Would like some feedback on a fastplay 10mm ACW set

[Jase]

Hello,

For a project I'm working on I needed a ruleset for grand, sweeping 10mm ACW battles, using my own basing system. So, I wrote this ruleset. Tonight I've collected all my notes I had on this and put them in a single document. I present the first draft to you here, because I would like to have some feedback on it.

The file can be downloaded here: Click (it's from my own personal website).

The design concept was to have an easy to learn (players must be able to grasp the basics in about 10 minutes) and fast-playing game, which doesn't really focus on the individual soldier, but more on the overall army tactics.

As of yet, it doesn't have a name (any suggestions for that would be welcome as well ). It is designed specifically for ACW (in 6 months time I have a 10mm ACW fest with some friends), but I'm thinking of branching out in other periods as well.

All feedback and suggestions for improvement are welcome!

Cheers and thanks!
Jase

[nikharwood]

Printed & ready for reading...will come back to you Jase once I've given them the proper once-over [& hopefully bunged some dice at them], but thanks for posting 

[Blaker]

Howdy Jase,

Downloaded and will give them a whirl. thanks.

[Jase]

Thanks guys! I haven't had the time to playtest myself, but will do that coming week.

[Luddite]

OK, some 'first blush' feedback.

My first question is 'why not use Fire and Fury rules'?  They're perfect.

Anyway, onto feedback...

Number of orders issued

This is subject to the turn of a card?!  So one side could consistently get 1-2 orders per turn while the thoer gets 10-12.  With no regard to the command quality of the army? 

So command and control is essentially crippling random? 

Also any force with more than 12 units will NEVER be able to issue orders to all units in the army...correct?

This seems a show-stoppingly serious flaw to me.

Advance.  Units must maintain coherency, so the gap between stands of the same unit can never be more than 5 cm. Stands can freely turn their facing during an Advance Order.

What scale is this to be played at?  What does each base represent?  1 man?  100 men? 
Each unit has coherency of 5cm?  So units don't have to form line or maintain linear coherency?
Also stands can freely maneouvre?  Well, one of the key aspects of the troops during the ACW was a fairly low quality of drill (it varied obviously) - but their capacity to move around, like most linear formations was fairly restricted.  This mobility seems more in keeping with individual man skirmish gaming.

Charge
Fair enough.  Fairly standard, if a little confused in the writing.  One thing - 'command stands are removed last'.  One of the key aspects needs to be the capacity to lose a commander.  Officer losses were extreme during the ACW...

Shoot
'place a smoke screen in front of the stands in the unit'.
Whats the rationale for this?

There's no detail here on arc of fire, target priority etc.

Defend
What's the rationale for this?  How does a unit 'defend' itself to get better 'armour' and increased morale?

Morale
While a traditional set of factors this seems extremely severe.

'If a unit of the same Command fails a MOR test and is Routed, all the other units from that Command must also make a MOR test.'

I think you'll get massive cascade failures happening.  Are there examples of such a catastrophic thing happening in ACW - certainly the earlier AWI militia units did this...

And as an aside, how do you know which units this affects?

As for direction of rout; 'towards own table edge'...what happens if that rout is blocked?

Unit types
Sharpshooters will be absolutely devastating.  Three times the range (justification?) and automatically causes routs.  One unit of skirmishing sharpshooters will take out probably entire commands of the opposition.  They weren't that effective.

Artillery canister shot shoots 50% further than rifled muskets?!?!  Justification?
Why does 'roundshot' have a blast marker?  Roundshot didn't explode.
Howitzers did fire explosives, as did some of the later rifled guns.



Just a few initial comments.

Overall, i think there's some clarity needed in the writing and some work to align these rules with how the command, troops, and weapons all operated during the ACW.

[Jase]

Hi Luddite,

Thanks for the feedback, I have quoted your post and put my response directly below it.

OK, some 'first blush' feedback.

My first question is 'why not use Fire and Fury rules'?  They're perfect.

Anyway, onto feedback...

Fire and Fury rings a very distant bell, so the reason I haven’t used is that I forgot they existed. Besides I like writing my own rules (even if they need a lot of finetuning after the first draft

Number of orders issued

This is subject to the turn of a card?!  So one side could consistently get 1-2 orders per turn while the other gets 10-12.  With no regard to the command quality of the army? 

So command and control is essentially crippling random? 

Also any force with more than 12 units will NEVER be able to issue orders to all units in the army...correct?

This seems a show-stoppingly serious flaw to me.

