For King and Parliament - At Last a Proper Try-Out Game

Last week I finally (finally) managed to set up a range-finder game of For King and Parliament - Count Goya was kind enough to travel down from his estates up North to take part.

What follows is not a serious critical review of FK&P - since the game is becoming very successful and popular, and is played enthusiastically by a number of people whose taste and judgement I respect, anything I write here is likely to say more about me than it does about the game, and much has already been expressed about its merits. If you have not played it yourself, there is a good chance you will have seen one of the spectacular demonstration games at wargame shows in recent months. On the other hand, whether or not it suits me is - inescapably - an important personal criterion.

I did have some concurrent distractions going on in the Real World, which is a lame excuse really, but I found it quite difficult to get up to speed with the rules. I had no background involvement with its Ancient and Medieval father, To the Strongest (and I still reckon that makes a big difference to understanding the concepts). I found a lot of excellent ideas in it, and I very much liked the spirit in which the rules were written and presented. I have also benefitted, I must add, from some very kind after-sales consultancy from the co-authors, and from on-line friends and blog contacts who have played it already, so I have little or no justification for being obtuse.

It's not that the game is complex - it is a little unusual, maybe even quirky, in some respects, but that's all grist to the wassname. I found there was a lot to remember - a lot of exceptional combinations of things which need to be jotted down somewhere [example - although I thought I was OK with this one, I suddenly had a wobbly moment during our game - I was sure that when "Dutch" style horse attack "Swedish" style, the melee has to switch around so that the defenders become the attackers (in rule terms). Damned if I could find it in the rule-book in the heat of the moment, so we had to fix up a Convention of the Day. I was disappointed with myself...]

With all due respect, I have to say that the official QRS is among the three or four worst I have ever seen - it is verbose, yet it seems to avoid saying anything about combat, for example. I was very grateful for the inclusion of a very good index in the book though - I'd have been in big trouble without it.

I had real problems getting my head around the Activation Penalties rules, but it turned out that I was confused by a couple of errors in the worked examples in the book. I know that Ver 1.1 of the rules has these slips corrected. I have no problems at all with the gridded battlefield, that's all pleasingly straightforward (though Morschauser followers may object to the fact that I find square-based terrain a lot more alien than my usual hexes). The use of playing cards did not alarm me, provided I could keep the tabletop clutter down to acceptable levels - I have bought in supplies of half-sized patience cards, which helps a lot, and have tried to develop a very OCD regime for tidying up after each turn. One thing which is actually suggested in the rule book, and to which we should have attached more weight, is the need to keep the "To Hit" and "Save" cards physically separated from the "Activation" cards - it is important to keep the former on your baseline, and tidy them away immediately after play, and to keep the latter on the table, placed tidily alongside the unit or leader to whom they apply. My newly-developed house protocols also require the cards to be tidied and placed face down with each brigade when its activation is complete (so you can see which brigades haven't done anything yet this turn), and we tidy all cards away and shuffle them back into the deck when the player's turn is finished. This game includes a lot of potential for making a real mess with the playing equipment, which is aesthetically suboptimal and especially so if you use small figures like mine. You have to be able to take photos of your game, after all...

On the same theme, there is a lot of information to be carried around with the units. I was a bit alarmed at the outset with the potential for the game to become buried in counters. The systems are well thought out, no doubt, but I think it is necessary for each player to decide for himself how he keeps track of the unit info. I have a long-held hatred of off-table rosters, which I find distracting and which disrupt the on-table flow. I am also famously cack-handed when it comes to knocking over piles of tiddlywinks, or leaving the things adjacent to the wrong unit, which may be explained as the Fog of War, but doesn't help the already-confused.

I got a lot of help and good ideas from a number of people (to whom I have offered my thanks previously), and I adopted (to some extent pinched) a system of small, attached labels, laminated, on which records may be maintained in dry-wipe whiteboard pen. The labels actually worked out pretty well, though the magnetic attachment system proved unreliable - labels kept getting separated from their units, which was fiddly and inconvenient. I had hoped to avoid it, but I think I had better make proper sabots for the units to stand on - it will simplify moving, and tidy things up a lot. That's sort of pencilled in as a must-do.

