ECW rules recommendation

[d_Guy]

I think you mean 'unobtrusive'?   I only mark the corner of each square, and they have no real impact on the overall look of the game.

Indeed! That is precisely what I meant and what I thought I wrote. Thanks for the correction.

[mmcv]

This is interesting, both from taking BBB so much earlier, but also to what are generally much smaller battles than BBB normally caters for.


I feel I should like BBB, but having read a mate's copy struggled to get into the rules, also the shear number of bases needed was a bit of a problem - unless we went for 1914 which meant learning some rules changes on top of the basic rules.

I like BBB but I'm not convinced they work for earlier periods the same way. They're not really designed for linear warfare, though I'm sure they can still give an enjoyable game with the tweaks.


The number of bases required is daunting for some games, though there are smaller ones that have more manageable counts. I intend to the them for 1914 when I've a few more units done, but not been tempted to try them for ECW.

[Last Hussar]

How many bases an army are we looking at FK&P and Twilight?

[fred.]

FK&P 10 units in the smaller scenarios up to 20+

I think for your basing a unit would likely be 3 bases - perhaps 2 for Swedish style cavalry. 

[mollinary]

FK&P 10 units in the smaller scenarios up to 20+

I think for your basing a unit would likely be 3 bases - perhaps 2 for Swedish style cavalry.

Depends on whether you are playing a pick up game, or a historical scenario.  It might help to know that at the scale for which the game is designed foot units represent battalia of 400-600 men, Horse units deployed in the Swedish style 200-300, horse in Dutch style 300-450.  I do know of some gamers who, when playing the smaller battles, particularly in Montrose's campaigns, make the units represent much smaller numbers, without damaging the game play. The important thing is that both sides use the same basis!  By, the way, when I played Marston Moor on a 15ft by 6ft table there were 8 players with over 100 units on the table.

[d_Guy]

Worth mentioning that for Twilight the base width determines the move and firing ranges. All foot and horse are two bases and guns one. It is easy enough to use other basing as long as that 2xBW is maintained for all units. For example if I use four musketeer bases of 15mm each and one pike of 30mm, the total unit base width is 90mm and half that (45mm) is the BW for game measurements.

In FK&P the constraint is the box dimensions in the grid. I use 100mm square so the 90mm unit fits well. Since the unit frontage is not used in measurements, you can show units of various sizes and weapons make up. Having several smaller bases allows you to break out two or three pike bases to form an all pike unit, two or three musketeer bases can form commanded shot, and so on.

[mmcv]

Twilight is probably similar, both sets work in terms of units (3 bases as you have it) though can all be on a single base for both.

How big is your army (or how big do you plan it to be?)

There's some pretty good videos on YouTube giving a breakdown of the Twilight rules, not sure of FK&P has the same but there are for TtS and many of the principals are the same.

[Hwiccee]

Last Hussar:

The minimum number of units for the Twilight rules is around 10 units a side. A unit can be any size you like as long as they are all the same. The move distances, etc, are based on the unit frontage. In 10mm I would guess most people go for 18 infantry or often more per unit & around half of that for cavalry. Artillery are half sized and will be 1 or 2 guns.

Edgehill is around 20 units a side. Most of the other major battle are more like 25 units a side. I think the largest army is the Parliamentarian/Scottish armies at Marston Moor - they are circa 35 units at that battle.

If you are tempted to go further afield some of the TYW battles are larger than this & some of the 'Eastern' battles even more so.

[DHautpol]

I based mine for Victory without Quarter from League of Augsburg.

Foot are on 30x30mm bases and horse on 40x30mm.  These are the recommended size for 15mm, but I just added more figures.  Shot are 2 ranks of 4 figures with an officer and drummer behind them. Pikes are in 3 ranks; a rank of 4 figures in rows 2 and 3 with a front rank of 2 pikes and 3 standards.  Horse are a single rank of 4 figures.  

The Move turn is card driven in that when a units card is turned up it may move, a commander may give an order or the artillery (on both sides) fires.  If the TURN ENDED card turns up the Turn is finished and the deck is shuffled ready for the next Turn; as you can see there is a risk that some units may not get to move, which is to give a bit of uncertainty.

I made my own cards using MS PowerPoint, the units are represented by images of their standards and the commanders by searching for portraits on the web.  This is not too bad for the Royalist commanders who seemed to like a portrait or two, but less easy for some Parliament commanders.  Still there are plenty of images of po-faced seventeenth century gentlemen which can be utilised instead.

 

[Last Hussar]

Plunged, and just ordered physical copy of FK&P.

[mollinary]

Plunged, and just ordered physical copy of FK&P.

Hope you enjoy it.  There is a part of the To the Strongest forum on Tapatalk which is devoted to FK&P, and Simon and I visit regularly to answer questions.

[Last Hussar]

I downloaded the free 'Soggy Bottom' scenario; The Cavalry is classed as 'Horse - Seasoned' or 'Horse - Raw'.

I have to ask, are these wargames rules, or a French steakhouse menu? 

[mollinary]

I downloaded the free 'Soggy Bottom' scenario; The Cavalry is classed as 'Horse - Seasoned' or 'Horse - Raw'.

I have to ask, are these wargames rules, or a French steakhouse menu? 

Belgian, actually!  

[Last Hussar]

Rules arrived today.

Reading them now, expect silly questions towards end of week.

[pierre the shy]

I hope you have a great time with them.

They're a very good set of rules.

If you have any questions I'm sure you will find answers here or on the rules page at the author's website.

[Last Hussar]

My foot is 30mm square, the horse is 40mm deep. It looks like a 100mm grid will be ok, yes.

Also reactivating a unit - It seems to read you can activate A, then B, then go back to A. Have I misread that?

[mollinary]

My foot is 30mm square, the horse is 40mm deep. It looks like a 100mm grid will be ok, yes.

Also reactivating a unit - It seems to read you can activate A, then B, then go back to A. Have I misread that?

Basing sounds fine for 100mm grid.


On activation, yes you can go back to a unit to attempt to activate it again. It is one of the advantages of using cards, or chits, that they remain with a unit activated until the end of the command's turn. They are not as easily knocked over as 10 sided dice! So you can not only see easily which units have already been activated, but also what number you need to beat to activate again. Once one unit of a command fails its activation, then that is the end of the command's activation. So definitely do not activate your first unit until it fails! A good tip, don't be too greedy, try and activate everyone you want to move before activating anyone a second time. 

[fred.]

We use cards for activation - it makes it much easier to track which units have activated and what score they need to beat. We use small cards sold as kids party gift bag items - dead cheap, and nice and small on the table. 

Moving around the units within a command to decide where you want to go next is key - but you can still be stymied when you draw an ace!

We do use dice for melee resolution - partly as the players like rolling dice, and partly it seems to keep activation with cards and resolution with dice separate in the player's heads. 

[Last Hussar]

I like the dice and cards separation idea. Dice when you don't have to keep track of results.

[paulr]

We like the ebb and flow of chits

While you can still have bad (or good) runs of chits there are less bad (or good) chits left, so the luck will turn

A quote from another playing after drawing a series of truly appalling cards when passing the deck his partner, "I've warmed them up for you"