Gosiewski Rides Out! (Pikeman's Lament)

[Thaddeu]

Hi all,

I played a solo game of Pikeman's Lament, and posted an AAR on my blog. Unfortunately the game itself went kind of stupidly, but I had promised myself I'd write it up, so write it up I did! Here are a couple teaser pics:





Hope you like it! Turns out writing a good battle report is harder than I thought...

[fred]

Interesting game. This can be the problem with rules such as the Rampant series, and others (like Warmaster). Some friction is good, but so many failed orders rather spoil the game.

[M.P.]

Very nice report .

[leadfool]

Looks great  We did a number of these games last year.  Turks, Poles Cossacks Russians and the occasional lost German.  Somehow we never had a unit of Pikes. 

[Thaddeu]

Interesting game. This can be the problem with rules such as the Rampant series, and others (like Warmaster). Some friction is good, but so many failed orders rather spoil the game.

Thanks! I don't even mind regular failed orders so much, I can imagine them more as a shift in initiative on the battlefield, not necessarily incompetence or insubordination. But so many Double Ones was a bit demoralizing...

Very nice report .

Thanks!

Looks great  We did a number of these games last year.  Turks, Poles Cossacks Russians and the occasional lost German.  Somehow we never had a unit of Pikes. 

Thanks! I've decided my next PL battle will include at least one pike unit, just on principle. I know they aren't as common in our preferred Eastern settings, but it says "pikeman's" right there in the name of the game!

[Atheling]

Interesting game. This can be the problem with rules such as the Rampant series, and others (like Warmaster). Some friction is good, but so many failed orders rather spoil the game.

We've used the Fistful of Lead activation system to over come this. I can't remember the exact details (it was relatively recent but seems so long ago now!) but it's worth checking out. I think we modified the FFoL activation too but my memory is hazy

[fred]

Very timely we are giving FFoL a run out tomorrow

For our home-brew rules we use d10 for activation, with 1 being a fail, and 4-6+ (depending on quality) giving two orders

[Captain Blood]

Hmmm. You did seem to have a run of extraordinarily bad dice rolling with the Lithuanians.
Must admit, I’ve now played several games of TPL and the friction didn’t play as big a part as I was expecting it to. Felt broadly proportionate. Although if you have a real stinker with the dice, I can imagine it would get pretty annoying.
Have had a very small number of both double ones and double sixes across those games, but again, the fallout is normally pretty harmless. I’ve had a couple of extra reinforcement units turning up on a double six followed by a six on the outcome roll, but so far (famous last words) in the games I’ve played, no units have had to disappear off on the roll of a fatal one on the back of a double one.
I think a lot of players either ignore the friction rule altogether, or house rule it to ignore the first activation failure, and only allow the move to cease on a second failed roll in that player’s turn.
I’ve also played quite large games with multiple players, so if one player is stymied, the other player or players on the same side still get to take their moves...

[Freelancer]

That looks like a great game. I've been checking out your blog and great conversions. Especially useful as I am planning to do an Ottoman army myself.

[leadfool]

We thought the PIKEMANs LAMENT was that they never get to play. 

[Thaddeu]

Hmm, thanks for the house-rule ideas on orders/activation, I may try something like one of those next time.

Hmmm. You did seem to have a run of extraordinarily bad dice rolling with the Lithuanians.
Must admit, I’ve now played several games of TPL and the friction didn’t play as big a part as I was expecting it to. Felt broadly proportionate.

My bad gaming luck has been infamous among my friends practically since I bought my first warhammer box set nearly three decades ago. I thought playing a solo game would neutralize the effect, but sneaky ol' Fortuna managed to pin almost all my terrible luck on the single best-painted, most impressive-looking, most expensive (points and $$-wise) unit on the table, containing the only named individual mini in the battle. C'est la vie, I suppose.

That looks like a great game. I've been checking out your blog and great conversions. Especially useful as I am planning to do an Ottoman army myself.

Thanks, always happy to be providing inspiration! Maybe I'll field some Ottomans sooner rather than later...

We thought the PIKEMANs LAMENT was that they never get to play. 

Actual , well-played!