Fornovo - Furioso, Devon Wargames Group

[carojon]

One of the games to feature at this month's meeting of the DWG was a refight of Fornovo using the Furioso rules from Alternative Armies.



If you would like to know more and see how the game unfolded then just follow the link to the club blog.

https://devonwargames.blogspot.com/2019/03/fornovo-1496-furioso.html

Jonathan (JJ)

[fred]

Great write up.

I’ve recently got these rules and they seem to have lots of good elements. How did you find them?

[carojon]

Thank you.

A few of us got into playing them last year which has gathered momentum after finding how well they play and the release of their Italian Wars supplement which is full of historical battle scenarios.

You can also read a post I did on JJ's Wargames looking at a game we played with them last summer.

http://jjwargames.blogspot.com/search/label/Furioso

JJ

[fred]

Thanks for the extra link - on looking at it I immediately recognised the al fresco game and the rather nice figures. Its one (of the  few) that I had found previously when looking for info on Furiso.

[MGH]

I bought them after seeing the JJ's blog wargame as they sounded interesting. I do think there are some good ideas in them but when my buddy and I tried a game we found it too slow, especially since I hope to run some convention games. We realized we could never finish a game in the time of a typical convention slot.

[Yarkshire Gamer]

Thanks for the write up, we have just started having a go with Furioso  and found the first game quite promising.

MGH interested what you found slow, the game mechanisms are quite straight forward. Was it the activation ? We thought this might cause an issue in a big game but it could be done in groups of units rather than individual units.

Interested to hear from you and others on the rules.

Regards Ken
The Yarkshire Gamer

[carojon]

Hi,
I have had a response from one of our playing team to the query about the speed of the game and activation process and I thought, as I didn’t play in the game reported, I will post it here on the forum.

” it's all to do with the initiative dice roles that the units make at the beginning of each move.  If the army is deployed in depth, with units one behind the other and the leading unit rolls a low initiative dice,  then units deployed behind it are stuck regardless of their higher initiative dice roll.  Those in the front ranks , facing the most immediate danger, hold back and block those behind them who are pushing forward - a quite  natural human reaction!

Once deployed generals/ players  have only limited ability to dictate events, which in a pre-radio command and control age, is realistic.  Deployment is a critical function of the general's role.  Once deployed the general's role confined  to be heroic and leading by example in the front rank of his companions unit.  A battle like Fornovo is a large engagement by historical standards; smaller battles would involve fewer units and so units would be less likely to get in the way of each other.

Thanks for complements about nice figures in our club.  Italian wars is an era that transfers well to the wargames table and makes a nice display.

I hope that clarifies.

Any further queries are probably best posted to the club blog
JJ

[MGH]

Hi Ken,

Yes, rolling those dice and placing them for each unit as far as activations, while at first I thought it a cool inovation, it adds a decent amount of time per turn. My armies are fairly big, we had about 20 units per side and after 5 hours of play (granted we were new and learning), we had not even come close to a decision yet.

My goal after painting these two armies was to put on convention games and I realized no way can I use this set of rules at a convention unless I do a minimum of two slots in a row. I don't want to so am now using the Black Powder system Pike and Shotte with a bunch of modifications I found at Olicana's wonderful blog.  It's not my favorite rules system but I think I can get a game done in a convention slot.Or at least be able to say at time slots end who will win, if you know what I mean.

I am also hoping for good things when the To the Strongest author comes out with his Renaissance version eventually as I do enjoy that game system. Ive played TtS games with ancients at conventions and the players always enjoyed the games and we always got a decision in the allotted time.

So while I don't think Furiouso is a bad set of rules, it just doesn't fit my specifications.

[Yarkshire Gamer]

Thanks very much for the replies.

We are going to have another go with the rules over the coming weeks.

MGH and Carajon- we had exactly the same thoughts, it may just be a case of getting to know the rules but the initiative phase although a good idea it can be time consuming in a larger game. One solution is to do the initiative rolls based on groups of figures rather than individual units this also would solve the units being stuck behind units with lower activation numbers to some extent.

On the evening we played we spotted the problem with units behind being stuck, especially if you had some poor quality light missile unit in front of a Gendarme or similar. Our on the night solution was to allow the front and rear unit to swop dice but reduce the initiative by 1.

I haven't seen the author on here or any other site, it would be interesting to hear their thoughts. I still think they are too dicey for me (I hate BP and it's derivations) and my ultimate goal will always be to modernise the Gush.

I will do an extensive rules review after our next game.

Regards Ken
The Yarkshire Gamer

[Leman]

Very interesting to read this account of Fornovo using the Furioso rules system. Whilst reading the rules myself I came across two suggestions that might help Yarkshire gamer. Start with a couple of solo games to get a handle on the rules and also keep the first few games small.