I've recently been working on some wargame rules of my own (yet again), and I seem to have developed a bee in my bonnet about building them around the turn sequence from the old WRG 1685-1845 rules, which in the past impressed me greatly. It is (or was, at the time I was impressed), unusual in that moving is the last thing you do, including the declaration of the first half of any charges to contact you wish to make. Thereafter, reaction to those charges, defensive retaliation, the completion of the charges and the actual melees take place in your opponent's turn.
I thought that was clever - I confess I never used the full rules as written, because I found them tricky to get the hang of, and there were far too many lists and reaction tests for my liking. Anyway, since the spark had now glowed again, I thought I should make a more serious job of understanding them properly, so that I could maybe use the turn structure in my new game - I have to say that the WRG's rules sometimes rely heavily on your spotting the subjunctive verb in Paragraph 417 to appreciate the full beauty of the logic. [Also, over the years I have skipped past "jezails" in the combat factor lists more times than I could estimate, and I still don't know what a jezail is.]
This, of course, is a jezail
Again, I have found this quite tricky. My new rules were suddenly full of morale tests that I hadn't wanted, there were coloured counters all over the place, to show where you were up to with keeping track of routing units, and, since the game would collapse in a heap if you did anything out of the correct order, I had written out the turn sequence as a checklist.
In a recent email exchange with a fellow bloggist - a game designer of some repute, let it be said - he offered the view that the turn sequence has to be capable of being carried in your head - if you need a chart then there may be something seriously wrong. He is right - I guess I knew this, but I needed someone else to say it.
Lightbulb.
I have - all right, regretfully - dropped the WRG bits, and my new game is looking slimmer and more like my idea of a recreation immediately.
What is capable of being carried in the head, of course, also depends heavily on how the old head is performing, and I am aware that the passing years have made me less patient in this area, but I prefer to think that I have become more fussy about how a game should be, rather than simply more stupid. Other opinions probably abound.
I was joking about this with another friend (I am showing off here, since this means I must have at least two friends), and we agreed that a wallchart for the turn sequence in chess would be
(1) White moves (2) Black moves (3) go to (1)
I could probably post that as a download on boardgamegeek - now there's fame.
This afternoon I finished off these chaps. As before, the figures are Les Higgins 20mm, from about 1971, and the guns are much more recent, by Lancer Miniatures.
This is the cleverest person in the UK. This may now be official. If there is anything he doesn't know, he will get online and will be an expert later today.
He is, of course, the chief advisor to our Prime Minister, which means, given the disappearance of any viable opposition parties, he effectively runs the country.
OK.
(1) Did you vote for him? I know I didn't.
(2) Does he have any real mandate for all this? Is he answerable or accountable for anything? You may know - I don't.
(3) Have you any idea what he's up to, now and/or long-term? I certainly don't.
(4) As I understand it, the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer has just resigned, because he felt unable to carry out a directive from the PM to sack all his aides, who apparently had concerns about the policies of the man in the picture at the top. Do you feel a bit scared? I think perhaps I feel a bit scared.
(5) This might be the last post on this blog - it may be shut down in the next day or so.
I'm really pleased with this. The refurb job on my ex-Eric Knowles British Royal Horse Guards (for Waterloo) suddenly became rather more complicated when the extra figures (Eric's units were bigger than mine are) offered the chance of making some of them into the Life Guards as well. The numbers were a bit tight - through the marvels of digital communication (and Old School analogue kindness) an extra recruit is now on his way from New Zealand to swell the ranks (will he get a seat to himself, they wondered?), and a broken figure needed to be fixed to complete the establishment.
Ah.
Fixed.
Right.
So here is Trooper Lazarus, now of the Life Guards. The horse was broken off its base, years ago, at ankle/fetlock height - tricky in 20mm. I had both the casualty and his base, in the boxes. No problem for Count Goya's Magical Manufactory of Miniature Marvels - the legs and hooves have been drilled, wire braces inserted and appropriately fiendish glue applied. He's as good as new, matron. Marcus Hinton himself could not tell he'd been repaired.
I'm delighted with him. I couldn't have done this. Thank you very much, Your Excellency.
The rest of the unit will follow along as soon as the chap from The Colonies arrives. Trooper L is thrilled to have the chance of getting back into action after all these years of being dead.
This is rather a whimsical post - I wasn't sure
whether to publish it. Maybe I'll delete it later.
