Wednesday 17 February 2021

A few ECW games and Ancients painting

This past weekend I continued to tinker with some English Civil War rule mechanisms. Having settled on the sequence of play using cards as discussed two posts previous, other rules were added for unit disorder, and impetuous Horse units. These were tested in a few quick games using a 4 x 4 foot tabletop setup with 8 units per side.

A small game underway

Mid-game on a 4x4 tabletop setup

The rules changes appear to add the effects on the game that I wanted, and I now have to write up these changes. The gist of the changes are:

Units are tested for disorder after taking hits. On a 5 or 6 they become disordered and cannot move the following turn. All units entering into hand to hand combat become disordered and cannot move in the turn after hand to hand combat has come to a conclusion with one side eliminated. 

I have yet to try introducing unit quality, where inexperienced unit are disordered on 4, 5, or 6 and veteran units only on a 6.

All Horse units after winning a hand to hand combat engagement must dice to see if they are impulsive and charge off. On a 4+ they are removed from play, but are not considered eliminated for victory conditions, otherwise they remain disordered. Unit quality can also come into play here with well disciplined units only charging off after a 5+.

Roman units completed so far.

On the painting side of the hobby, I am still getting a couple of Roman units painted each week for my venture into the Ancients period. Eleven units have been completed to date with a further two on the painting table at various stages of completion. The Carthaginian army is all but complete and I may get my first game in late March or April.

6 comments:

  1. the 4x4 looks good, looking forwards to your first full showing with the armies, nice to see a project coming to fruition.

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    1. It is always good when you start to see the end of a project in sight. Then the mind starts to wonder as to what the next project will be.

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  2. The game looks nice on a 4' x 4' table and the rules changes seem sensible to me. Good to see you making progress on the Ancients project too:)

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    1. Thank you. I quite enjoy playing on the smaller table as you can spend a little more effort on the scenery.

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  3. Good to see the rules developing through play.
    The Romans look excellent.

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    1. It takes a while to test the rules, as I often just make one rule change at a time when testing them out.

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