FoG Napoleonic

[Chad]

FoG arrived yesterday. Lot of reading to do before we can try them.

Chad

[Nosher]

Mine has just arrived and will be looked at during my lunch hour

[Nosher]

Whoop, whoop!

24 or 36 figure regiments and 12 or 18 figure cavalry units. 1 gun per base.

I think I feel an Austrian *order* coming on! Look out for a request along the lines of:

Dear Mr Nice man Leon, can you sort me out some 24 figure units with relevant command etc. What is the exact composition of pack XYZ12? and pretty please with cherries on top can I have etc etc , pretty pretty please, pendraken reallly are very nice men, witter witter etc.

[Jim Ando]

Hi

Is Napoleonic FoG the same thickness as FoGR.

As FoGR came in handy to stop my dinning table from rocking.

That was about the only use I could find for them.

Jim

[Nosher]

Hi

Is Napoleonic FoG the same thickness as FoGR.

As FoGR came in handy to stop my dinning table from rocking.

That was about the only use I could find for them.

Jim

OOOOOhhhhhh

Sticks and stones....

[Nosher]

I think with things like this, it comes down to which method is going to result in the easiest experience for the customer, and then whether it works for us.  

As a complete change in the way we structure our packs, I can see the advantages of doing packs to suit certain rulesets, and including command etc., but would that make it better/worse for the average customer?  At the moment, around 5% of our orders are custom '32 of these, 48 of those' style orders, which is fine.  If we went to more specific pack compositions, would that % increase with people wanting just line troops, or just the command figures?  That's without factoring in the way the moulds are set up and the increased time needed to spin 2/3 moulds for each pack.

Alternatively, offering it as a separate option could be done, but that would require time to put the pack compositions together, and then make all the changes to the website.  Unfortunately, we just don't have the time at the moment to sort anything like that, and our priority has to be getting more photo's up and getting orders out quicker.

As always though, folk are more than welcome to place custom orders for whatever odds and ends they need, it's no bother at all.  And we won't stick an extra £1 on for the priviledge...  

Having had a closer look at the Naps range and then thinking back to this conversation I'm now a bit confused? Soem of the new packs in the 1809 ranges are 20 figures for £2 of which 3 figures are command figures?

Whats the thinking behind these packs?

[Leon]

Having had a closer look at the Naps range and then thinking back to this conversation I'm now a bit confused? Soem of the new packs in the 1809 ranges are 20 figures for £2 of which 3 figures are command figures?

Whats the thinking behind these packs?

The new Naps packs are 16 figures for £2, which allows folk to buy smaller quantities of things like light troops/grenadiers, and we can fit two codes-worth into a single mould.

[Nosher]

Alles klaar

[Nosher]

Playtested 800 points of 1812 French and Russians tonight and I have to say that after some false starts (Lasalle/NaW) I may have found a half decent Napoleonic ruleset in FoG. Sorry but no photos, wnated to concentrate fully on the rules rather than pissing around with a camera (which I'm not very good at anyway!) Plus the figures were my very dusty 15's from years ago!

I had four divisions per side - the French had two standardish infantry divs, one cavalry division and a 'mixed' allied division of Pole/Badeninfantry and Neopolitan Cavalry. The Russians had two standard infantry divisions, one cavalry division and a grenadier division.

In a nutshell the game was a fair scrap - with both sides evenly matched and the game swang this way and that throughout the four hours it took to play - the French eventually winning through but not without receiving a very bloody nose.

What I can say is that FoG Naps is NOT FoG ancients, neither is it FoG (R), the game play is almost entirely different. I found the rules pleasantly surprising with soem neat new mechanics. Yes the wording could be better and a few more diagrams of play would help, but all in all I think I will be back for more.

Sadly I dont think FoG Naps will have universal appeal to sceptics who see FoG as purely competition gaming, but to those open to trying a new game mechanic with half as many modifier tables as has previously been seen in the FoG stable I think you might be pleasantly surprised. After a few turns I could remember most of the modifiers.

