possible ECW project using Baroque

[FierceKitty]

Well, at least English began generating literature worth reading!

[toxicpixie]

Well, given they disappeared, I think we have to try and pin it on  someone. I  prefer the first suspect with both the motive and opportunity myself!

Henry has double the motive, and may well have had the means...

All the rumours of their possible death under Richard start and end with Henry Tudors doctor, who was coincidentally the last person to probably have seen them, and passed the "information" to Mancini to write the propaganda sheet that justified French intervention on Henry's part to seize the throne... with them alive, Henry has no justification for an invasion, let alone one justification for enough foreign support to succeed; he needs both the Princes AND Richard out the way so it's very much in his interest for them to disappear (preferably in murky enough circumstances to cast massive doubt on Richard), and he certainly appears to have had people in place to achieve this.

Assuming the good doctor (or other agent, there's no shortage of side switching treachery all through the period) didn't finish them off early, Tyrell may well have knocked them off 1486 under Henry's direction not Richards

Ofc there's actually no evidence for anyone murdering them at all, and as Zippee says if it wasn't for the Tudor propaganda machine it'd likely just be written off as an "eh, whatever, we dunno" but it's used a linchpin of the regime change, so it's the c15th equivalent of 45 minute WMD's

FSN - Sadly my lead boats keep sinking - lead's not good at floating it seems

You just need more lead, eventually one will float, I'm sure of it.

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

You just need more lead, eventually one will float, I'm sure of it.

Or turn into gold, either equally likely.

[toxicpixie]

If it turns into lead it's mine

[Zippee]

Or turn into gold, either equally likely.

well if they keep sinking in the same place - eventually one will not be able to sink I guess.

if they turn to gold I guess we just change rules and start a Pulp game based on Bear Island

just to be clear this was 'turn to gold AND sink' wasn't it?

[toxicpixie]

I built my battleship on a swamp, and it sank. Do I built another, and it sank. I built a third, it capsized and then sank. But the fourth battleship stayed afloat! And that's what you get, strongest battleship in England!

[d_Guy]

Have you considered the 4th is resting on the other three?

[toxicpixie]

If I see further, I stand on the shoulders of battleships come before?

[paulr]

Making sure this thread 'stays in the room'

We played the first half of our group test game of Baroque last night
There was much laughter and banter during the game which is always a good sign

The horse on both wings have clashed and both sides left wings are in trouble
The infantry centers are still slowly advancing, the forces of the King had initially held back between two gentle hills but are now moving up to support their horse

I was umpiring and commanding the Parliamentary right wing. I made a couple of rules mistakes

• units firing should always roll at least 1 dice so the Parliamentary artillery missed out on one roll
• ranges are measured from the center of the firing unit, not nearest point, one unit of P&M got a bit better opportunity fire into some passing Trotters

I have a couple of questions for the more experienced Baroque players.

1. One of the Royalist Galloper units charged a unit of my Reiters which passed its test and bravely counter charged. As expected my Reiters lost the melee and retreated straight back (not directly away from the Gallopers which were at a slight angle and offset). The Gallopers pursued toward the centre of my retreated Reiters but because of the offset they contacted a different unit of Reiters and promptly beat them in melee. The new unit of Reiters retreated and ended up further back than the first unit of Reiters.

When the Gallopers pursued again they contacted the first unit of Reiters and a third melee was fought. The Gallopers had taken some hits in the previous melees and my Reiters rolled well and the Gallopers rolled badly on their cohesion test and were eliminated.

Did we get this right? It seems to model the loss of control of Royalist horse but seems a little strange to those us used to one round of melee per turn

2. We used the 'Preparing Terrain' rules to set up terrain and we all noticed two things:

• there was very little terrain; a couple of gentle hills and a 4BU length of hedge, although this may have been historic
• the 'second' player could move most of the terrain around, he had rolled a 4

How have others found the 'Preparing Terrain' rules

[Zippee]

Making sure this thread 'stays in the room'

Good luck with that 

We played the first half of our group test game of Baroque last night
There was much laughter and banter during the game which is always a good sign

Sounds like a good first game - regardless of rules. Never worry about getting all the rules right, it's the flavour and general process that's important.

