Polemos
English Civil War (2nd Edition)
PolemosECW is published by Baccus 6mm and is co-authored by its owner, Peter
Berry. It is aimed at re-creating the larger battles of the English Civil War / Wars of the Three Kingdoms.
The basic element of the game is the base, where one base represents
a battalia of foot (c.500 men), a squadron of horse (c.125 men), a
detachment of dragoons (c.250 men) or two cannon. Any number of
figures can be on a base. Due to the number of cavalry in ECW
armies, this system can require a very large number of cavalry bases
to recreate the larger battles (50+ per side) whereas it is unusual
to need more than 20 bases of infantry, and quite often only half of
that. All movement distances are expressed in Base Widths (i.e. The
width of a single infantry or cavalry unit). A base width represents 80
paces and the suggested size is 60mm - but any size of base should work. There is no time scale, the authors preferring to think of a
turn as a "focus of action", but infantry march movement is
approximately consistent with a 5-minute turn.
Troops
are rated as veteran, trained or raw and may also additionally be
"elite" (so raw/elite is possible). Generals are rated as
good, average or poor. Artillery is rated per weight/size of gun.
Additionally, horse is described as Dutch Trained (i.e. Trained using
the Dutch system) or Swedish Trained; meanwhile, foot is described as
shot, shot-heavy, mixed, pike-heavy or pike, dependent on the ratio
of musketeers to pikemen within the unit.
Polemos
ECW's command and control mechanic is the one common to the Polemos
family of rules, the use of tempo points. Tempo points are a
derivation of the PIPs used in Phil Barker's Dbx series of games but
are also used to model initiative and decision cycles too. Each
force has a certain number of tempo points, generated by the size of
the army and the quality of its generals. The player then bids a
certain number of those points to try and "gain the tempo"
(i.e. have the initiative for the turn). The remainder of those
points are used to issue orders to and thus move the player's forces.
However, the player who has gained the tempo is able to move his
or her troops at reduced cost. A player who loses the tempo in one
turn then gains it in the next will be able to move and/or fire twice
without reply, so sometimes it can be useful to lose the tempo.
After
this tempo bidding phase has been completed, both sides complete the
movement for units retreating or routing or pursuing. This section
is much better than others I have read in the Polemos series. After
this, the tempo player moves their forces. The movement rates appear
quite slow but they should be doubled if the unit is farther than 4BW
from any known enemy unit. Units can also use march column which
doubles the movement rate again. So an infantry unit near the enemy
will only move 1BW, an infantry unit moving in march column away from
the enemy will move at 4BW. Formation changes and such-like is slow
and difficult and it is not easy to correct mistakes in the initial
deployment. I can't find out in the rules whether interpenetration
of formed troops is permitted or not. Using march column effectively
requires a bit of practice (everything is done from the right and to
the right). There
is a minor mistake on the quick reference sheet: the movement rates for
mounted dragoons should be the same as for horse but the rates on the
sheet are those for foot.
There
are two types of combat: ranged and close. And within ranged, their
are two sub-types, one being the firing of muskets and artillery and
the other being "charging", which represents the
intimidation of charging, not the close combat aspect. Only
Swedish trained horse and (optionally) Highlanders and Irish can
"charge". Other troops advance into combat in a more
stately fashion. Combat is resolved by an opposed dice roll (i.e.
each side rolls a D6) and adds or subtracts various modifiers. The
results are then read off a table. Incidentally, there is a value
given for Dutch-trained horse for ranged combat on the QRS, but I am unsure when
this would be permitted (there is no value in the rulebook itself).
As
in other rules in the Polemos series, attrition is not recorded.
Instead units become progressively disordered from suffering
casualties, being defeated, moving through rough terrain and so on.
This disorder, described as levels of "shaken", can be
rallied by generals or the use of tempo points.
Overall
army morale is tracked rather than by wing or by brigade. This is
done by comparing a D20 roll to the army's base morale, which is
reduced by losses. If the die roll exceeds this base morale, there
will be progressively harsher effects on the army, limiting the
activities of its troops (Some troops may refuse to advance, for
instance).
There is also coverage of terrain effects and a good terrain generation
system. There are some optional rules for unusual units (Highlanders
/ Cuirassiers / Irish / Scottish Horse / Frame Guns). There are some
quite detailed army generators for various armies within the whole
"War of the Three Kingdoms", so there are army generators
and sample armies for the Covenanters, the Confederates, the Ulster
Protestants, the New Model Army and so on. The rules come with two
scenarios, a small battle (the Battle of Shieldfield) and a larger
battle (Naseby). There are some reasonably extenisve notes on the
troop types, uniforms, design decisions and so on.
Overall,
the rules work well. Once you get used to how the tempo process
works it is very easy and quick to administer: I find my games
rattling on quite quickly. I haven't played a truly big battle with
these rules yet (a Marston Moor or a Worcester or similar) but I
would guess they would work alright given the speed of the key
mechanics. They would need a lot of space to fit in all of those
cavalry bases though! There appear to be numerous combat modifiers
but I found myself learning them very quickly. Fire combat is rarely
decisive quickly – which is as it should be in this era
– but it can halt attacks and then slowly demoralize the enemy.
Ranges are realistically short! Artillery is difficult to use
effectively and requires immense effort to re-deploy once unlimbered
and ready. Using single infantry bases and eliminating the use of
separate pike and shot within each unit is a key positive for me, as
it removes both the possibility of and incentive for excessive player
micro-management of individual combats.
The
potential shortcomings for a gamer are similar to others in the
Polemos series: Tempo points (i.e. PIPs) are annoying if you don't
like them, especially if you dislike having to give tempo points to
keep movements going; there are a decent number of factors to
remember/finger through; bases can interact with each other and the
terrain in confusing ways (although I have so far found this less
prevalent than in other rules in the series); and the army-level
morale rules can be quirky. I also think there is an opportunity
cost in that the rules-writers aren't always quite as brutally simple
as they could be: I tend to think that rules such as "movement
is doubled further than 4BW from a the nearest enemy; bases which
suffer a recoil result in two consecutive phases automatically rout;
units travelling through x terrain-type
add a level of shaken and will retain one in the move following their
exit (but cannot be routed solely through such a terrain effect)"
and suchlike are the hardest to remember in the course of a game and
could easily be eliminated or simplified.
Links
to a few battle reports to see the rules in action:
Braddock
Down:
http://hereticalgaming.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/polemos-ecw-battle-battle-of-braddock.html
Stow-On-The-Wold:
http://hereticalgaming.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/polemos-ecw-battle-of-stow-on-wold-21st.html
There
is a Yahoo! Group but it seems a little quiet as of late:
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/polemos/info
