Is anyone playing a campaign?
Having read Charge! again, and bought an army pack of French syw.
I thought, instead of a scenario, why not a campaign ?
So.... Any ideas, anyone.
Greetings
I'm considering this as I come to the end of painting my initial forces (three Allied cavalry regiments left to go).
I'm thinking of Annexation of Chiraz or Raid on St Michel by Charles S Grant which are published mini campaigns. I'll need some more units than I've currently got (not that Dave and Leon will object) but it will be later in the year once I've worked out what rules I want to use.
Regards
Edward
Am considering the C18th material starting to be published by Caliver. The first is an introductory campaign based on Mollwitz, which admittedly is WAS but I should think many principles could be carried forward a decade to the SYW. The series is due to expand in the near future..
The best rules I have seen are the Age of Eagles supplement, Age of Honour. They cover from Marlborough to Frederick the Great.
They are on a Brigade level, so for 15mm figures, one base of 4 infantry figures = 360 men and 1 base of 2 cavalry figures = 180 men.
1 base being 20mm wide X 25mm deep.
So for 10mm. Figures, use the same width (20mm.) but 3 figures in 2 ranks (or 3 ranks)
1 Mile = 14", so you can fight large battles rather than parts of a battle.
You could base them in single ranks and the one base would = one base for a 30mm. figure under Charles Grants rules.
Mike
There is a great in depth series of campaign guidelines for imaginary syw campaigns in the early editions of Battlegames Under the title of Wars of Faltenian Succession. Very much old school but very rich in detail. They ran over 7 or 8 of the early editions - you can get real and digital back issues here https://subscribeme.to/battlegames/back-issues (https://subscribeme.to/battlegames/back-issues)
Thanks I'll take a look, this may have the advantage of being suitable for solo play..
I have an 18th-c imagi-nations campaign in planning. Because I am somewhat isolated, I will be playing the games solo based on orders from folks around the country.
I will steal parts from the Falterian Succession rules, but I will probably us a point or area movement system along the lines of Soldier King
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/4794/soldier-king
If I was doing SYW straight up, I would be inclined to look at Frederick http://www.simmonsgames.com/products/Friedrich/index.html or its sister game Maria http://www.simmonsgames.com/products/Maria/index.html
I want to find good mechanisms for court intrigue as well; I'll need some diversion for the player's efforts since they won't be moving their lads on the table.
Although I have a club fairly close (20 Mls.), my restriction is time, I work a 12Hr. day.
I bought Soldier King for the same reason.
Have you ever tried Diplomacy by e-Mail, or the pc version. A SYW version of that might help. That way they would have to watch out for a stab in the back.
If you ever get an opening for a player by e-Mail let me know.
Mike
I you use Diplomacy game rules for diplomacy in your game, then the other players get to have battles fought for them. by you, and then have to wait on tenterhooks for the result to come back to them.
As you are using area movement (rather than hex).
Terrain can be set out using DBA 3's new rules.
Have you thought of the orbat of each nations army and if they can split?
Hi
A long, long time ago (late seventies) we used SPI's Frederick the Great board game as a basis for a SYW campaign. It worked really well partly because the mechanics were kept fairly simple. Back then we used WRG's 1685 to 1845 ruleset which I personally still think is one of the best set of rules I have come across in nearly 50 years of wargamming. The campaign did not use set units as such but 'points' which were moved around the map. When a battle was to be fought one point on the campaign map transfered into so many points on the table (i.e. the wargame rules). The big advantage of this was that it really did cut out a lot of book keeping. The downside was of course that from a campaign narrative point of view you couldn't say that such and such a unit did this or moved there.
I like campaigns and I think they particularly work well for the mid-18th century. For me they add an important dimension that is missing from most one off games. It would be great to hear how you get on in the furture. Good luck.
Cheers Paul
Hi Paul,
Oddly enough I was reading an old copy of the 'General' last night with a review of Avalon Hills' 'Soldier King'.( a remake of the SPI game which I also have) with some interesing additions, Silesian wars, WAS, Syw.
On a campaign of this scale you would talk about Leaders. ie. when a counter says 'colonel (1)' you would make a counter using a colour printer and issue orders to :-
" Colonel von Grunhalle take your Regiment of Draggoons and secure the bridge across the Weser until you are relieved by General Graf Tipitz"
just to build chrome into the game.
I agree about WRG rules, they are still used at my old club, they have stood the test of time well for small actions.
Mike
There are two fictitious SYW campaigns "SYW Heldenland Campaign" and " SYW Bavarian Campaign" each complete with maps and rules here.
http://www.angelfire.com/wa/rogerswhome/SYWBigGame.html (http://www.angelfire.com/wa/rogerswhome/SYWBigGame.html)
I don't know how suitable they are for you but you may be able to pull some useful bits out of the rules.
Bob
Thanks Bob
I'll take a look
Mike
Hi Paul,
when using WRG SYW rules, how do you base the figures when using 10mm castings.
The rules have always seemed a little vague on this, as 4 infantry wil fit on a 20mm base as 10mm castings seem to take up the same base width as 6mm figures.
Mike
Hi Mike
When I got back into SYW about two years ago I spent alot of time deciding what rules to use. As I mentioned I do like the old WRG rules but one of the things that put me off was the figure scale of 1 infantry figure representing 50 men giving you battalions of anything from 10 to 18 figures. Now this never looked right to me using 15mm figures and even less right using 10mm figures. To compromise I started to base my new 10mm figures on 1" wide bases with 8 figures in two ranks of 4, (ignoring the second rank which were just there for the look of the thing) I counted each figure as representing 40 real men.
However since then I have decided to use either The Age of Honor rules variant of Age of Eagles mentioned in a previous post in this thread for larger games or the computer based Carnage and Glory II - Frederick the Great rules for battalion level games. I have rebased my figures for Age of Honor - 6 infantry figures in 2 ranks of 3 on a 3/4" base and 3 cavalry figures on a 1" base. As the actual basing of figures is more or less irrelevant for C&G II srules I can use my figures easily for both rule sets.
Cheers Paul
Hi Paul
I settled on a 20mm base in 15mm figures Age of Eagles and will do the same for 10mm figures if they will fit but I had almost settled on 1" wide bases for Age of Honour as this would fit in with Charge! rules, 8 figures to a base in 2 ranks (16 figures to a company) but I'm not sure yet.
I'll take a look at C+G. now
Thanks
Mike