A lot to do, but this is a definite step forward, I think. It amuses me to claim that the rules are tried and tested - they are, in the sense that the morale rules mostly come from Charlie Wesencraft, the turn sequence from WRG 1685-1845, the combat rules are based on Neil Thomas (by way of Old Trousers' hexification experiments thereupon), the idea of a single number for unit effectiveness comes from Howard Whitehouse (and, I suppose, from Avalon Hill), the activation rules come from my Ramekin game, the movement and manoeuvre rules come from a computer-driven rule-set called Élan which I used successfully for solo games some years ago...
You get the idea, the only thing which is completely new in this recipe is the combination, and how many teaspoons of each. Anyway - so far so good. Some simplifications are needed, but I'm pleased - I'll carry on with this, and get on with refurbing the armies.
Sounds like you are making good progress, Tony! I employ Howard Whitehouse's notion of Combat Effectiveness in a number of the rules I wrote and use. CE is an elegant mechanism for assessing, (you guessed it!), combat effectiveness.
ReplyDeleteElegant - not only that, but even I can understand it. I was recently reading a set of rules which broke down the CE concept into training, confidence, leadership and various other dimensions. I'm sure this is very scientific, but it occurs to me that the whole lot can be boiled down into a single number without losing a lot of precision - if a unit loses a combat and goes down a CE point then they may be shot up, fed up or messed up, in various proportions, but the overall effect is simpler than that!
DeleteHow's the leg coming on, Old Chap?
The leg is still attached. I find out Thursday if after three weeks it is mending properly. It’s a damn nuisance especially with two flights of stairs in the house.
DeleteGood to see you getting the new toys out on the table with home made rules already Tony. Are you finding it’s giving you a different period flavour to your Naps and ECW games or is it too early to tell?
ReplyDeleteProbably too early to tell really - I went for the WSS rather than later 18th C warfare because it is further from Napoleonic - I have to watch it doesn't get too close to ECW now! The big appeal, apart from the novelty and the visuals, is that the warfare at this moment in history (with all possible respect to everything which has gone before, and to those who died and suffered - including gamers) seems almost to have been designed to make a simple/logical game - no light troops, no pikes, no hedgehogs (so as you would notice) - my next objective (apart from painting) is to develop a game which flows nicely, without getting bogged down in procedures - early draft from basic principles had far too many morale tests (yes, I did this!) so I've cut that down a lot. It'll take some time, but hope to have some decent games running by the end of the year at latest. I've deliberately made the basing and organisation suitable for various "real" rule sets - Beneath the Lily Banners, Piquet's Field of Battle and Maurice should all work. I intend to try to get my own rules ticking along - if I just jump ship and adopt a commercial set my own rules will lie forever unfinished in that very large box file in which I keep my unfinished rules...
DeleteThis sounds like one of my designs! I firmly believe that we have probably built all of the necessary wargames mechanisms, we just haven't put them together in the right order and in the right combination!
ReplyDeleteCheers
Jay
Jay - your own work on "Simplicity in Hexes" was an inspiration - not just as a source of rules to pinch(!), but as an example of how an elegant, simple game can be produced without sacrificing the historical context.
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