FoG at Britcon 2008 

After a hard day refighting Antietam in 10mm using Fire & Fury (report and pictures here) the Fog competition eventually got  underway. 

As usual, rules hints and stuff highlighted in blue like this 

The first game saw me facing a Free Company army made up of a lot of heavy metal. 

With neither side wanting too much terrain it was a bald battlefield and a simple line up and charge plan from both sides. (I had deployed a road as its basically soaking up a terrain choice and has no real effect on the battlefield)

Unusually, my spearmen had a target as I had managed to deploy them opposite a block of bowmen - so as the rest of the army charged forwards, they joined in too. Skirmishers were used as a screen to soak up enemy bowfire and save the main spearmen from taking cohesion tests. 

On my right my FC was commanding a thinned out unit of cavalry lancers, who were hoping to absorb the shooting of more longbowmen whilst protecting the flank of my main strike force of cavalry and knights. My generals were massed on the right wing with my many units of cavalry as they would have the hardest fighting to do

To their left it was a bit less subtle as a wall of double-ranked cavalry and single ranked knights just hared forwards. The only complication was to make sure they all were able to charge at the same time and none of them would suffer from charges being triggered early by the advancing men at arms.

Tests to avoid charging when you don't want to are Complex Move tests - not Cohesion tests. Quite a few people confuse the two. To avoid charging the only modifiers are about commanders being close to/with the unit testing - or being disrupted. 

One unit of cavalry stayed behind to provide rear support +1 in cohesion tests as well as a mobile reserve

My skirmishers exchanged a few fairly pointless shots with the longbowmen as the knights moved up. The Allied knights always had the benefit of their general - the other 2 units in this command being unlikely to even fight, and not really needing to move twice

And being led by an imposing a 28mm figure wasn't helping on my right as the flanking cavalry were whittled down to 3 bases and also to Fragmented quite soon. Markers with red edges in my photos mean FRAGMENTED - blue is just DISRUPTED

As the skirmishers rushed back, my army closed in for the kill.... Skirmishers move through foot, and then foot move forwards - foot cant go thru skirmishers

Soon disrupted markers were flowering all along the line for the Free Company men at arms. The Free Company markers were figures mounted on bottle tops - 1 for disrupted, 2 for Fragged, 3 for Rout

and the FC worked hard to keep the now very battered unit of cavalry in the game.. At 50% losses they were now almost useless as one more loss would see them reomved but they kept the longbowmen honest 

The Free Company longbowmen were unable to stand up for long against the armoured and protected spear formation, and soon most of them crumbled save for one brave unit led by th egeneral who hung on for grim death .. Armoured spearmen were several PoAs up on the longbowmen in melee 

The whole mercenary army was now hanging on by its fingernails, but with both flanks still intact the Armenians were finding it hard to wheel outwards and push home their advantage. As I was to find time and time again, turning undrilled troops is very hard and very slow. Cavalry are a little better than foot, but the difference between passing a CMT on a 7 or an 8 is significant ...  

The Armenians were throwing everything into combat  ... or the Free Company were eventually getting their flank units into the fray - you choose!

.. but finally the last required Free Company unit was crushed beneath the wheels of the Armenian war machine. (note the column of crossbowmen providing rear support)