For King and Parliament publishing update

[kustenjaeger]

Greetings

I can't tell you how others found it but the 28mm game looked great (and had a lot of cheerful players when I saw it) and the 10mm table demonstrated how you could equally well use 10mm.

I had a quick chat with Andrew and Simon.  Simon said he had got through half the print run since launch. The rules were being stocked by Caliver and Foundry.   I intend to order my copy plus PDF from Simon later this week.

Regards

Edward

[fred.]

Good looking game, I do like the low level photos.

Regarding the End Turn card, one option is to have two of these, and only end the turn when both are drawn.

In general it can be problametic when a game ends up with too many random elements, as FKaP already has Brigade activations, with a chance of failure, further randomisation may be too much. Though I can see the appeal of randomising Brigade order

[paulr]

An interesting account d_Guy, the Irish are indeed key to Montrose's chance of success

We use two 'tea break' cards for ITLSU with the turn only ending when the second is drawn and find it much improves the flow

[mollinary]

I love the ingenuity gamers bring to their games.  The key seems to me to be creating your own image of how the battles you are trying to represent played out, and allowing for this, coming up with a fun system.   As I play with these sort of variables, I find it gradually helps to  clarify in my own mind the important variables that influenced the real battles.  What a wondeful hobby!

[d_Guy]

Kustenjaeger - thanks for that update on Salute.

Fred and Paul - good suggestions and thanks. I may try the two card approach at some point. The random order of brigade activation tends to keep me honest in my solo play. Agree you can overdo the thing since, as Fred points out, the activation procedures in FK&P already add a good deal of friction.

[d_Guy]

Oops - posted over you, Andrew. Hope you had a great time at Salute?

I couldn't agree more about our hobby and how it can be used to study and shape our thinking on historic battles.
I seem to making a career of doing Montrose's first four battles over and over - at some point I need to move on to Auldearn. 

[Steve J]

Great report Bill . Luckily I managed to chat, all too briefly, with Andrew but failed to say Hi to Simon, as both were somewhat busy everytime I passed the stand. Great to see such interest in the rules though, which is thoroughly deserved. With Salute out of the way, time to get my wooden block out and some games on the table of FK&P .

[mollinary]

Oops - posted over you, Andrew. Hope you had a great time at Salute?

I couldn't agree more about our hobby and how it can be used to study and shape our thinking on historic battles.
I seem to making a career of doing Montrose's first four battles over and over - at some point I need to move on to Auldearn. 

SALUTE was excellent, lots of interest, and great to talk to so many interesting folks. We were insanely busy, so did not have as much time as we would have liked to chat . But those who played seemed to have a good time. Sadly I had to spend some time explaining to people why the denizens of Borsetshire referred to July 14th as 'Best Eel' day!

[paulr]

Good to hear it all went well

I really liked the two game approach, Simon's game to awe, your's to show how it can be done in an achievable way

[Leon]

Good to see you yesterday and both games looked great, really nice.  Glad it was busy for you as well, I hope the voice and feet have recovered a bit!

[Bunny]

Hi Bunny,

Depends what you mean by a set?  The base set of rules, To the Strongest, use playing cards. Simon recommends each player has two standard packs, with the court cards removed - so a pack of 80. The chits he sells come in packs of 80.  Now, for a one on one game you will need two sets, one for each player. For multi player games, it works best if each player has his own set, but if you want players to play I. Sequence rather than simultaneously, then you can get away with two packs.  For FK&P you can use the same number. However, the introduction of shooting, and the innovation of drawing two cards hitting on 8+s for all the occasions where in TtS you draw one card hitting on a 6+, means you can get through the cards rather more rapidly than in TtS,. So, if you think this dramatically affects the odds as you get towards the end of your turn, you may wish to increase the number to 120.    As d'Guy says, I have got round this by using chits for activations, placing them next to Units, and cards for combat hits/saves etc. Placing them at the back of the table. I think it works better this way round with the smaller scales, but it is entirely a matter of personal taste.

Mollinary

Sounds like 120 is the way to go for FK&P.  Initially I will be using my 10mm League of Augsburg collection, as I have two armies ready to go.  These will be on a 120mm frontage so 15cm squares would be the way to go.

[mollinary]

Sounds like 120 is the way to go for FK&P.  Initially I will be using my 10mm League of Augsburg collection, as I have two armies ready to go.  These will be on a 120mm frontage so 15cm squares would be the way to go.

That should work very well, the units will be very similar in size to my own standard ones. When I was looking to maximise the number of squares on my table I got a large mat with a 125cm grid made, but that was just me!

Andrew

[Bunny]

That should work very well, the units will be very similar in size to my own standard ones. When I was looking to maximise the number of squares on my table I got a large mat with a 125cm grid made, but that was just me!

Andrew

Hi Andrew,

Where did you get the 125mm grid cloth from? Or did you make it yourself?

Bunny

[paulr]

Just had a read of a very positive review of FK&P in Wargames Soldiers & Strategy No. 96 in my 'local' magazine store

Good to see them getting a good press as did the Pendraken ACW range for ACW raid scenarios 

[d_Guy]

Very glad you mentioned this review Paul, I have the eMag and completely missed it!

A good review as you say but sorry they failed to mention Andrew (Mollinary) as the co-designer!    Simon is always very careful to acknowledge him at every turn.

Incidentally, my own view is FK&P works pretty well for small battle too. Have seen lots of comments that it is best with large battles (as in this review) but I think the game engine is very robust and adaptable. The use of one of the extra rules, "Straddle" (splitting a unit over two boxes) has not been, as yet, well explored but shows a good deal of promise in small force encounters.