This week gone by saw the release of a new set of rules for the Jacobite Rebellions: Tricorn and Bonnet, by Graham Evans. You can read lots more about the project on his (excellent) blog.
This isn't much of a review, just a set of first thoughts. The game is played on a square grid. This always speed things up nicely and makes things generally easier to understand. It makes some set-ups a bit less obvious though: I will need to create some suitable hills for a couple of the scenarios in the book. The book contains four scenarios (Killiecrankie, Sherrifmuir, Prestonpans & Culloden). This covers four of the five biggest actions in England and Scotland (only Falkirk is missing), but there are none of the big battles in Ireland - it would be interesting to see how far the rules would cover them. The grids vary from a width of around 11-16 by 8-10 or so. As my troops are based as single units with a 6cm frontage, that means a board c.1m x 0.6m or something would cover all the scenarios in the book.
The fundamentals are reasonably intuitive. It is an IGOUGO system, although with some defensive fire, counter-charge and emergency command actions possible for the non-active player, so both players are at least somewhat engaged at all points. Most of the resolution mechanics are fairly simple in outline - one or several d6 against a target number to hit/succeed. There are, as you would expect, some quite distinctive mechanics for Highlanders, to differentiate them from the Lowland Scots and Goverment forces in terms of behaviour: naturally there are some 'Highland charge' type mechanics, for example the 'intimidation' mechanic, which allows them to scare the more shaky Government troops. It works quite similarly to the 'Charging as Ranged Combat' in some of the Polemos rules that I am familiar with. Some of the Government troops are able to use platoon fire, which is the most effective form of fire in the game (but can be discouraging if it doesn't work).
The combat mechanics combine some shock and some attritional aspects (and there is a possibility I have fluffed something here). The first 'hit' on a unit causes them to be 'disordered', additional 'hits' are absorbed by the unit onto each of their bases (which function as strength points), although they do make a unit less effective, and then when the number of hits exceeds the number of bases, the unit starts taking morale tests and can rapidly get into trouble. How fast this happens is somewhat dependent on unit quality, which is only known as a probability distribution at the beginning of the game, and only becomes 'concrete' when you need to know. This is generated from a card deck, so a very dispirited army will have a large number of troops who are already 'wavering'; conversely high morale armies will have most, but not all, of their units feeling very aggressive and only adversity can change this. There are some conditional aspects to all of this, so infantry losing to cavalry is never going to end well.
Fire combat and melee work quite similarly - roll dice, get sixes. Some conditions allow units to roll more (or less) dice than the number of undamaged bases, some modify the individual dice rolls...but under certain outputs, then these dice modifiers are converted into additional dice instead. In melee, these hits are 'potential hits', which are then transformed through a couple of situational modifiers into the same or a different number of 'actual hits'. In any case, melee will always to some extent 'take it out of' both sides, even the winning side.
Commanders' main mechanical effect is to act as a source of rallying and re-rolls. Government commanders tend to be able to do more of this over the course of a game, since their re-rolls refresh but Jacobite commanders don't - this is quite a neat way of reflecting the differences in discipline and staying power, and the emphasis on personal action within the Jacobites.
Okay, I hope I haven't done too much violence to the basic concepts in this initial summary. I had a go at Prestonpans, since this is one of the two easier initial scenarios (along with Killiecrankie), but I had an easier time recreating the simpler Prestonpans terrain on a grid.
The Set-Up:
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The position from behind the Government Army - the smaller but more ferocious Jacobites are on the far side of the disused wooden rail track
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A closer look at the Jacobites: two sets of Highlanders on each flank, with the Athol Brigade in the centre
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The Battle:
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Murray and the Highlanders advance
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As do the Highlanders on the Jacobite Right: some long-range musketry causes some casualties amongst the government troops
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The mortars (the pair of guns to the right) fire one shot at the Athol Brigade (top-left) since they can't fire at the closing Highlanders. They miss and run away
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However, the remaining Government guns perform somewhat better, giving the advancing Highlanders a real whiff of grapeshot...before these crews also run away
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The Government Dragoons charge home (visually I fluffed this, but mechanically I didn't. I think. The base of Dragoons on the left is effectively doing a flank attack but I wasn't sure initially whether one should move it until after the first attack was resolved; later examples made it clear that I should have moved them both into position)
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In any case, one wing of the Government Dragoons is routed, although the leading Highland clan regiment is looking pretty shaky too...
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The other wing of the Dragoon regiment charges home into the flank...
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And routs the Highlanders...their sister regiment ignores them though, and stays strong
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Government Dragoons on the other wing charge home too...
