I've been pretty busy so far this week, doing not much of anything......, so today I decided that if its too cold and damp to do much outside work and I can't get my brain going to write about my rules or catch up on overdue bookkeeping as tax time rushes silently closer, I could at least get set up for another game. (sighhhh - hopeless!)
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| "Any sign of the enemy Sir?" "Umhhhhh..,,Nope! The hills look clear as far as the bridge. Signal the convoy to come up" |
However, I did manage to surprise myself when looking back through my blog for early mention of the Square Brigadier. It seems that the first discussion and drafts started appearing in March 2011 as I tried to add a bit more of tactical flavour, and my tastes, to Bob Cordery's not yet named Portable Wargame which he was busy developing.
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| 2017 Square Brigadier game. |
Some details of the rules have come and gone (and comeback and....) as I tried to handle various issues, especially with the smaller table and my reduced stamina, but the basics have remained very similar, right up to when I realized that I had room on the 6" grid to separate bayonet and cavalry charges from close range firefights by simply having a charging unit move into the enemy square to contact the target now that the squares were big enough to do it. Not only did that make it clear who was fighting who it also clarified messy situations where multiple units were adjacent to multiple enemy units.
To make the table a little big bigger yet, I also reduced the movement rates. Now infantry can't rush through the enemy infantry's 'killing' ground untouched quite so easily and scenarios can develop more naturally with room to manouevre.
Was that a fluke? We'll see when the convoy rolls forward in this old chest nut from C.S. Grant's Scenarios for Wargames.
>(sighhhh - hopeless!)
ReplyDelete"tsk, tsk!" Predictability: Sun Tzu warned you against that(!).
>Was that a fluke?
hey, Don't knock it - some of the best inventions came from such a source.
Nice to see the Hoylinders at the charge arms w/ bayonets fixed in the bottom pic.
Think they need to have a peek at that hill top before doing anything .
ReplyDeleteI do like the pillboxed Mounties, if there is such a word. I have been lazy and field mine in the classic headgear.
ReplyDeleteLooks like another good game in the offing, Ross. And it's always great to see your NWMP out on the table.
ReplyDeleteCan't wait to see what happens. Hopefully it stays rainy and cold for you.
Eric
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ReplyDeleteThe movement rates in the new vs old rules were what I was going to check first, so today's post saved me some eye-strain in trying to see what was different between the two. I found some of the photos on your blog that I liked from before, in terms of the number of troops in a unit and the number of of units on the table, etc. They were from April of 2016, for instance see: "The End of the Pass." It looks very similar to your current battle configuration. I like the 6 infantry, 4 cavalry sized units. I look foreword to the next Battle Report.
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