Polamo rules

[Jerrylee]

Hello,
does anyone have a honest oppion to Baccuss Polamo rule sets on what there like?

[Leon]

does anyone have a honest oppion to Baccuss Polamo rule sets on what there like?

I've not played them myself, but as with any ruleset, opinions vary.  There's been a few discussions on TMP about them, if you do a search here: http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/search.mv

You could also have a look on Baccus's own forum as well.

[Hwiccee]

I think they vary a lot in quality, appeal and scale (i.e. how big a battle you will fight). I have played most of them so do you have a specific set in mind?

[Nosher]

 

I think that sums up Polemos for me

[Jerrylee]

Two periods really, AWI and FPW?

[Hwiccee]

I don't think that there is a Polemos set for AWI but I think one is on the way.

Polemos FPW is a 2 scale set of rules. In the lowest scale 1 base is a battalion and you will fight with about a Division. In the higher scale 1 base is a brigade and you fight with a whole army (say 3 corps).

I haven't played this set much but it seemed to flow reasonably well - but I had played lots of other Polemos sets and they are similar so that helped. I thought they were OK and the larger scale set better than average. But I don't think they are anything that special. I think the thing that annoyed me most was that the 'flavour' didn't feel right. The French infantry weren't that much better at firing than the Prussians and the opposite with the artillery. The French infantry/Prussian artillery just didn't seem that different & indeed it was all a bit 'samey'.

So I would say is an OK set of rules & I am sure some love it. For me it just lacked that bit of flavour & there are other rules for the period I like better.

[goat major]

I'm fairly sure that the Baccus set of AWI rules in development isn't based on Polemos but is an update of Pete's very old Minuteman rules. They've been 'due this year' for about 3 years now. From what I remember the rules are based around 20x20m bases - so originally derived from single figure 25mm rules to one 6mm strip per base. I think....  Better to ask over at the  Baccus forum.

AWI is fairly diverse for rule sets, but two sets seem to be most popular for 10mm - Black Powder and British Grenadier. The beauty is you can base your line infantry on 20x20mm bases in 4's and play either fairly easily. I think Dazza is doing this for Black Powder ? I'm aiming to use British Grenadier - seems a bit heavier going than BP but it's full of period flavour and has a great forum to support it http://generaldebrigade.13.forumer.com/viewforum.php?f=13

EDIT: Link fixed.

[Jerrylee]

Thanks for all the advice, I already have a set of black powder which I do enjoy, not tried any other rule sets for either period so thought would look about and ask what others think. My little AWI army is coming along nicely and am hoping to give the boys a run with BP very soon, will see how it goes:) any other advice on AWI or FPW would be great?

[Shecky]

I have the WSS,  ACW, Napleonic and FPW rules but I've only played the WSS rules. I kind of like the rules but the people I game with won't touch them after the first game we played. The game uses "tempo" points to determine initiative and to activate units. At the beginning of the turn each side rolls to determine the number of tempo points they get for that turn. Then each side secretly "bids" their tempo points to see which side has initiative that turn. The side that bids the most wins the initiative and therefore it costs less for them to activate their units. The problem my group had with this is that regardless if you won the initiative or not, you subtracted your bid amount for your total available. Both sides quickly learned to only bid one point as the advantages for winning the initiative were not that significant. I think it was designed to produce tension between the players as you tried to outbid your opponent but we never got that feeling.

Also, some in my group did not like the combat mechanism. To determine the outcome of combat each side rolls 1d6 and applies modifiers. The difference between the results determines the outcome of the combat. The problem my group had is that the results only apply to one side. So in other words, a firefight might result in one side being disordered or rout but the other side has no damage at all. In one specific instance 5 battalions of guards charged 5 battalions of raw troops. Due to very bad die rolling three of the guards were pushed back, one raw troop was pushed back and the remaining combat was a draw. The guard player mentioned that even if the three units were pushed back there should be some sort of damage to the opposing units (btw, he also doesn't like DBx rules).  I tend to look at the action as a whole and could see that the odds were against the raw troops to stay in their defensive position and that one reverse doesn't doom an attack.

I would probably play the game again (with other opponents) if the tempo and initiative procedures were changed.

Tom

[hamsterking]

I've only used the FPW set and wasn't very impressed. When I read them they kind of made sense but after pushing some solo lead around and playing a couple of games they made less and less sense. It didn't help that an important table was missing from the rules. So I ended up with a reverse learning curve.

My sense of it was that after success with one version of the rules they had expanded the system to cover a number of other periods but failed to debug/play test each of the new versions sufficiently. That being said there are some neat ideas in the rule set.

Have you looked at Volley and Bayonet? V+B is a Big Battle ruleset cover the whole of the period you are interested in. The rule set has a very different approach to the gaming issue but the resulting system tends to provoke pretty extreme reactions. (People either love it or hate it)

Dave Turner

[Jerrylee]

Kind of get the impression there not all that good? Most games I play are solo so a swift fast moving set of rules seems to be the key ! Thanks for all the help and advice. Maybe stick to my BP rules:)

[Hwiccee]

I think that it all depends what you are after and what you do. I can't stand BP but then I play in a group & we probably want some different kind of game to you. We play some of the Polemos rules and like them because they are fast moving! Whereas BP is just to generic and without 'flavour' for us - i.e. for us the thing we don't like about Polemos FPW  is worse with BP!!!