This reignited my inspiration to expand my wargaming, both played and designed. Most of my inspiration seems to come from 3D modeling my own custom miniatures. I've developed US Civil War Union soldiers, French Foreign Legion, British pith helmet, British Naval Brigade, and a late look shako for the more organized forces. The less professional armies currently have flowing robes and turban infantry (in both firearm and melee versions), and fez wearing professional troops. The new models are far more lifelike than my previous efforts. The previous generation of my models were cylindrical with spherical heads. The new models have more squared shoulders, egg shaped heads, and more posable arms. I have also expanded the line to having models carrying rifles on the shoulder as well as resting on the ground. Now I need a good ruleset to use.
This time I want to move away from the grand battles to something more skirmish like. I've read Colonial Wargaming by Two Hour Wargames and found it very interesting. I prefer something gridded to minimize fiddliness and keep the game moving. I really do like the PEF mechanics and the programmed enemy reactions, but think I'd have a hard time keeping the game moving. I also read The Men Who Would Be Kings and The Sword and the Flame, both of which seem to be the industry standard for 19th Century skirmishes. Both of these systems are free movement, individually based, result in throwing buckets of dice, and rely heavily on formations, all of which I don't find very compelling. So during my lunch breaks at work, I've been adapting my 18th Century rules to mid 19th Century rules. Professional units will have appointed officers which make the units they are attached to easier to control and will hopefully provide some narrative elements. I will still continue to have most dice rolls be decided by 2D6 with a few modifiers. To keep things from getting too predictive total modifications to the dice roll will be capped at +/-3. Units will have a base statistics for shooting, melee, and movement as in the 18th Century rules. I may add an activation mechanic that would force players to risk their turn ending with each attempted activation. I do need to work on balancing units. My initial assumption is that regulars are the default (no modifiers to melee or shooting). Sharpshooters would be +1 shooting and -1 melee and unaffected by difficult terrain. Unprofessional troops shoot as well as professional troops, but have a -1 modifier to melee. Cavalry and artillery will be rare. Cavalry will move 1.5x infantry movement, have no shooting ability and a +1 melee modifier. I don't know how I will handle artillery, but I think each unit on the board will represent a single gun. It will obviously have a significant range, but I don't know if it should be able to fire as frequently as infantry or what its power relative to infantry should be.
I'm greatly appreciative of any thoughts and/or feedback.
 |
| US Civil War Range |
.
