What was the last ruleset you played 2017?

[toxicpixie]

Insert Quote
1) What ruleset do you use in your last game? - Twilight of the SUn King
2) What armies were confronted? - 1690's ish French versus 1690'ish Coalition
3) Did you feel comfortable with the ruleset? - Yes, mostly
4) and... was this the first time you used this ruleset? - First "real" game
5) How many players were in the game? - 4

Hwicce came up to my Sisters board game day in Wolves and we stole a table or two, and he ran us through a Twiglet scenario. Vaguely 1690's ish "I can't believe it's not Marsaglia" armies with exact quality decided semi-randomly  .

A glorious victory for the glorious one true despot, as I stove in the steenky Coalition flanks (or rendered them useless by drawing them off by bravely routing away from them ), then attacked their allegedly "better" infantry  massed up at the decision point by drawing their reserves and supports out to try and hold the line, and punched through them with the Gardes Francois and Vieux Bands. Only a few battalia of the enemy managed to limp off in anything like a semblance of order.

Nice set of rules, just have to make sure I nail the unconventional turn sequence to the inside of my eye lids.

Player 1 turn goes -
1/ Player 2 assigns targets for his arty - this makes Player 1's movement harder and enough forces a...
2/ Player 1 makes morale checks - for being under enough/close range arty, musket fire, being in contact, threatened by cavalry without him having a secure flank
3/ Player 1 makes his moves

And onto player 2's turn.

There's no separate fire & melee phases - thats replaced by the morale checks to see if you keep your nerve; so you move into musketry range or charge to contact, then the following the turn the enemy have to take a test to see if they hold firm, each fail meaning a loss of cohesion until they break - or you do, as now you're in contact/musketry range YOU will be testing on your turn. Support is crucial - a second or third line and reserves are not just "nice" (or as in some games, pointless), but are "baked in" vital to the whole game structure and unless you're vastly superior and can grind the enemy down you have to force them to thin out and spread out and use those supporting units elsewhere until you can punch through (or thin them down enough they can't keep up an attack).

It works really well, it's dead simple in practise, but it's sort of opposite to thirty years of deeply ingrained wargames assumptions, so have to make a conscious effort to not fall into doing it the wrong way round, as it were

[paulr]

Certainly an interesting approach

[toxicpixie]

It works very well, and I suspect people who haven't had I Go- You Go move/fire/morale drummed into them wouldn't have any cognitive trip ups

You have to put pressure on the enemy, and keep it on. And pile it on until they crack. BUT if they're well supported with a second line, and secure flanks, you're going to find it hard. So you have to try and thin them out so their support has to deal with other things, or get better units with just as good support innso you can crack the line AND have a reserve you can rotate in to exploit that.

As a defender you need to secure your flanks and keep enough length you can't get ganged up on or spread out so you can keep your front line supported and rotate a fresh unit in as needed whilst not losing on the flanks (or winning so well you get drawn out of position allowing a gal the attacker can exploit!).

It felt right, looked nice, played well

[T13A]

Hi

1) What ruleset do you use in your last game? - Honours of War
2) What armies were confronted? - French v Allies (Hanoverians/Hessians)
3) Did you feel comfortable with the ruleset? - Well it was the first time against an opponent and one who had not tried the rules before, but mostly yes
4) and... was this the first time you used this ruleset? - see above!
5) How many players were in the game? - 2

Rules seem to flow very well but was extremely bloody with units from each side disappearing in a blaze of musketry and canister over a couple of turns.

Cheers Paul

[Steve J]

Rules seem to flow very well but was extremely bloody with units from each side disappearing in a blaze of musketry and canister over a couple of turns.

The secret is knowing when (if the die Gods allow it) to move your front line to the rear to reform (thereby regaining hits), with those being replaced by the second line or reserve. Can be quite tricky from experience, especially if playing Austrians or other Armies with low grade troops. Still ,love the rules and my favourite set for the SYW bar none.

[Leman]

Agree with the above.  Absolutely vital to pull troops back to regain strength, but I find I'll often risk two losses and prepare to pull out next go but then my opponent gets a lucky three further hits and my unit disappears.

[Hwiccee]

Insert Quote
1) What ruleset do you use in your last game? - Twilight of the SUn King
2) What armies were confronted? - 1690's ish French versus 1690'ish Coalition
3) Did you feel comfortable with the ruleset? - Yes, mostly
4) and... was this the first time you used this ruleset? - First "real" game
5) How many players were in the game? - 4

Hwicce came up to my Sisters board game day in Wolves and we stole a table or two, and he ran us through a Twiglet scenario. Vaguely 1690's ish "I can't believe it's not Marsaglia" armies with exact quality decided semi-randomly  .

Thank you for inviting me. It was a good game and a pleasure to play with a nice group if people. I must also say I thought the larger group were notable. I am not sure how many there were but I guess 20 plus, maybe 30. But the thing that was nice was that at least half and possibly 2/3rds were ladies and children. Really nice to see and a credit to Toxic's sister who I think organise it.

On the system it is a little counter intuitive with the lack of fire/combat phases but works well and allows larger game to be played easily.

[toxicpixie]

She does, yes, alongside my brother in law! They're sort of handing off to the vicar, as he wants to make it monthly instead of quarterly

They had 39 people through the doors all told, and a good spread of age and sex - very different from the "wargames con scene", although to be fair that's changing slowly. We were the only wargame, as it's technically a "boardgame" group, but lots of people wandered over to watch and sounded impressed. Glad I made new tree's for it

[Hwiccee]

1) What ruleset do you use in your last game? - Twilight of Divine Right (version of the Sun King rules for 1618-60)
2) What armies were confronted? - Battle of Naseby, 1645 - Royalists vs Parliament
3) Did you feel comfortable with the ruleset? - Yes
4) and... was this the first time you used this ruleset? - The rules are being tested on potential scenarios, also under test to some extent.
5) How many players were in the game? - 2

The start of the testing procedure on scenarios for upcoming publication. In theory also of the rules but for the ECW this is not really needed now. Both players have played Twilight of the Sun King but not this variant. The game went well, it took 3 hours, but it resulted in a few tweaks to the scenario.

[Womble67]

1) What ruleset do you use in your last game? - Black Powder
2) What armies were confronted? - British v Rebels
3) Did you feel comfortable with the ruleset? - Yes
4) and... was this the first time you used this ruleset? - No
5) How many players were in the game? - 4

4 Sep 2017, AWI, Club


1) What ruleset do you use in your last game? - Black Powder
2) What armies were confronted? - British v Rebels
3) Did you feel comfortable with the ruleset? - Yes
4) and... was this the first time you used this ruleset? - No
5) How many players were in the game? - 4

11 Sep 2017, AWI, Club

Take care

Andy

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Looking great sir

[Womble67]

Looking great sir

Thanks Will

Take care

Andy

[Leman]

1. BBB

2. French Imperial v Prussian

3. Very comfortable - One of the best sets for playing C19th

4. Battle ended in a draw (answer to a new question for ML)

5. Two players

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Question 4: yay!

[d_Guy]

1) What ruleset did you use in your last game? - For King and Parliament (newest draft).
2) What armies were confronted? - Early war Royalist v. Parliamentarian.
3) Did you feel comfortable with the ruleset? - Marginally yes - had played To the Stongest before.
4) and... was this the first time you used this ruleset? - Yes
5) How many players were in the game? - Counting myself - one.

These are going to be some fun, fast play rules!