Hielan' Coos - and the Ramekin

Moo!

First off, I must wish everyone a happy and comfortable Christmas - all the very best to you and yours. Here's a suitably frozen picture of some Scottish cattle. Tourist stuff, but cute.

I also thought I'd take the opportunity to put out the current draft of my Ramekin add-on for Commands & Colors: Napoleonics. In truth, "add-on" is not ideal phrasing, since the Ramekin game is a simplification. As I attempt to explain in the note, this is not intended to replace C&CN, it is merely a variation to cope with games where the left/centre/right section cards are not appropriate, or where the battle requires a lot of preliminary movement to develop the armies, or where the game is so large that some streamlining of the activation system helps to push it along. What I have is still a working draft, so it will certainly change further, but a number of people have asked me about it.

Replacement of the Command Cards with a dice-based activation system feels a bit like a sell-out, and I had all sorts of ideas for making the dice system very scientific, possibly utilising the army structure - the Tempo Points system from Polemos' General de Division was a likely candidate (I've always liked that) - but in the end I decided simple is good, at least for starting with, so the system at present may be described as crude-but-fast. This may get improved a bit as I build some more experience, but it gets me up and running.

The scaling-back of the effect of ranged musketry is an experiment. I am keen not to destroy the balance of the game, but, as published in C&CN, musket fire at 2-hex range is about as effective as melee combat, which has always bothered me rather. Let's see how we get on with this. I've had a great many games where attacks get shot to pieces before the attackers can even get to close range - that doesn't seem to correspond completely with history. Anyway, let's see how I get on with the tweak. If I can get the changed version of Google Drive to work, you should find the note here.

If you'd like to discuss the Ramekin, or make suggestions, or share you own experiences with it, please get in touch, but if you think it sucks then please keep it to yourself! Also, before anyone asks, I have no intention of publishing or maintaining a set of scenarios for Ramekin!

Have an excellent holiday, everyone.