Anthony and I played our second game with these new Osprey rules last week. In our first game we got a lot of rules wrong ad misunderstood how the unit sizes worked but felt they were worth another try.
The second game went much better and we only got a few small things incorrect (Tiny units failing a morale test are removed, morale tests for units nearby if a unit runs, etc).
The rules seem to me to combine the best bits of Pickett's Charge and Black Powder while allowing you to play much larger games than Pickett's charge with several brigades a side.
They use a similar order system to Black Powder, but if you fail to roll enough for 3 moves, but pass the 2 move roll you can still move 2 moves with a brigade. This makes the game move along as you don't fail to do anything that often.
Firepower is VERY bloody once you get close and units remove a base for every 6 hits which drops them down a size, so Large->Average->Small->Tiny with a similar drop in their abilities.
This means that the game moves quickly and you get a result with Brigades breaking at 50% losses.
Units can be rallied and come back to the fight but they don't regain bases (something that the Neil Thomas ACW rules have which means the game never ends!).
I like the use of ADCs to let you bid for the initiative roll and to help with brigade orders and I like the fact that units can return fire when fired on during the opponent's turn. This stops the problem with initiative based games where one side can potentially fire twice before the other side returns fire.
Like most of the Osprey Blue Books they need several read throughs to make sure you have understood all the rules and found the exceptions, etc in the places they are mentioned.
I have typed up a QRS which steps through the stages of a turn in order which should stop us forgetting things next time.
So far they seem a very promising set.
Very interesting, as I have half an eye on these rules and various bloggers are just starting their trial runs. Are they a mish-mash of various sets or do they seem to be bringing their own thing to the party?
ReplyDeleteI think they are more than a mish-mash of other rules. Although the ADCs owe something to Pickett's Charge they are much simpler, and the orders are similar to Blakc Powder but with their own twist.
DeleteThey have rules for brigade formations such as Multiple Lines, Echelons, etc that I haven't seen in other rules. Also arillery is fairly detailed with different tyes of shot and there are rules for firing (or not!) over your own troops.
The melee rules look interesting with supports also pursuing a fleeing enemy (not managed to try these out yet).