Sunday, February 9, 2020

Bad Time for a New Project

It has been pretty quiet around here recently.  Life has been pretty busy as a new dad.  Both my wife and I work full-time jobs so there just hasn't been much time to get away from things for enough time to set up and play a wargame, even a quick playing one.  To make matters worse, I need to be preparing to move across the country in March for my job.  We still don't have a house secured at our next location, my wife's car needs replaced, and we haven't started packing yet.  Then one day I got a message about some miniatures I had designed and posted months ago.  A gentleman reached out to me and ask if I could revamp my Napoleonic models to fit the US Civil War.
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

3 comments:

  1. Have you considered the 'Portable Wargame' (Bob Cordery)? I've been using the concept for my 19th Century games. These seem 'philosophically' similar to what you have in mind for your project.

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  2. I own that book as well as the Napoleonic version of Bob Cordery's rules. Last time I played them, I wasn't too thrilled about all players always being able to activate all of their troops. It really prevented me from implementing strategy. I found that I was never able to surprise myself. I also prefer games with 2D6. I have a background in statistics and think the normal"ish" distribution of 2D6 really adds to games.

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  3. There are refinements in which each side may activate just half their units +/- 1 depending upon a card draw or die roll. I also use a system to determine for each bound whether it will be IGoUGo or UGoIGo. There are certain limitations here, too as 'all in' attacks aren't really possible. On the other hand, it does encourage the maintenance of a reserve.

    An alternative method I've occasionally used is the allocation of 'priority' chits to both sides. That leads to a lot of interaction between the two sides, even in a solo game.

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