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This review assumes you have some familiarity with ancient wargaming. If you are a newcomer to the genre, I would recommend playing your first few games with an experienced player while you work through the rules.


Field of Glory

Pub: Osprey Publishing Limited
Hardback, 178 pages plus covers

Field of Glory (FoG) is the new Ancients and Medieval mass battle rulebook produced in cooperation between long-time military specialists Osprey and Slitherine Software UK, a small PC game house specializing in Ancient warfare games.

The rules have been preceded by so much publicity – much of it generated by the public -- that some members of "The Miniatures Page” have been talking about hype. Whether this is so or not, the level of anticipation led to the book selling out its initial print run twice via orders on Amazon and other sellers. At the time of writing (26th Feb 2008) FoG is still number 261 in the Amazon books charts, having dropped from about 160 the previous week. This is an impressive performance for such a specialist title.

The authors are Richard Bodley Scott (of DBM fame,) Simon Hall and Terry Shaw. This has added spice to the anticipation since Bodley Scott was a long time collaborator with Phil Barker of the Wargames Research Group on the DBA/M series of rules. He supposedly left following some sort of disagreement about the direction for development of DBM. Phil Barker went on to complete DBMM by himself, and it was published last autumn in what for WRG was a luxurious format, A4 with colour covers. That publication was somewhat marred by a problem with the binding of the first print run.

In terms of production values, FoG, backed with the publishing expertise of Osprey completely blows away DBMM and indeed any other set of rules on the market, even including Games Workshop’s WH40K.

Full colour throughout, professionally typeset and edited (there are a very few typos) the book is lavishly illustrated with superb colour plates from Osprey’s back catalogue. The late Angus McBride is a major contributor, for example. There are also many colour photographs of 25/28mm figures, done by Duncan MacFarlane of Wargames Illustrated, who has 20 years experience in this specialist field. Finally there are excellent colour diagrams showing in overhead view how the rules work on the tabletop.

Each section of rules is colour coded on its right hand edge for quick reference. Major points are introduced section by section and paragraph by paragraph. There are frequent tips boxed out for the benefit of newcomers to wargaming (example: Position some of your battle groups to cover your flanks.)

There is also a good index, and the essential play charts and tables are collected to four pages at the back of the book. I would like to see these published as quick reference cards. If Osprey don’t do it, I’m sure someone will work them up in a spreadsheet and release them on the Internet.

Coming in hard cover the book is a very handsome production, and surprisingly handy, being standard Osprey size of 242mm by 190mm, as are the expansion army books. (The hardback cover makes it a few millimeters larger than the dimensions I have given.) This is a help for players who must carry a large box of figures, terrain and other clobber as well as the actual rules. Some other publishers would do well to take note. (I am looking at you, GW.)

There is of course a price to be paid for this level of quality and that price is £25. Veterans who remember the good old, bad old days of WRG 6th edition for £5, complete with no diagrams and a dozen typos per page may well draw a sharp breath at this, especially when they realize that the core rules only contain 4 sample army lists so a lot of add-ons will have to be bought. The Amazon price is currently £17.50, however, which compares favourably with rules such as Warhammer 40K (£30) or even DBMM at £11.50 for a much thinner book. A serious player should not begrudge even £25 for a major set of rules, in my opinion.

Rather than walk through the rules in detail, I shall lay out the differences between FoG and its predecessors, and try to show how I think things will work on the tabletop. (I have not yet played a proper game of FoG.)


Scale and Basing
Troops are organized onto bases of the standard WRG/DBX sizes, so that 15mm figures are based to a 40mm width and 25mm to a 60mm width. Heavy infantry (close order) are to be mounted 4 to a base, Medium foot (open order LMI/LHI/Auxilia) are 3 or 4 to a base and Lights are 2 to a base. Mounted troops and models (elephants, chariots) also follow the traditional WRG 7th scheme. This allows lots of existing armies to be used without conversion, though it may be helpful to rebase your old Regular LHI and LMI troops to a 3 per base scheme (they will all be Medium in FoG) partly for recognition and partly to get more bases from the same number of figures. It looks like FoG armies may need slightly more figures than WRG or DBM armies of the same “size.”

The standard distance measure is the Movement Unit (MU), either 1 inch or 25mm according to preference. All move distances and weapon ranges are given in MU. Surprisingly, this remains the rule for both 15mm and 25mm, which has certain implications for the larger scale. It has already been suggested that 25mm players might change their MU to 40mm (or more accurately 37.5mm) in order to maintain an accurate ratio to the base dimensions.

