First test miniature for Classical Indians.

So here is the first few pics of one of my elephant bases for my new Classical Indian force.  The Army is already almost half done. (I'm certainly getting sick of painting archers!!!

As you can see the model isn't based and there are still a few extra levels of detail i want to add to the miniature before i consider it finished but i think its a good approximation of the picture from one of my earlier posts.

Keen to here what you think. Also I'm really struggling to work out a fitting basing scheme for this army so if anyone has any ideas let me know.

Small games of Field of Glory (or how to get people playing FOG)

Today I wanted to touch on the subject of getting people to join in and play FOG. As I’ve stated before (at least I think I have) FOG is a wonderfully simple game hidden under a rather heavy looking set of rules. Fog 2.0 has cleaned things up a little but the game itself still looks complicated to the new player.
On top of this when you set up two 800 point armies (Which I always stop and think how awesome they look) your new player is faced with looking at these large armies and working out just how much he will have to buy and paint to get into the game. For many players a full 800 point FOG army is a monster
undertaking, easily 150 miniatures or more. Whether you collect and play in 28mm or 15mm the cost is not inconsiderable (certainly easier on the wallet for 15mm, but 28mm plastics are making the more common ancient armies far easier to do in 28mm).

Just recently (well over the last 6 months) I’ve been working on a way to make the game of FOG easier to get into and play for a beginner with the aim being that the new player will eventually build their army up to a fully fledged 800 point force. This is hardly a new concept – this was always the goal for us back in the day when I worked in Games Workshop Retail stores. The concept is play with smaller forces and less terrain on a smaller table – in essence you are getting a cut down version of the main game.

The format I’ve been using which has proved to be very successful so far is:

- 400 point forces.
- Only one general and it must be a troop commander rather than an inspired commander or force commander.
- Army minimums still apply. So you must observe minimum BG size and compulsory units. (So far I haven’t found a single army that doesn’t fit within 400 points. If you find one let me know.
- Battles are played on a 4 foot x 3 foot playing area.
- Terrain is limited to compulsory choices and 1-2 pieces of terrain per player with the standard terrain placement rules.

Under this format a standard army is 5-8 battle groups on average and the playing time of a game is usually under 2 hours (often far less than this). This makes this format fast and fun to play and perfect for evening gaming after work when you can’t afford to stay up into the early hours of the morning because of work the next day. The painting side of these smaller forces is far easier as well as the battle groups are often only 4 bases or 6 bases each in size (although we did have one game where the Gaul player took 2 battle groups of 12 Gaul’s as the solid centre of his force!).

Thanks to this format I’ve slowly converted all my regular gaming buddies into playing FOG and we are slowly working our way towards all having 800 points with some talk of second armies in the not too distant future.

Id love to here what others are doing to get their friends into Fields of Glory.

Battlecry 2013 FOG tournament results.

Well that was a great weekend! (Apart from losing my Internet connection for two days which made Blogging during the event impossible.

The thing I've always liked about tournaments is the fact that you get to play against new armies and hopefully a different group of guys than you regularly play against. In the FOG tournament we had 3 players from outside of Auckland and another player from Auckland that we hadn't met before. (He’s now been invited to join the South Auckland club and my regular gaming group as well so hopefully he will want to hang out with me, Rob and the other lads.)

I was still feeling a bit crook over the weekend from my stomach bug earlier in the week but i didn't let that ruin the weekend for me in any way. 

Arthur and Kevin had the initial games all set up so none of us local lads had to play each other in the first round which was great. My first opponent was Scott – who i believe was from Hamilton.  He had the Western Han Chinese army.  Id never played against a Chinese army so it was an interesting education in run away crossbow cavalry and surprisingly tough heavy weapon – it was a slightly frustrating game for me as all i could do for the most part was chase his horse back towards the edge of the table. Scott was a great opponent though and deserved the win. I was happy that i managed to get 6 points out of the game cause for a while there it was looking like a down-trousers moment!

- My line up after turn one with Scott just beginning to advance his on formidable line.

- Another shot from my side of the board. Here you can see some of my new Enclosed fields and a pair of open fields.

- My javelin men getting ready to take the high ground.

- A few turns later those same javelin men giving up the hill to superior opposition.