Recently I've been corresponding with a
friend about memories of childhood - especially about family get-togethers, in
an age when it seemed everyone lived locally, and almost the entire family could be
assembled from a small area. My friend and I had some laughs about social rituals,
things that our families always did (and said, and sang), and about how the
roles of various family members have changed. Since he and I come from
different parts of the UK, it has been interesting to note the similarities and
the regional differences.
Terraced street in Aigburth, some 10 years later than my tale
I got to thinking about the New Year
parties at my grandparents' house, when I was a kid (that's my dad's parents,
in Aigburth, South Liverpool). I think we only attended a few times, mostly
because my dad would normally have fallen out with one or other of his siblings
during the previous year!
The gatherings were large - a lot of people
crammed into a small terraced house. They were good-hearted folk, in a tough,
noisy sort of way. We must have been at that itchy post-war period when the
working class had a bit more money, and everyone was becoming keen on what they
saw as middle-class status symbols and values. It was all a bit competitive,
and all of it was loud and in-your-face. My posh Auntie May had definitely
"rose up", and she had married the boss/owner at her work,
developed a new Hyacinth Bucket accent (see clip, below), sent her kids to private
school and moved to the Wirral. In a strange, ambivalent way, the family were
proud of her, yet envied her, and really hated it when she drove over for New
Year in the new Vauxhall, even though they bragged about it when she wasn't
there, and stood in the freezing cold to watch it drive away when she left.
Vauxhall Wyvern
At this time, everyone still had their feet
and their roots in traditions that were, at the very least, Victorian. The
family would come on various buses (only May had a car), some would walk, bearing
biscuit tins filled with sandwiches, home baking, even bowls of trifle. When
people arrived, all the big winter coats would be piled on the bed in the
upstairs room at the front of the house (the smell of moth-balls was stifling),
and everyone was issued with the regulation cup of tea to warm them up.
And, I guess, a good time was had by all.
Occasional neighbours would appear (though the family was not noted for being
very open to strangers), and eventually there were boyfriends of my various
cousins (my cousins were legion, and they were all girls, now I think of it).
If there were enough newcomers to the family throng, the inevitable party games
in the kitchen after the tea-party would include a game called The Obstacle
Course. I think my participation in this game came when I was about seven,
after a number of years of non-attendance (politics). It was a game you could
only play once, but when you could no longer take part you could be involved in
the organisation and, of course, spectating.
Even by the prevailing standards, this was
an unusually noisy game - it must have been audible a good way up the street.
It was necessary to have a minimum number of first-time visitors to play -
maybe 3 or 4. There was an element of initiation in it, to be sure. The
family's taste in jokes and fun activities was always dominated by practical
jokes, some humiliation, just a whiff of sadism, and giving a newcomer the
opportunity to demonstrate that they were a "good sport", prepared to
laugh at themselves - certainly to be laughed at by others. Maybe this was a
test to see if they were going to fit in...
The Obstacle Course game required the
identification of suitable (first-time) participants, and then my Uncle Harold
and Cousin Joyce (who were the loudest of all) would take charge. The players
would be led into the hall by Joyce, where they would be prepared for what was
to follow, and while the course was set up. When everything was ready, they
would all be admitted to the kitchen (living room), and would be shown an
improvised obstacle course, which they had to memorise as best they could; then
they would be taken out into the hallway again, and would be given some
additional instruction on rules and so on. All the non-playing family members
would be seated around the walls of the room - they would be the spectators,
and later would vote for the best performer.
1950s clothes horse - we used to call ours a "maiden"
The course itself featured all sorts of
household items, arranged in time-honoured constructions that you had to crawl
under, step over, wriggle in-between - there was a horizontal broom handle,
supported on boxes, to be stepped over without touching it, there were all
sorts of cunning arrangements of sofa cushions, the wooden clothes horse,
covered in rugs, a step-ladder, stacks of food tins - a lot of ingenuity came
into play. And, of course, you would have to negotiate the course blindfolded,
with plenty of instruction from Harold - and the spectators, obviously.
The participants (or "explorers"
as they were termed) were solemnly blindfolded, and led into the room one at a
time. Others went in ahead of me, and the noise was indescribable - the main
object of the game was that everybody shouted at the same time - support,
conflicting instructions, occasional sympathy, lots of banter. My turn came - I
was completely blacked-out. I could hardly breathe, in fact.
