Stopping Time

OK, cooler heads have prevailed. After handling a few figures and rereading some old posts (to avoid having to actually think the thoughts again and re-discuss the old discussions again), I have decided to again post pone the late 19thC/early 20thC glossy toy soldier adventure and to stick to last year's decision to park the historical early 19th campaigns for a bit longer and just get the Atlantica collection sorted.  I have also remembered 2 of the stumbling blocks. One is that I need to sculpt some more figures and have been stalled on the sculpting side. The other is that while I have a vague of idea of how I want the games to look and feel, its hard to write vague rules!  I could just stick 'em all back on bases and play Hearts of Tin but I want the games to look and feel different (largely as an excuse for multiple collections of troops).

So here I am looking at Charge and fiddling  with MacDuff again and wondering if its fair to use the same name if the rules end up being very different and wondering what else to call them. OK that can wait. What I found myself writing last night when supposedly updating the intro, was  a rant on consistent scales and the dampening effect it can have on games design, esp since no one I've met, other, perhaps than Von Reischwitz, has managed the time issue and he wasn't writing a solo or 2 player game but a training exercise with a team of umpires.

Weapon ranges are easy enough. There is lots of data on % hits at various ranges so one can just translate that into range bands and dice scores. Of course in real life there aren't discrete range bands with a drastic reduction in effect between 99 yards and 101 but you could always use more range bands or a sliding %. Oh and of course each turn usually represents more than one volley so really you need to calculate the effect of each of those separately, and make it interactive........

Time and interactiveness are the real difficulties. The rate at which troops move is also easily calculated but is meaningless without a time scale and time scales which give reasonable bounds on the table are usually incompatible with the total length of time required for even a small battle. All of this is of course old hat well discussed in the 60's and probably earlier.

There is always the design for effect but the trick is to get the right results/effect without losing all flavour, especially if playing a low level action rather than a large battle where the player is a Corps or Army commander, above the smell of smoke. It would be fine if skirmishes between less than 1,000 men were usually over in 20 minutes, but based on studying various War of 1812 actions amongst others, such things could easily last 3 hours or more despite the lack of troops.

In real life, hurry up and wait applies, there are pauses where not much happens, then there is a burst of activity then another burst of activity. How best does one get this on the table top and keep it interesting?

There have been lots of attempts to find the best way to convert the continuous flow of time into a game format, from IgoUgo, to simultaneous moves, continuous action, variable length bounds, impulses, card decks and on and on. I'm afraid I'm not bright enough to out think  all those who have given it a go in the past but I'm still struggling towards finding something to suit me right now. At least, since this is to be primarily a solo project, I don't really have to worry about finding something that works for any one else.    

I'm currently revisiting an old idea that almost worked. On a high level, it would involve fairly long movement   with some sort of reaction-interference by the enemy, an interactive combat resolution, usually decisive, probably with the possibility of more than 1 phase. There needs to be a reason to not commit all troops at once and there needs to be time to regroup but turns need to move quickly when there is little or no fighting.

Good luck to me.

A Startling Thought

Startling may be too strong but I am so used to the convention of the 2 deep line of miniatures that it feels odd to even think about a 1 deep line despite the long history of such a tabletop formation.

One deep firing lines go right back to Don Featherstone and Jack Scruby and were used by WRG in their 1685-1845 rules not to mention GW Jeffries. With the exception of my short WRG phase, I have been an adherent to Lawford & Young's and Charles Grant's 2 deep approach. However there are 2 very different benefits to the 1 deep line. One is from a position of sheer laziness, it allows one to use 1/2 the number of figures for the same frontage of units. The 2nd, which is of primarily academic interest, is that it allows for a slightly better representation of the depth of formations.

Have a look at the American column in the picture, deployed on a Grand Division frontage (2 companies) vs the British line. If we doubled the depth as usual the line would have 40 figures, still on a 20 man frontage while the column would have a depth of 8 men still on a 5 man frontage and would look very ungainly with the rear ranks barely able to come up to the front in a single move. If we halved the size of the units but kept the 2 deep line, we would have to 1/2 the ground scale to keep in proportion which has other effects, for example the limbered gun would be more than a musket shot from tip to tail.

No conclusions, just a thought to ponder.  There are days when I sure wish I could just play toy soldiers without even thinking about this stuff!   (or just wargame with 10mm figures)

Admin Note: Current Email Address

For anyone who is used to using my old lochsloy email address or has it in their address book, or who has picked it up from an old link, please note that my current email address is rmacfa@gmail.com .  You won't get an error from the old address but I only check it when the moon is blue so there may be delay of weeks or months before I get your email.......

Thanks!

Ross
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