What was the last ruleset you played 2017?

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

1) What ruleset do you use in your last game? - 2 games of MeG and 1 of Quartermaster General
2) What armies were confronted? - Picts vs Abbysids, the Picts vs Tagmatic Byzantines, the Allies vs Axis
3) Did you feel comfortable with the ruleset? - yes, yes, no
4) and... was this the first time you used this ruleset? - no, no, yes
5) How many players were in the game? - two, two, three
15-3, 0-15, small loss!

[paulr]

You have been busy

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

1) What ruleset do you use in your last game? - 2nd day of MeG competition, so two more games.
2) What armies were confronted? - my Picts vs Dynastic African Arab dynasties and the my own Romans!
3) Did you feel comfortable with the ruleset? - yes
4) and... was this the first time you used this ruleset? - given that I had played Saturday...
5) How many players were in the game? - two each.

Hard slog ve African Arabs, 8-10 draw as we timed out. Vs my own Romans (1400 Pendraken figures on table) I was slaughtered 4-15!
Came 12/16 overall with an army not designed to win, but had a great time.

[pierre the shy]

1) What ruleset do you use in your last game? - Baroque
2) What armies were confronted? - Covenant vs Montrose
3) Did you feel comfortable with the ruleset? - towards the end of the game, yes.
4) and... was this the first time you used this ruleset? - Yes
5) How many players were in the game? - two

After many years of largely passive interest in the Scots part of the larger Civil War I finally took the plunge last Christmas and, inspired by DGuy's blog, invested in a set of Baroque rules. Today I was finally able to play my first test game, a refight of the Battle of Inverlochy, on Paul R's kitchen table. I played the Covenant side while Paul ran Montrose's forces.

While the historic outcome was not seriously challenged (Montrose eventually sweeping the Covenant forces from the field), the clan Maclean did manage to see off MacColla's bodyguard before themselves being dispersed by a adverse cohesion test and the Campbell levies from Innerea broke the somewhat rash charge of Sir Thomas Ogilvie's troop of horse (the only cavalry in the scenario) as they tried to outflank the Covenant right flank.
   
Overall a very enjoyable afternoon's gaming. We both learnt a lot and were impressed enough with the rules to agree to a further game using them sometime in the near future set South of the border......hopefully Sir Arthur Hasilrigg's Regiment of Horse will show up for that one


     

   

[Hwiccee]

1) What ruleset do you use in your last game? - Twilight of the Sun King
2) What armies were confronted? - French vs Confederate NYW
3) Did you feel comfortable with the ruleset? - Yes.
4) and... was this the first time you used this ruleset? - No but first game for one player.
5) How many players were in the game? - two

The game was a smaller game to introduce the rules to one of the players. The 2 armies were generic NYW armies.

It was a great game and went down to the wire. The French attacked on both wings as their cavalry were superior in quality, meanwhile their infantry moved up to support the wings but didn't press the attack. The Confederate player realised that his infantry had the advantage so attacked in the centre. To cut a long story short the French broke their opponents right and left and in the centre the French infantry broke. This meant the Confederates had to take army morale tests while they reorganised to counter the French cavalry. With both wings gone it was not long before they failed the test.




The game went well and the new player soon picked up the game. The French exploited their superior cavalry and command to get victory.

Here are a few not very good shots.

[d_Guy]

A good looking game in a lovely period. Thanks for posting the pics.

Incidently, as sometimes (often?)  happens, I miss threads on the forum. I had been quite taken with your 2mm efforts and completely missed the post where you had them set up to do Breitenfeld. Absolutely like the look of them, so much so here is a link (I found on forum search) to those pictures in case others missed them:

http://www.pendrakenforum.co.uk/index.php/topic,15115.msg222964.html#msg222964

[Hwiccee]

A good looking game in a lovely period. Thanks for posting the pics.

Incidently, as sometimes (often?)  happens, I miss threads on the forum. I had been quite taken with your 2mm efforts and completely missed the post where you had them set up to do Breitenfeld. Absolutely like the look of them, so much so here is a link (I found on forum search) to those pictures in case others missed them:

http://www.pendrakenforum.co.uk/index.php/topic,15115.msg222964.html#msg222964

Thanks for both mentions. As you might have seen the plan is to work on a TYW/ECW version of the Twilight rules after the 2nd scenario booklet is done. Just finishing that off now so hopefully more TYW/ECW action soon.

[paulr]

1) What ruleset do you use in your last game? - Baroque
2) What armies were confronted? - Covenant vs Montrose
3) Did you feel comfortable with the ruleset? - towards the end of the game, yes.
4) and... was this the first time you used this ruleset? - Yes
5) How many players were in the game? - two

After many years of largely passive interest in the Scots part of the larger Civil War I finally took the plunge last Christmas and, inspired by DGuy's blog, invested in a set of Baroque rules. Today I was finally able to play my first test game, a refight of the Battle of Inverlochy, on Paul R's kitchen table. I played the Covenant side while Paul ran Montrose's forces.

