Muskets and Mohawks: The Relief Force

[vtsaogames]

Recognized La Belle Famille right off the top. The game looks excellent. I see the French did much better than in the real thing.

[BaronVonJ]

Good work, Cluck!

[Cluck Amok]

Thanks again, All. Hey, Baron!

Hi Mike. I think the THW mechanics are really elegant when looked at in their entirety. Muskets and Mohawks is specific to the F&IW, so there are no extra rules to worry about. The scale is large-unit skirmish, and I need rules that will accommodate a lot of units, so they can't be too complex. Literally, combining a handful of troop types, another handful of simple attributes and another handful of training/effectiveness ratings (REP) allows all the different troop types to be effectively modeled. The Reaction Tables, specific to the troop types, are easy to use and model troop behavior without having to deal with lots of individual attributes. And as you note, they are designed to support campaigning - if you checked out my blog you may have seen that I am helping to play-test a new boardgame with the hope that I will be able to use it to generate some fun, meaningful tabletop battles.

I am beginning to think about these rules the way I think about DBA. I compare all new ancients rules to DBA, and even try to talk myself into playing them instead of DBA, but I just love the simplicity of the DBA mechanics and the focus on managing results instead of processes. Currently looking at Sharp Practice 2 pretty seriously but not yet convinced I need the additional complexity.

Not trying to talk anyone into or out of anything; just explaining what works for me! I've played your rules, too ; )