Another first game posting...
Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2007 11:42 pm
First battle report (Version 5.01a)
I see that version 6.01 has just downloaded, so some of the comments herein may have been addressed by that. I shall press on anyway, as I??™d rather record our reactions as they arose.
Four of us met last night to have a first bash at a game. We had decided on Macedonians versus Classical Indian and made up sides of about 380 points each, including two commanders (FC + TC). The Indians had 8 battle groups, the Macedonians 7.
It was quite hard work, as you might expect from any unknown rule set, but I think it's fair to say we enjoyed it. We spent about three hours playing then an hour discussing afterwards. All of us had read the rules through to one extent or another first (about two hours' work in my case!) and two of us had played out a couple of simple trial combats by ourselves to familiarise ourselves with some of the basic mechanisms. This seems like a fair bit of commitment to expect of the average novice, but I don??™t think we could have coped with less.
We sorted out the troops, used the basic terrain set up, deployed and had time for about seven moves by which time one Indian bow unit had broken as had one Macedonian pike group. Other Macedonian units were starting to disorganise and another three or four moves would probably have decided it. As we became more practiced towards the end, the time taken for each player's bound dropped to 5 to 10 minutes, at a fairly relaxed pace of play.
The four of us, Roger, Graham, Fred and myself (Adrian) reached a consensus on most points but I have outlined individual's opinions later, where appropriate.
The flow of play has an interesting feel to it but without doubt the "big battle" feel of DBM has been lost by the inclusion of so much individual weapon and armour detail.
The fact that most battle groups are homogeneous feels right and seems to contrast with the polyglot arrangements seen in DBM .
The attention to microscopic detail when moving troops has been eradicated. This is a massive advantage over DBM .
We found the glossary very useful and presume that an index will be added when the rules are complete.
Elephants are bad news to pikes!
Is not clear why the Autobreak test has to be on a variable percentage basis by grade of troop type. This is going to mean getting a calculator out, which is surely a retrograde step. Why not just make it 50% and have done with it? Elite troops are going to take much longer to get down to 50% than poor ones and are less likely to break on the way as well. Not only that, but the Autobreak box uses up valuable space on the quick reference sheet (of which more later??¦)
Automatically removing isolated single bases is a great idea. If that one rule was added to DBM, it would revolutionise the game!
It is not clear why there is no test to charge enemy. The ability of poor quality troop types to behave suicidally is one of the major criticisms of DBM, and it has been perpetuated here.
In one sense it's nice for the wargaming general to always be able to move all his troops every turn but surely this is not realistic and harks back to earlier, simplistic sets of rules. Poorer quality or isolated detachments of troops should not have the same chance of continuing to function in the absence of a general as their superior or less isolated counterparts.
Unless we are misreading things, these rules encourage undrilled cavalry to manoeuvre in line at all times, as deployment from column is a complex move. Surely any cavalry would manoeuvre in column and not deploy until action was imminent?
Melee seemed to be resolved reasonably quickly (1 to 2 bounds) whereas DBM in our experience can turn into a bit of a slogging match when heavy infantry close.
We like the separation of impact and melee as an aid to modelling historical behaviour (and making individual turns more decisive)
We??™re not great fans of disorganisation markers, etc, so we devised the following simple system for depicting the cohesion states:
Steady - all bases in group facing forwards, front edges aligned
dddd
dddd
Disrupted - all bases in group facing forwards, one element recessed 1cm or so
dd d
dddd
d
hmm... this doesn't display properly as leading spaces are stripped out, but I hope you get the idea...
Fragmented - one base in group facing backwards, all others forwards
ddpd
dddd
Broken - all bases in group facing backwards
pppp
pppp
There were some individual player opinions to report:
Fred
was very happy with a way that the light troops were depicted. Harassing and evasion is realistically dealt with and there is a very real chance that you lose the unit altogether if you're not careful. It is too easy to use them as a delaying tactic in DBM.
Graham
felt that the rules really are too bulky to learn in their present size and form, especially as the publication of DBMM is imminent and learning two rule sets of this size for competition play is inconceivable to most of us. The rest of us felt a bit less sceptical but you have to admit he has a point.
He also felt that there is little point in distinguishing between 25 mm and 1??? as a movement unit. 1??? would certainly read more intuitively in the rules (there are enough strange abbreviation there already) and you can always include the suggestion that 25 mm could be substituted by consent of all where appropriate.
Roger
felt that the quick reference sheets were horrifying to decipher. We did remark that there were more sets of reading glasses on the wargame table at the end of the evening than tape measures.
also liked the examples given in the text and looks forward to seeing the diagrams and pictures.
Adrian
agrees with Roger's first point above. You mention in the most recent mailing that the rules are geared for ???beginners and youngsters??? (which is admirable) but do not forget that some of us have been exposed to the ravages of time for many decades. My personal belief is that no document intended for reading by human beings should be printed in a font size of less than 10.
As the QR sheets are going to be laminated back to back by most players anyway, why not spread the data onto four sides and increase the font size substantially? Even better, get rid of them altogether and design the original rule book with colour-coded tabs, headers, etc for ease of reference. You could always put a couple of quick reference pages in the back of the main rules set as an alternative, I suppose.
The trouble with quick reference sheets generally is that once a couple of players are using them you have 4 - 6 sheets and two rule books on a wargame table as well as all the troops, rulers, dice and other appurtenances of wargaming, which greatly detracts from the aesthetic appeal of proceedings. Your ideas for a quick play version as an introduction sounds like a better way of easing people into the rules. If you get things right, not just the quick reference sheets but the rule book itself should become largely redundant after a while.