One aspect of the game which I appreciated (perversely, maybe) is that to some extent it is an ideas toolkit - it is not overly prescriptive - there is a need for each player adopting the game to think seriously about how he will set it up physically - what size squares, how (and if) he uses playing cards, or chits-in-a-bag, or decimal dice, how he adopts (or adapts) the information counters system to suit his scales and his sense of aesthetics (and level of OCD).

I set up a decent-looking game the night before the arranged date, and spent some of the night worrying about it, so that first thing the next morning I came downstairs and cut the size of the game down by about half. That was a sound idea - we played very slowly, since we spent a lot of time with our heads in the book, but we did OK. As units collected "disorder" markers, their fighting effectiveness fell away, and for a while there was the impression of a relentless (occasionally bewildering) series of card drawings which for the most part didn't achieve anything. With more time and experience (and wisdom), of course, we'd have put more effort into pulling units back out of the action and attempting to rally them back into shape, in a more soldierly manner. The card play is entertaining - in a social game, there is good scope for associated banter and mock applause, etc, but for a solo game I am not so sure. It might be a grunt.

We didn't finish the game, but that wasn't the point. I am left with a recollection that, even in a small game, each player's turn is quite long, and it is easy to forget where you are up to, especially when units are fighting back in melee, or returning fire - I think I might try to add a little jotter system to remind me whose turn it is. We didn't use Victory Medals (though I strongly fancy the chocolate coins idea) - we counted backwards on my ex-billiards scoreboard.

Unfortunately, my period of induction to the game has coincided with some issues elsewhere, but for a couple of months the rulebook has accompanied me on train journeys and so on, and has been my bedtime reading matter. It is a genuine relief to have advanced as far as playing a game - I have a better feel for what is involved now, I can put some more focused effort into setting up the next game. I can also put the bloody book away for a few weeks and think about something else!

The game is good - it is not the life-changing experience some might have hoped for, but it will doubtless become more familiar and more intuitive. My first impressions are a bit mixed, but overall probably more favourable than my first efforts at Commands & Colors, which has become a way of life for me now!

Some pictures follow - I won't attempt any kind of logical narrative, since it was a rules try-out, and there isn't one. Apologies for the cut-price scenery - I'm working on it.

The trial game - if the cards behave themselves, and co-operate, you can get a lot done in a single turn, and move some of your units a long way

Horse - we adopted a convention that "Swedish"-style (galloper) horse deployed as a line of 3 bases, and "Dutch"-style as a column of 4

Foot getting up close

General view - our trial game was a little sparse (intentionally so) - note the face-down cards, tidily denoting that each brigade has finished its business for this turn, and the little pile on the left is the used "To Hit" and "Save" cards - very confusing if these get mixed up. Parliament on the left here, with the red cards.

No Victory Medals for us - too mean, for one thing - just the old scoreboard waiting patiently for some action

This and the remainder of the photos are here under false pretence - this is the original, larger game I set up the night before, which would have been nice to look at but a really bad idea for getting to grips with the rules.

 

In passing, note that the ploughed fields were cut from a pair of needle-cord trousers I had in about 1970. Astonishing that I cut them to fit the square grid I would adopt for this game nearly 50 years later. What planning has gone into this hobby, now I think about it.

As always, I use undersized buildings to help with the ground-scale anomalies - 15mm Hovels buildings here, with 20mm men, laid out on 7.5-inch squares (or boxes, as we say in FK&P). Plenty of wine handy, but the Puritans won't touch it, of course. The rules are within easy reach, too - the "corners-only" phantom grid markings work nicely.

 

For King & Parliament - Infrastructure Prototyping

I have made lamentably slow progress with my solo practice sessions for FK&P - one thing that has been holding me back [dodgy alibi] is the need for a practicable way to keep track of unit information in a simple but effective way, in keeping with my minimalist toy soldier style presentation, without burying the troops in counters.

