To the Strongest! Scrum Club's First Foray

[The Bibliophile]

For the September gathering of the Second Saturday Scrum Club, six of us gathered for our first game of To the Strongest!

The basic mechanics of the game simplify and abstract a lot of details that can bog down other rulesets. Movement is conducted on a grid (so no rulers) and every player has a card deck that takes care of everything from unit activation to combat. It all felt very intuitive, and freed us up from getting too bogged down in adjudicating the edge cases that sometimes crop up.

The rules are designed for "ancients and medieval wargaming," and the figures we had on hand put us squarely in the medieval era. In the end I liked the rules enough that I bought my own copy, and we're going to put this game on the table again at our next meeting.

You can see lots of photos and read about our game at my blog, Scrum In Miniature: https://miniaturescrum.blogspot.com/2021/09/scrum-club-goes-to-strongest.html








Again, more to see and read on this game at, Scrum In Miniature: https://miniaturescrum.blogspot.com/2021/09/scrum-club-goes-to-strongest.html

[crafty]

This looks great, thanks for posting. This ruleset has interested me for a while, and the multiplayer aspect looks promising, but I'm curious, with so many players was there much down-time between turns? I realise it was your group's first game...so it's probably not fair to ask.

We have been playing Lion Rampant a lot this year, and I'd love to be able to put on some bigger/multiplayer games, but I am looking for relatively fast games that can be completed between 2-3 hours.

[bigredbat]

Love the knights in the top Image!

with so many players was there much down-time between turns?

Declaring an interest (I wrote them) there shouldn't be. I wrote the rules as a fast play multiplayer set for wargames shows- and later adapted them so that they'd work for tournaments, too. All the players play in parallel, and even in your opponent's turn you are flipping cards. I've seen a ten-player game completed in under 90 minutes.

[SJWi]

Good morning, I am an avowedly huge fan of TTS, and it fast became our group's go-to ruleset during the pandemic when we playing over Zoom. The use of a grid-based movement system was very easy to follow remotely.

We routinely played 3-person-a-side games of about 160 points ( ie enough for a 6 x 4' table) in 2-2.5 hours ( excluding set-up).

Highly recommended
 

[crafty]

Thanks for the replies. My group plays LR and we've had a few multiplayer Fistful of Lead games this...the card play in FFoL is really accessible for newer players. We love that game.

I think the grid system looks cool too. For some reason I always thought of this as a Ancients game but now I see it'll work for my 1/72 Medieval figures, so I'll probably get it.

[SJWi]

Crafty, yes the grid system of TTS works really well . It speeds things up and removes a lot of debate about distances and angles of attack. I have used them for games from 1200 BC through to the Wars of the Roses and they seem to work well with all periods. I have even converted some sceptics about  "big battle gaming" to enjoy ancient and medieval massed battles!

[Hincmar]

Another vote for TTS - having played dozens of games with SiWi, I have to agree that it is perfect for playing large games smoothly and quickly.

[crafty]

I bought the rules from War-game Vault. Downloaded and started reading through them last night. They look very slick and professional...kind of wish I'd bought the hard cover book, but living here in Darwin...with our Aussie postal system experiencing a period of spotty service, I decided I'd rather just have the rules.

COVID notwithstanding, we're certainly living in a golden age for wargaming. A good excuse to collect and paint up more 1/72 medieval armies, my poison of choice.

[olicana]

TtS is the bees knees as far as I'm concerned.

kind of wish I'd bought the hard cover book,

My copies are hard copies but they are the dodgy ones from Simon's aborted first print run - you can't use the index because the pagination is all to pot: They were never sold. They are probably something of a collectors item now, like funny stamps. One day I'll have to buy a pucker copy.

[SJWi]

Crafty/Olicana, if you have TTS can I suggest you get "Even Stronger" from the BigRedBat shop, where is is a free download. It contains lots of clarifications, amendments and improvements that Simon has made over the years . I suspect they will form the basis of the much-rumoured version 2 of the rules.

Regards.

[olicana]

Already have it. Particularly fond of the replacement rule for demoralised commands.

[MGH]

Yet another enthusiastic player of the TtS rules, our local group has been playing it for years using it for Romans v.s. Barbarians, Sung Chinese v.s. Mongols, and early Crusades. Great rules system, we love it.

[rafm3ic]

This looks like fun, thanks for sharing.