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Miniatures Adventure => Pikes, Muskets and Flouncy Shirts => Topic started by: Leftblank on 17 February 2016, 11:18:52 PM
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I finally playtested 28mm P&S and was slightly discontent. The rules should be tweaked if you play this game with 28mm miniatures on a regular 6x4 table. Blog with review and links to rule tweaks here: http://amsterdam6shooters.nl/node/614 (http://amsterdam6shooters.nl/node/614)
But I got the feeling that the table was too small or the scale too big. I tried, I cried, I ran away. But after the tears I found solutions. I'll try to clearly adress each problem so that this blog is also readable for players who don't know the rulesets. 28mm-fanboys, BEWARE! You play a game that's not suited for your regular dinner table, so you should change the rules.
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It is strange to read this.
We have been playing the game on 6x4, 7x5 and 8x6 feet tables. The small table is fit for smaller encounters. The 8x6 feet table is suitable for most games.
I played a game with 20 units per side on a 8x4feet table no problems at all. the armies were twice ass big and the table only 2x4 feet bigger then the one you discribe.
Changing the size of the models is seen more often. Changing the distances for moving is also done more often with smaller scales, if it suites you at 28mm please do, but sofar I haven't seen a reason to do that.
Looking forward to youre developments.
cheers,
henerius
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20 units a side?
How small are the units?
My ECW foot units are 20 or 40 figures each, and horse are 15 or 30, so they take a lot of space.
(TYW Spanish are bigger still with foot in units 40-80)
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20 units a side?
How small are the units?
My ECW foot units are 20 or 40 figures each, and horse are 15 or 30, so they take a lot of space.
(TYW Spanish are bigger still with foot in units 40-80)
for the feeling of massive...well, massive it is but at 28mm not very workable.
The illustrations in the book show 28mm figures. On page 19 you can see 16 models strong pike and shotte sleeves of 12 strong each and cavalry units of 12 each.
The book unit standard size
Block of infantry or Pikes 12 to 25 models
Infantry battle line 8 to 20 models
cavalry 6 to 12 models
The book also makes the biggest cavalry unit 20 strong and the biggest infantry unit 40 strong. You use 30 strong horse unit and a 80 strong foot units?
Exeeding the unit sizes given by the book will give you units with a footprint which are not workable in the game. A situation that needs to be solved by bending/changing the rules given or by changing the size of the units.
We use the Italian war part of the rules.
Pikes are 16 strong
shotte is 8 strong
horse is 6 strong
These size of regiment is fairly small especially on the horse department but it is workable for the game.
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We are embarking on a ECW campaign using Pike & Shotte - Fortunately I have a table 5ft x 16ft but the comments on unit sizes are interesting.
At present we will be fielding Cavalry units (in two ranks 12 figures strong)
Pike Blocks either 12 or 16 figures and the sleeves between 8 and 12 strong.
The ultimate plan is to be able to field 6-8 pike blocks per side plus adjacent sleeves - upwards of 6-8 cavalry regiments per side along with dragoons, commanded shotte, and artillery.
Hopefully the table will be big enough ;)
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We usually play the game on a 6x4 table. 700points usually, generally in 3 battalias. I have played on an 8x5 table at a friend's house. That was better, but very few have that size of table.
Size of units we use are
16 models per pike block, deployed 4x4 - large unit 6x4 (24 models)
12 models for battle line foot, deployed 6x2
8 models for cavalry, deployed 4x2
We don't reduce ranges, but play it as stated in the book.
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I finally playtested 28mm P&S and was slightly discontent. The rules should be tweaked if you play this game with 28mm miniatures on a regular 6x4 table.
I know Warlord do not go out of their way to point this out, but Pike and Shotte, Hail Caesar and Black Powder, were all designed to be 'big table - big battle' rules from the word go.
As Rick Priestley said in an Wargames Illustrated interview (http://www.warlordgames.com/interview-rick-priestley/) before Black Powder came out;
WI: It sounds like a lot of the emphasis of the game is on ‘big table battles’. Would Black Powder work for small table affairs, 6′ x 4′ or smaller?
Rick: You would have to change the movement rates and scale down. It would work mechanically. The reason it really is a big game for a big table is that it is a very visual game and that’s how we play.
No surprise therefore that you had problems, but I do think Warlord should be making this a bit clearer in their marketing.
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If you just halve all the measurements (so infantry move is 6" instead of 12") then Black Powder and its ilk work fine on a 6x4 table.