The rules simply suggest using fewer points in a 25mm game so that armies will be smaller.

Any size of figures can be used providing the base sizes are maintained, so ideas like Baccus Miniatures’s about mounting 12:1 ratios of 6mm figures onto 25mm bases would work perfectly well.


Troop Types and Organisation
Troops are classified according to a system that has similarities to both WRG and DBM. The factors are Type (Heavy Foot, Light Cavalry and so on) Armour (Unprotected up to Heavily Armoured,) Quality (Poor up to Elite) Combat Capability (Swordsmen, Longbows, etc) and Drilled/Undrilled.

I am not sure I like the terminology chosen because it can get rather wordy. For example Roman Legionaries (post-Marian reform) are “Superior, Armoured, Drilled Heavy Foot – Impact Foot, Skilled Swordsmen”. Compare that with WRG 7th ‘s “Reg B, HI, HTW, S”, or DBA’s “Blades”. However it makes sense, it seems like a good compromise between the large number of types in WRG and the limited, somewhat abstract types of DBX, and it allows for some clever tactical factors in combat.

Troops are also classified according to battlefield function as Skirmishers, Shock Troops – who like charging -- or Battle Troops (the rest.)

Two to eight bases are grouped into a “battlegroup” (= WRG unit) before the battle. A battlegroup may contain more than one type of troops. This allows for inclusion of chariot runners with light chariot units, or pavisiers with crossbowmen, though it may cause trouble in moving if the troop types are too diverse. A battlegroup cannot be split up and moves and fights as a unit.

Several battlegroups can be combined into a “battleline” and moved as a single unit. This has advantages and disadvantages and is basically used to bring the army to the front line, after which it will need to split up and manoeuvre more flexibly.

Commanders are classed as Inspired, or Field Commanders, or Troops Commanders and have corresponding greater or lesser effects on their men. They are depicted as a suitable troop type but do not take part in combat – even when placed in the front line they provide modifiers rather than extra damage. They can be killed if risked in the front line, they also lose their ability to influence groups other than the one they are fighting with.


Turn Sequence
It is basically UGOIGO but in most player phases both players have something to do. The phases are: Player 1; Impact, Manoeuvre, Shooting, Melee, Joint Actions followed by Player 2’s turn.


Movement
The movement rules are a major part of the book since they contain a rule for every possible type of manoeuvre and diagrams explaining them – there are also diagrams to explain unusual situations of movement and combat.

Two rules in movement are particularly notable. Firstly, depending on the troop type and move attempted, a “complex move test” may have to be passed. This consists of rolling 2D6 to score 7+ (for “drilled” = WRG regular) or 8+ for undrilled troops. There are various modifiers to this target and “quality rerolls” are applied. A quality reroll allows Elites to reroll their 1s and 2s, Superior troops to reroll 1s, and forces Poor troops to reroll 6s. The same mechanism is used in combat.

The second rule is about Variable Move Distances. This rule is used when troops charge, evade or intercept a charge (there are no countercharges as such.) A single die roll can add or deduct up to 2MU from the normal move distance which ranges from 3MU for the slowest troops to 7 for the quickest. This rule, combined with the Conforming rule in combat, prevents the kind of geometric play in which you position your unit 76mm from the enemy, safe in the knowledge that he can only move 75mm.

Widely read players will notice that similar ideas have been used in games as diverse as Warmaster Ancients, Grande Armee and Fire & Fury.

In my opinion this is all good. It removes a lot of the “command helicopter” perspective while still giving superior and regular troops certain advantages. It also involves the player in decisions about how to set up his army and use his generals. It has to be said it is more complicated than the DBA use of PIPs but arguably more realistic as the PIP system enables the player to be sure he can move at least one unit as he needs to each turn.


Impact
Once the troops are in range it is time to consider charging. This is the Impact Phase which is actually first in the player turn. Charging is best done with Shock Troops, who are so keen that they must actually test not to charge (the equivalent of impetuosity.) The target may be able to evade, and the charge may be intercepted by other enemy within range.

Since the combat mechanism is the the same for Impact, Shooting and Melee, I will describe it later.


Shooting
Following impact we have Shooting. FoG follows Warmaster Ancients in counting shooting of relatively little use for actually destroying enemy troops. Its main role is to disrupt formations. Shooting takes place by both players in both player turns.


