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| A 19th Century Imagi-Nations |
I always seem to be surprised how time consuming it is to write rules up and still after a few readings still find typo's and poor wording. I always got the "tried hard, but could do better" on my English marks at school. Anyway, here are some of the rule mechanisms I ended up adding were:
1) Not having cover influence the combat mechanism. Instead units are able to sustain a greater number of hits before being eliminated when positioned in cover. I used this approach with the AWI variant and quite liked it. As it means when committing a unit to defend a wood or building, they will invariably remain there defending once they start to sustain hits.
2) Adding variable movement. If combat is variable, there seems no reason why movement should not be. This did cause the rules to be free movement rather than grid-based. Not having a unit activation mechanism also cause me to use variations in unit movement.
3) Artillery is used to disrupt units, making it more likely for attacking units to score hits on the disrupted defenders. This means artillery is used more to support an attack, rather than sitting back and blasting the opposing units from a distance. The idea came from the “Waterloo a la Carte!” Napoleonic game found on the blog http://flagsofvictory.blogspot.com.au which has a number of rulesets/games.
4) Units are either in march (movement) formation or committed to a battle formation when engaged in combat. Units are easily deployed into battle formations without penalty, but cannot move until they change back to a march formation (which carries a penalty). Players need to consider having nearby reserves with which to exploit opportunities.
On the painting front I am slowly chipping away at my Napoleonic units. With the better weather slowing arriving I am now losing my painting time to gardening (not quite as enjoyable - but probably better for me).
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| Some very Austrian looking units recently completed. All miniatures are from the old plastic Spencer Smith Napoleonic range |
Peter, nicely rounded rules.
ReplyDeleteI like that the variation in movement is fixed to 3", that is administratively helpful, it seems common for rules that use variation to run it straight off a die roll, so that variable inches result, which can be a pain.
For your variable movement sub-system, you can get dice from the internet that have two sides showing a minus, two sides showing a plus and 2 sides that are blank (for no change). This sort of variable die is such a useful device in games, that I think they are worth getting.
Anyway, an enjoyable series.
Thanks for the tip on the dice. I have had a look at a few online stores and found them. Cheers.
DeleteNorm, I have not seen +/- dice. That is an interesting idea and application you propose.
DeleteWriting is work. Writing well is very hard work. Writing comprehensive and comprehensible rules is a daunting task.
ReplyDeleteVery few rules I have used have a variable movement mechanism. Much more common to see variable movement embedded in the retreat/rout/pursue processes. Variable move does add an extra jolt of tension, though.
The notion of artillery supporting an attack as a disrupter, I like. Does defending artillery tend to only disrupt an attack of devastate it?
Some good thoughts in here.
Thanks. Artillery can attack if a target unit is within 12" rather than disrupt. As a solo gamer I am enjoying the variable movement which adds a level of unpredictability. Even when it is at the expense of using a gridded tabletop.
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