Tried the Napolionc's couple of times. And tested a version of WOTR. Both have good ideas, but are broke. You bid to gain initiative, and use any remaining bidding points to to move your forces. In essence if you win he bid you cant move your troops as you have no points left, whilst if you loose everything costs twice as much so you dont have enough to move troops.

IanS

The tempo system makes it cheaper to move whole formations than individual components, cheaper to keep moving than to stop and start.

Tempo points may, within limits, be saved for use in subsequent turns.

A player does need to spend lots of tempo points if they want to move in the other players phase.

So movement is not terribly limited if you plan ahead (although "No plan survives contact with the enemy!") and if you commit entire Divisions rather than trying fancy stuff with individual units. At least that's been our experience.

We played with the Polemos ACW rules on one occasion but decided not to use them again.   As someone has said,
there are a great many tests to be taken and these become very repetitive and tiresome over the course of a game.   
I know that many people will enjoy this style (and it was popular in the 80's) but I can't face it now.   I love 6mm
figures and was very keen to like the rules but it drained our enthusiasm to play.   We moved to Black Powder
(again, a love / hate style) but found we (a) enjoyed the game and (b) played through a lot of moves in an average
games night.

There are now so many rules for most periods that you are bound to find something you enjoy.   The downside to
this is that finding an opponent may be harder with this level of variety.

I am sure it must be a thankless task to write rules !


Phil

Thanks guys, all fodder for machination

You'll go blind!

I dont think you could go wrong with either version of Fire and Fury

Or if you want to do huge battles then BBB by Chris Pringle might fit the bill

Quote from: Fenton on 28 March 2015, 09:45:27 AM
Or if you want to do huge battles then BBB by Chris Pringle might fit the bill

Big is good; I always end up going mad on the purchase front 

Played our first game of BBB yesterday. I'd certainly recommend them for very big games.

Quote from: Hertsblue on 30 March 2015, 09:16:35 AM
Played our first game of BBB yesterday. I'd certainly recommend them for very big games.

I think I'm looking for the impossible ; rules which can handle small to large battles. 

Although BBB is designed for fighting the biggest C19 battles in about 3 hours, by popular demand there are now numerous scenarios for smaller games (division-sized actions or thereabouts) which can be played by two players, on 4'x4', in 90 minutes or so. The game is scaleable.

Chris

Bloody Big BATTLES!
https://uk.groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/BBB_wargames/info

Thanks Chris, I'm looking for a simple, fast rule set to represent generis ACW battles (I'm not into hours of historical research).

I like that you can call a division a side "small"

Polemos - we tried the Sun King era version, and the mechanisms were interesting and took some time to get used to (like Ithorial says, you have to work out what your doing before you get stuck in, as otherwise it's like others have said - both sides just end up flailing around spasmodically because neither has the pips to do something when they can, or can't act when they do ), but it was just too finicky for playing long term.

We still use F&F for ACW, but are playing some "Mit Blud und Eisen"/FFF for Europe/Crimea and it's good fun for big games. Think it's pitched similar level to BBB - manoeuvre units are Brigades, formations are Divisions and a player might easily push a Corps around in a short-ish evening.

Quote from: getagrip on 26 March 2015, 08:55:59 AM
Like that a lot.

Thanks Gordon

Curious about the zero degrees though; doesn't that throw up some weird "you can't shoot but in reality you would" situations?

The units in Civil War battles are brigades, not regiments. Yes, some of the troops in a brigade would fire off at an angle, but not enough to make any difference in the scale of the game. Your brigade is going for the enemy brigade to your front. If there's no one to your direct front, but enemy offset to your front the rules force you to behave like a Civil War brigadier and manoeuvre your brigade to face the enemy to deliver maximum firepower and hopefully a charge. Good rules, and would recommend stick with the base sizes given for 15mm but stuff 'em with 10mm figures. These are brigades after all.

Quote from: Leman on 30 March 2015, 03:15:36 PM
The units in Civil War battles are brigades, not regiments. Yes, some of the troops in a brigade would fire off at an angle, but not enough to make any difference in the scale of the game. Your brigade is going for the enemy brigade to your front. If there's no one to your direct front, but enemy offset to your front the rules force you to behave like a Civil War brigadier and manoeuvre your brigade to face the enemy to deliver maximum firepower and hopefully a charge. Good rules, and would recommend stick with the base sizes given for 15mm but stuff 'em with 10mm figures. These are brigades after all.

Nicely explained Leman; thanks