Melee
This is when Impact phase combats which have not decisively trounced the enemy turn into a slogging match. In FoG, the point of combat is not primarily to kill the enemy troops, it is to break down their morale and formation (their “cohesion”) until they decide it is time for tea. During the Melee phase, engaged battlegroups can feed more troops into combat by extending their front lines

The combat mechanism revolves around four factors: Points of Advantage, Troop Quality, Cohesion Tests and Death Tests.

Points of Advantage (PoA) derive from various factors such as weapons carried (capabilities) versus armour type, tactical situation (flanking) and the presence of generals. Holding more PoAs gives your bases a better “to hit” roll.

Each front line base rolls a certain number of dice depending on type, and rear ranks can also contribute. Quality means that better troops score more hits by re-rolling low dice.

Both sides roll for hits in Impact and Melee.

Having suffered enough hits to force a test, the target must roll Cohesion Tests. On failing, the target gets degraded from Fresh to Disrupted, then Fragmented and finally Broken. A general can be used to try and restore order in the ranks, however this takes him away from his inspirational front line fighting duties. Or is it the other way round? This is the crucial decision about how to use your generals in combat.

Battlegroups can also lose bases from failing Death Tests. It is much harder to obtain Death Tests through shooting than hand to hand. Between losing bases and losing cohesion levels, eventually a battlegroup will collapse and rout or be swept away.

Once enough battlegroups have been lost, the entire army will rout. If this cannot be achieved in the time allowed for a game, there is a victory level determined by relative losses.


Summary
Field of Glory contains a number of relatively simple ideas and mechanisms, most or all of which have been seen in previous games. I do not mean they have been pinched; the key point is that the way the ideas are adapted here, they work as a coherent system that is fairly easy to learn but will produce a realistic, playable game, with a good degree of flexibility to accommodate the wide range of troops in the Ancients and Medieval period.

There is much I haven't mentioned -- most of the detail of troop types, the terrain system and the painting advice -- however I hope I have given a good idea ofm the key points.

Playtest reports available on the internet indicate a good level of satisfaction with the rules, while critics usually seem to focus on some relatively minor and personal dissatisfaction. The books are certainly flying off the shelves fast enough that you will soon be able to find a lot of opponents.

In short, with the production values and the quality of game design, I think we are looking at the system that will dominate the next decade of Ancients in the way that WRG and DBX have dominated in their time.


The Companion Books
Osprey plans to publish a series of army list books to accompany FoG. The first two are already out – Rise of Rome and Storm of Arrows. All will be paperbacks of standard Osprey size, colour throughout and illustrated with the same mixture of Osprey artwork and photos as the main rules. Priced at £12.99 but available for under £9 on Amazon, the books contain about 80 pages each.

Rise of Rome covers the period 280BC to 25BC, taking in the most significant wars of Republican Rome. The book contains 18 armies: the Romans, their enemies such as Carthage and the Seleucods, and significant allies. Each army has several pages giving it a quick start list and a more extensive list for choosing a bigger army to a points value. The lists are accompanied by historical notes and pictures. There is also a short history of the period, a single battle description with map, and a section on doing themed tournaments.

Storm of Arrows has similar content, in this case covering 26 western European armies of the period of roughly 1320 to 1500. All the usual suspects are included; 100 Years War English and French, Swiss, Burgundian, Low Countries, Spanish Reconquista and Granadine, and so on.

Several more books have already been announced, and there will also be lists for obscure armies published on the Slitherine Software website.


© Richard Milner, 2008.

Thanks, very interesting read. I'll probably be picking this up as a consequence.

I wish I was on commission.

Someone has made a nice Sheet of Speed for FoG and it can be got from the Yahoo group here...

http://f1.grp.yahoofs.com/v1/QIvOR9G-5nG57RBZl7k93dk66nLpWsKPVY6i9QvxZHkZJsB8aSCgwwwYEqDzSUEYxrkFFy3JThUMmhOV7jXiAY0Vnik_S4v_mQ/FoG%20QRS%20%28colour%29.pdf

I picked it up an have only good things to say about it. Haven't played a game yet but i'm looking forward to it.

As an experienced ancients player I can warn you that this game suffers from the same problem as the old ARMATI rules. Namely, armies are not of equal size (unlike the popular tournament ancients rules DBA). Inevitably, the army with fewer units will be outflanked, the unit at the end of the battle line will be hit from two directions and destroyed.

