Writing MacDuff

During the twenty odd years that preceded MacDuff, I had read every book and magazine article, especially first hand accounts that I could get my hands on,  if they covered the battles, skirmishes and tactics of the campaigns I was interested in. I also read as many relevant sets of rules as I could.  Since the various sources often presented very different versions of the same events, it was often a matter of "you pays your money and takes your choice" as Doc Ruddy used to say but there is no harm in being aware of various ideas, views and methods. 

By the late 80's I was ready to become a less serious wargamers and became slowly interested in  games the equivalent of an historical novel or film, something where the game could create good narratives as well as allowing characters and famous units to develop over time, not by dicing on charts but by their performance in the games they were in and the stories we told about their performance. So, I took some ideas from old school games like Charge! with simple mechanisms, and some newer ones, and then added some of my own ideas mixed with input from the friends I was playing with, and cooked up a set of rules that served us well enough at our regular Friday night games.

Not Quite La Belle Famille: (ie the scenario published in the Courier) The French Indian allies and Couriers des bois have engaged the British allied tribes and rangers while the French regulars have finally reached the clearing.
 

Command Control and Movement. These related issues were very much on my mind in general as well as with this set of rules. My own take was that things didn't always happen exactly as a commander ordered but neither were they completely random.  I wanted a quick and simple process to keep the game flowing. The result was a card activation system where the player chose which unit to activate, an assignation of personalities to all command figures, a control check for units not under the general's eye and a mix of fixed and variable movement distances. Originally I allowed the player to choose which units or group of units he was going to activate but at conventions, it was easier to assign cards to players.

That actually still works for me but in the F&IW version, ALL units had to roll even if the player's figure was with them. During one early convention game, one poor novice player rolled a "cautious" personality which meant he had a 2 in 6 chance of getting a halted unit to advance.  He NEVER managed to roll the right number to get his lads started and didn't get to do ANYTHING! (I tried to implement a rule saying your 3rd roll automatically passes but his sense of honour and duty did not allow him to accept my fudge.)  Some contemporary games (no names, no packdrill) are designed so that a player who fails any activation forfeits their turn. If they continue to roll the wrong numbers they may lose the game without ever getting to move or shoot with any unit.  Neither realistic or fun in my opinion but obviously it can be for others. If I were to do it again, I'd declare that all players personal figures are Bold, allowed to act according to their own nature or chosen personality.

The Compagnies Franches have deployed and the Illinois militia are at hand.  A desultory firefight between opposing irregulars went on all day in the woods on either side. 

What is a casualty?  I have long believed that the effect of combat was partly physical and partly psychological but used to rely on old fashioned figure removal and morale tests. An article in  Wargames Illustrated in the late 80's or early 90's, Sin Bins and Stragglers I think was the title, possibly by Arthur Harman, or not, (it was a long time ago),  got me thinking about other options. What I decided on was to do away with separate moral tests, put casualties aside until a unit rallied, decide melees by the 'casualty' counts and have units break when the dropped below half, and then add a rally action to see which casualties were just shaken up, lightly wounded or out of ammo etc and could be recovered, and which were dead, wounded or run away. 

I used to get a lot of hassle about zombies coming back to life but since similar concepts have now appeared in more prestigious and popular rules, it seems to be accepted by players.

CHAAARRRGGEE!  When it comes to charges and "melee" I am one of those who believes that any actual hand to hand combat was rare, apart form cavalry charges and attempts to storm a  fortified position. Most infantry charges  were decided by opposing courage or by close range firepower. An old fashioned man to man melee is more fun on the table though and basically gives you the same result as duelling morale tests or charge resolution charts.

The action heated up as the Compagnies Franches moved into musket range of the cabin and abatis. The Royal Scots commenced firing their muskets into the air while their opponents levelled  theirs and unleashed a hail of bullets into the Redcoats.
In the woods, the British rangers and Iroquois were slowly forced back to avoid being flanked. 

So, how did the re-test game go? Over all it went well, nothing improbable happened and the fight was well balanced until the Royal Americans lost a firefight and broke after 10 or 12 turns and something like 5 HOURS of playing!  

That has always been the issue with MacDuff games but especially the F&IW games. Despite the small forces, the games take too long, especially in a multiplayer convention game, but also at home.  Some of the Colonial games occasionally were long but not THAT long. The differences in the rule sets are minimal but obviously are important. I have made umpteen attempts to fix them but despite Rob's patience with a new version every year, I have not succeeded. 

During a close comparison of the two versions, I noticed a couple of seemingly small differences that might be part of the cause.   

    a) The units in the Colonial games were larger, especially the Irregular units. Even the skirmisher units were 20 figures instead of the 8 we normally used. That means fewer cards to play, fewer decisions to make and fewer control checks to make. Less flexibility but faster play.

    b) In the original rules units within 24" of and in the line of sight of a General, did not need to take a control test. The variable moves might slow them down but they would attempt to carry out orders. In the F&IW version, every unit must test even if Wolfe is leading them cane in hand. That means a test and check of the chart for every unit every turn followed by more dice for distance. It all takes time. More than that, any commanders modifying the die have to go by their personality and in the F&I rules, a score of 5,6 result means that the unit continues what it was doing last turn, if you can remember what the unit did. This means if you were halted or retreating and are under a Cautious commander, you stay halted or retreat more, even if there is no reason. Sounded reasonable, but that was how that player got locked into not moving at all, all game. 

    c) It was slightly harder for regulars to rally in the original rules. Sometimes a small difference on a d6 roll can have a big effect.

The Royal Scots, broke, rallied well and counter attacked but were broken again. I called the game. 

Lastly, cover halves the number of hits from shooting as does being skirmishers.  Modifiers are cumulative so that skirmishers in the woods suffer 1/4 casualties leading to long indecisive firefights. Realistic but tedious rather than fun and tending to encourage bold or impatient players to out tomahawks and charge Hollywood style.  All those 1/2 casualties also means having some sort of marker to track the halves being carried over.  In the end, the slow attrition lengthens the game and is realistic rather than fun.  I suspect that old fashioned saving throws or die modifiers might have been better gamewise, than carrying over fractions.

So there we have it, the game still works but is too incremental and takes too long to reach a conclusion for a convention game and is too incremental and slow for my current tastes though I still like many of its aims and ideas. Perhaps I should adjust the force composition and try the original Colonial version?