Saturday, October 31, 2009

Field of Battle: Ancients

As many of you know, I've been working on Field of Battle: Ancients, the newest FoB style game we'll be publishing at Piquet Inc.  While it uses core FoB mechanics, it has numerous twists that make it a unique game.  Here are some Roman unit photos using my basing:







As you can see - I said "unit".  In FoBA, there are no unit formations.  This means that as long as unit frontages are equal, any basing style or method will work.  DBA armies?  No problem!

Why no formations?  I want FoBA to be focused on the battle management aspect, not internal unit details such as formation.  At this level of abstraction, I think that units were formed in the manner that best suited their function - Pikes were deep, swords were shallower, skirmish were dispersed, etc.   I don't want the Napoleonic feel of jockeying for this or that formation to gain an UP1...

There are still a wide variety of tactical decisions that are required of players, you just don't worry about formation!

11 comments:

  1. I use FOB for ACW, but I did realize that same mechanics may be used for earlier periods. I will try to use this rules for ECW. I thik it should work, especialy, my 15 mm armies are mounted one unit on one stand. This gives me a good viasual representetion of Pike and Shot blocks.

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  2. I think they'll work fine. I've played around with some modifications, but have never made it to the stage where I've played an ECW game.

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  3. Nice to hear that things are progressing with FoBA - I have to say I'm very excited at the prospect of these rules. I'd love to be considered for any playtesting.
    I'll follow progress here and on the Yahoo! group..

    Regards
    Bob Mcleish

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  4. What size bases are you using? 3"x3"?

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  5. Yes - 3"x3". The important thing is unit frontage being equal. If you have your troops on 4 1.5" x 1.5" bases, they would be arranged 2x2 with a 3" frontage. Or if you have 40mm frontage and multiple stands you could use 2 stands in front rank and 2 in second rank...or just use a single stand ala DBA, or 2 stands one behind the other. The only "important" thing is to make the frontages equal.

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  6. Hello Brent,

    Are you palnning to continue with FOB mechanics and extend the rules for earlier historical periods? Also, is there a plan to develope point system for turnament or pick up games?

    Sincerely,

    Felix.

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  7. Yes - the Ancient set will use FoB mechanics. I'm not tournament oriented, so I don't have a lot of enthusiasm to generate a points system. I think the structure of the games makes it tricky to do - the card decks would have to be "pointed" as would leaders in addition to units.

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  8. Hello Brent,

    Thank you for the reply regarding your FOB plans. I am looking forward to see Ancient extension. Also, you were saying that you used FOB for ECW with some modifications. Are these modification available to play test?

    Sincerely,

    Felix.

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  9. I can certainly make them available...I would have to find them first! It wasn't anything in depth, more or less notes to myself.

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  10. nice looking units...it appears that the back of all your units' base is uneven...any reason for this? easier to pick up..optical illusion?

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  11. The "uneven" appearance is actually the metal stand that I use on the back of the stand to attach the magnetic unit labels that I use. I'll do a future post about what I do and how it works/looks.

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