The door closed behind me, and Harold said,
"righto, Tony - come forward two steps - that's good - a little further -
very good. Now, the first obstacle is you have to walk under the step-ladder
without touching it, so stoop down a bit - right a bit - no not so much - good.
Now edge forward slowly - good - a bit lower - right a bit more..."
And from the onlookers came a deafening uproar
of "lower - not so low, turn left a bit - keep your elbows in" and so
on.
After the step-ladder I was sweating profusely,
but was pleased to have got past it. There was loud applause. Harold shouted,
"OK - now you have to step over the bucket of water, so you need to turn
left, where you are - righto - stop when I tell you - now - stop - two little
steps forward - stop - now - you're going to have to turn sideways for this
one..."
And so it went on. In spite of all the
conflicting shouting from the sidelines, I did remarkably well, wriggling
through sofa-cushion tunnels, tiptoeing through little mazes of tins, stepping
over things, all without touching anything. At last, clear so far, I had to jump right across a little hearth-rug,
without touching it. In a blaze of glory, I managed to do this. The applause
was fantastic - I was as pleased as I could be. Then I was allowed to take off
the blindfold, and I realised that the room had been completely cleared,
apart from the spectator gallery around the walls. All my gyrations and extreme
high-stepping and wriggling had been in an empty room. Of course I was
embarrassed, but I got to join the audience and watch the last competitor in
action, and I have to say it still seems to be one of the funniest things I
have ever experienced. Cousin Pauline's new boyfriend, in his fashionable new shoes, keen to make a good
impression, earnestly stretching his legs to impossible angles to avoid a
broom-handle which was no longer there, all to the accompaniment of riotous approval.
Harold did a virtuoso performance as
ring-master, no doubt. Fantastic noise, tears of laughter - it is sobering to
realise that probably only about three or four of the people present are still
alive - where did all that noise and camaraderie go? Of course, there are
dozens of descendants, but they live in Australia, Singapore,
Canada - even London. I have no idea at all about my extended family now -
certainly it would be impossible to bus them all to my grannie's house - it
might not even be possible to trace who they all are. Changed times.
I also remember that everyone that took
part in the Obstacle Course that year got a prize. The bad news was that it was one of Auntie Laura's
home-made rock cakes, left over from the festive tea, and quite rightly so,
since anyone who had eaten one before would know to avoid them.
Lightweight, entertaining little paint session tonight. Digging around in the Eric Knowles boxes, I have found some interesting items in there.
Tonight I restored a couple of little command vignettes.
First off, here's Maj.Gen Robert Craufurd, of Light Division and getting-killed-in-the-breach-at-Ciudad-Rodrigo fame. This is not going to win any prizes, but it's an attractive little piece. The conversions are ambitious; I can see from the figure bases that the starting point for each is Hinton Hunt SC 4, which is a one-piece-casting ACW cavalry trooper. The mounted Rifles officer has had a body swap - I think I recognise the top half of the HH Rifles officer (normally on foot) - the one with the whistle. His shabraque has been cut from lead foil - it's an impressive job. The General's top half is more of a mystery - I thought he might be a Wellington - I even thought he might be an SHQ Wellington, but I think this model was made too long ago for SHQ. The cape is hand-built from lead foil, again, and I imagine the saddle furniture was, too. I've kept Eric's colour scheme. There was evidence of some corrosion on the foil cape - a white bloom on some of the edges. Lead rot? I've cleaned them up, repainted as necessary and sealed with fresh varnish, and put them on an official house-standard base (Division Commander - 50mm x 50mm, white border). I guess Black Bob's days may be numbered, but with a bit of luck he might outlast me.
And here is a HH General for the ECW, complete with dog. This will go well with Lord John Byron's ferret and Fairfax's Mynah bird. I couldn't find the dog in Marcus Hinton's catalogue, so can only assume it must be a Clayton addition.
It's possible to keep typing for ever without getting anywhere very definite, so tonight I spent a happy couple of hours trying out the new (developing) house rules for the WSS soldiers. Interesting, as always. I found that the principal game mechanisms need a bit of tuning, as you would expect, but the hard bit is getting the flow of the turn-sequence logical (and in a sensible order - better test to see if the attached general is still alive before we give a "+1" on the morale test for his presence...)
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.