I think we may have already seen this in the most recent UK FOG tournament won by PARTHIANS, an army with lots of units, most of them light cavalry unlikely to be killed by infantry.

The combat results system is totally opaque. That is, in DBA and DBM-two other popular ancients rules sets, a unit has a combat factor. Each side rolls a die. Double the total of your opponent and you kill him.

In contrast, FOG is 'opaque'. Combat involves both loss of troops and morale-which affects your fighting on the next turn (This was built in to the combat results in DBA and dBM requiring no additional rules.). Basically, an 11 year old could figure out the combat results of DBA, DBM or 40k. But, in FOG it is very hard to know what will happen when my undrilled veteran offensive spearmen protected impact troops meet your drilled average pikemen heavily armored fighting in only 3 ranks.....

Now, this might strike some as realistic, right up to the point where they meet someone who has done the math and KNOWS exactly what will happen in each combat, or who plays hundreds of games and has the same feel for combat by experience. The game is NOT going to be friendly for the occassional gamer.

The game has several pages of command and control rules. In fact, DBA, another popular ancients rule set has about 16 pages of rules, plays in an hour-FOG plays in 3 hours and has about 106 pages of rules for you to misinterpret or forget.

FOG will continue the Wargames Research Group misinterpretation of ancient history by making most battles be decided by the actions of light troops operating from the cover of difficult terrain or by 'instant death impact combat' . Contrast this with the groundbreaking historical ancients rules just published by Professor Phil Sabin in his book Lost Battles. Lost Battles reflects real academic research which shows that hand to hand combat was protracted-leading to longer battles, that most ancient armies were smart enough to cover their flanks, and that the light troops had minimal impact on the battle. Sadly, the Lost Battles rules are really for HISTORICAL miniature gaming recreating ancient battles that actually happened, and are not useful for a tournament allowing Attila the Hun to meet Alexander the Great in the Teutoberger Forest.

Now, 40k could use some terrain rules, but the rules in FOG are a nightmare of multiple terrain types and placement restrictions which a good tactician, according to the hints in the rules, will use to give his light troops a critical advantage....

DBA and DBM were considered groundbreaking in ancient miniature rules for limiting command and control. Basically, you could only move as many connected groups of figures (mounted 2-4 per base) as you rolled on a six sided die. Imagine 40k if you could only move between 1-6 units, and fire between 1-6 units a turn (actually it would be worth playtesting). FOG reflects the old-style chess like approach to ancient gaming. That is, you can pretty much always count on your troops at least moving at the enemy. There is only a rare 'complex movement test' for troops trying something like multiple wheels or turns.

So, this rule set is a real retreat in terms of command and control-as long as you are half competent in placing your 3 commanders (for 12 units), you probably won't have a lot of command problems, right up until that 13th enemy unit gets on your flank and you have to try to cover it with your 12 units.

Personally, I'd rather play 3 games of DBA in 3 hours than one game of FOG in the same time. FOG is is a rules set for people who weren't smart enough to be good at chess, but think that they could have outgeneraled Alexander the Great by using their precise bird's eye view of the battlefield with cell phone messaging to commanders to outmanuver the great conquerer.

It is a pretty hardcover book, and given the current lack of an accepted set of ancient wargaming rules other than DBA (there is DBM 2.0, DBM 3.0 put out by dissatisfied DBM 2.0 players, DBMM-the offical DBM replacement by the author of the DBM rules; Warhammer Ancient Battles-taken from guess what and produced by you know who, Warrior-which is the private update of Wargames Research Group 7th edition, which preceeded DBM/DBA, Warmaster Ancients, Armati, Hack, Classical Hack, Holy Hack, etc...).

Oh, and DBA you can play on line every night of the week with dozens of opponents in dozens of tournaments. FOG-you'll have to hope your group will adopt it in preference to the above.

Now, imagine if you could play 40k over the internet anytime. That would be something.....

Thanks a lot for the review, Kilkrazy. I had meant to read it a while back and never got around to it, but it is quite good and answers a lot of the big questions I had about the system (basing, etc.). I am glad to hear that it's compatible with DBX basing, and I think it's something I'd like to check out.

