Piquet FOB 3 first play

[SteveBurt]

Finally got a chance to try these rules. Set up a Napoleonics clash between a defending Anglo-Spanish force (10 inf, 1 skirmish, 2 art, 3 cav in 3 brigades) and a slightly larger and higher quality French force (10 inf, 3 art, 5 cav). Playing solo as that’s the main reason I got the rules. I enjoyed the game but I have some questions. First off, the sequence deck mechanism is great and works really well (as it does in the Lardies games). My doubts are more to do with the other mechanics. First, the game ended due to morale loss with no units on either side being lost; the Allies had a couple of routers, the French had rallied theirs with two successive Leadership cards. Is it normal for games to end like this? Second, the ability to charge and change formation with a whole command (or not) depending on even/odd move roll seems strange; surely it should be determined unit by unit? (And maybe more likely for better units). Nobody ever formed square not because they didn’t want to, but because they could not; the Spanish never had a won even roll on Move and the Allies drew no leadership cards. Lines move at the same speed as columns which also seems odd. The third problem is my biggest one; I accept that there are going to be occasional combats which go against a unit which has everything in its favour. If it happened once a game that would be ok; but on three occasions I saw a unit with D12+1 v D10 or D8 lose disastrously. The opposed dice mechanism seems to be very prone to this sort of randomness. Am I missing something, or is the game supposed to work this way? I will try again with my ACW armies to see how it does for that period.

[SteveBurt]

Not yet done the ACW game, but I did replay this Napoleonic scenario with both Lasalle and Shako 2. Interesting to compare. All three rules have quite 'dicey' combat mechanics. The big difference in FOB is that firing is very lethal, whereas the other two rules it tends to cause cohesion losses and some casualties, but is rarely decisive. I think Shako actually gave the best game; used to play v1 of those rules a lot, but abandoned them in favour of Lasalle. v2 has some nice changes (like Hasty lines so a column which fails to charge home can at least form line and engage in a firefight)

[Pzkpfw_Steve]

I haven't played 3rd edition yet, but I played 1st and 2nd editions extensively.  I always removed the odd/even limitation on using 1 move segment for maneuver.  so basically 1 move segment can always be used as a maneuver segment. you can limit it a bit more based on scenario or even based on hte army used as you see fit.  i wouldn't use that particular house rule for anything prior to the Napoleonic era though.

the combat is a bit random.  statistically speaking, higher die types have and advantage, but it's not as big as people perceive it to be. If the higher die rolls terribly, you can get some real upsets. that's actually one of the things I like about the rules.  Guard units aren't impossible to fight in a system like that, so putting them on the table is less of an issue. In campaigns or linked scenarios, it makes people be more careful with really good units because they aren't invincible.

I personally never like the opposed die role for shooting. I know that the combat system is sort of a combination between combat and morale, but i just always thought it felt wrong.  I toyed with using a target number instead of a defensive die rating. so D4 is a 2, D6 is a 3, D8 is a 4, D10 is a 5. it makes shooting a bit less deadly and gives a bigger potential advantage to higher die types.

one of the things i like most about Field of battle is the asymetrical turn sequence.  It's exceedingly hard to "game" the system based on turn sequence.  Everyone i know, even people who didn't like the system, admitted that they found themselves thinking less about the rules and more about how to achieve objectives in terms of tactics, which I think is a really great bonus to the rules.

Also, it may not apply to you, but the game plays very fast in multiplayer settings as well. With 1st edition we did a big Waterloo game on a 24x6 foot table with 2500 28mm miniatures.  it was played to conclusion is about 6 hours with 21 players.

[SteveBurt]

The turn sequence is great; in fact years ago I made a variant of Shako by putting all the phases on cards and drawing them, which worked well. Randomness in melee is fine - almost any opposed dice roll system will have it. The issue is that firing tends to be more lethal than melee as you use the defence dice rather than the combat dice, and DD is usually smaller.
Anyway, will assess again after and ACW game; the rules also cover ECW and Zulu War, for both of which I have figures, so may try those periods too