[WIP] Wargame ruleset for Boshin War

[Meaty-Daiymo]

I have a huge passion for Bakumatsu history and early Meiji history.
It's a unique era in world history where the old and new world collide with each other and a new nation was born out of it.

For the last few years I have been painting and collecting various mini figures from perry miniatures and bac nihn miniatures to create a full army for the Imperials and the Shogunate sides. I have tried to look up various rules sets to play a wargame with ,However, most of the suggested rules feel underwhelming, as they fail to capture the intriguing personalities involved during this time period and lack distinctive features that set them apart from other Victorian or colonial wargames.

As of late I've been thinking about writing my own wargame rule set for this time period (hoping to expand to campaign and naval battles).I'm still in the early testing phases of play testing and expanding on mechanics which are unique to the factions and time period. I hope by next year i can have the system fully fleshed out but i'm willing to hear suggestions on the direction of the gameplay.

Basic Idea so far:

Can use points to buy hero leaders or can roll 2D6 for leader trait

Can use points to upgrade or downgrade units weapons or abilities

Ie.downgrade imperial guard from sniders to rifle muzzle loaders

Order die is drawn from bag and allows player to activate unit

Order roll test 2d6 to see if order goes through for unit

Muzzleloader 1 turn cycle reload, breach loader 0 turn cycle reload, Repeater can shoot twice in single turn

Dice roll for hit Close 4‐6 Effective 5‐6 Long 6

Various modifies for cover/terrain for shooting or movement

Formations Should have special characteristics

Ie, open order, +1 required for enemy to hit unit, -1 for melee defense

Closed order

Attack Collum

March Collum

Square

(still thinking of unqiue characteristic for units or something to make melee and guns viable)

side bouns some miniatures I've painted

1)Otori keisuke

2)Shoguante Nco

3)Yamagata Aritomo

4)Shogunate Nco

[EnclavedMicrostate]

There's some interesting concepts here but I don't yet see them cohering. The first and most important is, what scale is this at? Toba-Fushimi is a distinctly odd-one-out sort of battle for how large it was, at under 20,000 total committed, but basically every subsequent engagement was between forces in the low thousands at most. This is not the scale at which you would necessarily see specific formations playing a very large role, and their inclusion could be more trouble than it's worth.

Secondly, how rapid do you envision movement being, particularly relative to firing ranges, and how easily can troops move under fire (i.e. how damaging is fire supposed to be)? In Sharp Practice you will take relatively light damage at longer ranges, whereas in TMWWBK casualties pile on quickly. Both rules have similar movement rates (though Kings averages out a little higher) but in Sharp Practice the firing ranges are a fair bit longer.

In terms of melée, I would note that melée troops were not actually broadly viable; even the Shinsengumi had rifles! Indeed, every indication is that the fielding troops with cold arms was usually the result of a lack of firearms – which would apply to the Shogunate forces and to the Northern Alliance – rather than a preference for sharpened steel; the Imperial army after March required that all reinforcements be equipped with rifles. Close combats happened in situations where an under-armed defender could exploit terrain with poor line of sight, particularly in denser built-up areas. Shock troops shouldn't be viable on their own and able to make up the bulk of an army; they should instead be made to be viable only when effectively supported.

[Meaty-Daiymo]

The scale I'm writing the rules for is 28 mm with the intention being medium 4x6ft (40-60 figures) figures to large 6x8ft (70-120) wargame. Personally I think formations would be needed to add historical flavor since they can provide extra buffs to movement, taking less damage or inflicting damage (also there is period manuals talking about western tactics and what formations are effective).

For Unit movement I have these as the base movement speed

Artilery 4 inch

Infantry 6 inch

Skirmish Infantry 8 inch

Cavalry 12 inch

For max firing ranges and weapons i have these listed down (more for open flat ranges)

Hits Short range 4-6   Hits Medium range 5-6   Hits Long range 6

Depending on cover (open feild)

Kill 6-5 Shock 4  no effect 3   

Artilery -34 inch (2 turn reload can shot

Gatlin gun- 24 inch (0 turn reload can shot 6 times)

Rifle breach loaders - 24 inch (0 turn reload)

Rifle musket -24 inch (1 turn reload)

Smooth bore musket- 12 (1 turn reload)

Repeaters-12 (0 turn reload can shot twice)

Tanegashima-8 inch

Bow- 10

Revolver-6 inch (0 turn reload can shot twice)

For melee i agree it should be more of a support element than the bulk army

(some more units painted)

Shinsengumi 1)

Jinshotai 2)

HoneiGumi 3)

Satsuma 4)

[SJWi]

Have you checked out "The Last Samurai Rebellion" add-on for "The Men Who Would be Kings" ruleset? Currently on sale at Northstar for £9.99 reduced from £16. Might be of interest.  I'm also pretty certain someone has produced something for "Sharp Practice" and the period.   

