Tuesday, February 12, 2019

Field Of Glory Napoleonic 2nd Edition tryout

Managed a miniatures game today with Stephen trying out the 2nd Edition of Field Of Glory Napoleonic.
I fielded a Prussian force from Spring 1813 and Stephen their French equivalents.
Some changes to points values and force structure in 2nd edition with probably main change being reduction in numbers of possible Artillery units (now a max of 1-2 units depending on early/late period) which is certainly more in keeping with the scale (Regimental/Divisional/Corps) of the game.
Also no longer any Skirmish formation but Light Infantry have several other advantages (sort of making them skirmishing types)
Huge and very welcome change to the game set-up phase with a very interesting Force Stance selection which yields much more variety in battle types than the previous simple Attack vs Defence.
Skilled/Exceptional Corps Commanders can have a big effect in this by possibly denying opponent certain selection types.
I selected Probe which has 2 Divisions off-table at start one in Reserve (can arrive in any Move Phase) the other as a Reinforcement (Dice to arrive) and Stephen used Felxible Defence (one Division in Reserve) with him as Defender (fairly obviously) and Prussians nominally attacking.
Terrain set-up was fairly easy and by using Flexible Defence the French were able to occupy 2 built-up areas at start as Strong-points (sort of La Hay Sainte and Hugomount).
Built up areas rules are pretty simple in essence but one needs to break the defenders to get them shifted and not easy to do.

The rule systems at their core are unchanged but simplified in many instances and rules much clearer, if only by virtue of a more readable font !, and thereby understandable.
We certainly found that we seemed to have a lot more action in this game across the table than we remembered from previous edition.
Outcomes can still be fairly brutal in that a Division of 3 units that takes 3 Disruption or worse in a turn is still only able to attempt to recover a single unit per turn.
This does make for decisive actions (something we both like) rather than long drawn out attrition and again seems in keeping with the scale of game especially as turns are 30 minutes (which is a long time to in range of enemy fire or in combat).

First go with new edition but we enjoyed the game (French won by the way) more than previous outings.
Bit like Black Powder we always felt there was a decent system/game struggling to get out.
































Of course this did not stop me pledging to the Kickstarter for Over The Hills 2nd Ed !!!!


5 comments:

  1. A great looking game and a French victory? Great rules, no doubt!😊

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    1. Hi Phil, decent set of rules (the game set up is excellent) and good for a 'bring 800pts' lets have game at short notice.

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    2. Did you pick up both of the army list books? My version 2 rule set is due to arrive tonight. Is there a website that lists the entries of each?
      Thanks

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    3. i only have book covering later 1812+ armies. Dont know if their is a list of contents anyplace ?

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  2. Thanks for the reply. I am waiting to be approved for the Facebook group. Hopefully, I can turn up information there.

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