This morning I have produced something which appears to fit the bill. My sincere thanks to Simon Miller and Gonsalvo for useful suggestions, and especially to Andrew Brentnall and The Jolly Broom Man for actual examples, which I have adapted (not to say stolen) to fit my basing systems.

I had a happy couple of hours fiddling around with MS Publisher, and I've set up a decent infantry template, which I can reproduce and amend quickly and easily. I ran off some trial sheets of info labels, laminated them and cut them to size. Here are the results to date.

Never happier than when fiddling about

Here are the first trial batch - these for some of my Parliamentarian foote. I'd have preferred to use matt plastic laminating pouches, but the glossy ones are better for allowing successful removal of white-board pen annotations. Note the little strip of white steel paper at the top of each label - these strips may need to be larger

Exciting picture of a flying base, showing how the little label attaches. My bases are all underlaid with magnetic sheet anyway, to allow them to live safely in their box files. The sliver of steel paper on the label allows it to attach underneath the base, without glue or anything messy

Here you go - volunteer demonstration by Richard Shuttleworth's RoF (of Blackburn Hundred) - these chaps were originally the Blackburn town Trained Band, and the yellow square on the right indicates that they are classed as "raw". Old Richard in his best crimson coat is proud of them anyway. The 17th Century font is a bit of an extravagance, since I will have to draw it to people's attention, but it is not inappropriate, since my laminating machine must date from approximately the same period

From the front, the new label is quite discreet

Thus far, this looks promising. If it works (or can be made to work) then I should be able to manage without any major investment in sabots, and the labels are cheap, easy to make and easily edited if I successfully keep the template samples handy. In today's trial, movement on the cork sheet (which might be grippier than the painted battle boards) suggests that the label tends to shift a bit in action. It won't come adrift, but it can get a bit - you know how it is - not quite straight [OCD alert]. I was hoping to be able to use the same size labels for the foote, the horse and the dismounted dragoon bases (which last are only half the depth), but I may have to change to bigger labels with bigger patches of steel paper.

I might buy some better quality laminating pouches - I'm down to a pack of Woolworth's own brand, which illustrates the house focus on economy and making things last. Better pouches will stick on the paper more firmly.

Work continues. There should be some pictures of actual test games once the record-keeping labels are working nicely.

FK&P - Heavy Going to Start With

I've had a couple of sessions familiarising myself with the For King and Parliament rules. Slow going, thus far - of course, it is possible that I have finally become too old and stupid to learn anything new, but mostly I have been having problems with the rule book.

Early experience-gainer tests. Everything vanilla - all the units are seasoned, no terrain effects to worry about, and so on. If you screw your eyes up you may see the pencil lines, which will be gone by lunchtime today. 20mm soldiers, 7.5inch squares, half-size playing cards, buckets of counters and wooden cubes standing by.

I would hate to say anything rude or unfairly critical of this game, so I must state right away that the booklet is enthusiastically and engagingly written, the style is pleasing and (a true rarity!) it is grammatically correct and the spelling is good, and the whole production is very attractively laid out.

I am happy to accept that the evidence is that this is a very enjoyable game, and that I will get up to speed eventually, and all will become clear. Good. My problem, I think, is that I have not come to this game after playing To the Strongest, so I am not quite on the right wavelength to start with, and also the authors - who have definitely come from the direction of TtS! - obviously understand the game and know what they mean, but sometimes I found it hard to pick up the key elements I need to get started from what is a mixture of design points, examples (which are useful and entertaining, but a couple of them seem to contain errors - or at least points which I couldn't find in the main text), tables, illustrations and playing tips.

Portent? - the very first activation card I played in this game - ever - was an Ace, which is a very bad card for activation. It makes a welcome change from bad dice rolls.

