Frank Chadwick's Soldier's Companion rules opinions?

[Will Bailie]

Hi, all,

Having seen the venerable Space:1889 colonial miniatures rules mentioned a few times on various wargaming fora, my friend Doug and I decided to playtest them ourselves.  We played one of the scenarios from the rulebook yesterday, substituting Afghan warriors for Hill Martians.
https://willstoysoldiers.blogspot.com/2023/12/gdw-space-1889-soldiers-companion.html

We had some brave derring-do watched over by HM herself


For those who've played and praised these rules, please let me know what you like or dislike about them.  From our game, we found they were good, in a Hollywood style, with officers, NCOs and native leaders playing an outsized role.  The initiative rules are interesting - the idea that one side can maintain the initiative for many turns in a row could be frustrating for the player that is stuck on the receiving end of things, but that can be countered by a good scenario design that allows for some initiative breakers like reinforcements arriving or hidden units that can spring an opportune ambush. 

Melee combat with the TSATF-style approach of pairing off individual figures to dice off pair by pair could get tedious in a large melee.  I'd replace this with a single resolution roll for the entire fight.

There are a few quirks.  Movement distances are large.  Cavalry, especially light cavalry, have charge moves that are greater than rifle range! 

So far, we are undecided.  The rules work, but will need a few tweaks. Eager to learn the opinions of others who have tried them, both positive and negative!

[AzSteven]

My gaming group has used these rules off an don for years, and have been pretty satisfied with them.  The one glaring issue we had with them you noted as well - the pairing off thing.  We instituted a rule that pair-offs happen when one or both sides are 6 figures or less, but when dealing with bigger units we handled it with a total vs total approach.  We only retained the pair-off on the smaller forces because we often had 'characters' in those smaller units (often elite units) that we needed to track more carefully that the general soldier types in the larger units.

[Will Bailie]

Thanks - and how does your group do the larger group combats?

[Deflatermouse]

Many years ago when these first came out, they were the rules we used for all our Colonials.
They did quite well up to about 4 or 5 companies per side. Plus arty and cav. Soooo.. about 100-120 figures per side.?
Yes we also found the initiative to be punishing but our house rule was the side without it for two turns received a plus +1 when rolling, for each roll after.
I had a small game again recently to introduce them to a friend. I didn't realise the amount of moral checks per turn.
Looking back from playing Volley & Bayonet, I can now see what they they trying to achieve.
I am happy to use them for smaller games that big battles as they enable you to have characters shine out more and influence the flavour better.
Hope this helps.

[robh]

I picked them up on the original GDW release for gaming out skirmishes that developed as part of Space 1899 RPG games. But we rarely used them as for the size of game required, they did not really give anything more than we already could do with the combat system in the RPG.

We never tried gaming big battles with them as VSF was not a "wargame" in our group and, if memory serves, we were using the old TTG "Soldiers of the Queen" for colonials at the time.

I liked the vagaries and frustration of the initiative system, but I strongly prefer systems that remove the IgoUgo mechanic (original Piquet being one of the best rule systems ever written IMHO). Personally I would resist the temptation to house rule it.

I don't know if the more recent re-issue changed anything in the system or if it was the same game with added eye-candy.

[CC2IC]

When I started our current Colonial project (“Bungwalliland A Misguided African Expedition”) we pulled out all the old rule sets to see how they played. Soldiers Companion was one of these sets that we tested. I have owned the rulebook since it came out in 89 and had played it many years ago. The rulebook is a masterpiece of information on the period, especially the British, and it certainly does a great job of bringing sci-fi to Colonial gaming. I can only aspire to create something as formidable as this rulebook.
However, we found the rules a jumble. It was constant flipping through that book to just complete a game. Most of the vagaries of the rules have already been noted in this thread. You really need to plan your strategy to keep that initiative system in check, keep a unit in ambush just so you can jump out when you need it.
That being said I think these rules have played a formative roll in what some modern sets of rules are doing. The varied initiative and focus on leaders being two examples of things that have influenced rule writers of more modern rule sets. As such these rules stand up as creating a lineage that links them to modern tabletop gaming.

[Redshank]

So far, Soldier's Companion is my favourite of the rulesets I've tried for VSF. I like the frequency of morale checks, and the dynamic it generates of frequent reverses and rallies. Specifically, I prefer it to MWWBK's typically high casualty rate. The initiative thing somehow didn't cause us a problem - the "natives" player who is typically penalised has options to help manage it, such as ambushes.

I found MWWBK very binary - either the natives got blasted at range, or they closed to melee and slaughtered the Europeans. Playing through the same scenario with a friend twice and swapping sides, we felt we almost might as well have flipped a coin. We felt we'd given the rules a reasonable go and used terrain etc., but I can't claim to be a rules expert.

If I had to sum it up, I found SC gives a to-and-fro game; MWWBK was "either to or fro". But I'd still play MWWBK if someone was running it.

Tried Death in a Dark Continent too. It's a solid ruleset and a gorgeous book with lots of great detail on African tribes and nations. I don't recall it as clearly, but we still ended up preferring SC. I think there was something about the YGIG move sequence that rubbed the wrong way. IIRC, charges involve potentially having to unwind actions that have already happened in the move sequence. Sounds minor but it didn't work for us in play. Then again, we only tried it once.

Overall it's still SC for me, although as noted above it takes a bit of getting used to. I found something called Colonial Lemuria on Wargames Vault, but have yet to try it.