Short first impression review of Fire and Fury

Hello.

I got my two fire and fury books last week, to my suprise the regimental version is actualy hardback, it was a nice suprise.

Both books start with a very thurogh intro to wargaming in general, talks about how to buy figures, other ready painted or in bare metal, talks about basing ect.

Also both books have lots of color photoes, and plenty of plates to show exampels.

The big diffrences are ofcourse fire and fury is army sized games, while regimental fire and fury is basicly a ACW version of the classic napoleonic division sized games.

With the army sized games, there is no problem, one reb and one fed army fight eachother.

With the regimental fire and fury, it gets a little more complicated. Since the Confederate and Union armies are quite diffrent at the lower levles.

The rules says for the regimental game, that you should start to collect a union corps or a confederate division. This is ofcourse becasue the union corps really aren't propper corps in the napleonic sense, A Napoleoinc corps start at 10 000ish soldiers and dosn't stop untill you reach 45 000, while a Union corps was often less then 6000, I've seen them under 4000.

6000 is a small napoleonic division, 4000 is actualy not much more then a big napoleonic brigade.

But as long as a union corps and confederate division is more or less balanced it shouldn't be that big of a deal, the only real effect is that if you play larger games, you might need 2-3 union corps to a single confed corps, which just means the union is going to have quite a few more generals running around.

I have mostly read the regimental version, only now have I started on the orignal fire and fury. I plan on using the same figures for both rules, it's quite simple, in a regimental game a single 6 figure base is 80 soldiers, with the army game, each base is 200 soliers. The only diffrence is that with my army game, I'm going to have alot of exess command stands.

Becasue with regimental I'm going to be using 1 command base with 2-6 infantry base.

But with army game, I'm going to be using 1 command base pr. mabye 8 to 17.

Which means alot of command bases over. But thats not a real problem.

The rules are actualy very elegant. Both rules use the same play sequence.

First you have the manouve face, were you "active" units, first I had real problem with the tables given, they were confusing to me, but I'm a little dim when it comes to lists. Luckely the next 2-3 pages gives a very through explenation of the lists, the rules are full of exampeles, so really after reading the rules just once, you have a good idea of how they work.

I must also say I love how "charges/mele" is done in these rules, thats one of my biggest gripes with Napoleoinc rules, charging is such a chore, first you declear, then you do defencive fire, then you have to check if the chargers have enough moral to charge home.

I think it's very over the top complicated, infact I find chargeing in some Napoleonic rules so tiresom I just en up shooting at the enemy, it's not worth initiating a charge.

But in these rules it's so simple, charge, get shot at, depending on how good the dice are, you either charge home or not, it's that simple. No need for alot of more dicing.

And while the rules are simple they are not SIMPLE! in Napoleonic rules, you basicly have only one weapon for the infantry, the musket, some rules have rules for rifles, but since most rifle armed troops are skirmishes, it's rearly an issue in gameplay.

But here you have so many small arms, Rifled musket, smoothbore musket, rifled carbine, repeater, breachloader, even low qualiry rifled muskets are included. Hell even buck and ball ammo for the smothbore muskets are included in special shooting circumstances.

I must say the rules are very nice, it will be fun to try em out, it will be cool to play a regimental game, then change to a army sized game, with very little diffrence, if you can play one version of the rules, you can play both.

Review: Last Argument of Kings

So this is a supliment to the Original Black Powder, some might say, why pay 200kr for a supliment to a book that allready cost 350kr. But I'm a computer gamer, I'm used to having to pay for expantions of games/rules.

I wasn't that overwhelmed by the original BP, I allready had good rules for AWI and Napoleoincs and even ACW, I wasn't doing any colonial, and I wasn't really doing any tactical things for early to mid 18thC, I did have project for 7YW but that was for a grand tactical game using Might and Reason. BUT BP did have lots of beutifull photoes, I often just looked at the pictures.

So when I saw Argument of kings at my store I bought it for no other reason then pretty pictures.
What I got was something much more, instead of covering 200 years it covers about 80 years. It dosn't deal with machine guns or rifled artillery. Muskets, cannon and sabers is what we have to think about. The book is devided into the big wars of ther period, War of austrian succession, Great Nordern war, War of austrian succession, Wars in britian and Seven year war.

