Friday, April 06, 2012

Field Of Battle 2 a 10mm WSS action

My younger brother Warren (who resides in Liverpool) over for a few days and so we had a game. As it been years since he played miniatures (Warhammer/RPG background) and so I decided to go with an easy to teach set and Field Of Battle certainly fits that bill. Set up a War of Spainish Succession game using my 10mm Imperialists and French. I set up terrain, rolled up units stats and suchlike and then let Warren pick side. He chose the French who had a bigger (slightly) army but Poor Command and mostly Poor Brigadiers but with several high quality Infantry and Horse units (Irish/Garde Francais and Maison Du Roi) against a mainly Austrian force with Skilled Command several decent Brigadiers but average units. A simple encounter game seemed best with us alternating deployment of Brigades and then setting to !

A great game ensued with plenty of incidents and talking points. Warren had awful dice rolls and cards sequence (Lull cards) in first turn making his army mostly static as Imperialists seemed jet propelled in their advance. He did manage to get first charges of game in with Pistol Cavalry downhill against some Pistol Cavalry of mine but managed to lose one unit instantly destroyed and another damaged !
On my right I hurled some Cavalry into his Brigade of three tough Irish Wild Geese and gave them a proper seeing to. Another Austrian Cavalry Brigade then caught some French Infantry in March Column (trying to move around a wood and marsh) Routing the head of the column but failing to dent the following units which managed to form line. Game not finished but French army Morale close to expired (down to 6 from initial 30) whilst Imperial still healthy (done to 28 from 34). Great stuff from a rule set I really enjoy.

Postscript: finished the game following day and it went as expected with the French failing to recover, in fact things got even worse for them with an abysmal series of dice rolls (several times I rolled 12 on a d12 whilst brother managed a 1 or 2 no matter which dice type he was using !!) seeing their remaining Brigades decimated and losing a staggering 5 Brigadiers (only occurs on a 1 on d12 !!). My brother really enjoyed the game despite horrendous luck (It did lead to some laugh out loud moments) and had no problem understanding the Field Of Battle system. 
Second day I did realize we had played Melee incorrectly previous day. I was recalling 1st edition FOB wherein Melee could last across several initiatives whereas in 2nd edition it is fought to a conclusion once initiated by either side in a single initiative.   

Austrian horse on right wing

French horse Brigades refusing to advance off hilltop

Austrian Infantry supported by Dutch (single rank to signify Platoon firing system)

Opposing Horse clash on French right

Marshall Tallard ruing yet another failed roll


Lines clash 

French Infantry manage to re-deploy in face of Cavalry charge

Dutch Guard engage the French horse Brigade that finally moved off hill

8 comments:

  1. Nice looking game, so what snacks were in the white bowls then??

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  2. Hunky Dory crisps and Cheesy Puffs lasted longer than the French :-)

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  3. Nice right up. I've been very curious about these rules and wonder if I should pick them up. What rating would you give them on a scale of 1 to 10?

    Christopher

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  4. Personally I rate them 8 but I like games that generate chaos and narrative so may be biased. If you like total control (ala FOG or similar) and less extreme dice outcomes they may not appeal. I find FOB gives plausible results and is fastplaying (although bit of pre game prep needed to roll up unit stats) I love the card play and lack therefore of any traditional sequence of play. Again this not for all tastes.

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  5. Sounds interesting! I personally don't like FOG at all, However I do like some control, but not complete control. To give you an idea of my tastes I'd say Impetus and Fire and Fury top my list of games.

    Christopher

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  6. One criticism of F&F is it's too luck dependent which could be levelled at FOB. I have Impetous but not tried it !

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  7. In F&F the luck problem is really only felt when you have to 8,9,10 to 1 rolls in which we have introduced 2 or 3 re-rolls per side(which is taken from Impetus) that really helps augment that.

    As a advocate of Impetus I would really be remiss if I didn't say you really should play a game! IMHO it's the best medieval/ancient game around. Of course I'm speaking about the standard version and not the free basic Impetus which is fine, but not nearly as good as the full version of Impetus.

    I will pick up a copy of FOB and give it a go. Any time period it plays best at or does it work pretty much for everything?

    Christopher

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  8. Field of Battle is Horse and Musket era, so pretty much 1700-1900. There is a lengthy (but not unbiased) review on my "Blunders on the Danube" blog.

    Peter

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