These rules won't work

[ochoin]

Today was never going to be a 'proper wargame' & it wasn't. We'd trialled the 'Victory without Quarter' ECW rules last year twice with small armies. Today, was going to be bigger - about 18 units a side.

My pal lined up his splendid Parliamentarian army opposite my Royalists & we largely experimented with the mechanisms.
I've had some doubts over the rules - particularly as a Big Game set. And it was awkward. Unworkable for our 2024 Show game, I think.

The rules use a card deck for activation. The show deck would have cards for 40+ units as well as the speciality cards. About 75+ cards in total.This is far too cumbersome. EG. your unit is attacked & fired upon. Your response must wait till your unit's card came up - next card? 20 cards later? Or even longer - especially if the Turnover card sends your unit card to the bottom of the deck.

The solution may be simply no unit cards. Each army has cards only for a Commander & Brigadier cards (5-6 per army). When your specific brigadier card is drawn, you can give separate orders (from the order menu) to each of the units in his brigade. NB Commander cards allow an order to any brigade where the brigadier is within 18" command radius of the army commander.

The speciality Cards should also be kept within bounds - 1, maybe 2 event cards, 2 reload cards (1 for each entire side), ditto artillery cards, 1 or 2 Turnover cards.We'll need to experiment to get the numbers right but 'less is more'. So a Show card deck of less than 35 cards.
Feel free to comment.

Some of my Royalist English:







donald

[Willz the Wargamer]

When I was play testing my Louisbourg game I found out very quickly that using too many cards in a game makes it run clunky and did not work.
So I limited them to using a maximum of 2 a turn and players can only hold five cards, also I could rig the first draw of cards to get the game following.


Willz.

[Paul]

Have you thought about using "arm" specific cards?
This would mean having a proportionate number of cards for cavalry, infantry and artillery plus event cards.
If you do this there is no need to provide a card for every unit.
Think of it as providing command "friction" and forcing a General to decide which units are getting orders.
In this system (and giving I have no understanding of the actual rules you are using for combat, morale etc...) I would use something like this for your show game.
Side A (Blue) has the following units:
15 Foot
3 Horse
2 Artillery

Side B (Red) has the following units:
12 Foot
6 Horse
2 Artillery

The deck would contain something like:
5 Blue Foot cards
4 Red Foot cards
1 or 2 Blue Horse cards (A greater proportion to make them more "reactive?)
2-4 Red Horse cards
1 Blue Artillery card
1 Red Artillery card
1 Blue Any Arm card
1 Red Any Arm card
1 Turnover card
1 Event card (with a random event diced for from a massive table ranging from "flavour" events like: "A flock of birds is disturbed by troop movements and takes flight towards the enemy. Is this an omen?" to ones that actually effect the game such as "The quartermaster has been busy: The next side that draws a card can activate two units".
Reload Cards could just be added or i'd consider it as part or all of an activation maybe?
Maybe also allow two units of the same type to "brigade" together and activate on one card, if they are within easy "shouting" distance ?

This would bring your total deck down to around 20 cards although you could, of course play with the ratios and even create an uneven deck to allow one side to be more proactive than the other!!

[ochoin]

Thanks, Paul. Lots of good ideas to ponder.

donald

[Spanner]

The rules Phil and I published used unit cards, mate, and I know that they're not for everyone. We used them to reduce control of the players, which was one of the complaints made (a lot of gamers like total control over their armies). The real negative, as I saw it, was that there was no way to coordinate any of your units- unless you got lucky with the draw. So too random. Also the unit cards were the only cards used. Anything else, such as reinforcements, withdrawals or weather were subject to a dice roll at the end of the turn. There were also options for using the cards. One optional variation was that each player shuffled their own deck and had to either advance, engage in melee or shoot to hold the initiative, or it would pass to the opposition. I wasn't overly fond of that- it made people do things they normally wouldn't do just to retain the initiative and draw the next card.

Another option, which a few of the 8/12 club liked as well, was to use commands/brigades/legions rather than individual units (as you and Paul have considered). The rating of the commander equalled how many different orders he could give to the units (one to three, usually- pinched the idea from Johnny Reb). It still reduces the control a player has, but does allow some coordination of units.

[ochoin]

I didn't know any of the negatives before going 'card driven'. It all sort of looked hip and the cool kids were all using it.
Maybe there should be a warning label on rule sets similar to the warning label of packs of cigarettes. "Card driven activation causes battlefield chaos and is awkward to use but won't harm your unborn child".

donald

[Ilkley Old School]

Have you had a look at Piquet Field of Battle version 3. This includes the ECW and whilst it uses cards they are at a higher level. Each army, depending on rating, includes 23 cards made up of cards for:-
Army Morale
Artillery Fire
Infantry Fire
Leadership
Lull
Melee
Move
Move 1 Command
Tactical Advantage

[Spanner]

Maybe there should be a warning label on rule sets similar to the warning label of packs of cigarettes. "Card driven activation causes battlefield chaos and is awkward to use but won't harm your unborn child".

donald

It's like any other rules C&C system, mate, be it command pips, command radii, orders time limits, written orders, etc. They all have good and bad points, depending on each gamer's taste