Theoretically yes, but since I use all the red cards for one side and all the black for the other, I think the chances that one side consistently gets more Orders is negligble (or maybe the cards have not been shuffled enough). It is true though that you can never activate all the units in your army in one turn (it is also possible to activate one unit more than once). However, the idea behind this is to replace the I GO â€" U GO turns somewhat more fluid and unpredicatable.

Advance.  Units must maintain coherency, so the gap between stands of the same unit can never be more than 5 cm. Stands can freely turn their facing during an Advance Order.

What scale is this to be played at?  What does each base represent?  1 man?  100 men? 
Each unit has coherency of 5cm?  So units don't have to form line or maintain linear coherency?
Also stands can freely maneouvre?  Well, one of the key aspects of the troops during the ACW was a fairly low quality of drill (it varied obviously) - but their capacity to move around, like most linear formations was fairly restricted.  This mobility seems more in keeping with individual man skirmish gaming.

In the case of the infantry bases, every base represents one regiment, so the entire unit (four bases) represents a Brigade (with one stand including the Brigade HQ). They do not necessarily have to maintain linear coherency, but it is recommended to do this, because it maximises their combat efficiency (in a row, only one stand can fight, while in a line, they can all fight). You are right as to the manoeuvrability of formations during the ACW, so limiting the rotation to 90° would remedy this.

Charge
Fair enough.  Fairly standard, if a little confused in the writing.  One thing - 'command stands are removed last'.  One of the key aspects needs to be the capacity to lose a commander.  Officer losses were extreme during the ACW...

True, didn’t want to complicate things with tons of extra rules, as that would only slow the game down. The idea behind removing the Command stand last as I imagined that the flag would be picked up again as soon as it fell and as such be a focus point for the entire unit. So, it’s got more to do with the flag than with the officer next to it.

Shoot
'place a smoke screen in front of the stands in the unit'.
Whats the rationale for this?

There's no detail here on arc of fire, target priority etc.

Mostly for the visual effect, but it doubles as an obscuring element as the smoke would make it more difficult to see the troops behind it. Target priority is a good point, which I shall add. As for arc of fire, it is there, although at bit obscure. Stands have a Line-of-sight, which doubles as Fire Arc, as for stands, they currently have a LoS straight in front of them, but I think I’ll change that to 90°, to have a bot more flexibility.

Defend
What's the rationale for this?  How does a unit 'defend' itself to get better 'armour' and increased morale?

How I see this is that the troops make better use of the cover that’s available to defend a certain point (eg, crossroads), the Morale boost is there to make it harder for opponents to rout them, thus making them better a defending objects and locations.

Morale
While a traditional set of factors this seems extremely severe.

'If a unit of the same Command fails a MOR test and is Routed, all the other units from that Command must also make a MOR test.'

I think you'll get massive cascade failures happening.  Are there examples of such a catastrophic thing happening in ACW - certainly the earlier AWI militia units did this...

And as an aside, how do you know which units this affects?

As for direction of rout; 'towards own table edge'...what happens if that rout is blocked?

Good point, when the route is blocked, depends by what, if there are enemy stands blocking the escape route, the unit is destroyed, if they are friendly units, the simply flee right through them.

Unit types
Sharpshooters will be absolutely devastating.  Three times the range (justification?) and automatically causes routs.  One unit of skirmishing sharpshooters will take out probably entire commands of the opposition.  They weren't that effective.

Artillery canister shot shoots 50% further than rifled muskets?!?!  Justification?
Why does 'roundshot' have a blast marker?  Roundshot didn't explode.
Howitzers did fire explosives, as did some of the later rifled guns.

True, I will have to make Sharpshooters slightly less powerful. They cannot, however, target specific Command stands or Commanders, as they are only allowed to shoot at entire units. As for the ranges (also for all the other weapons), they are all relative to eachother. I took the effective range of an infantry rifle as the start, all the other ranges are relative to that (and historically correct).
Blast Marker is probably the wrong word, what I actually mean is Impact Marker, they do not explode, but they are to indicate how heavily a unit is under fire.

Just a few initial comments.

Overall, i think there's some clarity needed in the writing and some work to align these rules with how the command, troops, and weapons all operated during the ACW.

I agree that I have to do a lot of rewriting, also to clarify things, but I hope that my responses to your feedback have helped clear up some of the decisions I have made.

By the way, I used the book Battle in the Civil War by Paddy Griffith, exstensively when I wrote these rules.

