*
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
March 28, 2024, 10:50:46 PM

Login with username, password and session length

Donate

We Appreciate Your Support

Members
Stats
  • Total Posts: 1686591
  • Total Topics: 118109
  • Online Today: 857
  • Online Ever: 2235
  • (October 29, 2023, 12:32:45 AM)
Users Online

Recent

Author Topic: ECW: 1644 or Pike & Shotte + To Kill a King?  (Read 3670 times)

Offline since1968

  • Bookworm
  • Posts: 50
    • since1968
ECW: 1644 or Pike & Shotte + To Kill a King?
« on: July 17, 2018, 11:22:12 PM »
Seeking feedback: I currently play Lion Rampant / Pikeman's Lament for the 1540s. I'd like to jump ahead one century and play the English Civil War with a bigger ruleset. 28mm preferred.

Is it worth seeking out "1644"? Or is "Pike & Shotte" a better pick? I notice they're both written by Rick Priestley. Or "For King and Parliament"?

Thanks for any guidance.
« Last Edit: July 17, 2018, 11:24:34 PM by since1968 »

Offline NurgleHH

  • Supporting Adventurer
  • Scatterbrained Genius
  • *
  • Posts: 3496
  • Spacelord
    • Victory Decision Vietnam
Re: ECW: 1644 or Pike & Shotte + To Kill a King?
« Reply #1 on: July 18, 2018, 09:44:19 AM »
To make your decision harder I threw in the set from Bicorne Miniatures "The kingdom is ours". It is, in difference to Pikement's lament, made for P&S-Era and ist fast.

The best idea is to test all of them and find out which works for you. I Think Pike&Shot is interesting, but real big battle. When you familiar to "to the strongest" then "for king and Parliament" is a good decision. At the end all sets have their advantages and disadvantages. For me 1644 has a brilliant campaign-system, but the rules are not so fast. 
Victory Decision Vietnam here: leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=43264.0

Victory Decision Spacelords here: leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=68939.0

My pictures: http://pictures.dirknet.de/

Offline SteveBurt

  • Mastermind
  • Posts: 1283
Re: ECW: 1644 or Pike & Shotte + To Kill a King?
« Reply #2 on: July 18, 2018, 10:02:02 AM »
1644 has a great campaign system, and the rules have some nice ideas (the way cavalry melee progressively pulls in more and more ranks), but the combat system is very deterministic; you know that you will cause 2 casualties with a 50% chance of causing 3; that sort of thing.

Pike & Shotte is Black Powder derived, so if you like that style of rules you will like it. I think it was a mistake to have pike & shot as separate units in the rules as that's not the way they operated.

For King & Parliament is excellent and lets you play even big battles very quickly.

Other sets I've used which may also appeal are
'Regiment of Foote' (Peter Pig 1st edition). Quite fun but too many dice!
'Field of Glory:Renaissance' Better than the ancients set, quite  a nice set of rules, but not the fastest playing
'De Bellis Renationis' A good solid set; best played using the 'Condensed' scale as the rules work better and also allow you to fight larger battles.
'To Defy a King'. A nice orders system, but we found the melee rules overly fiddly and melees seem to go on for many turns.

Offline JamesValentine

  • Mad Scientist
  • Posts: 523
Re: ECW: 1644 or Pike & Shotte + To Kill a King?
« Reply #3 on: July 18, 2018, 10:28:31 AM »
I played Pike and Shotte years back and enjoyed it immensely myself.
I can't say much for the rest as I've never heard of them.

Offline since1968

  • Bookworm
  • Posts: 50
    • since1968
Re: ECW: 1644 or Pike & Shotte + To Kill a King?
« Reply #4 on: July 18, 2018, 12:43:31 PM »
Thanks all for the advice.

When you familiar to "to the strongest" then "for king and Parliament" is a good decision.

I skimmed the FKaP rules last night and found the grid-based movement off-putting. The grid seems to drive the players toward layouts that don't look great on the table. Is that your experience or is it more flexible than it seems?

Offline since1968

  • Bookworm
  • Posts: 50
    • since1968
Re: ECW: 1644 or Pike & Shotte + To Kill a King?
« Reply #5 on: July 18, 2018, 12:46:01 PM »
To make your decision harder I threw in the set from Bicorne Miniatures "The kingdom is ours". It is, in difference to Pikement's lament, made for P&S-Era and ist fast.

Hadn't heard of this one but found it for about $15 on AbeBooks. Thank you.

Offline since1968

  • Bookworm
  • Posts: 50
    • since1968
Re: ECW: 1644 or Pike & Shotte + To Kill a King?
« Reply #6 on: July 18, 2018, 12:49:35 PM »
1644 has a great campaign system, and the rules have some nice ideas (the way cavalry melee progressively pulls in more and more ranks), but the combat system is very deterministic; you know that you will cause 2 casualties with a 50% chance of causing 3; that sort of thing.

