Seven Years War or Napoleonic?

[steve_holmes_11]

Look for the free set "Valour and Fortitude" on the Perrys web site. There is also General d'Armee from the Lardies. First is free tut oder be paid for. Both come with lists. I have played both, and enjoyed them.

I'm a fan of Valour and Fortitude.

It's the game that Black Powder 2.5 should have been.

It has a flexible core, which is really quite difficult to grasp.
The author's dedication to squeezing all the rules onto 4 sides of a4 does few favours for learnability.

It is extremely well written, and readable.
But the terse format means every definition apears once, and once only.
This is extremely good practice in technical writing and avoids multiple references getting out of step.

But one of the key factors in learning is repetition.
So you may find your first few passes through the rules extremely hard going.

Hints:
1. Begin with the understanding that valour tests and fortitude tests are the big morale checks (Valour for units, fortitude for brigade morale).
2. The heavy paragraph about target priority mostly boils down to. Attack the closest enemy that hasn't been attacked yet, or lend support to another unit's attack on the closest. (I know that's not exact, but its close enough until you decode the precise words).
3. The appendices about terrain and its effects are very keyword heavy. Draw a little map and label the features until it makes sense.
4. A Facebook group contains a mass of contributed supporting goodies. Translations of the rules, army lists for a wide range of conflicts, rule discussions, scenarios. Facebook maintained my interest when I was struggling to comprehend the rules.
5. The fans will claim the rules work for any period (indeed there are army lists stretching from the Punic War to North Africa in WW2 - big time shift, little geography shift). I believe they work well for around 1700 - 1865.

[Last Hussar]

I have V&F somewhere - I can feel the Little Wooden Men getting a run out!