Thanks also for the dissenting opinion mikeguth. It's good to hear some of the possible disadvantages of the system, although I think some of the things you point out probably aren't issues with FoG as a system but more the style of the game, and wargaming in general. The general's omniscient view of the battlefield is an issue that most games have to some extent, and I think that in the interest of a fun and interesting game, is something we have to be willing to deal with, at least to a point. Also, I don't really see how the ability to outnumber your opponent is a problem historically or tactically. Creative tactical decisions on how to deal with those sorts of problems is something that should make FOG interesting, as opposed to a system like DBA where both sides are always equal numerically (although DBA is interesting for other reasons).

The comment about FOG being a rules set "for people who weren't smart enough to be good a chess, but think they could have outgeneraled Alexander the Great," is a bit unfair. Even though I haven't played FOG, making a blanket statement about who the game appeals to isn't really conducive to a useful review, and only serves to alienate the people who might be drawn to a game like FOG.

Personally, DBA and FOG are both systems that appeal to me, and both for different reasons. I wouldn't expect to get the same kind of play experience from two different systems...that's what makes them different. Of course, different is not always good, I would hope that I could get two different good play experiences from DBA and FOG.

That said, you do raise some valid points, and it's something I will keep in mind if I decide to pick up FOG.

mikeguth wrote:As an experienced ancients player I can warn you that this game suffers from the same problem as the old ARMATI rules. Namely, armies are not of equal size (unlike the popular tournament ancients rules DBA). Inevitably, the army with fewer units will be outflanked, the unit at the end of the battle line will be hit from two directions and destroyed.

This is a pretty big generalization. Armies can be created of whatever size you wish. assuming the side with more units auto-flanks and auto-breaks the opposition is a stretch and unfair to the system.

mikeguth wrote:I think we may have already seen this in the most recent UK FOG tournament won by PARTHIANS, an army with lots of units, most of them light cavalry unlikely to be killed by infantry.

You'll have to ask yourself, "why am I playing this game?" if you are looking for total balance where every army has the exact same chance to kill every other army, then you're in the wrong set of rules. Case in point, if you're playing a tournament game where the goal is to kill the enemy, you're going to have a hard time tracking down a highly mobile force (like the Parthians) who can just run and pepper you with arrows. Which is what they did in "RL" If the goal will be for the Parthian army to seize an objective from some heavy foot troops, they will have a difficult time at doing this.

mikeguth wrote: In contrast, FOG is 'opaque'. Combat involves both loss of troops and morale-which affects your fighting on the next turn (This was built in to the combat results in DBA and dBM requiring no additional rules.). Basically, an 11 year old could figure out the combat results of DBA, DBM or 40k.

FoG has it's clearly defined match ups. Most cavalry will need to attack units in the flank (when we are talking about ancients) Skirmishers will get their heads handed to them by massed infantry. Barring horrible dice or some other variables you know how this will end up. You can also easily tell

mikeguth wrote:But, in FOG it is very hard to know what will happen when my undrilled veteran offensive spearmen protected impact troops meet your drilled average pikemen heavily armored fighting in only 3 ranks.....

It's pretty simple. I found out the effects of each stat you put out there in about 1 minute (and once you are used to using the army it's easy to recall the POA's) . Veteran offensive spearmen get a "+" in combat and get to reroll any "1"'s rolled, pikemen get "+" for being pikemen in 3 ranks, and get an additional "+" from being more heavily armored than the spearmen. So the end result is the pikemen hit on "4"'s and the spearmen on "5"'s which means you can estimate this battle (with numbers being equal) will tilt more towards the pikemen.

Every wargame I know has outcomes that will be determined by the dice (except for chess for obvious reasons) Can anyone say what will happen when you pit a squad of marines against a squad of marines in 40K? The outcome is "opaque" and will be determined by dice and charts.

mikeguth wrote:Now, this might strike some as realistic

Realistic is debatable (are any wargames truly realistic?) but FoG does more accurately portray troops in the ancient world than DBA which is far more abstract (each gamer has his own acceptably level of abstraction).

mikeguth wrote: The game is NOT going to be friendly for the occassional gamer.

True again. Most people will not be able to walk in, sit down and start playing this system without a desire to do so, help, and some pre-game knowledge. But then again, people can not grasp the full level of strategy in most detailed games without being more than an "occasional" player. But anyone with historical knowledge of the time period being played in FoG will be absolutely able to make the right decisions based on what is historically "real".

mikeguth wrote:The game has several pages of command and control rules. In fact, DBA, another popular ancients rule set has about 16 pages of rules, plays in an hour-FOG plays in 3 hours and has about 106 pages of rules for you to misinterpret or forget.

