Monday, January 28, 2013

Wargaming or the Absence Thereof

Looking back over my posts for January, I notice a distinct absence of miniature gaming. 

Ditto for December. Not since November have I played a wargame!

I did do several "play tests" of Morschauser's modern rules (inspired by this post on Two Up, One Back, and Featherstone's simple WWII rules from  War Games: Battles and Manoeuvres with Model Soldiers using my TSSD  GIs and Germans, and Airfix Russians and Germans. But this was mostly of the set up a situation and see what the result would be variety, not a true game.

I have an idea for a Pulp-themed WWII mission for my attempt at my own Wampus Country Under the Tree Challenge I mentioned in my goals for the year, but I have yet to set it up an play. The TSSD figures and Featherstone's WWII rules will be the rules of choice in that game since they were, in fact, under said tree this year.

I will definitely put something on the table in February!

Finally, and not unrelated,  I picked up these: 

Actual Dead Tree Copies

Both issues are cited for their Marlburian rules by the Junior General site's scenarios for the Great Northern War. Hence my interest in them. 

Issue 92 contains Featherstone's Marlburian Wargame Rules, but they seem incomplete to me even when I reference his rules in his War Games.  

Still, I'm happy to have acquired a copy - I've been looking for these since early 2012.

Neither issue is available in PDF from Don Perrin over on Wargamevault.com and my guess is, they probably won't be, since issues before and after have been available for awhile.

This brings my collection of possible rules for GNW (and other Horse &Musket games I suppose) in dead-tree to:

Individually Based:
  • Featherstone's Marlburian Wargame Rules
  • Pat Condray's Wargaming the Age of Marlborough
  • Chalres S. Grant's The War Game Rules (will need modification for early 17th century)
  • G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. (I'll wait for the purists to stop choking. Yes, I do think it's possible to modify G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. to handle this era. Possible. Is it likely I'll do it? 50/50 and roll on the Mythic Fate chart)
Multi-figure Basing:
  • Warfare in the Age of Reason
  • Volley & Bayonet (with modifications for GNW from MWAN 81 and a website I found on the subject)
  • Corporal John - Rules for Large Marlburian Battles
I also have a handful I found on PDF, but I have to sort through them yet. I have plenty of time for that; the Russian infantry including officers and grenadiers should be finished in February.

4 comments:

  1. MWAN 129 also has an article for GNW with V&B.

    The reason the Featherstone Article doesn't match with Wargames is because Don changed systems in the late 80s/early 90s. It's a morale game. Those numbers given under 'Scoring' are D100 numbers than need to be rolled or higher to pass a morale check by the unit receiving fire. If the unit fails, then a D6 is rolled to determine the result. Units have a limit to the number of failures they can take. As does the army as a whole IIRC.

    Practical Wargamer Sept./Oct. 1995 has an article outlining the rules, as does the book Campaigning With the Duke of Wellington & Featherstone by Featherstone.

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    Replies
    1. SAROE,

      Thank you for your assistance!

      Your explanation of Featherstone's rules helps immensely. I was thinking it might be a "roll under to hit" percentage.

      It looks like MWAN 129 is available as a PDF - hopefully it's not a redacted article - seems to happen often with these PDFs, because it's going in my cart.

      I'll have to check for Practical Wargamer on eBay.

      Thanks again!

      -John

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    2. I may be able to send you "more details" tomorrow or Friday. I do need an email address to send it to, though.

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    3. SAROE,

      That would be great, if you can!

      If you find that you can indeed send more details, you can send them to john dot yorio at gmail dot com.

      Thanks!

      -John

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