If you use the measurement in the rules, then 8x6 is about the minimum size table.
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I've found the same thing looking through the black powder TYW supplement...the suggested armies are huge, does anyone have any suggestions for something smaller/skirmish based,i'm collecting 28mm for both tyw/ecw and though primarily collecting for skirmishing wouldn't mind a few big battles once my collection grows.
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We play Black Powder with 10mm using cm instead of inches, which works fine on a 6x4 for quite large armies. However I'd want at least an 8x6 to play it with 28mm, preferably 12x6.
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We play regularly ECW with 28mm on a 6' x 4' table with 3 'divisions' usually of 3-4 units. Foot are circa 40 figures (16 pike & 2 sleeves of 8-12 musketeers) and cavalry about 6-8 per troop. Personally I think that the Pike and Shotte rules work well. Move distances are shorter than for Black Powder and we have no problems with units charging up to 3 full moves. Those that do, usually attack unsupported and are defeated, which seems to be realistic. You could scale the units down to produce smaller units if you needed to, more I suspect for cost rather than size.
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I know Warlord do not go out of their way to point this out, but Pike and Shotte, Hail Caesar and Black Powder, were all designed to be 'big table - big battle' rules from the word go.
As Rick Priestley said in an Wargames Illustrated interview (http://www.warlordgames.com/interview-rick-priestley/) before Black Powder came out;
WI: It sounds like a lot of the emphasis of the game is on ‘big table battles’. Would Black Powder work for small table affairs, 6′ x 4′ or smaller?
Rick: You would have to change the movement rates and scale down. It would work mechanically. The reason it really is a big game for a big table is that it is a very visual game and that’s how we play.
No surprise therefore that you had problems, but I do think Warlord should be making this a bit clearer in their marketing.
Yes,I remember reading that the rules started off as a means of getting all their toy soldiers on huge tables and playing a game with all these figures in a reasonable amount of time. If memory serves, the inital development was not with an eye to producing them for sale. With that in mind, if you don't use them as intended then you will probably have to make adjustments (which is exactly what Rick and Co. would encourage).
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Found that myself, the generic-ness is flexible but it means that supplements or house ruling is needed straiht off...to be fair all warlords games are like that.
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Is that a roundabout way of saying unfinished and not properly thought out? :D
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I would suggest 'built in flexibility' :-). Most of us are happy to adapt otherwise perfectly good rules simply because they don't fit our perceptions of how it 'should be'.
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I would suggest 'built in flexibility' :-). Most of us are happy to adapt otherwise perfectly good rules simply because they don't fit our perceptions of how it 'should be'.
I certainly find that. There is always something I want to tinker with, even in sets I love. :D
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Is that a roundabout way of saying unfinished and not properly thought out? :D
From what I can see, on the whole warlord has a tendency to 'wing things', I know the bolt action rule set was bought up first then the setting was decided.
One of the drawbacks to everyone being so chummy together, why tailor make a ruleset when you can buy a friends?
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Most of us are happy to adapt otherwise perfectly good rules simply because they don't fit our perceptions of how it 'should be'.
I live in a glass house as far as that's concerned, so maybe I shouldn't be throwing stones. Truth told I quite like Pike & Shotte, but I was aware that they were for grander games than I would typically be playing.
From what I can see, on the whole warlord has a tendency to 'wing things', I know the bolt action rule set was bought up first then the setting was decided.
I was under the impression that Bolt Action had to be written from scratch, as Mr Priestley had already used his WWII rules as the basis for 40K 3rd Edition... or so I seem to recall him saying. Whether it was a joke or not that Mr Cavatore had no idea of what WWII was about when he wrote them, I would hate to decide. I do have my suspicions that it wasn't...
;)
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I may have the wrong ruleset, I definitely recall that one of them(possibly black powder?) was written first, bought by warlord games then used for a setting.
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It depends on what you mean by bought and to be honest I'm not 100% on the lineage of the rules. As I understand it Black Powder, Hail Caesar and Pike and Shotte, are all derived from the same core, which is what Priestley and co have been using for some time, and which have 'Warmaster' somewhere in their origins. Bolt Action was commissioned out of the blue and is essentially unrelated to the rest.
None of the above may actually be correct, I only check these things out before buying a rule set to ensure I'm likely to like them.
We are drifting away from the topic though... as interesting as it may be to do so. :)
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I had a couple of fairly long conversations with Rik Priestly a few years ago regarding BP, and by extension HC and P&S.
