Democracy in 2014

[maxxon]

I don't have anywhere near enough figures for Slaughterloo, so it's going to be skirmish.

I was looking at Flint rules the other day, but quite frankly the rules seemed a bit overinvolved for my situation. I'm not really looking "-5% for wet socks" rules to play a couple of one-off demo games.

I think I'll adapt some simpler rules.

[Hummster]

Nice work on the dismounted cav. I suspect I'm more willing to put down the colours that I want as long as they are more or less a Napoleonic uniform rather than worry about the differences in the Flintloque figures from the historical models.

[maxxon]

Thanks.

I guess it's because I'm very much a novice with nappies. I can invent my own color schemes or follow examples more or less slavishly, but I'm not comfortable doing a variation on an "official" scheme before I know enough to make the change knowingly.

Nappies reputation for ever-present uniform police isn't helping any either. "Hahaa! You painted the lace white when it clearly should be cream from January 1811 onwards!"

Flintloque's offhand way of describing units isn't very easy either. It took some investigation to determine most of the dismounted troopers are indeed supposed to be cuirassiers. I get that Sharke's 105th Rifles is modeled after 95th Rifles, but the rest of the analogies are not so clear to me.

[Argonor]

Nappies reputation for ever-present uniform police isn't helping any either. "Hahaa! You painted the lace white when it clearly should be cream from January 1811 onwards!"

I painted a lot of 1/72 plastics over the years (for my own rules, and later for an adaption of Warmaster), and after many, many hours of frustration, I finally gave up on following the historical facts. It simply wasn't possible to find minis that were completely 'correct' (and most were done in full dress instead of campaign dress, anyway).

Flintloque's offhand way of describing units isn't very easy either. It took some investigation to determine most of the dismounted troopers are indeed supposed to be cuirassiers. I get that Sharke's 105th Rifles is modeled after 95th Rifles, but the rest of the analogies are not so clear to me.

SO, in Valon the normal for dismounted cavalry is Cuitassiers... That just illustrates how Flintloque has a completely different take on Naps that the button-counters. I've never heard of French cuirassiers fighting dismounted (they may have done so on occations 'out of order', whereas several regiments of Dragoons fought in dismounted order in Spain. The only thing that bugs me about is, that dragoons were originally mounted infantry, so using them as such is more logical than using cuirassiers - but in a fantasy skirmish game, why wouldn't a section of heavy cavalry get off the horse and take cover? Why wouldn't they in a historical one? It's our game, we payed for it, so we also get to decide which minis in which state we choose to buy and paint for it! 

[maxxon]

SO, in Valon the normal for dismounted cavalry is Cuitassiers... That just illustrates how Flintloque has a completely different take on Naps that the button-counters. I've never heard of French cuirassiers fighting dismounted (they may have done so on occations 'out of order', whereas several regiments of Dragoons fought in dismounted order in Spain.

Well, not really. There's two dismounted hussars there too.

And they are not dismounted because that's a battlefield formation for them, they're dismounted because it fits the scenario (they are essentially ambushed by the titular Lady Wintermore while "guests" in her mansion). The Wintermore box has very specific figures for its scenarios and they have a bit limited general use. How many cross-dressing dwarf skeletons do you need in an army?

Determining their cuirassiers status was slightly difficult because they were only referred to as guard cavalry or somesuch, the actual cuirass on the figures isn't very obvious and I'm not familiar enough with nappies to immediately spot them as such.

The funny thing is that I actually have mounted Flintloque elf cuirassiers too (see previous batch), but those figures don't quite match these dismounted versions either...

[Argonor]

Determining their cuirassiers status was slightly difficult because they were only referred to as guard cavalry or somesuch, the actual cuirass on the figures isn't very obvious and I'm not familiar enough with nappies to immediately spot them as such.

The funny thing is that I actually have mounted Flintloque elf cuirassiers too (see previous batch), but those figures don't quite match these dismounted versions either...

Then the guard ones are probably meant to resemble the Carabiniers of the Imperial Guard (I don't recall any regiments designated as cuirassiers being part of the guard)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carabinier

The one with the brass cuirass and the white tunic.

[maxxon]

Then the guard ones are probably meant to resemble the Carabiniers of the Imperial Guard (I don't recall any regiments designated as cuirassiers being part of the guard)

Ah crap, now I have to repaint them...

[Argonor]

Ah crap, now I have to repaint them...

No you haven't - I'ts another world! 

[maxxon]

No, I wasn't going to. But this IMHO illustrates what keep newbies off nappies.

I checked this... the unit is called l’Esprit du Garde without much further explanation (apart from being elite and winning lots of duels).

However, Alternative Armies actually sports a painted pic of the mounted versions:

http://www.alternative-armies.com/51501-U_L%27Esprit_Du_Garde.htm

Astonishingly close to my colors though I arrived at them from a completely different perspective.

Though I'm kinda missing the difference between them and the regular cuirassiers:

http://www.alternative-armies.com/51506-U_Elf_Cuirassiers.htm

[Hummster]

Ah crap, now I have to repaint them...

No, you can have the colours any way you want them. The official Alternative Armies line on this is 'its fantasy nobody cares' so the actual Flintloque community is easy going about these things, unlike the Napoleonics community.

[Argonor]

The biggest difference between the figs seems to be the 'plaid'-like blue drapings and different poses - the horses seem to be exactly the same, right down to the rearing one of the officers.

I'm just about to start cleaning up my second model for Sharke's Rifles, and holy macaroni, are those minis BIG compared to normal 28s 

A note on rules:

I was a bit baffled when you wrote about the '-5% for wet socks', and I requested and got the free 'lite' version of the 3rd Ed. - and those rules seem, by the first glance, to be quite a tad more complicated than the rules I have (1st Ed, I think), that, although rather old by now, seemed pretty straightforward and simple when I read them Sunday afternoon.

I only skimmed the latest rules, but the extensive use of counters, for instance, is completely new to me (and not a good sign of things to come later).

[maxxon]

Well, the sock thing was a joke but the rules are rather old school.

I have the second edition, which uses column shifts, and the 3rd lite, which is back to percentage modifiers.

But they both have way longer modifier lists than I care for these days.

E.g. why have +10% for being elf or whatever? Why not pre-calculate that into the model's stats? Yes, these are simple calculations, but you are going through them for every single shot. It's not like the model might suddenly stop being an elf, is it?

[petercooman123]

No, I wasn't going to. But this IMHO illustrates what keep newbies off nappies.

This is why i got my napoleonics in 2 mm scale, no details to get wrong 

[Argonor]

Well, the sock thing was a joke but the rules are rather old school.

I have the second edition, which uses column shifts, and the 3rd lite, which is back to percentage modifiers.

But they both have way longer modifier lists than I care for these days.

E.g. why have +10% for being elf or whatever? Why not pre-calculate that into the model's stats? Yes, these are simple calculations, but you are going through them for every single shot. It's not like the model might suddenly stop being an elf, is it

I wholeheartedly agree - any fixed modifiers I would work into the base value on the rosters beforehand. The trend these days is towards simpler and faster systems (and thank heaven for that!), so unnecessary calculations during gameplay should be avoided at (almost) all costs.

I'll probably stick with 1st ed. - I think the modifiers list can be kept to an overseeable minimum, but I have to actually play the game to get the full hang of it.

[maxxon]

The final batch is here:



Read all about it here:
http://www.smallcuts.net/blog/

This concludes the Flintloque portion of resolutions. I'll put up a couple of games next month.