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But the Highlanders here stand firm...
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The Dragoons recoil, somewhat battered and bloodied...but at least they haven't run away (left)
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Murray tries to rally the routing Highlanders in the rear; the weak Government Artillery Guard has proven totally ineffectual against the Highlanders, but is simply refusing to fail its final morale check, so is still just about holding on! (the old Wargamer's standby: if all else fails, roll a 6...)
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The Goverment troops advance, firing: they haven't caused any crucial damage but have seen the 'edge' knocked off the Highlanders - in particular, the middle Highland regiment has taken really heavy casualties from the superior Government infantry forces in front of them
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The Government Dragoons on the Right catch the lead Highland Regiment in the rear
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Which is ridden down and destroyed
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In the centre, the right-hand Government regiment of Foot - led by Cope himself - charges home against the somewhat weakened Athol Brigade
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The Athol Brigade routs and - horrors! Bonnie Prince Charlie is captured!! Cope accepts his surrender
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The position at the end of the battle. Although Murray has rallied one of the Highland regiments on the Jacobite Left (right), the Jacobite forces in the centre and the other flank are in full retreat - the battle was lost, even if Prince Charles hadn't been captured. The Goverment Army wavered but held on...
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Game Notes:
Although a first game with a new ruleset will never be amazing, as there is just too much to look through and learn, it was quite interesting and enjoyable. I had made one slight change to the rules that ended up making quite a big difference. Instead of using morale card decks for each side, I used a d12 roll. Individually, the probabilities of a unit being wavering, fierce or somewhere in-between were the same, but a deck forces the army to have a more-or-less predictable morale distribution (the players just don't know exactly where), whereas independent rolls allow a greater divergence. And this is what happened: the Government Army generated was effectively rather less shaky than the real thing, the Jacobite Army somewhat less ferocious. That meant that the Government troops held on just long enough initially to allow their musketry to come into play, and grind the outnumbered Jacobites down.
Please forgive any mistakes in the following: there is no doubt that I will have fluffed some aspects of these rules! They are by no means complicated, but on the other hand, they are not one-brain cell/beer'n'pretzels either.
There were lots of positives to this ruleset. The movement rules and shooting rules were pretty intuitive, as you would hope from a gridded game. The game's workflow, for want of a better expression, was quite easy to follow in most places. All the effects that you might want to see in a game of the Jacobite revolts are there, with (very importantly) equal emphasis on the tactical niceties for each side. The factors seemed reasonable and on first glance well-calibrated to their effects. None of the individual calculations were difficult. The command rules seemed pretty good in general, using a 're-roll' model; the idea of allowing Government commanders to refresh their command points but not the Jacobites seemed a good way of reflecting overall discipline and leadership differences and the initial equality of the Jacobite Army but their need to avoid protracted struggles without some crude 'Jacobites must attack' rules. The scenario I played was really good, and the others looked equally interesting - just a pity there aren't more of them!
Most of the things I am still thinking about in the rules relate to 'dials'. There are separate 'dials' for enthusiasm, orderliness, formation, size/strength, plus a number of situational conditions (has the unit fired? when did it last fire?). This requires many unit conditions to be tracked simultaneously. I find something similar applies to Twilight of Divine Right (although the latter is simpler, because it doesn't bother actually including most fire or melee as a separate calculable outcome). Commanders have lots of possible actions to remember, which is good for flavour but increases the learning curve. I think I might find all of this slightly harder as a solo player, because I have so much more to deal with than a couple of players able to assist in this administration. Going forward, I will have to give some more consideration as to how best to visually mark lots of this in a visually attractive but easy to manipulate way. Charging and melee felt a little more complicated than firing, although I also felt that this would become much simpler over time, when things like calculating the difference between 'potential hits' and 'actual hits' becomes more automatic.
Compared to other rules I have used for this period, I would say it is definitely better than This Savage Way of Fighting, since it does all the same things, but in a simpler way and without some of the interpretation issues that set has. It has lots of period flavour and chrome, which marks it out from Polemos: Ruse de Guerre and Simplicity in Practice, although at the price of some complexity over those rule sets. It is more complex than the Stephen Simpson rules from Wargames Illustrated 134 I often use, althought it is more complete than that set, which is more like a workable outline. I am not sure I would prefer this to Polemos:ECW for Killiecrankie, but that may well be that I am just more used to the latter. However, one should definitely treat all the above as impressions rather than conclusions.
Anyway, lots to really like about this game, so I am looking forward to giving it some further playthroughs, after I have worked a bit more on the game management processes and markers.
Figures by Baccus 6mm.