There are a number of examples of special exceptions to standard rules, which seem to be mentioned once only - some of them do not seem to be reflected in the summary tables, and often I found that I was unable to find the reference when I searched for it. The impression gained is that a number of post-prototype fixes were put in, and that an editor should get his head in there before the 2nd Edition appears. I am used to things being cross-referenced - especially if they haven't been mentioned yet. On a few occasions I came across terms I hadn't seen before (or at least couldn't remember seeing!), which a few pages later were explained and defined. None of this is serious, but I've found it a bit tricky. I like to remember rules in terms of norms which usually apply, with the necessary exceptions as a short and manageable list - if there are real weird cases which don't happen very often, then they are the things you know you have to check in the rules as and when.

The Quick Reference Sheet reproduces full details of unit properties - all or nothing - and undoubtedly lists some key information, albeit in a rather lengthy and waffly style - QRS's are usually brief and punchy. Oh - and they should be complete  too - rules for shooting and melees only appear here in the QRS by implication - and artillery ranges aren't set out (I couldn't find them, anyway). Since I've now read through the rule book four times, I would expect to have a better grasp of what is needed. I'll definitely produce my own QRS - that's a priority - but for some of the key rule sections - activation, combat, saves - I'll produce very short notes and tables of my own, with stuff explained as departures from a basic standard. I haven't got room in my head for amusing stories about all the features of Swedish horse - though I can maybe retrofit that sometime later.

So I shall plug away, but there is going to be a power of typing going on to get me up to speed! One further thing which is gently catching me out at present is that some of the TtS jargon is counter-intuitive to a newbie. In FK&P, "hits" means what in other games I would regard as "strength points" (or even "blocks"!), "disorders" means "losses", and there are a few other conventions I just have to get used to - OK - I can manage that. I also had difficulty finding the exact timing of tests for officer casualties, and thus far I haven't found out how far a melee attacker has to pull back if he doesn't eliminate the enemy.

Last night I did some cavalry melees, which were slow because I haven't got the hang of everything I need to know yet. First things I have to fix are:

(1) the tabletop - my original intention was to put pencil lines on to mark complete squares, pick out the corners of the square cells in black Sharpie pen, and then paint out (or erase) the construction lines. After I'd got the boards marked up, I reckoned I'd give it a go with the pencil lines still in place - they are not very visible anyway. Bad news is that it became obvious last night that the playing cards are going to get very grubby with raw pencil on the table (however discreet), so I have set about painting over the construction lines. We'll just have corners, as recommended, and as I originally intended.

(2) the half-size playing cards are OK - it is necessary to work at keeping things tidy and organised, or the result is a terrible mess, but I expected that. However, in the absence of proper counters to keep track of ammunition, "dash" (for horse), pursuits, "disorders" and all the other things you need to keep track of (and this is before you get to whether the cavalry are badly mounted, whether the units are raw/seasoned/veteran, the characteristics of individual leaders, the "gallant gentleman" classification...), I used a variety of coloured tiddlywinks, which won't stack without falling over and spreading about, which are not really very easy to handle and which look just awful. I can't be doing with very much of that, so some quick progress with proper tracking systems is necessary, or I'm going to shelve this. I'm thinking about it, and have had some useful ideas from commenters (thank you, chaps) and via email.

That's about it for the moment. I've started touching-out the pencil lines, and I'll do a bit of typing of CONCISE tables, and I'll be back on to trying out aspects of the game this evening.

Lots of Django Reinhardt on the CD player at the moment - that keeps the painting speed up! Just thought I'd mention it. Oh yes, and while I'm digressing, I've finally chucked out the remainder of the Nescafe - we bought two large jars of bog-standard Nescafe instant coffee a while ago, because they were on special offer with some rather handsome mugs. I am afraid that I do not like Nescafe - I realise this is entirely my own problem. I could, of course, have disposed of the actual coffee and simply regarded that as part of the cost of the mugs, but - no - this particular mug is far too mean for that. Eventually, halfway through the second jar, I have disposed of it. To be more accurate, my wife got tired of my complaining about it, so she threw it out on my behalf, and I've gone back to my preferred Douwe Egberts instant. Good. A bit like the relief when you stop banging your head on the wall. Some strange ritual, suffering, so as not to waste anything. Hmmm.