The bottom line to the movement rates was that the group generally played on the Perrys' huge table and they always liked to play along the length of the table (something like 16ft.) The result would be that shortly before last orders at the local, the opposing armies would just be getting into position and the battles would rarely be fought to anything like a conclusion. Not wanting to do away with the approach marches a system was developed whereby they could be incorporated into the game without taking up most of the game. Once the armies are in proximity to one another the movement distances become much less relevant. The "move then shoot" turn sequence is also designed to encourage aggressive play.
As to the rules sets feeling "unfinished" the explanation went something like; the rules were designed as a "fast play" set for experienced gamers who had an intrinsic feel for how their armies should behave. The players would therefore assign reasonable values to their armies and special instances would be covered by special scenario based rules. As there was often a scenario designer/non-player umpire at the table rulings for unusual circumstances could be made at the table.
There is also the recognition/acknowledgement that no set of rules ever survives first contact with the players; and thus there is the granting of permission to tinker as the author knows full well that that's what everyone will do anyway.
I've played quite a lot of BP, HC and P&S and have found that they work best with people who see the game as "an entertainment"; it is far too loosely written for those who must win at all costs. Personal opinion is that P&S is the weakest of the 3 sets and, at times, feels a bit clumsy BUT overall isn't bad. For BP we halved all distances (an generally used smaller units) and found that it worked fine; for HC and P&S ground scale/movement was never an issue.
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I've played P&S on small boards and i quite enjoyed it. Very simple and like all warlord games needs to be considered entertainment rather than a historical game. I've only played a handful of games so not used to the things that end up annoying you after a while.
We did have some experienced players giving us tips and we changed the sequence of play for P&S. We made it that the shooting phase came first and then movement. This seemed to work well as it's seems more reasonable to assume that any marching force would be fired upon first rather than them having an opportunity to fire first after getting organised from the movement.
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I've played Black Powder a few times - most recently for a Zulu War scenario.
As a game it was excellent - went down to the wire with lots of excitement.
But it felt nothing like a Zulu War battle :-[
I've also used the rules for Napoleonics and ACW. ACW probably worked best, but I've been left feeling unsatisfied by all the games of Black Powder I've played. It falls into the category of rules I'm happy to play but won't choose.
We used to play a fair bit of Warmaster Ancients (the grand-daddy of these rules), which also gave a great game but was never very much like an ancients battle.
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In my opinion Black Powder cannot be played on a 6x4ft table without reducing movement rates - that infantry can potentially move 36" in a single turn is too much!
Pike and shotte is much better. Though warhammer historical English Civil War is too much warhammer for my liking!
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Tnx all for your comments. I play Hail Caesar with 15mm and distance in cm's and that works fine.
I will publish a P&S update later this year.
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We played The Perfect Captain, Very Civile Action rules in medium sized games when I was a member of SESWC a few years ago and they were a lot of fun:
http://perfectcaptain.50megs.com/vcactions.html
They are free too- though TPC does ask you to make a donation to a charity of your choice.
Worth considering?
Darrell.
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I can't disagree with the OP. I persuaded a club to try BP and P&S when I joined (they were tired of WAB ECW) but the little problems soon showed up. Table size wasn't too much of a problem - the club's in a library room, where lots of tables and terrain tiles can be pushed together - but it was quickly agreed to cut BP movement rates down anyway. A couple of members also took advantage to roll out their huge ECW armies in a big club game. Just as you described - an 8' table, but still no room to manoeuvre! And then later, those members got just a little shirty when the rest of us had to lean on their humongous collections, 'cos our own were taking some time to build up. Somehow.
So slightly ironically, I started looking at WG games as superior replacements for Warhammer, and they ended up putting me off 28mm too.
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I can't disagree with the OP. I persuaded a club to try BP and P&S when I joined (they were tired of WAB ECW) but the little problems soon showed up. Table size wasn't too much of a problem - the club's in a library room, where lots of tables and terrain tiles can be pushed together - but it was quickly agreed to cut BP movement rates down anyway. A couple of members also took advantage to roll out their huge ECW armies in a big club game. Just as you described - an 8' table, but still no room to manoeuvre! And then later, those members got just a little shirty when the rest of us had to lean on their humongous collections, 'cos our own were taking some time to build up. Somehow.
So slightly ironically, I started looking at WG games as superior replacements for Warhammer, and they ended up putting me off 28mm too.
Any rule set is going to experience some 'little problems,' if the players will insist on overloading the table with troops. ;)