Interesting. I might not mind deterministic combat after Lion Rampant/Pikeman's Lament, which is "swingy."

Any basing dead-ends I should be aware of? Can 1644, P&S, and FK&P all be played with the same frontages?

Thanks again.

Offline Phillius

  • Bookworm
  • Posts: 73
Re: ECW: 1644 or Pike & Shotte + To Kill a King?
« Reply #7 on: July 18, 2018, 08:10:26 PM »
FK&P uses a grid system and works very well, like its parent TTS. Anything that fits inside your choice of grid size (I am using 20cm) will work.

There is also Baroque which is derived from Impetus, and uses 18cm unit frontages.

My ECWs are based so that I can use them for Baroque, FK&P and P&S, with an 18cm frontage for foot units, and a 15cm or 17.5cm frontage for cavalry (although technically I could go to 20cm for cavalry, add one more figure).

Offline Eric the Shed

  • Galactic Brain
  • Posts: 4200
    • The Shed Wars Experience
Re: ECW: 1644 or Pike & Shotte + To Kill a King?
« Reply #8 on: July 18, 2018, 09:21:03 PM »
Pike and shotte is a great set of rules and delivers fast play big battle games...it's our game of choice for this period. The supplement is also worth having

Offline since1968

  • Bookworm
  • Posts: 50
    • since1968
Re: ECW: 1644 or Pike & Shotte + To Kill a King?
« Reply #9 on: July 18, 2018, 11:12:23 PM »
I've tracked down inexpensive copies of all but Baroque and 1644. Will likely try games of Pike & Shotte and FK&P using Battle of Lessie's Moor scenario for both to compare.

Offline Codsticker

  • Supporting Adventurer
  • Scatterbrained Genius
  • *
  • Posts: 3276
    • Kodsticklerburg: A Mordheim project
Re: ECW: 1644 or Pike & Shotte + To Kill a King?
« Reply #10 on: July 19, 2018, 01:52:44 AM »
Pike and shotte is a great set of rules and delivers fast play big battle games...it's our game of choice for this period. The supplement is also worth having
The supplement is great (much better than Warlord's recent Dark Ages book) and also includes rules for combined regiments.

Offline since1968

  • Bookworm
  • Posts: 50
    • since1968
Re: ECW: 1644 or Pike & Shotte + To Kill a King?
« Reply #11 on: July 27, 2018, 10:57:15 PM »
1644 has a great campaign system, and the rules have some nice ideas (the way cavalry melee progressively pulls in more and more ranks), but the combat system is very deterministic; you know that you will cause 2 casualties with a 50% chance of causing 3; that sort of thing.

1644 arrived in the mail yesterday and after a quick read appears to be a winner. I picked up the first edition (1990) because it's so much cheaper. Do you know if there are substantial changes in the 2nd edition (2007)?

Amazon reviews swing from "no change since 1st edition, what a ripoff!" to "lots of great changes." :-)

Offline mellis1644

  • Mad Scientist
  • Posts: 571
    • Adventures in painting
Re: ECW: 1644 or Pike & Shotte + To Kill a King?
« Reply #12 on: July 27, 2018, 11:34:05 PM »
I must admit I've had fun using Pikeman's Lament for the ECW. But I must admit I quite like the Peter pig and/or Pike and shot for larger games. :)

There are lots of rules suggestions missing from the thread as well BTW - Forlorn Hope, Polemos etc.
My painting blog is at: http://mellis1644.wordpress.com/

Offline Axebreaker

  • Mastermind
  • Posts: 1637
Re: ECW: 1644 or Pike & Shotte + To Kill a King?
« Reply #13 on: July 28, 2018, 01:21:52 PM »
I'd recommend Impetus Braque.

http://www.dadiepiombo.it/english-baroque.html

Christopher

Offline fastolfrus

  • Galactic Brain
  • Posts: 5247
Re: ECW: 1644 or Pike & Shotte + To Kill a King?
« Reply #14 on: July 28, 2018, 10:12:48 PM »
We like Regiment of Foote (Peter Pig) but generally play 15mm, although it's easy enough to upscale it.
The pre-battle sequence from version 1 is perhaps better than version 2 - I know of some people who bought version 1 just to use the pre-battle system with other rules (and sometimes other periods).
The version 1 makes it quite possible to be the attacker with a much smaller force than the defender and no artillery.
(recognise the chuntering sound of someone who took a sound thrashing when attacking a larger army who sat on a hilltop and waited for the assault)
Gary, Glynis, and Alasdair (there are three of us, but we are too mean to have more than one login)