The Grand Tactical Game - First Draft

With a bit of luck, you should find the first draft of MEP here.

If it looks surprisingly polished for a draft, that is illusory, and is entirely because it is a cut-&-stitch lash-up from the rules of my main game. This is very much "warts and all" at this stage - the Command section is missing, as are a few other bits and pieces - what is here is a collection of the main combat and morale mechanisms, plus movement rules.

In a few days I'll set out some examples of how combat and skirmishing work, with pictures, which should help things make a little more sense. Please bear in mind that this early version has not been written for publication - this is really just my own notes.

My PV points system gives a kind of amalgam of troop quality and numerical strength - it is, so to speak, an Effectiveness measure. When a Unit loses a point from its PV, it doesn't necessarily mean that a complete battalion has been wiped out, it just means that the Unit (brigade) is now a bit less effective than it was. If artillery fires on a Unit and does not cause any PV loss, it doesn't mean that they managed a complete miss - it simply means that the overall impact of the losses suffered and the loss of confidence has had very little effect.

If you do have a look at this lot, I hope you find it interesting, but please prepare to be underwhelmed at this stage. I will, of course, be pleased to receive any comments. In particular, if the download doesn't work, or you can't find or read the file, please let me know.

My intention is to update this draft as I incorporate changes and add missing bits, so the downloadable file will evolve with time (i.e. I'm not storing a version history online!).