Cheers
Jase

[Luddite]

Theoretically yes, but since I use all the red cards for one side and all the black for the other, I think the chances that one side consistently gets more Orders is negligble (or maybe the cards have not been shuffled enough).

In my experience, if it can happen it will happen.

It is true though that you can never activate all the units in your army in one turn

Is that satisfactory as a game or representative of ACW battles?

However, the idea behind this is to replace the I GO â€" U GO turns somewhat more fluid and unpredicatable.

Admirable, and there are many rules that attempt this.  Aftr several decades of playing with toy soldiers i've yet to see it done well.  I'm not sure how this approach will achieve it.  Good luck though!   

In the case of the infantry bases, every base represents one regiment, so the entire unit (four bases) represents a Brigade

Ah right.  That gives a better frame of reference for feedback.
So at this scale the absolutely key aspect that needs to be modelled is command and control.
Do you think your rules do this?

They do not necessarily have to maintain linear coherency...

Indeed with a base = regiment i can see why not.

You are right as to the manoeuvrability of formations during the ACW, so limiting the rotation to 90° would remedy this.

Depends on how much time a single turn is supposed to represent i suppose (if you're matching turns to time, which seems advisable for the linear style of battle).  Wheeling an entire regiment by 90° is a very difficult thing to achieve though.

The idea behind removing the Command stand last as I imagined that the flag would be picked up again as soon as it fell and as such be a focus point for the entire unit. So, it’s got more to do with the flag than with the officer next to it.

But at 'regimental' scale, their will be many 'flags' assumed within each stand.  the flags were vital at unit level...alsmost irrelevant at regimental level - as per the thing about command and control being the focus of this scale.

Mostly for the visual effect, but it doubles as an obscuring element as the smoke would make it more difficult to see the troops behind it.

At Regimental scale?
Also, many longarms used were almost smokeless during the ACW were they not?  Not sure...

Target priority is a good point, which I shall add.

Vital i'd say, especially for artillery (who had specific orders of priority).

As for arc of fire, it is there, although at bit obscure. Stands have a Line-of-sight, which doubles as Fire Arc, as for stands, they currently have a LoS straight in front of them, but I think I’ll change that to 90°, to have a bot more flexibility.

As a personal preference i'd stick with directly forwards.  Again you're at regt level here.  You're talking about 100s of men shooting into a designated target area.  swinging arcs sem inappropriate.  That's one of my personal bugbears though...really irritates me that rules allow bodies of men to shoot out at angles, often across friendly frontages.  An absolute recipe for '(un)friendly fire' that...

How I see this is that the troops make better use of the cover that’s available to defend a certain point (eg, crossroads), the Morale boost is there to make it harder for opponents to rout them, thus making them better a defending objects and locations.

Makes sense at regt level...

As for the ranges (also for all the other weapons), they are all relative to eachother. I took the effective range of an infantry rifle as the start, all the other ranges are relative to that (and historically correct).

Well...i think there are issues matching range to distance moved by units - but you'd need to relate that to the time represented by a turn.

You've grouped all the different infantry weapons into one range band of 10cm.  LEts assume the most widely used shoulder arm, the Springfield Model 1861 rifle musket.
Effective range 400 yards, maximum range 1000yards.  Not sure which you used so lets assume 1000yards.
That fits nicely with 10cm.

But what about smoothbore muskets?  Shotguns? 

Most cavalry were issued pistols or carbines with effective ranges of around 200yards, roughly half that of the infantry.  Yet you have them shooting 10cm also.

Artillery canister shot had a range of approximately 400 yards (beyond which the shot travelled but at such a dispersed cone as to be ineffective).  Yet you have it shooting 15cm!

Seems odd.   

Blast Marker is probably the wrong word, what I actually mean is Impact Marker, they do not explode, but they are to indicate how heavily a unit is under fire.

I presume that an artillery base represents a battery, so that you have a battery shooting at a regiment.  It seems to me therefore that a template is not neccessary at this scale.

Hope this further feedback helps.

[GordonY]

Sorry but this set of rules seems to be trying to re-invent the wheel a bit. Go buy a copy of Civil War Battles from Peter Pig and save yourself all the heartache.

Gordon

[Luddite]

Sorry but this set of rules seems to be trying to re-invent the wheel a bit. Go buy a copy of Civil War Battles from Peter Pig and save yourself all the heartache.

Gordon

Indeed.

As i said, 'Fire and Fury' will pretty much do the job.  One of the best set of rules i've ever played.