Last night, Tom, Ed and I ran another test game of General D'Armee at the club. Tom and Ed's French attacked my Brit/Spanish army. The scenario was simple. The Spanish were holding a walled monastery and were supported by another British infantry division unit to the right. They were attacked by three French infantry divisions. Both sides had off table reinforcements - I had both a Infantry and calvary division, while the French had a calvary divisions.
The game went A LOT smoother than our first test game and I think we got a majority of the rules right. The Battle flowed really well and my dice were red hot.
The game was a lot more lively with a fairly open table (terrain wise). That's a very important lesson for the Historicon game.
Things we improved on were:
- getting the mechanics of charges and subsequent melees correct
- skirmishers - they add both a lot of flavor and are fun
- command dice, the command system is a lot of fun and one of the best things about this game
Stuff were still trying to figure out
- Calvary
- status marker resets
Overall it was a great game and I'm really liking these rules.
Ed's French skirmishers are hiding in these woods - somewhere.
Rather than use on table markers to show unit casualties, we used some tracking sheets that worked well. These will not win any awards for graphic artistry but they got the job done. We also decided to keep specific unit status's sort of secret from the opposing player. When a required modifier was needed, it would be clear but there were not markers on the field. I found that really fun as I would forget and sometimes attack a unit I thought was worn only to find out oops their fresh.
I'll tweak the format a bit more and then add some period specific flavor but overall it's big improvement to our game play.
EDIT: I've realized that the above casualty tracker is, indeed, wrong as line Batteries have 8 casualty slots and not the 12 depicted. There are four until a minus -1 and the then 2 steps each to -2 and then disperse.
3 comments:
Thanks fir your insight on the rules set. I really like the idea of marking your losses off on the shhet. That make for a more realistic battle. You created the FOG of war... Great blog as always
I also think the C2 elements are a real highlight in this game ad I am considering how I might use them in other game systems. Like what you've added with the Fog Of War aspects too!
I also realized I screwed up as line artillery only have 8 "hit" points, not 12. Oh well, we had some very robust artillery batteries last night.
Post a Comment