Ayton 2020 - Sunday 18th Century Game

[Paul]

EB, I think they may be taking the piss.

Yes. They always take the piss.

Normally yes...but I was quite serious...…..getting tied up in different nomenclature just muddies the waters.
The rules themselves do not refer to strength points, they use 'stands', so by adding them it's immediately adding another level of complexity and confusion especially for those of us who get mentally challenged in the heat of battle.

By introducing Strength points you are separating out one of the meaning of 'Stands' in the rules and I don't know if that will effect how the rules work or read to the inexperienced player (like me). A quick re-read certainly throws up areas where there may be ambiguity. ie. firing/split firing where it will require the juggling of the two terms. If nothing else we will be left with a clarifying statement along the lines of: "Strength points are analogous with 'Stands' in the rules, except in the cases where they're not".

I would much prefer that we kept the use of 'Stands' as the indicator of unit strength and have a statement like:
"All Units have a nominal strength of 6 'Stands' and for each 3 hits taken the units strength is reduced by a Stand."

[Essex Boy]

Yes, this is my fault. I've never used the term 'stands', always 'bases', so I've inadvertently defaulted to my own preference. The two are of course one and the same.

I can't foresee a situation where the 'Stand', 'base' or 'strength' count might cause confusion. You start with six of 'X' (insert your preferred term here) and that's the number of dice you throw for shooting and melee. If you lose a 'stand', 'base' or 'strength' you throw just five dice for shooting and melee and you get a minus one on your morale dice. Lose another and the shooting and melee dice go down to four and you get a minus two on your morale dice, and so on.

As for 'hits', you use a little disc with a dot on one side and two dots on the other. Take one hit and you place the disc against the unit with the single dot uppermost. Take another hit and you flip the disc over to display the two dots. Take another hit, the third, and you lose a 'stand', 'base' or 'strength'. Adjust the dice you use to indicate the remaining 'stands', 'bases' or 'strength' and remember, of course, to remove the disc.

I think I'll let players decide on the day whether they are more comfortable with 'stand', 'base' or 'strength'. 'Hit' or 'hits' are, I'm afraid, sacrosanct...........although, I suppose you could call them casualties.....................doh!

[Jeremy]

My suggestion would be that each unit has strength points. These can be monitored with causality dice or tokens. I would not remove bases as units generally would not become narrower with casualties, but thinner in depth.

When total strength points are exceeded, the unit is removed from play.

Thoughts?

[Paul]

Y If you lose a 'stand', 'base' or 'strength' you throw just five dice for shooting and melee and you get a minus one on your morale dice....

You've made my point for me and much more simply. If you see Stand, Base and Strength as interchangeable why introduce 'Strength' points at all?
Just keep it simple because most of us are

My suggestion would be that each unit has strength points. These can be monitored with causality dice or tokens. I would not remove bases as units generally would not become narrower with casualties, but thinner in depth.

When total strength points are exceeded, the unit is removed from play.

Thoughts?

So would you use 'Strength Points' instead of Stands or Hits? If it's the former than you have to monitor both Strength and Hits if it's the latter then why not just call them hits?
If you call them 'Strength' then you need to be starting with a full compliment of dice/tokens following the unit around and reduce them as hits are taken, otherwise your marked strength increases as hits are taken.

No need for stand removal, but lets just stick with two terms instead of three because two works fine.

[Essex Boy]

My suggestion would be that each unit has strength points. These can be monitored with causality dice or tokens. I would not remove bases as units generally would not become narrower with casualties, but thinner in depth.

When total strength points are exceeded, the unit is removed from play.

Thoughts?

Thank you, Jezza.

That's fine, call them what you want.

Yes, dice will be excellent for recording remaining 'stands', 'bases' or ''strength points' because, as I understand it, quite a lot of dice come with numbered faces, all the way up from 1 to 6. Or is it down from 6 to 1? A happy coincidence...........or is it?

There is no casualty removal. We can't remove casualties without considerable complications because there is no standardisation of basing or figures per unit, hence it's easier for all units to be nominally treated as being six 'X'* strong and to count down loses.

You'll be very lucky indeed if you are reduced to nil 'X'* because you can no longer rally from poor morale once you get to half your starting 'X'*. It's not impossible, just improbable. Units are removed once they get to a route state and cannot rally.

* insert your preferred description here.

[Essex Boy]

Sorry. I've not read Paul's comment yet.

Back in a mo.

[Essex Boy]

I'm going to leave it entirely up to players on the day to decide how they want to refer to 'stands', 'bases', 'strength' or 'strength points'. Because it matters not a jot.

Yes, you will have a dice indicator following a unit round the table once it has lost a 'stand', 'base', 'strength' or 'strength point' - that is the trade off for not having casualty removal - but I seriously doubt that anyone is going to have a nervous breakdown when the dice gets flipped from five to four and they don't know what to call it.

[Paul]

What it means is that people have to make sure they start at six not zero(meaning every unit has to have one dice following it around) Each unit will then get another dice or marker for hits, so will be followed around by two markers.
Too much table clutter for me as well as a possibility of some people going from high to low and some from low to high and the possibility of dice confusion.

[Jeremy]

You’re over thinking this Paul. In reality you’ll probably be facing off against only one player, so as long as they’re consistent, it’s all fine.

[Essex Boy]

The indicator dice counts down because it shows at a glance how many dice you can use for shooting and melee. If you don't have a dice marker then you clearly have six dice with which to shoot and melee. I don't like markers very much myself (that might be a lie) but, for the reasons I've already given, we really can't have casualty removal.

The little disc for recording carry forward hits will, of course, only be present when there are hits to carry forward.