[EnclavedMicrostate]

@SJWi there's an official army list for Sharp Practice that used to be on the Lardies site but which I'm fairly sure José at Bac Ninh still has a copy of (if not I can pass it around). I have toyed with a more comprehensive set of reworks borrowing some ideas from various Lard Magazines, though. Watch this space!

@Meaty-Daimyo: Thanks for the extra information! The question of scale, though, was less of figure scale and more of unit scale: how many real-life people does a single 28mm chap represent? Very intrigued by those manuals, by the way – do you have some examples?

[Meaty-Daiymo]

@SJWi

Yes i have a copy of the ruleset with me. There are a lot of stuff i like with the rules in particular the ability to upgrade or downgrade units, hero generals, special role for traits for generals. But my main gripe with the game is that it still feels like a colonial game where the samurai armies are treated as native warriors charging the line of guns. Not to mention firing feels basic with no distinction between the weaponry being used like rate of fire and reload. Sharp practice the firing mechanics, terrain mechanics, and formation really work well and feels fresh for 28 mm, but the ranges seem about excessive and the rules are more suited for a napleonic line formation game, then open order skirmishing and close combat like what happened durring the boshin war and bakumatsu period (not to mention needing make or buy various products to play the game). Reason i wanted to write this rulebook is more of a fun experiment and history teaching in the old and new ways of warfare adapting and conflict with each other with mixed.

@EnclavedMicrostate

to answer your question about unit scale. I wanted to make the unit size adjustable so infantry 8 base, samurai traditional units 10, skirmish 6 , cavarly 6, here is the photo as requested of the manuals and 1 training exercise early meiji

[Cat]

Following along here, this period is bubbling under as a potential project sometime in the future.  But not before I feel like I have a sufficientry of Test of Honour painted up, and terrain which will do both periods nicely.
 
Rules currently in the mulling pile here are Sharpe Practice,  Men Who Would Be Kings + supplement, and also Rebels &  Patriots.
 
Certainly happy to mull over other rules that come along too!

[EnclavedMicrostate]

Very interesting material! I'm still not sure what kind of unit scale is being represented here. How many actual troops are represented by our 8 line infantry on a base?

@Cat but also @Meaty-Daimyo, you might want to have a look at Smooth & Rifled as well; for my money it's probably the most 'realistic' set of rules for the period (that also have an already-written army list).

[Meaty-Daiymo]

scale is squad to platoon size. so example 8 infantyr units is a squad with the ability to add another base to expand the unit. the only probem i see is with the upgrade and downgrade chart im planning to make. so i might make a flat base number of how many units you need for unit

[Yuber Okami]

,However, most of the suggested rules feel underwhelming, as they fail to capture the intriguing personalities involved during this time period and lack distinctive features that set them apart from other Victorian or colonial wargames.

Same here. If you ever want someone else to test your rules, you have a volunteer here .

[Meaty-Daiymo]

Some progress with the rule set. working on some hero generals with abilities that fit with there lore. currently have 8 generals in mind for each side.
Still thinking if the roll for activation should be for the entire unit to do moving and shooting on the same turn, or for the activation roll for each command like 1 roll for movement one turn and a roll activation for shooting next turn.

[EnclavedMicrostate]

Seems like you're pulling a fair few cues from TMWWBK and its Satsuma Rebellion supplement which might be worth crediting...

[Meaty-Daiymo]

i will, just more brain storming and playing around since the leadership/trait system for TMWWBK and Satsuma rebellion i like due to giving the leaders more personality. Currently thinking atm about movement and firing and weather it should require 2 turns to completed or can units move then fire but halved.

[rokurota]

Great work with this upcoming rule set!

[Meaty-Daiymo]

Some more progress, took a break to deal with irl situations.

My main goal for hero leaders is to give more variety to generals/allow people to use historical figures in army comps

Imperial Leaders will have more perks regarding leaderships test and rallying troops due to the imperial army being a more
organized cohesive force. (some traits will focus on the gun aspect/melee)

Shogunate Leader will be more harder to break or have better movement (primary focus is the mixed assortment of the shogunate army and command style between modern and traditiona)