[Wanax]

Hi alll,

during the week we tested, in the club, Song of Drums and Shakos large Battle, written by Sergio Laliscia using the game engine of Ganesha Games.
The first impression is very god. The game flow smoothly with few modifiers ad the activation system which add lot of suspence to the game.
The rules can be played at Division/Corp level (we tested the latter), and with any figures scale, but it's perfect for 10mm.
We wil continue the testing, but I think this set worth really a try.

Sandro

[sultanbev]

24 or 36 figure regiments and 12 or 18 figure cavalry units. 1 gun per base.

So is that 24 figures to a multi-battalion regiment of say 3000 men, or per battalion. 12-18 figures for a 500-1000 man cavalry regiment sounds pitifully low, as has been the trend of late. A Napoleonic battle should look like a Napoleonic battle, with lots of figures. Not a skirmish.

We use 1/20 ratio in 15mm, so you can field units from 200 man to 1000 man strong quite adequately, thus allowing all historical combinations of TOE/OOB.

Any more details of the how the rules work? I saw on the Osprey site the mention of battlegroups  which is a bit like Werhmacht Napoleonics, sounds very ominous.

Mark

[Nosher]

Not sure what you're driving at MarK?

I was simply stating that the numbers of figures needed to represent a regiment under the rules matched that which I have within my own collections - hence I wouldn't need to be rushing out and buying lots of new stuff nor indeed having to rebase.

I cant comment on the osprey mention of battlegroups as I dont visit their site.

I am trying my best to get a second game in with a narrative of how the rules work, but am finding real life getting in the way a bit too much

[Ferb]

Posted up my first impressions of FoG:N on my blog.

Ferb

[Nosher]

Thanks for the write up Ferb - as you say there's a lot more to the rules than Lasalle, but thats no bad thing. I actually prefer FoG N to Lasalle and think I will have more joy getting friends to play it than I did Lasalle.

[sultanbev]

@ Nosher, just trying to find out what figure ratio the rules use. No one seems to want to say.

Having based lots of other peoples' figures for various sets over the years, there appears to have been a frightening tendency to use say 9 figures to a regiment, 24 figures to a brigade, 6 figures to a cavalry regiment, and so on, regardless of whether said regiment is a single 300 man battalion or 4000 man brigade. Was wondering if FOG-N had fallen into the same trap?

Rules that don't use proper figure/man ratios are junk in my opinion, because you could get the absurd situation where, say, a Russian regiment of 2 battalions each of 350 men, is equal in combat power to a full strength British Brigade of 3 Regiments each of 800 men, plus attached riflemen. Okay, they might have different combat factors representing their "national characteristics", but the numbers should count for something. Plus it looks crap on the wargames table - once played a 15mm refight of a Peninsula battle at Blackpool club using Age of Empires I think, the one based on F&F at brigade level, and it was a lot of empty space with a few figures here and there, looked like a skirmish between a couple of companies, or a wargame of a re-enactment group.Not impressed.

Not that's there anything wrong with the F&F system, we use it for Napoleonics but worked downwards to battalion level, we play corps level battles with individual battalions, activating brigades at a time. And it looks like a Napoleonic battle.

This is part of the content list on the Osprey site:

# Introduction
# The Basics
# Battle Groups
# Command & Control
# Playing
# Movement Rules
# Impact Phase
# Manoeuvre Phase
# Shooting Phase
# Melee phase
# The Combat Mechanism
# Joint Action Phase
# Battle Group Deterioration
# Victory & Defeat
# Special Features
And I quote "realistic deployments and battlefield tactics of the early modern era. "

Early modern era is 1950s-60s modern wargaming 

Using WW2 terminology in a Napoleonic set is just an abuse of language to me, I don't get it. What's wrong with the terminology of the period - brigades, legions, advance guards? Notice also their are 5 phases, presumably a turn. They've done everything to put me off looking at the rules so far, before I've even picked one up. 

Mark