While the historic outcome was not seriously challenged (Montrose eventually sweeping the Covenant forces from the field), the clan Maclean did manage to see off MacColla's bodyguard before themselves being dispersed by a adverse cohesion test and the Campbell levies from Innerea broke the somewhat rash charge of Sir Thomas Ogilvie's troop of horse (the only cavalry in the scenario) as they tried to outflank the Covenant right flank.
   
Overall a very enjoyable afternoon's gaming. We both learnt a lot and were impressed enough with the rules to agree to a further game using them sometime in the near future set South of the border......hopefully Sir Arthur Hasilrigg's Regiment of Horse will show up for that one  

An interesting and enjoyable game

I am curious how experienced Baroque players feel about the Cohesion test, it appears that a single bad roll can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. MacColla's bodyguard scored 4 hits to 2 but failed the cohesion test badly...

[toxicpixie]

Dashed themselves to pieces, exhausted, and were easy prey to a controlled and measured envelopment! I think there's a bit in the writers notes for Impetus that explicitly mentions this as being a conceptual issue for some players, so you're not alone. It it's not something we've ever seen as a "problem". It's just a feature of how the rules work - the cohesion test is the important bit not the amount of shouting over a few minutes - do you keep your nerve and just face them down or do you crumble and run.

Some good games there - Twilight and Baroque both

[d_Guy]

@ Pierre - thanks for the blog mention  . Glad you came out to "the Fringe" and hopefully you'll keep experimenting with Baroque.
Incidently if Clan Maclean took out MacColla it means they quite perfidiously went over to the Campbells!    

An interesting and enjoyable game

I am curious how experienced Baroque players feel about the Cohesion test, it appears that a single bad roll can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. MacColla's bodyguard scored 4 hits to 2 but failed the cohesion test badly... :-

Pixie gave the essential answer, I think. The CT is one of several play mechanisms I like in Baroque. Conceptually it is like some naval Wargames where you can have great gunnery, score many hits, only to have them bounce of the armor belt or take out non-essential things.
Somewhere I think the rules say that it is useful to think of "hits" as just one of possibly several modifiers to the CT.

I think what makes play interesting is you are at first trying to disorganize opposing units (and keep them disorganized). Even if you score no permanent damage a hit does disorganize the target and if you disorganize an already disorganized unit you do score a permanat damage - even if that unit passed the CT. The more units you disorganize the less your opponent can do and the easier it becomes to impose your will.

So the short  answer is - I like the CT.

[paulr]

Thanks for the responses toxicpixie and d_Guy, I suspect this is one of the features that will take some "selling" to our group

[Westmarcher]

.. the cohesion test is the important bit not the amount of shouting over a few minutes - do you keep your nerve and just face them down or do you crumble and run.

Interesting feature about the rules there, Nathan. Do your games have many hoarse units in them? 

[toxicpixie]

Sometimes

Usually if the noisy table behind us is too noisy, then the CinC and commanders go hoarse

But in that case, "shouting" used as a placeholder for "that turns allotted time's worth of push and shove in the mud, with every one shouting a lot and stabbing a bit and grinding back and forth until you reach a point where one side or both or neither actually break or start to break"

The cohesion test over time will generally reflect the average results on number of hits caused in melee/shooting, but there's always a possibility of a bad roll or especially good roll coming up. Much like real life, some cling on despite the odds, others fold when they should call. Whether it be rolling masses of hits and then wounds but your opponent then saves them all in a Warhammer-esq game, or racking up the firepower to a stupidly high column in F&F then throwing snake eyes, there's a space for chance and hope. Otherwise we'd just be playing chess

[pierre the shy]

Opps......better make that Campbell of Lochnell fighting MacColla, not the Macleans I was cut and pasting Covenant and Royalist army lists and forgot to change Clan Maclean to Campbell of Lochnell    

Anyway thanks for the encouragement d_Guy and Pixie and the explanation of temporary v permanent hits etc  .

While I am here can I ask one further question as I think I got a bit confused about massed units....am I correct in thinking that a individual infantry stand (such as Highland Warband) can count as Massed (so moves as a slow unit but can have a Melee Modifier of between 1 and 3 depending on the army list?). Massed cavalry, such as Massed Reiters, on the other hand, need to have front and rear rank stands to count as Massed?

Cheers
Peter

[toxicpixie]

I'd though "Massed" just meant "Massed" - it's a single, over sized base representing a lot more blokes shoved in together whether infantry or cavalry?

I'd have to actually check, it's ages now since I played Baroque (I'd rectify that if I had time and opportunity, but I also just got a copy of L'Art de la Guerre for my birthday, and have been trying to play Twilight of the Sun King and BBB, so... ), but you could check the Impetus forums to be sure...