It has been several days since my last post, but I've had some things on this end of the computer to deal with and my time to sit and contemplatively create post was limited.
Now, though, I am able to provide an overview of some things I am continuing to work on, design wise.
First of all, I want to be clear that my intention with creating these tactical rules is not to simply shoehorn Hail Caesar, Pike and Shotte, and Black Powder into a Portable Wargame format. Instead, I am using the three as a foundation for expanding the Portable Wargame into a little more detailed system, so that it will better reflect (I hope) the circumstances of my campaign.
The Portable Wargame is an excellent set of rules on its own. Well, it is not just a single ruleset, but rather a system of covering nearly all periods of historical warfare in a consistent manner. However, my intent is to have a multi-period ruleset that also plugs into my Imagi-Nations campaign AND can handle inter-period combat in addition to intra-period battles.While the colonial rules for the Portable Wargame is certainly a step in this direction, I was looking for a little more.
Also, as I've posted previously, I did not want combat resolved on a single toss of a die. I desire more nuance than that, given that +/- 1 modifiers to a d6 are significant swings, much more than a similar modifier to a pair of d6s.
One of my many inspirations for this effort have been the "greats" of historical gaming, including C.S. Grant, Featherstone, and a number of others. And so, I use images of their works to headline these posts as the connective tissue that runs through them.
While I was busy with RL over the past week, I was still using much of my spare mental energy to consider where I am at in this process and to identify those areas I remain unsatisfied with. Of these, three continue to stick out, the first being the combat results tables, morale is second, and lastly my explication and intent behind army construction.
I shall take on the last issue first, in today's post, the others will follow.
The below unit costs are from Hail Caesar and supplements. I use these for comparative purposes only, to get a better look at how the points costs of units within my Imagi-nations campaign might look, depending upon the period portrayed, as well as how the special rules will interact, given that I will very likely utilize them as they exist in HC, PS, and BP, with the necessary modifications to work within the structure of my tactical and strategic rules.
Feudal Heavy Infantry: 7+0+3+6+1 (thrown weapons 1pt) = 17
Medium Infantry with crossbows: 5+6+3+6 = 20
Light infantry bowmen: 4+6+1+6 = 17
Crusader knights with lances: 6+0+3+6+4 = 23
Impatient (see explanation)1 2 pts
Skilled (re-roll 1s in close combat)2 2 pts
Foot knights and Spearmen: 7+0+3+6 = 16
Archers and Crossbowmen: 6+6+3+6 = 21
Notes:
1 - Replaces Eager in Black Power, but with some revision. When an enemy unit moves to within 2 squares directly in front of an Eager unit, the latter must immediately move into contact. This is a free move and does not count for activation purposes, does not require a chit to be pulled, or a leader to be activated. An immediate round of close combat is conducted, and the outcome resolved. If the owning player wishes to not make this free move and combat, the unit must pass a Rally
2 - Replaces Tough Fighters in Black Powder
Also note, as the range of shooting weapons increases, so does the points cost for a unit.
Further, cavalry, at least in this era, will get a +3 dice bonus in the turn where they initiate combat by moving into contact, i.e. by charging. I believe I will add a special rule for this, for both cavalry and infantry, with an associated points cost for each. Doing so may well cover both heavy cavalry and also impetuous infantry, such as highlanders.
Using the same conversion formula as with the Hail Caesar units above, I’ve converted these from Pike and Shotte.
Covenanter Musketeers: 3+4+2+3 = 12
Commanded Shotte: 3+6+3+3 = 15
Gordon Horse: 8+0+3+3+1 = 15
Pistols – 1pt
(I've ignored the special rules for these last two, for the moment)
Looking at the units from the two historical periods (Eras in my campaign), the cheaper points costs for the units seems out of balance a little. However, given that the stamina value is equivalent to the unit's SPs in my tactical rules, we can see that the Pike and Shotte units are quite brittle in comparison.
This unit from the Glory Hallelujah supplement is of an even later period (of course) and after converting this unit type the points cost is as follows:
Infantry: 6+9+3+3 = 20
However, these rules also provide for a 2 Stamina unit of infantry, which would make them terribly brittle in a game, for 1 point less. In Black Power, the first edition, the points for stamina were much higher than 1 each.
Now, here is where they difficulty lay, the HC units all have greater stamina than nearly all of those units from the other rules systems; most likely to make a game with the units whose primary fighting is in melee. This, of course, does not work well for my purposes, neither does it add to any sort of balance as a 2SP unit is extremely vulnerable as compared to a 5SP unit, under my current working version of the tactical rules.
How then to resolve this?
Ideally, all of the infantry units in a game would start with 5SPs, the cavalry 4SPs, and artillery at 2SPs (maybe 3 for large batteries).
So, in some cases the points cost would go up by two or down by one or two, depending, but that is all.
Stamina, under HC and the others, also accounts for Morale to a large degree, with special rules applying in specific unit situations. Yet, that really would not work with SPs, as doing so would make SP values the determiner of morale conditions and situations. This is not desirable.
Obviously, the easiest way to handle this is to add a special rule, where one is needed, that can be purchased for morale variances in units and then these differences become modifiers for morale-based tests, such as Rally...and the others that I will explain in another post, possibly tomorrow.
As I continue to ponder what I have written as rules or thoughts for rules, even though I would like to have much reduced unit costs, to fit my strategic rules, I think I am going to need to change the strategic rules to allow for unit point costs that do not end in 0 or 5.
While I am not marrying the army builds rules to those found in HC, PS, and BP, being that they were a good base to start from, I do like the simplicity of the point system expressed therein as they seem to work well enough.
I've a lot more to cover, from what I have been mulling over. I was hoping to show some pictures of works in progress, but the weather here finally turned into winter-ish, and the 50 degree days have become 10 degees. The week before, it was extremely windy, with 70mph gusts. So, Mother Nature has conspired against my cunning plan to prime figures so that I could paint them.
More to come, very soon.
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