- Almost all my army has forced it’s way into Scott's Deployment zone.

The second game of day one was against Arthur and his Anglo Normans.  I have played Arthur many times as he is a member of the South Auckland club.  Two weeks ago our armies had played against each other and he had totally mauled me and ill be honest i was looking for revenge. Arthur is a very skilled FOG player and I've very rarely beaten him in our past games so to be honest i wasn't rating my chances.    However it seamed that the dice gods were with me and in one turn i managed to break 5 of his Battle groups which gave me the game. Needless to say i was pleased but felt bad for Arthur as its always stink when the dice are really against you. Still a win is a win

- some of my Battle groups after a series of charges.

- 2 of my Chariot units about to go up against 3 Battle groups of Knights!

- This pic shows just how empty the table was of terrain (Not good for Arthurs Defensive Spear.

- Several turns later my wall of pointy sticks gets close to its prey (Chariots and Knights fight it out.

- A turn later my line hits all those defensive spear. the dice are my # of hits. (Note Arthur didn't get a single hit back on me) All 4 of his engaged battle groups drop a grade. The melee phase was no kinder too him.

- Beginning of the final turn of the game, 3 Battle groups running here and two on the far side that you can see in the pic and i was ready to charge him in the flank.  It really was the crowning moment of the whole weekend for me.

Day two started out with me playing against Stephen who i believe is down in Christchurch.  He was running a Khmer army (Ancient Cambodians) with some Thai allies.  All i can say about Stephens force (apart from how nice it looked on the table) was soooooooooooooo many Elephants! 14 in total!!!!!  Elephants are mincing machines against chariots but for some reason (ill blame it on still feeling sick) i stupidly and purposely set up my chariots against his Elephants.  Needless to say about 2 minutes into the game i realised what id done and knew short of miracle dice  i was going to lose the game very badly.  My dice weren't wonderful and just under two hours into the game my turn was about to start and i looked up at Stephen and asked him if he wanted to continue playing for the next two hours while i tried to get at least 2 points or would he be happy to take the out and out win as i was happy to score no points for this round and watch the other lads games.  As Stephen was from out of town i would have kept playing for the rest of the game if he has wanted to but Stephen being the gentleman he was took the win and let me off the hook from playing what would have been a very painful and long 2 hours where i was very likely not to score any points.

- My wall of Offensive spear and chariots.

- A couple of pics of some of Stephens beautifully painted Khmer (Top) and Thai’s (bottom).

I'm note sure why but i don't seam to have any other pics from this game – they would have shown pieces of chariots being jumped on by hoards of wild Elephants!!!!!!

In this 2 hour break i got to walk around the hall and watch some games of x-wing, played a couple of demo games of Relics (more of this later), see Garth and Richards Infinity demos that they were running and peruse the Bring and buy areas and the Stalls that were filled with board games, infinity miniatures , cards and all sorts of collectables.  Its during this time that my camera ran out of charge so unfortunately i have no photos of all the cool goings on’s. (Hopefully rob was able to take a pile of pics). 

My 4th and final game of the weekend was against Christopher with an army I'm extremely fond of (and used to using)– Later Carthaginians.  It is a true shame my camera had died as Christopher's army was absolutely wonderful! All his figures were from Corvus Belli which have a very small range of 15mm figs but they are truly special and worth every penny.  Next time i see Christopher ill get some photos of his army for you all to look at.

Christopher had only just started playing FOG and had only one game under his belt before the tournament which meant i was the 5th person he had ever played against. He was a great player and put up a hell of a fight and the game came close to timing out. The game was extremely bloody – i lost 9 points (4 Battle groups broken and one fragmented) out of my 13 but managed to do 16 points to Christopher's force which had a break point of 15! I’m looking forward to playing more games against Christopher. I definitely see a rematch in the works.

When Kevin e-mails out the final results ill post them up for anyone who wants to see how the breakdown went.

All in all the tournament was excellent and the event as a whole was very good. I'm looking forward to next year as its been decided (through a vote of the players at the end of the tournament) to go to a smaller sized format and more games. 600 points on 5x3 tables. I will always build my armies to 800 points but I’m happy the comp is changing. 4 large games is fun but 6 games will be more interesting i think.