ACW rules

[slinky]

Any recommendations for an easy, fun set of rules to start playing ACW?

Not looking for huge games ala fire & fury

[nikharwood]

I use the ACWarmaster variant - nice & simple, fast & furious...

[slinky]

cool, is that a separate book to the warmaster series?

[nikharwood]

Even better - it's a free download - hosted on the warmaster-historical Yahoo group...or if you don't want to join the group, PM me here & I'll zap it to you 

[slinky]

So do I just need to get the warmaster historical rules and then sort out the free extras?

[slinky]

Have joined the historical warmaster group and printed off the acw rules, just need to get a copy of the ancient rules and Im away. May look at salute for a copy.........

Thanks for the heads up nick

[nikharwood]

You're welcome - if you want to have a bash at these without forking out for WMA you can always use the WM original fantasy rules - it'll give you a flavour of the command & combat core mechanics - you can download them from here: http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?catId=cat1290025&categoryId=1100014&section=&aId=5300011

[slinky]

Your'e a star! Better get reading.......

[Captain Verbeek]

Fire and Fury is awesome and very easy.

[DaveH]

Fire and Fury is awesome and very easy.

And there are a lot of sensibly sized scenarios at http://www.fireandfury.co.uk/ - the ones in the rulebook are pretty huge.

[Luddite]

If you don't want THE ACW rules (F&F), i'd recommend looking at Black Powder.

http://www.warlordgames.co.uk/?page_id=3177

I was initially skeptical, but they are really rather growing on me...

[DaveH]

The Too Fat Lardies have They Couldn't Hit an Elephant which are pretty good.

[ciaphas]

We use johnny Reb, we have played anything from 1 brigade upto 1 corp.

and are quite straight forward (must be I can play)

jon

[GordonY]

Thoroughly enjoying Peter Pig's Civil War Battles, they're supposed to be 15mm but figure scale is never that important. If you base them as suggested you can play a Corps sized game with 3-400 figs on the table in a couple of hours. More Beer and Pretzels than hard core rivet counting type rules.

Gordon

[Nosher]

BP has its fan base - a bit like Marmite you either love it or hate it. I'm in the latter category.

I cant beleive that they are too lazy to produce army lists. What you end up with is rules lawyers creating uber-armies because "there is nothing in the rules that says you cant do it."

If you do find a decent set of ACW rules I'd love to know too. Still searching for the holy grail

[GordonY]

Go here Nosher

http://www.peterpig.co.uk/Range2.htm

Scroll to the bottom for a batrep with pictures.

I love them, youre never sure how long the battles gonna go on for, it might be all over in 4 turns, or it can rage on for 21 turns. There's a countdown starting at 21 with the defender rolling a dice at the end of the turn and subtracting the roll from the coundown, when it gets to zero or below, its game over, really forces the attacker to go all out. Yes there are lists with all the units that you can use, BUT the killer army you design might not be what your forced to fight with, some of 'em might turn up late, some might not show up at all, there's also a dozen historical scenarios with the forces already done for you. Great value at only £16, get 'em, read 'em, love them.

Gordon

[NTM]

I cant beleive that they are too lazy to produce army lists.

The writers may well say they cannot believe gamers are too lazy to research historical oob's  

Seriously though army lists are a marmite thing too, personally I prefer historical oob's but as a result I spend more time researching rather than painting or gaming  

[Nosher]

Cheers Gordon for the link to PP rules. I'm intrigued enough to potentially invest purely on the fact that I could get away without rebasing my figs. Beer and Pretzels sounds good - love games where I can pick up and play without spending two weeks pulling together an army list.

The only thing that might put me off is if the rules are similar to other PP rulesets... Do these rules have the grid based movement system of AK47 and the Pirates game they do? If so I might need to keep looking.

Good point on BP NTM. I just plain lazy and cant be bothered wasting time looking for stuff. I'd rather be gaming and I think that if the writers of BP had cut out all the GW-esque fluff, cheap jokes and childlike explanations there would have been more space for army lists. BP did nothing to inspire me to look into era's/periods that I haven't gamed before which much cheaper and better researched rule sets often do.

[GordonY]

No yer OK Nosher, theyre not grid based, theyre similarish to Warmaster, i.e. you can get a unit (brigade) to do more than one thing in a turn. Basic move for Infantry is 3" but depending on the formation, you can get a good few moves in in a single turn. Basing is similar to BP, multiple figs on square bases. So if youre based for say F&F/BP youre good to go.

Gordon

[GordonY]

Oh forgot to say Nosher, you can have a wee look at a game being played here :

http://www.kirriemuirwargames.co.uk/forum/index.php?a=topic&t=625

its a very small game, but it forced me to look up a lot of stuff, and to be honest I thoughrely enjoyed it.

Gordon