1. One of the Royalist Galloper units charged a unit of my Reiters which passed its test and bravely counter charged. As expected my Reiters lost the melee and retreated straight back (not directly away from the Gallopers which were at a slight angle and offset). The Gallopers pursued toward the centre of my retreated Reiters but because of the offset they contacted a different unit of Reiters and promptly beat them in melee. The new unit of Reiters retreated and ended up further back than the first unit of Reiters.

When the Gallopers pursued again they contacted the first unit of Reiters and a third melee was fought. The Gallopers had taken some hits in the previous melees and my Reiters rolled well and the Gallopers rolled badly on their cohesion test and were eliminated.

Did we get this right? It seems to model the loss of control of Royalist horse but seems a little strange to those us used to one round of melee per turn :-

Hard to be certain of the details (especially the direction of retreat) but in essence that sounds right. You complete all the actions and resulting pursuits and melees of one unit. I suspect the GA rolled badly on the third combat, more likely would be to be ground to a halt by the RE. Actually that is more likely against TR, against RE  the GA were unlucky not to just sweep them away 

2. We used the 'Preparing Terrain' rules to set up terrain and we all noticed two things:

• there was very little terrain; a couple of gentle hills and a 4BU length of hedge, although this may have been historic
• the 'second' player could move most of the terrain around, he had rolled a 4

How have others found the 'Preparing Terrain' rules

Never used them - they're a tournament tool so of little interest to me. That said not much terrain and what there is mostly to the flank is right for most ECW actions I think.

[d_Guy]

Hi Paul,
Sounds like your crew enjoyed themselves with the rules and look forward to the culmination next week.

I can't add much to what Zippee has posted. As I invision the situation you describe with your Gallopers, the way you had it play out seems correct. Incidently, in my experience they often get a second melee' and occasional a third, a fourth would be exceedingly rare. What you describe is similar to my re-fight of Benburb, where the Anglo/Irish horse effectively turned the Irish flank with a chain pursuit.

Like Zippee I don't use the terrain placement rules, working from scenarios only.

The horse on both wings have clashed and both sides left wings are in trouble

This sort of thing is very common in battles of the period. At Nasby, I think, the same thing occurred and the battle pivoted counter clockwise.
If you can pick up a copy of Burne & Young's "The Great Civil War", it gives a quick overview with clear descriptions of the battles. It came out in the 1950's (I think) but still a great read.

...It seems to model the loss of control of Royalist horse but seems a little strange to those us used to one round of melee per turn

I agree, I think it models the period well. The pursuits completely change the complexion of the game so that the best laid plans quickly go out the window. Adding "friction" is want gamers now call it. I call it fun! Particularly in solo play where things can easily become boring. Incidently Irregular foot - Highlanders for example - can go off on these happy little excursions although usually harder for them to catch the fleeing enemy.

[Zippee]

The only problem with the GA pursuing into the sunset trope is that it doesn't happen in the game.

They pursue as long as an enemy unit is on the table but if the enemy withdraws or routs, they suddenly stop and wheel into the centre. . .

It really breaks the verisimilitude and requires some kind of pursue the baggage / race off the table house rule.

We are experimenting with something based off of withdraw but requiring success so stop pursuing. It's hard to find the middle ground between straitjacket and exploitable ability though, so I understand why it's not in the rules 

[d_Guy]

True, it was that very occurance that caused the aforementioned Anglo/Irish horse to pull up and threaten the Irish flank. Often, however, my pursuit gets checked by melee or fails to catch the fleeing unit.

In Mollinary's For King and Parliment rules, the horse fall into pursuit mode and have to be rally tested out of it. Failing this, unless stopped  by an enemy unit they will run right off the table top. Sounds like you are moving toward a similar implementation.

Had I had that condition at Benburb, the coalition horse would have continued until they reached the Irish Sea, the Irish would not have had to split their force to deal with the problem and the outcome may have been different.

[paulr]

Thanks for the feedback Zippee and d_Guy

I was pretty sure we got the cavalry interactions right, as I said felt strange compared to most rule sets that allow only one melee per turn, but gave a result with a sensible narrative

A couple of times we had to stop ourselves doing group moves as in DBX

I suspect we will use scenarios or 'preset' terrain most of the time and will have to get use to lower terrain density

[toxicpixie]

From the solo games I played it tended to be one biggish piece (usually a hill), a couple of smaller pieces off to a side, and... that was it. Seemed to match up with my limited knowledge of the periods battlefields!

