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Surprisingly this ruleset sell locally. What are your experience with the game and its numerous expansions? I have plans in playing the 30 yrs War. 28mm if possible, as already have the models. Also does it needs Renaissance and the Basic rules for play?

It has a love hate relationship. People either swear by them as bible while the other group wants to burn every last piece of paper they are printed on. Me personally, I think there are other better systems out there. I tried their Napoleonic rules too and they were just too much like the ancient/renaissance rules with muskets being the key piece.

fantastic ruleset, I really enjoy FOG 2.0, particularly in the ancients area. My fellow gamers swear by the Renaissance rules too.

I've played FoG v1 ancients. It's simpler than WRG Ancients and more complex than DBA. Plays quite quickly and I was able to get through a 1500 point battle in a couple of hours on my first go. It helped to have played other rules before, to have read FoG, and to have a knowledgable opponent to help put it all together.

It seems "lucky" in the sense that sometimes an important tactical situation will be resolved by the roll of a single D6. However, I believe that battles are luckier than we often think. I feel this amount of luck is about right, and it helps the game move quickly.

I don't like the terminology of the armour classes and so on, because I am so familiar with the old WRG terms -- Reg.C LMI. JLS, S, Sh -- that they still announce their meaning to me after not playing the game for 20 years. Also the WRG terms are much briefer.

The army books are very good. Each book covers a period or region. There are books for the Greco-Persian Wars, the "Biblical" armies, meso-American armies, the Crusades, and so on. This is great if you want to play within an important defined period and have all the realistic opponents at your fingertips. They are lavishly illustrated in colour, and give you a standard quick start list and a more complex list for each army, plus historical notes. It does mean you have to buy a lot of books if you want to know about every possible army. In the old WRG rules you only needed three books for all the armies from 3000 BC to 1500 AD.

This is a factor in tournaments because traditionally Ancients players choose armies for whatever reason they like, and will play any match-up that occurs. You could get Old Kingdom Egyptian against Incas, separated by 3,000 years and 6,000 miles, or Republican Romans against 100 Years War English.

Overall the rules are as good as any other good set of ancient rules -- WRG 6th, 7th, Warrior, DBA, DBM, DBMM, Impetus, Warmaster Ancients. They aren't a rocket ride to the moon. I eagerly anticipated them and when I read them I didn't get the sense of a new dawn. But I don't think that is possible any more. People have been inventing and refining ancients rules for 50 years, and the job arguably is done.You pick a design philosophy and there are probably several sets that follow it.

What we actually need is a set that becomes so widespread that it becomes standard, the way that WRG and DBX were in the 70s to 90s. FoG aimed to become that set, but Impetus and DBMM came out about the same time, and none of them has grabbed the lion's share of the market AFAIK.

The other point to mention is that FoG uses the same base sizes as all the other games except for Warhammer Ancients, so you can swap rules easily if you want.

As regards the Renaissance and Napoleonic rules, I haven't read or played them. I will only say that in the good old days, WRG made Renaissance and Napoleonic rules that used very similar mechanisms to their Ancients rules, and those rules were popular and widely played. Warfare probably changed less at the tactical level between 3000 BC and 1860 AD then we often think. The invention of the efficient breech loading infantry rifle, and recoil compensating field artillery, are the key turning points in weapons. Then comes motor vehicles and wireless telegraphy in the early 20th century.

However if a similar ruleset feels wrong for a different period, there are plenty of alternatives.

Thanks for the opinions so far.

It works. It's not amazing, but it's a traditional wargame that does what it should. I've only played it a few times, but enjoyed myself. In the end I decided to use an adaptation of Dux Bellorum or Impetus for my Sumerians rather than FoG, but it was a contender. Some opponents who helped me test various rules out like it more than the others, but I didn't. I went for a bit more a faster play and more heavily abstracted approach. FoG is a bit more precise and detailed.

It would be worth your while to look up the reviews on Amazon. There are quite a number of pieces on FoG and FoG:R.

For TYW gaming I prefer Father Tilly (my personal favorite, even though it can be a little quirky), Pike & Shotte or even Black Powder. FoG always felt like a thinly veiled Ancients ruleset to me, but as already mentioned, that's a question of personal taste.

Generally speaking, I prefer rules to be made for the specific period I'm playing and usually find less enjoyment in the big "catch all" historical systems. If you are (or think you are) similar to me, I'd warmly recommend the rules I mentioned. Otherwise, you might be happy with FoG, Impetus or DBA.

Thanks for the opinions everyone.

BTW if you are having trouble with your pikes, plastic broom bristles apparently make a good replacement, being cheap and flexible.