Gaming System Recommendations

[Ignatieff]

...or I can send you The League of Extraordinary Kriegspielers in house rules, "Setting the East Ablaze" which are free.  Best for BoB, but are flexible enough to include more formal additions of your choice, a choice I have to say, you are spoiled for!

[Mark Plant]

At the end of the day any WWI/WWII set of rules will work with some modification.

I cannot agree here. Yes the basic mechanisms work, but the specific rules are often quite wrong:

1) Few WWII rules have anything remotely resembling the correct rules for cavalry. Even WWI ones can be wrong for RCW (Great War Warhammer, if memory serves, will not allow cavalry that press home a charge anything like the correct chance of winning the resulting melee.)

2) Many WWI/WWII rules assume infantry will go to ground under artillery, but will otherwise barely be touched. In fact they should generally either press on (slowly) or break.

3) WWI rules tend not to go down badly enough in morale classes, but get the firepower OK. WWII rules assume way too much firepower out of an ordinary unit, but do have the requisite green units.

etc

If you are going to play with WWII rules, why not just play WWII?

[Ignatieff]

I cannot agree here. Yes the basic mechanisms work, but the specific rules are often quite wrong:

1) Few WWII rules have anything remotely resembling the correct rules for cavalry. Even WWI ones can be wrong for RCW (Great War Warhammer, if memory serves, will not allow cavalry that press home a charge anything like the correct chance of winning the resulting melee.)

2) Many WWI/WWII rules assume infantry will go to ground under artillery, but will otherwise barely be touched. In fact they should generally either press on (slowly) or break.

3) WWI rules tend not to go down badly enough in morale classes, but get the firepower OK. WWII rules assume way too much firepower out of an ordinary unit, but do have the requisite green units.

etc

If you are going to play with WWII rules, why not just play WWII?

Good points all

[Luthaaren Von Tegale]

I cannot agree here. Yes the basic mechanisms work, but the specific rules are often quite wrong

True. That's why I said they can work with modification - which is easy enough.

At the end of the day the rules are just a way to move our toy soldiers around the tabletop and in my view it's up to the players to act in character for the period rather than being straight-jacketed by the rules which allow/forbid certain actions thus forcing the "period flavour".

vT

[Mark Plant]

At the end of the day the rules are just a way to move our toy soldiers around the tabletop and in my view it's up to the players to act in character for the period rather than being straight-jacketed by the rules which allow/forbid certain actions thus forcing the "period flavour".

In general I think it is much too tricky to remove some of the unperiod flavour from rules.

You see it a lot when people suggest amending say Flames of War for Russian Civil War. They mean well, but in general they really don't understand just how different the wars were. Almost invariably too they are newcomers to the period, so don't quite have a handle on the differences. The result is far too likely to be WWII or WWI played with RCW figures.

They know cavalry should be better, so they make a simple adjustment to boost the values of cavalry. But cavalry in the RCW wasn't better. It was that infantry was worse and cavalry fought in a totally different manner. That is a much harder adjustment to make.

I know this because when I was starting with RCW I tried adjusting FOW to fit. I couldn't make it work, even though the basic morale assumption of the rules (that target morale determines firepower results) is perfect. By the time I had finished it was no longer by FOW, defeating the whole purpose of taking them in the first place.

I accept that I am a purist about such matters, but the better a set of rules is at representing its own period the worse they will be about representing other periods. What makes it good - the period flavour - is exactly what makes it bad at other things. If anything you are much better taking generic period rules (Principles of War or Contemptible Armies) and tightening them up.

If people in the RCW didn't do something (fire MGs indirectly) then why should rules permit it? They had the ability to do it, and if you use WWI rules they will be able to do it. But they didn't do it. How does someone new to the period know to not use that portion of the rules?

If you just want rules to "move toy soldiers around" why bother with periods at all? If you are just going to play WWI with RCW figures, why not move your toy soldiers around in a WWI game?

Period specific rules are not a "straight-jacket". What an odd concept!

[Wolfslord]

Use Agis' Back of Beyond rules 

They have a great "BoB flavour", are quite balanced and are elegant enough to make big games with several players enjoyable. Faction-specific army lists and "larger than life characters" are a great plus too.

We had a lot of games in Berlin with these rules for our campaign and no one seemed to miss T&T

[Luthaaren Von Tegale]

Hi Mark,
nothing wrong with being a purist - I guess we're just coming at the same problem from opposite directions. While you would prefer the rules to enforce period behaviour I prefer the rules to be broader but that the players are better informed and so play "in period" as a matter of course.
For example as you said no indirect MG fire - whereas you would prefer the rules to ban it I would rely on the players to know it wasn't used and so refrain from using it in the game.

I do accept that in a group which are all newcomers to a period my preference would cause anomalies of troop behaviour - but hopefully as they become better read they would realise the errors and play more in period.

Neither of us is right and similarly neither is wrong, which is the great thing about this hobby of ours - enjoy it the way you want.

what ever set of rules you use - happy gaming

vT

[koz10]

I have to agree with Mark on the "flavor" thing - rules that cover too broad a period lose the ability to deal with that which makes each period special. If you're not interested in the flavor of what made the RCW a unique conflict, why not put Martians vs Romans on the table? The era of linear warfare using firearms stretched several centuries but the flavor of the Marlburian vs Napoleonic vs American Civil War periods were very different.

[Mark Plant]

I suspect Luthaaren that I could probably play RCW with you using WWI rules. I played my friend quite happily using Great War because he thinks like you.

My dislike is tempered by the experience of dealing with players who are basically WWII at heart thinking that all you need are a few tweaks and you can play RCW. Their style of play is quite removed from what we see here at LAF: they will do anything not forbidden by the rules. And suggestions that you can play games with deliberately unequal armies are met with blank stares.

[Luthaaren Von Tegale]

I'm certain we could Mark.
I've encountered the "well it doesn't say that I can't do that in the rules" problem as well as the horror at not having equal forces reaction too. I think that all stems from competion and "pick up" style games where everything is "equal" and the rules are used as written regardless of anomolies which crop up.
That's why I prefer not to play in local clubs and only against regular opponents who I can trust to play in period or, mostly it has to be said, solo.

vT

[Agis]

Use Agis' Back of Beyond rules 

They have a great "BoB flavour", are quite balanced and are elegant enough to make big games with several players enjoyable. Faction-specific army lists and "larger than life characters" are a great plus too.

We had a lot of games in Berlin with these rules for our campaign and no one seemed to miss T&T

LOL, thanks!