The Loose Association of Wargamers

As discussed here many times before, we've been using our own variant of 'Shako' since the 1990s to game the battles of the Seven Years War and War of Austrian Succession. However, I'd never really got around to actually writing them down! After much badgering, I've finally finished my QRSs for the game and have posted them on my blog. The full notes for converting 'Shako' to 'Tricorn' will follow.

http://www.jemimafawr.co.uk/2022/04/19/ ... ako-rules/

Excellent post, thanks for sharing the rules.



Willz.

Willz the Wargamer wrote: ↑Tue Apr 19, 2022 5:27 pm Excellent post, thanks for sharing the rules.

Willz.

Thanks Willz!

Thanks for this. I have will have to find my old copy of Shako.

Ilkley Old School wrote: ↑Tue Apr 19, 2022 7:18 pm Thanks for this. I have will have to find my old copy of Shako.

You're most welcome. Yeah, it's astonishing how much the 1st Edition sets are going for... It used to be a cheap set of rules...

Good post and some interesting ideas, Mark. I have Shako 2 and somewhere, I think, Shako 1. I never played the SYW of S1, so it was interesting to read your remarks.

Re battalion guns- the more I read the more I see them as a firepower and, more importantly, morale booster when the unit was under attack by either cavalry or infantry. For line or formed militia (possibly also grenadiers), have you thought of using a morale advantage for having battalion pieces present (or conversely, a penalty if they're not)?

Spanner wrote: ↑Tue Apr 19, 2022 10:26 pm Good post and some interesting ideas, Mark. I have Shako 2 and somewhere, I think, Shako 1. I never played the SYW of S1, so it was interesting to read your remarks.

Re battalion guns- the more I read the more I see them as a firepower and, more importantly, morale booster when the unit was under attack by either cavalry or infantry. For line or formed militia (possibly also grenadiers), have you thought of using a morale advantage for having battalion pieces present (or conversely, a penalty if they're not)?

Funnily enough, when we went through a phase of abstracting them as part of unit firepower, they also added an extra 'hit' to the unit, so the unit hung around for longer. However, it proved to be a faff to keep track of who had battalion guns, who didn't and then the discussion over units in bad going having to leave their battalion guns behind, or instances such as Minden, where they voluntarily left them behind in order to move faster... etc, etc. In the end we decided it was easier to either a. ignore them completely (which I didn't like) or b. lump them together as representative 'batteries', though with reduced fire effect. Option b. seems to work really well.

Re Battalion Guns & Grenadiers: The Prussians and others with semi-permanently established grenadier battalions tended to permanently allocate a pair of battalion guns to each grenadier battalion. The Austrians and others with ad hoc grenadier battalions formed 'on the day' tended to allocate guns (or not) from the central artillery park, so ended up with situations such as Moys/Goerlitz, where they had only two guns attached to a brigade of seven ad hoc grenadier battalions.

In the rules, the artillery will add a few morale points to the overall formation morale level, so it does have a small morale effect.

Excellent post. I belong to a club where Shako is the ruleset of choice for Napoleonic games. Over the past few years we've tried a number or rulesets for SYW but none really cater for the size of games we end up staging.
I finally caved in and tried Shako with a combination of the SYW rules from the first edition and some notes I found ( on your blog I think) written by Chris Leach. It worked pretty well, but you look to have given this a lot of thought and taken the development a stage further. I'd like to try them but we use 28mm figures and therefore much larger unit footprints. Would you be prepared to share an editable version of your playsheets so I can tinker with the ranges and distances?

Cheers

Gary

I am keen to read this through. There is an obvious common denominator that differentiates the tricorne era from the bicorne- shako era beyond taste in military headgear.

garyp wrote: ↑Wed Apr 20, 2022 10:34 am Excellent post. I belong to a club where Shako is the ruleset of choice for Napoleonic games. Over the past few years we've tried a number or rulesets for SYW but none really cater for the size of games we end up staging.
I finally caved in and tried Shako with a combination of the SYW rules from the first edition and some notes I found ( on your blog I think) written by Chris Leach. It worked pretty well, but you look to have given this a lot of thought and taken the development a stage further. I'd like to try them but we use 28mm figures and therefore much larger unit footprints. Would you be prepared to share an editable version of your playsheets so I can tinker with the ranges and distances?

Cheers

Gary

Thanks Gary! Would you mind PMing me your e-mail address (or posting again on the blog - I can see your email address there)?