The rules are detailed. No doubt about it, but many of the pages are filled with "What if" scenarios that allow you to clear up questions. The basic rules were hashed out in a single game by our club (we're not experts by any means). Again I won't be attacking DBA for it's amount of rules, but for you to cast FoG rules as "106 pages of rules for you to misinterpret or forget" is biased and unfair.

mikeguth wrote:FOG will continue the Wargames Research Group misinterpretation of ancient history by making most battles be decided by the actions of light troops operating from the cover of difficult terrain or by 'instant death impact combat' .

Untrue, untrue and untrue. Lights have a role, impact troops have a roll, the use of general's have a role. For you to state that unit A or B make and break the entire game is again biased and unfair.

mikeguth wrote:Contrast this with the groundbreaking historical ancients rules just published by Professor Phil Sabin in his book Lost Battles. Lost Battles reflects real academic research which shows that hand to hand combat was protracted-leading to longer battles

longer than what? Since most historical evidence is merely conjecture using the same few pieces of information we have from milennia ago there is no "right" and "wrong" merely opinions.

mikeguth wrote:that most ancient armies were smart enough to cover their flanks,

and you can't cover your flanks in FoG?

mikeguth wrote: and that the light troops had minimal impact on the battle.

Tell that to the Spartans and Sphacteria, the Roman legions at Cannae, the Athenians in Aetolia (during the Peloponnesian War), and Varus' Three crack legions in the Teutobergwald. All three show "superior" troops being wiped out by light skirmisher type units. Ancient warfare, from Greece to the fall of Rome at least, has been about a balance of troops.

mikeguth wrote: DBA and DBM were considered groundbreaking in ancient miniature rules for limiting command and control. Basically, you could only move as many connected groups of figures (mounted 2-4 per base) as you rolled on a six sided die. Imagine 40k if you could only move between 1-6 units, and fire between 1-6 units a turn (actually it would be worth playtesting). FOG reflects the old-style chess like approach to ancient gaming. That is, you can pretty much always count on your troops at least moving at the enemy. There is only a rare 'complex movement test' for troops trying something like multiple wheels or turns.

From what we know of ancient battles, generals had very little effect on the battle once the lines had been set. The armies moved forward (or didn't) based on a general plan, and then the rest was in the hands of the troops and their unit commanders. If you really want to be historically accurate you'd be better off setting up your armies and then letting them go, while you look at the table from a simple model's eye view so you don't see what is happening from the "bird's eye" view where the right flank can tell that the left flank is breaking the second it happens. These are games meant for us to enjoy. If you like the d6 activation pips, bully for you. But that is not how things happened historically. Your choice is just as "wrong" as FoG.

mikeguth wrote:So, this rule set is a real retreat in terms of command and control-as long as you are half competent in placing your 3 commanders (for 12 units), you probably won't have a lot of command problems, right up until that 13th enemy unit gets on your flank and you have to try to cover it with your 12 units.

Ho-hum, more abstractions and generalizations. and the dreaded EXTRA UNIT that ensures one sides victory. ..

mikeguth wrote: FOG is is a rules set for people who weren't smart enough to be good at chess, but think that they could have outgeneraled Alexander the Great by using their precise bird's eye view of the battlefield with cell phone messaging to commanders to outmanuver the great conquerer.

Ah, the petty attacks go on and on. . . I will refrain from attacking you, you've hung yourself with your own rope. . .


Chaplain Severus

I've got to say that FoG had captured my facination with Historicals again. Back in the mid 90's I got into DBM, WRG 6.5 and 7.0 with a local group. It was interesting but the rules are not easy to pick up.
I actually reread the WRG rules recently after picking up my FoG books. I think the WRG rules were written with the assumption that the reader understood some of the previous edition rules.
DBM 1.2 was a fairly easy to understand set of rules. I just could not get into the system for some reason.
I never found a good set of Ancients rules till I read Warmaster. It seemed to utilize some of the DBM concept of command while keeping the rest of the system fairly simple.

After reading the FoG rules for a couple of times I'm now trying to finish painting and basing my Foundry EIR army that I've been working on for the last 7 years.

My other experience included SYW and Napoleonics. I loved Koenig Krieg for SYW and used the Napoleonics version for Napoleonics.