Each war gives a short intro into the background to the war, how it went, and gives background to one army of the period and a commander. Armies you get stats and info on include, russia, Sweden, Britian, France, Austria, Prussia and even ottoman. Each war also has a battle the guys at BP has set up and played. Some of which are very big and took a lot of planing.

I was mainly intrested in WSS since this is one of my new projects. But the rest of the book also get me hooked. As with the Original BP there are plenty of pictures, but this time no pictures of stuff I don't care about like colonial. The best thing I can say about the rules is that they make you want to paint figures, The only other rules I can say that about is Lasalle, what lasalle does for me in 15mm Napoleoincs, Last Argument of kings does for me in 18th Centuary. The rules gives you all you need to get into any period of the first 80 years of the 18th C.

The Unit stats looks to work great, the AAR are wonderfull, for one of the BIG battles they put on, you also get a how to manual on how to put on a BIG game with your club.

They are very nice rules, I recomend them to all that want to be inspired to paint their WSS or 7YW figures, I say buy it even if I weren't completly sold in the Original Black powder rules.

Reveiw Lasalle

I had a very small game of Lasalle yesterday(AAR and pics will be posted in a few days I think)
But I wanted to write a short review now, while it was fresh.


The Book
Most people will be familiar with this one now, a hardcover full color book.
It has the rules, advanced rules, 3 historical senarioes, terrain generator and army builder.

The books has lots of pictures of miniatures(not as much as Black Powder, but still alot) And for those of use the game in other scales then 28mm, it has lots of eye candy, especaly heavy on 15mm figures, of which almost all of them seem to be AB.

The Rules
The rules are slightly diffrent then standard Napoleonic tactical games, in that you shoot first, then do combat, before you move and charge the enemy. The rules also give lots of options for basing and shows the formations.
Also unlike most tactical /big battalion games you don't count figures but each unit is either small or large a small unit is 4 bases big, a large unit is 6 bases big.
The main diffrence is that 4 base unit disperses when it gets 4 distruption points while it takes 6 to take down the large units.

Skirmishes are dealth with very nicly in that a unit has a skirmish value of 0 to 3.
You can either make skirmish bases of just mark how many skirmish points the unit has.
This is often a lot simpler then General de brigade or Republic to empire, which I like, while I like both those rules, I never like fideling with skirmishes Skirmishes to me is just a pain in the ass.

The rules are a mix of Black powder and General de brigade/republic to empire
It has the ease, simplisity and lightness of Black Powder, while it feels destinctly Napoleonic, something Black powder dosn't do. I might use black powder for WSS, or ACW but not Napoleonics, ther are just to many good rules out there for this period to use BP which lack the true Napoleoinc feel.

Some people say the rules cater to much to turnaments and that we as Napoleoinc players are above such trivial things, we drink fine cognac dress in hussar uniforms and duel, we don't need tournaments. But really this isn't a tournamnet ruleset, but a pick up game ruleset.
I have no intrest in winning a compation againt 50 other players, but lets say you want to corrupt people to the dark side that is napoleonics. Well you got the Army builder, and you got the figures, you find a game hall, take out the figures and place them in army builder packs on the table.

Lets say you got the core force of Russians, with musketeers, jegers and grenadiers. then mabye you also place, a dragoon brigade and a light cav brigade ect. then you do the same with a french force, and up up sevral suport brigades. You then tell the prosecting newbie, that he is gonna use a core force, and he can choose 1 extra force, you let him look that the figures, study them, then he chooses one, and games with it. He dosn't have to be an expert in the period, he might have choosen the suport choices based on nice uniforms ect. but it dosn't mater, the game will be fun.

The most important thing this rulebook does is inspire, while I will probebly still play alot of GdB or RtE becasue I like the more hardcore "realistic" rules, no book inspires me more then this one. the Army builder is great fun, make a photo copy the army builder and tell him to build a force he wants, and he'll drool to death. I don't know what it is, but the army builder is so fun, while it can never take the place of real OOBs from history there is something inspiering to paint to the army builder lists.

Top 5 reasons to buy this rulebook
1. Fun yet Napoleoinc in style,
2. perfect for demo games and getting people into the period.
3. Army builder
4. Slightly diffrent from other rules, which is a refreshing thing.
5. Easy to learn.

