1757- a SYW battle report

[BaronVonWreckedoften]

Having not had any contact with this particular rule set, how adaptable are they for AWI? By and large, I tend to avoid like the plague any SYW rule sets that have AWI shoe-horned into them as an afterthought, as they invariably fail to recognise how substantially different warfare in North America was. One of the selling points of British Grenadier is that they are tailored to that theatre: small(ish) battles by European standards, kleine krieg/petite guerre tactics and formations, very little heavy artillery and no heavy cavalry.

[ochoin]

Having not had any contact with this particular rule set, how adaptable are they for AWI?

No idea. Probably RMD might have some idea. Keep in mind, the SYW supplement of SHAKO was "shoehorned" into what's a Napoleonic rule set.

Why they *might* be good for the AWI is the mechanisms are clever & the rules simple. For example, you need 1 x D6 per player......one die roll does it all. So, we needed to cut out the French superiority nonsense, re-work skirmishers and adjust columns etc.......mostly change a small handful of the small number of modifiers. I also got rid of the maps with the "command arrows" & just went with written orders (from a menu). Apart from the simplicity of the rules, the command & control aspect is a real draw card.

Mark or I could send you our re-worked QRS as a starter. BTW I'd use the SHAKO/1 rule book and not the SHAKO/2 rule book as the foundation.


donald

[BaronVonWreckedoften]

Keep in mind, the SYW supplement of SHAKO was "shoehorned" into what's a Napoleonic rule set.

Well, that's certainly different - I'm always open to taking a look.

Mark or I could send you our re-worked QRS as a starter. BTW I'd use the SHAKO/1 rule book and not the SHAKO/2 rule book as the foundation.

That would be splendid, thank you - to be honest, this is just curiosity (more than idle, but not by much), but I have to say that I am intrigued. Another thing that puts me off the SYW route is that the figure:man ratios are often ridiculously high for an AWI action - what is the SHAKO ratio? I am partial to having a handful of large units on the table.

[RMD]

I never bothered with 2nd Edition. It's a whole stack of unnecessary fiddling with a perfectly good set of rules.

They clearly suffer from the disease that makes you tinker with rules to the point they become unplayable. I know- I'm a fellow sufferer.

Even during the initial game & in emails since, there's been a stream of perfectly reasonable suggestions from my pals with "fixes" for glaring omissions. I'm resisting just about everything for the Greater Good.

donald

That's exactly my experience trying to playtest this with a small group of hardened 2nd Edition players.

One example is redoubts - in 1st Edition they're either +1 or +2. It's a simple, one-paragraph rule. In 2nd Edition it's a whole page of rules.

There's also a rule in 2nd Edition allowing a firer who disorders a charging unit to make an immediate charge on that unit. Completely unnecessary, as any unit that is disordered during a charge can't rally from disorder anyway, as he's too close to the defender's front. He can then be charged during the defender's turn.

[RMD]

Having not had any contact with this particular rule set, how adaptable are they for AWI? By and large, I tend to avoid like the plague any SYW rule sets that have AWI shoe-horned into them as an afterthought, as they invariably fail to recognise how substantially different warfare in North America was. One of the selling points of British Grenadier is that they are tailored to that theatre: small(ish) battles by European standards, kleine krieg/petite guerre tactics and formations, very little heavy artillery and no heavy cavalry.

They're specifically designed for quite large battles and I don't think there's really much scope for the AWI or the 'petit guerre', to be honest, unless you wanted a REALLY quick clubnight game. But then I might be biased, as I think that British Grenadier is the perfect AWI set.

The figure ratios are ostensibly 1:50, but it's irrelevant, as a basic 12-figure unit represents anything from 400-700 men or thereabouts. Larger units are represented by 16 figure units and. Units can suffer a number of hits based on their Morale Rating (MR). Poor troops and Artillery are 3, Line Troops and Light Cav are 4, Elites and Dragoons are 5 and Guards/Cuirassiers are 6. Large units can take an extra hit. They also use those factors as the base modifiers for a D6 during melee, in an opposed roll. So the number of figures and groundscale you choose to use doesn't matter a jot.

It really is very simple and great for big battles. As it uses opposed rolls with very few modifiers, the playsheet is soon ignored.

Key modifiers for combat include flank support (i.e. having both flanks secured by a neighbouring unit) and rear support (a unit to the rear, within musketry range). Flank and Rear support ordinarily give you a +1 melee modifier apiece. For the SYW I've also classed units with flank support the same as squares for game purposes (i.e. almost impossible to break frontally with cavalry except in critical circumstances, thus encouraging people to stay in their lines and to pick away at the flanks).

[ochoin]

I'm just using my old unit sizes - anything from 16 grenadiers to 24 Prussian line infantry figures per unit & ignoring the disparity in size. Seems to work.

donald

[RMD]

I'm just using my old unit sizes - anything from 16 grenadiers to 24 Prussian line infantry figures per unit & ignoring the disparity in size. Seems to work.

donald

Yeah, absolutely.