A New Way of Doing Things

I was tired yesterday with no afternoon obligations so I hauled out One Hour Wargames, my 54's and The Square Brigadier and had a small, quick, and rather dissatisfying clash of advance guards over an isolated hill in the middle of nowhere. Having time left over I started thinking back to last fall's ideas about a different, more 'Old School' approach to my gridded games. In no time at all I had decided that I needed to change the grid, rebase all of my 54's and paint extra figures to bring the units back to 8 figures each. Wisely, at that point, I called a recess and left the room.

Today was a snow day, lots of time for some proper analysis of the issues and possible solutions and time for a test game of a  different, more traditional approach with bigger, multi-stand units.

The NorthWest Mounted Rifles dismount and open fire.
(Ok ok, here they appear to be armed with lances and pistols but that's merely artistic licence. )

The result is much closer to my Hearts of Tin rules than to the Square Brigadier but uses the grid for measuring to avoid the mid-game search for rulers and squinting at small numbers(and not just because my eyes are dim and I'm occasionally stubborn).

It'll take me a while to get the quick jottings translated into (hopefully) clear rules but not too long.  Essentially standard units will switch to 4 stands of 3 infantry (because that's how they're based and partially organized now), 3 stands of 2 cavalry and a gun stand with 2 crew + a limber stand with 2 crew.

My grid of 6" squares is now a grid of 3" squares (theoretically at this point) each of which will hold 1 stand. The stands of a unit must maintain unit integrity by staying in adjacent or diagonally touching squares unless they are detached to become a separate unit, to garrison a house for example. Movement and shooting ranges are measured for each stand.

From there its pretty conventional but now, for example, my 6 unit forces saw 60 infantry and a gun fighting 48 infantry, 6 cavalry and a gun instead of 15 and a gun vs 12, 2 and a gun. The extra number of figures (or strength points)  allowed for more dice and thus a more average curve of results while still leaving room for extremes. At the same time, the reduced number of manoeuvre elements made each command choice more significant with less room for error thus increasing the tension and mental focus for players.

Mid-Game. The Queen's army is finally all on table but the Rebels are still straggling on and the hardest fighting is still ahead.

Next post should be a battle report. A link to the new rules should follow by the weekend.