My Idea for some fast and short rules

Ok, in these rules I want to make rules that don't need that many figures from 100 to 200 pr side. in 1:10 scale, to do this I want to make a brigade game, that is you only use a single brigade.

Th rules will first be for ACW but will then be adapted for Napoleoincs.

I choose ACW because of sevral reasons, 1, less cavarly, so while you might feel you are missing out on napoleonics when you can only fight with an all infantry brigade, that is, you are missing the cavarly option, since cavalry rearly was an option in ACW you won't feel it's missing in all infantry battles. Another reason is smaller battalions/regiments but more of then in a brigade, while a Napoleonic brigade might only have 2 battalions, a ACW brigde might have 5, 6 or even 7 smaller regiments, this gives you sevral options in the game, want to field a brigade of 4 or 5 regiments that are quite big, or a brigade of 6 or 7 smaller regiments. At 1:10 a ACW regiment might in theory be a 100 figures, but I'm quite sure that less then 500 is more the avrage, But at 1:10 most units will probebly be over 30 figures, with 36 or bigger quite normal, Also I want of table artillery(and on table) With ACW artillery with a effective range of a mile, the brigade might only see the smoke from the battery in the distance, so you can speed up or slow down battles by adding more or less off table artillery, or use it as a handicap, since the game is small, it's supose to be a sort of entry level game, just slightly more compilcated then kids throwing rocks at green army men. So mabye you 6 or 7 year old son or daughter wants to play, then lett them get of table artillery to give them a leg up.

There will be two game types, battle, this is basicly a zoomed in part of a bigger battle, here you may have off table artillery and on table artillery, here the basics are only to beat the enemy, kill them all ect.
The second is advance guard, this can bee a flying column thing, mabye a brigade of cavarly with a couple of guns, or the first columns of close order infantry, here you have an objective, hold or cut the enemy of from the road ect, Here you can only use on table artillery.

The game is made for all scales but since you only got a few 100 figures, bigger scales will probebly look more impressive, but if you only got a 2x2 table, you can do it in 6mm with a 3x3 you can do it with 10mm, you get the point. Here you can do it as complicated or as simple as you want, letting your son use unpinted soft plastic figures or extremly detailed 54mm figures.
You can throw a green blanket on the floor and play there, or make a extremly wonderfully detailed table for a demo or show game at the club.
The aim if the rules will be simple, and fast, I hope to get a full battle with 200 figures on each side to last only 90 minutes, a kind of, lets do a short bad game instead of watching a bad 90min comedy.

The big problem will be to get the game to be actualy fun, just lineing them up side to side and march on and throw dice to see who wins isn't fun, I have to make some sort of command and control system to make it fun, or get something realy fun to do with the combat to make it new and fun.

First half finished draft of my Texan war of independence

These rules are for 6mm and 10mm in 1:1 and 1:2, in one battle you could do it at 1:1 in another 1:2.
Now this means that units are BIG, Mexican battalion seem to have been under strength but still almost 300 soldiers, the rules will also blend big battle with skirmish battle.
I personaly hope to do the battle of the alamo in 1:1

Take a look if you want.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/38142600/Republic-I-Like-the-Sound-of-That

Just Some numbers for my AWI rules

Ok, here is a few Numbers from my rules

Tools,
Single D6 pr. side
Mesuring tape

Unit
Company/Battalion or cavalry regiment
Each unit is from 1-5 bases big, each infantry base is roughly 80 men, and each cavalry base is roughly 50 men.
Each unit has from 2-5 point(not conected to number of bases)

Time span 1 turn ca. 10 minutes +-
Game time as many turns it needs

Ground scale 9cm/3.5" 100 Yards

Game sequence
Rate units(should be based on historic quality of the units)

2 points = bad milita
3 points = god milita regular continental
4 points basic german/british and good coninental
5 Points Elite units

Decide the first initiative
Though a D6

1-3 American side starts
4-6 Britsh side starts

Starting player Moves his units

Second initiative roll
1-3 American initiative
3-6 British initiative

Charge or Shoot

Fireing

Mele

End of turn
-----------------------------------
Movment
Infantry movment 18cm pr. turn
Cavalry 30cm pr. turn
Artillery 12cm, limberd 4cm man hanhandeld

