you like the previous FOG rules I think you will like the way this game has been presented and i don't think you will be disappointed with this books' layout ect.  If you didn't like FOG:A or FOG:R from a rules perspective you may still like this rule set as it does do many things differently than the previous systems.

  


       

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