For King and Parliament

Plain side of the boards now have squares on

So what's all this, Foy?

Well, in common with a lot of other chaps I have been looking at the For King and Parliament rules, which are a recent ECW extension of the popular To the Strongest Ancient/Medieval game, and I have to say I am very impressed.

I am pretty comfortable with my own current C&CN-based ECW game, which handles very large games splendidly, but there are a few characteristic subtleties of pike & shot warfare which I have struggled to build into such a high-level rule set. Having received good reports of To the Strongest, I purchased the FK&P rules, and am currently on my 4th read-through. They look good. They seem to offer a very entertaining game, not too complex, the philosophy of which is very much in the spirit of how I like wargames to be, and they handle some of these aforementioned subtleties rather nicely. Hmmm.

I have reached the point where it would make sense to try the game out. My two overriding concerns are whether it really would handle what I regard as a large battle, and - to be frank - I am a bit alarmed by the amount of clutter associated with it. I don't care for roster systems, so having all necessary information on the table, with the units, is very acceptable. On the other hand, this game involves copious use of playing cards (it is a dice-free system, though there are dice-based alternatives), ammunition chits of three varieties (pistol, musket and artillery -  why three varieties? - is this because infantry may have light artillery attached?), "dash" chits for cavalry, "untried" markers, pursuit pointers, victory "medals", disorganisation chits (= losses in the terminology of most other games) and assorted information about specific leaders and units. I have obtained some half-sized playing cards, but I am concerned that all this stuff might reduce the tabletop (especially if the tabletop has me attached) to a state that in a less correct age would have been termed as like a tart's handbag.

I'm working on it - I have consulted the Jolly Broom Man, who is also looking to adopt these rules, and he has some constructive thoughts on how it may be possible to reduce the depth of laser-printed MDF counters so that one may see over the top.

First practical issue for me is that the game uses a square grid. I have no problem with this at all - I am very much in favour of grids - except that I do not have such a thing handy. Well, I didn't - I do now. I gave some thought to tweaking the game so it would work with hexes (I have boards, scenery, all sorts for a hex-based game). The Northumbrian Wargamer's excellent blog explains the adaptation to hexes, and it seems to work OK. I decided against that, to give the game a fair trial in its intended form.

I came up with a simple way of adding a square grid to the reverse (plain) side of my existing warboards - a solution which could be quickly and easily painted over if I lose interest in the idea, which understates the square pattern in the interests of avoiding dizzy turns, and is subtle enough to be ignored if an un-gridded field is needed. The picture makes it clear what I have done - this is one of the table sections, freshly marked out on the reverse side. To allow room for the 60mm square bases I use with my ECW troops, I settled on 7½ inch squares. This may seem like an odd size, but it works OK with my unit sizes, and it very conveniently divides into a 5-foot table width to give 8 squares deep. I have marked out the boards so that I can have a 12 x 8 cell standard table, or 15 x 8 if I add in the (5th) extension board . That's all fine - I haven't tried it yet, but it seems workable. I will have a problem to solve for roads (which run through the centres of cells, but I don't have any suitable bits for 8" squares) and streams (which run around the edges of squares, a system which seems more intuitively comfortable than the C&CN arrangement, but - again - I will need to set something up). Most of the other scenic bits I can probably hash together from what I already have.

Despite my (predictable?) carping, nit-picking approach, I am enthusiastic. If the rules really do allow very big games to be fought then I am ready to make FK&P my ECW rules of choice. If they work well, but don't handle anything as big as Marston Moor (etc), then I can still turn my boards over to the hex side and use the C&CN-based game for special whoppers. A lot will depend on how comfortable I am with the amount of clutter involved.

From being the only wargamer in the known universe who uses 7-inch hexes, I have moved on to be the only one to use 7½-inch squares. Whether or not this is progress will reflect how the test games go.