Fire ranges

Muskets ranges
Extreme range 15cm
Regular Range 10cm
Close range 5cm

Artillery Ranges
Regular range 65cm
Canister range 25cm

Fire modefiers muskets
-1 for single base units
-1 for extreme range
- 1 for heavy woods and if target is behind wooden frences
-2 if target is behind a stone wall

+1 for close range
+1 For units with 3 or more bases

Casualties from musket fire
Though a sinlge D6 and add or subtract modefiers
1. Negleteble casualties
2. light casualties
3. light casualties
4. Light causualties
5 Meduim Casualties
6. Meduim casualties
7. Extreme casualties

1: No points taken, no effect, no mater how many times a unit get this, it has no effect.
2-4: Only a few men hit, mabye no deaths, when a unit gets light casualties 3 times, they gain one point.
5-6: medium casualties, a unit that gets this will gain 1 point
7: gets 2 point

Damige Table
Long range
1-3 miss
4-6 Hit
Hit equals 1 point gained

Damige table for Canister
1-2 Miss
3-5 Medium casualties
6 Heavy casualties

Medium casualties equals 1 point gained
Heavy equals 2 point gained



Mele modefiers
+1 for cavalry

-1 for heavy woods
-1 attacks over fences and walls

Mele damige add modefiers and though a D6 each
Score diffrence of 1 loser takes 1 point
Score diffrence of 2-3 loser takes 2 points
Score diffrence of 4 or more loser takes 3 ponits


Ok, this is just the playsheet
I've left out all the exampels and longer descriptions, this is just to let people get a taste

216 figures in one day

Jupp 216 figs, in 4 Battalions


Infact I've finished my first brigade(minus brigade commander)'
3 Milita battalions(realy two battalions, and a collection of county milita companies)
This is Eaton's North Carolnia Milita, I did them all in hunting shirts.

This is Warren county milita, I tried to give them a little uniformaty, mostly continental blue hunting shirts, mostly with tricornes but some slouch hats.
Not sure how historic it is to have such uniformatiy, but hey, I have to paint 17 milita battalion pluss another 10+ coys, so I have to do someting to make it intresting, can't have EVERY body in dull brown huntingshirts.


Franklin county milita battalion and a collection of loose coys made into a ad hoc battlion

Close up of Franklin county milita

But I do need some one to fight the ungreatfull rebs

So here comes the 71st Highlanders

And yes, I'm fully aware that they didn't have kilts for mest of the war and sertenly not by Gulidford, and when I did the same battle in 28mm I did the right thing and made them look like regular infantry of the southern theater.

But hey, it's 6mm and I have to paint 500 Britsh, and I found when doing brits in 28mm, it got very uniform and boring, and then I only had to paint 120 of them. So judge me if you want.

Total figs 216 figs, 144 Americans in three "battalions"

And 72 Britsh.



Now I'm working on a custom rule set, I have writen down some stuff I want, and I'm working on a morale/damige system.

Basicly each base is 80 solders(24 figs) This means there realy isn't a fig ratio. the base is 80 solders and you realy can have as few or many figs on them as you please. This is a bit abstracted, For two reasons. 1 80 figs is about twice what a real coy would have and you would ofcourse have more then 2-4 coys pr. battalion. So yes a bit abstracted, but it is to make handeling units easier, and to acount for loose coys like grenadier coys or light coys or rifle coys.

But hopefully it will work out, it is a compremise between coys of battlions and coys of single units like grendiers or rifles. Which is one of my main goals of the rules, to have single coys moving and intreacting with other units.

Anyway, this is what I did today. Started at 13:00 finsihed around 21:30 this is with lunch and dinner, and internet surfeing, so probebly only around 6 hours of realy painting, So about 1.5 minutes pr. fig.

I'm not that satisfied with the reb, not realy because of the speed of painting, but because I just couldn't get the straps right, the paint was to thing spilling out, the straps weren't smooth so you could't make lean lines on them.

The Highlanders truned out ok, the kilts were a little basic, I tried to drybrush blue over green but it just turned the kilts blue.