I may be misremembering (haven't played for ages), but would an "easy" fix be a forced roll on the pursuit distance table? If it takes you off table you're off as if retired so VBU towards break point, if not it will probably stuff up an easy turn in to hit the flank of your opponents main line?

[paulr]

Another successful session saw a win to the forces of the King in our test game

All have enjoyed the rules so far but are keen to play another game before committing to them

We are back to the Solomons next week but the following week should see another Baroque test game, north of the border this time

If that goes well it will be time for me to place an order

[paulr]

After nearly a month we got a chance to have another successful test game of Baroque

Once again the time flew and much fun was had by all

Afterwards we had a very thoughtful conversation about how many different rule sets we regularly play

This has me wondering how many rule sets others regularly play, so I have created a poll http://www.pendrakenforum.co.uk/index.php/topic,16698.msg244844.html#msg244844 and look forward to your feedback

I am now left pondering, do I add a new period that requires a new rule set, or do I look at a new 'sub-period' within an existing rule set

[Steve J]

I'm attempting to have one set of rules to cover a particular period. For example, Honours of War for the Seven Years War. But I can use these rules for the AWI with some tweaks, should I so wish, or for purely Imagi-Nations games. So for me sub-periods are the way to go it would seem.

[pierre the shy]

For the second test game "north of the border" scenario I used the existing bases I had from our initial Inverlochy refight and added cavalry wings to each side as I wanted to see how lancers and curiassiers (the somewhat mythical Duke of Argyll's bodyguard  ) worked. I set the timing of the encounter a week later than Inverlochy and some miles to the south near Dunstaffange castle on the road to Oban. For the actual cavalry I "borrowed" some units from DGuy's Fyvie scenario.  

The game itself went pretty well for the Covenant trotters, who managed to either hold or see off the dashing Royalist gallopers under the command of Nathanial Gordon and Sir Thomas Ogilvy respectively. The Duke's bodyguard was held in reserve to back up the inexperienced Covenant infantry who held the centre, though they were never called into action. Instead the large contingent of Argyll's own "regularly" armed foot regiment valiantly held off Montrose's main attack, seeing off two units of tough highland "warbands".

In the end the Royalists decided that they would retire, leaving the Duke and his followers in possession of the field.

As you can tell I am fairly keen on this period and would like to take it further but as Paul has pointed out we had a fairly long discussion after the game which identified that our band of 5 or 6 regulars already play around 9 set of rules on a fairly regular basis. Given that we do not play every week and that some games take more than an evening to complete the prospect of introducing yet another period was countered by some valid points. These were that we would not get to play any one period more than once or twice a year and as we use so many different rules that trying to remember how to use them all correctly was becoming a real issue.

So we all went off to have a bit of a rethink and Paul has put up a very interesting poll: http://www.pendrakenforum.co.uk/index.php/topic,16698.msg244844.html#msg244844

From the results so far looks like we are at the top end of number of different periods played.

So stay tuned to see if its ECW (I follow DGuy's blog myself and am sorely tempted to follow his lead get some Scots ECW stuff even if it means playing small games on my table at home   ) or more AWI (French are being considered - another period that I always really enjoy playing with V&B wing scale).

[d_Guy]

I, obviously, enjoyed your report, Pierre. The more folks out on the Fringe the better! 

As it turns out, Argyll (who was still a Marquis at the time) had both a Lifeguard of Horse and Foot, so your conjecture Is dead on. Here’s the best part, just about everybody had some sort of retinue of factors, friends and clansmen so you are given a great deal of scope for your imagination. Like you, I rather like this time and place.

As much as I like Baroque, I would like it much better if I could play it in a group setting. It certainly works well enough solo but I am finding that For King and Parliament is a much better fit for me in that regard. As you have probably seen, it is grid based which allows it to easily scale up and down. I have become quite happy playing on a 3x4 foot battle mat.

One of the best things with FK&P for solo play is the playing card system that allows you to come and go with the game and easily “read” exactly what is going on by the spread of cards on the table, a real help when you don’t have an opponent to remind you.

I will stay tuned and hope to see you up north of the border.