Basing

Joined: 03 Mar 2006 Posts: 34 Location: Sylvania, OHIO

One system I games with many years ago used pennies to record hits to the unit until the limit was reached and then unit was removed. Seems to represent the lessening of the unit to keep battleworthy yet still occupy the space needed. I always enjoyed seeing a unit with a pile of pennies behind it Laughing

Posted: Tue Mar 14, 2006 12:21 pm

We could always use a version of the pinned marker from ww2 fow. A round base with a dead guy on it. It would look dead cool too. As for the rate of fire I like it.

Joined: 15 Mar 2006 Posts: 8 Location: Auckland

I have a preference for placing smoke on the stands to indicate their status - ala FoW - and the nap battle field was a very smokey place.

Joined: 15 Mar 2006 Posts: 8 Location: Auckland

Another thought borrowed from FoW.

Forming a square is a bit like "digging in" - God help the Confident Trained dicing for a 4+ in their hour off greatest need.

So put the bases into a squarish shape as best you can manage and place an appropriate barrier around them as if it was dug-in.
A couple of pipe cleaners with some paint, foliage and body parts to decorate it would do the trick.

Look at the liberties we take in FoW with scale, placement etc just so we can get on with game!

One less basing problem.

Site Admin Joined: 03 Mar 2006 Posts: 174

Cherrybum wrote:

Another thought borrowed from FoW.

Forming a square is a bit like "digging in" ...

Hmm ... intriguing thought. Wonder why I hadn't thought of that myself (probably because I don't like the idea of giving up my visual representation of the different formations on the tabletop). Anyway, that's certainly something worth considering.

It would even work well based on a skill check (as ususal for digging in) and can be adapted, if necessary, with special rules for units which were particularly adept, or not, at forming square.

Posted: Thu Mar 16, 2006 3:39 pm

I like the skill check. My 1812 unit tries to form square all the time and we Always muff it up! we drill once a month and do it fine them but get on the field with horse coming at you and well you end up in a pile on the floor! lol Embarassed

Joined: 03 Mar 2006 Posts: 34 Location: Sylvania, OHIO

Here is a thought guys. Everyone get out the dusty copies of Napoleonic rules you have and find the best part of them that you like and submit it for consideration. Perhaps the best of these rules can help make some ideas fit what we want to accomplish.

Steve

Site Admin Joined: 03 Mar 2006 Posts: 174

I like that idea. Its worthy of its own thread.

Joined: 15 Mar 2006 Posts: 8 Location: Auckland

Best bits of other Rule Systems:

I liked the Fire & Fury concept of wearing "Brigades" down.

The Units were marked 10/8/6 (whatever) and as the stands were removed and they dropped from 10 to 8 to 6 stands, it became harder and harder (as the Commander) to make them respond to orders; until they pretty much packed it in.

The better units had greater gaps between, i.e. 10/7/5 and lasted longer during combat and the poorer units, 10/9/8 folded very quickly.

Regards

Joined: 03 Mar 2006 Posts: 11 Location: Defiance, Ohio, USA

Thats a really good system... a little paperwork to keep, but say, on the army list, if there is ten boxes, and the break points depend on the training and what have you. As a unit gets beat up, its harder for them to pass checks?

Joined: 15 Mar 2006 Posts: 8 Location: Auckland

We had the 10/7/5 on a bit of "post it" paper stuck to the underside of the unit Cmdr.

A quick count of units stands left, turn over the Cmdr and there you are.

It didn't have to be 10 units either. The ACW had very large units (Green as Grass) down to small (Gritty Veterans).

I still think a total embrace of FoW concept and mechanisms should be the first objective.

Later you could feed in options if the game needs it.

Joined: 12 Mar 2006 Posts: 1

There is already a F&F naps rules set out and about AoE. Like u say Cherrybum, the 1st objective should be to embrace the FoW concept. I have found it very hard to maintain game balance and feel after adding just a few rules from any other system. Once u add 1 you'll find it will tip the scale and you'll need another to get it back in balance again.....whoops to far ...so add this ....but then we'll need that....... snowball... before you know it you'll have pages and pages of rules .
The things that my mates and I like about FoW naps (BoI)are ,
you get to have lots of figs on the table
you roll lots of dice,
lots of things die,
u can finish a game in 2 or 3 hours
you don't spend alot of time look up charts or special rules.
in short it's quick, it's easy it's fun .
That's not everyone cup of tea I know.
But it's enough 4 us.
Tidy up the cavalry rules, put it in a book with lots of shiny pictures/paintin guides ..etc....and I'd buy it.

Posted: Thu Mar 23, 2006 9:17 pm

Quote:

the 1st objective should be to embrace the FoW concept.

I couldnt agree with you guys more on this point. The minute we begin to adopt more and more rules, then our game will cease being FoW and become something else entirely. We should focus on what makes FoW great and that is its simplicity and swift play. As mentioned before, this is not everyone's favorite mode, but I really think that the reason FoW is so successful lies in its ability to be very abstract, which allows for rather fast, but fulfilling games.

The more we add in the more complicated the game will become and therefore essentially a copy of other napoleonic rulesets out there. The reason WWII FoW survives is because it is not a hyper-historically accurate game, allowing many players to join in who otherwise wouldnt touch a historical miniatures game to save thier lives (this is straight from the mouths of over 3/4 our FoW player group here).

Agreed, there are some fundamental things that need to be addressed between WWII and 19th century rules. Things such as formations, organization and must be addressed. But I would be very weary of any attempt to bring in rules from different games as this would fundamentally alter the FoW core into an unbalanced amalgamation.

Cheers,
Mike

Joined: 14 Mar 2006 Posts: 7

Anyone familiar with the fire and fury sets of rules?

We could base our formations etc on that, but use fow medium bases.
So you have ??? elements making up a brigade.

I think the very first thing that needs decided is what the base formation is, then work from there.

For example, if we decide that all units are brigades, then if you had say an element is 300 odd men, that makes around 8 elements per brigade for the french.
If a brigade is decided as the base unit, then you wont have to worry about skirmishers, they get factored into the fire dice or save throws.

On the other hand if you decide that the base unit is the battalion, each element would be a company in said battalion, so you would have about 6 line, 1 grenadier and 1 light element, with all the attendant "extra" rules those eliete companys require.

The goal is a fast flowing easy to play ruleset based on fow, which mean keeping the rules to a manageable minimum which leans toward the first example as opposed to the second.

Players introduced to this period will only have a basic idea of the history back then and will have heard of Waterloo mostly, and some Austerlitz, Wagram, Borodino etc. Which suggests to me they will want big battles as opposed to trying to refight small unknown to them battles that you will have to have if you go with battalions as a base unit.

Sorry if this sounds abit long winded,

cheers

Posted: Fri Mar 24, 2006 12:49 pm

corect me if im wrong but had we not agreed that a unit would be 2 basses. And this would represent a regiment? which would put about 6 basses to a brigade appox (ww2 platoon equiv.) plus command stand and messanger (or something close to this). I dont mean to sound like Im on a soap box but.........

If we are going to get anywhere on any of these topics we need to start getting some focus. We should be keeping close to the original rules of FOW with minor changes to them for the period. I cant help but feel we keep talking ourselves in circles. I fear if we dont get a bit of direction that this site may die in the long run. People will get tired of the banter back and forth (which i must say i am enjoying at the moment) Maybe if we open a thread that only the mods can post to with everything that we have decided so far? And or a section where a poll can be taken to find out which direction the majority want to take things in?.....

anyway im off the box someone else can use it now........ Embarassed