Solo ECW Decision Cards

An English Civil War game underway. Recent games have doubled the number of units in the games.

Last week I reworked my solo English Civil War (ECW) decision cards so they are all of the same size and stuck them to cardboard. The cards are still structured with the Army Stance card that determines at the start of each player’s turn whether an army is attacking, holding a position, or retiring. The tactical cards cover combat tactics depending upon the Army Stance chosen and prioritise unit movement.

The updated cards have been stuck onto card. A closer look shows a few scribbles as I continue to refine the cards.

So far, the decision cards seem to be working well when both armies are directed using the cards, decision tables versus decision tables so to speak. This approach helped to speed up the testing of the decision cards. The next stage involves playing a few more games in which I, as the solo wargamer, will be playing against an army directed by the decision tables.

A game in progress where movement for both sides is being determined by the decision cards. 

Initially, I when began experimenting with using decision cards it was with smaller armies consisting of 6 to 8 units, where the number of units allowed to move was based on a D3 dice score. My aim is to be able to use decision cards with armies of any size, an ideal size for me being 12-15 units. To achieve this, I have used an approach that permits up to half of the army to move, ignoring artillery units and rounding down any fractions, rather than relying on a variable number determined by the dice.

The Army Stance decision card now includes some variables based upon the commanders characteristics.

After reading through the suggestions and ideas in the comments from my last post on decision cards, another modification was made. This involved the inclusion of variables in the "army stance" decision table to represent the commander's nature, whether it be aggressive, passive, or balanced. If someone can come up with a better term that “average” or “balanced” in the comments that would be most useful.

The Attack tactical card has the most instructions.

A added a few pictures of the period to the cards to help jazz them a bit.

There are still a few adjustments to most cards.

As I play a few more games using these cards my focus will be to try and make the instructions as clear and simple as possible. I also plan to make another couple of additional cards. The first will be one covering the decisions on the prioritisation of targets for shooting and melee. This will allow me to do priority by unit type and remove the target prioritisation from the rules. The other card, Deployment, will be used at the start of the game and will determine the deployment of troops to the centre and flanks.

This sketch shows how the deployment and shooting/melee priority cards will fit in.

Finally another photo of the game towards the end.