First solo game of Muskets and Tomahawks II

[James Morris]

French and Indian Wars in the Loft

So, having painted up redcoats and Hurons, I tried out my first solo game of Muskets & Tomahawks yesterday. I set up my folding 3x4' gaming board in the loft and selected a couple of 250 point forces from the Redcoats and Tomahawks supplement along with the Ambush scenario from the main rule book.

Captain Follit-Gibbs of the 27th (Inniskillings) and his men (Redcoats plus a few Mohawk scouts)were surprised by a war party of Hurons and Canadien Militia led by Speaks-With-Tomahawk and his sidekick Son-Of-Bear. Could Follit-Gibbs escape the ambush? Would I remember the rules? Would the dice fall out of the loft hatch? (If you want the short version: no, yes, no).

Follit-Gibbs advanced down the track but quickly fell foul of the Canadian Militia who opened up from their hiding place in the woods (the spotting mechanism worked much better than I had hoped, with the British unable to see the Canadians until they fired.)  Follit-Gibbs led his men down the path and came under fire from a group of Hurons on his right, but managed to rout them with a casualty and a poor reaction roll. At this point, a whole load of Huron and Canadian cards came up
At once and they poured fire on the British from three sides. Follit-Gibbs decided to try to break through with the survivors and nearly managed it, sending Speaks-With-Tomahawks’ warriors packing. However, the British were then charged from behind and Follit-Gibbs ended up on the wrong end of a tomahawk.


The card sequence is very clever, although not perfect for solo play as you know what cards the other side has in their hand! But that didn't stop me being able to muddle through an entertaining game where it felt like a FiW skirmish.

The QRS is really good, containing all the key information, so although I spent some time flipping rulebook pages, I was pretty much running just from the QRS by the end. I very much liked the Reaction (morale) system as well with different training characteristics.

I didn't use many of the special talents, intrigues and so forth, but there's definitely great scope with these for future games.  I’ll definitely play again.

[voltan]

That looks great, is the cotton wool part of the rules or just there for effect? It makes a good photo either way.

[James Morris]

That looks great, is the cotton wool part of the rules or just there for effect? It makes a good photo either way.

Thank you!  You put a smoke marker on a unit to show it has fired - it is then much easier to spot, and also has to reload.

[OB]

Grand looking game.

[Atheling]

Amazing 

That terrain is something else- it's so evocative of the 'Wilderness'!

[Pan Marek]

Beautiful game & figs.   Have you played M&T 1?
If so, how do you like M&T 2?
Anything you think is a problem?

Thanks!

[Hu Rhu]

Great little game and thanks for the report on the rules.  I still use Edition 1 but would consider skipping to Edition 2 if it is a big improvement.

[James Morris]

Beautiful game & figs.   Have you played M&T 1?
If so, how do you like M&T 2?
Anything you think is a problem?

Thanks!

Thank you! I had a copy of M&T 1 but never played it, so I can’t really compare. That said, I liked the cards a lot (I believe that v1 was just a random draw rather than a hand of cards, so more options in v2). 

[SteveBurt]

v1 had the hand of cards as an optional rule. What is new in v2 is the command points, which are great; often a command point is more useful than an activation card, so  playing the opponent's card actually helps you. The change to d10 also helps, and they fixed the broken melee rules in v1 (which often resulted in both units being more or less destroyed).

[James Morris]

I forgot to mention that I liked the d10s a lot - the system felt just right.

[syrinx0]

A really nice looking battle.  Working on my M&T Indian forces now.  Hope to get a game in myself next month.