On a personal level, I enjoyed using the rules and am quite prepared to invest a bit of time in getting to know them better although, like Graham, I will certainly be taking a close look at DBMM when it appears. I think this is a very detailed and methodical ruleset, though I admit to a tinge of disappointment that none of the mechanisms employed seem to me to break really new ground.
I imagine marketing this set will be quite a trick. If you want to appeal to players of DBM, WAB, schoolchildren and afficionados of PC-based strategy games alike, you're going to have your work cut out! My personal hope was for something a little bit simpler than this, which I could play alongside other rule sets. Something this size really demands absolute loyalty and that may limit take up, I feel.
I appreciate that you have been commendably open to suggestions from all quarters during development. One side-effect of this is that the rules??™ size is inflated as you try to take everybody's opinion into account. My suggestion at the present time would be to take a red line some of the detail and condense the rules a bit. This may cause widespread distress in the short term but I believe it would have long-term benefits. The appendix is a very safe place to put optional rules and factors that you can??™t bear to chuck out altogether. I think it??™s the army list detail that gives any ruleset its historical feel as much as complexity of detail within the rules themselves.
The next game we plan is a Hungarians versus Ottoman with pre-prepared lists (and updated war wagon rules, hopefully) which will give us more experience of different troop types. I look forward to it. In the meantime I'm off to buy more printer paper!
Adrian Clarke
Fred Cartwright
Roger Draper
Graham Lock
I see that version 6.01 has just downloaded, so some of the comments herein may have been addressed by that. I shall press on anyway, as I??™d rather record our reactions as they arose.
Four of us met last night to have a first bash at a game. We had decided on Macedonians versus Classical Indian and made up sides of about 380 points each, including two commanders (FC + TC). The Indians had 8 battle groups, the Macedonians 7.
It was quite hard work, as you might expect from any unknown rule set, but I think it's fair to say we enjoyed it. We spent about three hours playing then an hour discussing afterwards. All of us had read the rules through to one extent or another first (about two hours' work in my case!) and two of us had played out a couple of simple trial combats by ourselves to familiarise ourselves with some of the basic mechanisms. This seems like a fair bit of commitment to expect of the average novice, but I don??™t think we could have coped with less.
We sorted out the troops, used the basic terrain set up, deployed and had time for about seven moves by which time one Indian bow unit had broken as had one Macedonian pike group. Other Macedonian units were starting to disorganise and another three or four moves would probably have decided it. As we became more practiced towards the end, the time taken for each player's bound dropped to 5 to 10 minutes, at a fairly relaxed pace of play.
The four of us, Roger, Graham, Fred and myself (Adrian) reached a consensus on most points but I have outlined individual's opinions later, where appropriate.
The flow of play has an interesting feel to it but without doubt the "big battle" feel of DBM has been lost by the inclusion of so much individual weapon and armour detail.
The fact that most battle groups are homogeneous feels right and seems to contrast with the polyglot arrangements seen in DBM .
The attention to microscopic detail when moving troops has been eradicated. This is a massive advantage over DBM .
We found the glossary very useful and presume that an index will be added when the rules are complete.
Elephants are bad news to pikes!
Is not clear why the Autobreak test has to be on a variable percentage basis by grade of troop type. This is going to mean getting a calculator out, which is surely a retrograde step. Why not just make it 50% and have done with it? Elite troops are going to take much longer to get down to 50% than poor ones and are less likely to break on the way as well. Not only that, but the Autobreak box uses up valuable space on the quick reference sheet (of which more later??¦)
Automatically removing isolated single bases is a great idea. If that one rule was added to DBM, it would revolutionise the game!
It is not clear why there is no test to charge enemy. The ability of poor quality troop types to behave suicidally is one of the major criticisms of DBM, and it has been perpetuated here.
In one sense it's nice for the wargaming general to always be able to move all his troops every turn but surely this is not realistic and harks back to earlier, simplistic sets of rules. Poorer quality or isolated detachments of troops should not have the same chance of continuing to function in the absence of a general as their superior or less isolated counterparts.
Unless we are misreading things, these rules encourage undrilled cavalry to manoeuvre in line at all times, as deployment from column is a complex move. Surely any cavalry would manoeuvre in column and not deploy until action was imminent?
Melee seemed to be resolved reasonably quickly (1 to 2 bounds) whereas DBM in our experience can turn into a bit of a slogging match when heavy infantry close.
We like the separation of impact and melee as an aid to modelling historical behaviour (and making individual turns more decisive)
We??™re not great fans of disorganisation markers, etc, so we devised the following simple system for depicting the cohesion states:
Steady - all bases in group facing forwards, front edges aligned
dddd
dddd
Disrupted - all bases in group facing forwards, one element recessed 1cm or so
dd d
dddd
d
hmm... this doesn't display properly as leading spaces are stripped out, but I hope you get the idea...
Fragmented - one base in group facing backwards, all others forwards
ddpd
dddd
Broken - all bases in group facing backwards
pppp
pppp
There were some individual player opinions to report:
Fred
was very happy with a way that the light troops were depicted. Harassing and evasion is realistically dealt with and there is a very real chance that you lose the unit altogether if you're not careful. It is too easy to use them as a delaying tactic in DBM.
Graham
felt that the rules really are too bulky to learn in their present size and form, especially as the publication of DBMM is imminent and learning two rule sets of this size for competition play is inconceivable to most of us. The rest of us felt a bit less sceptical but you have to admit he has a point.
He also felt that there is little point in distinguishing between 25 mm and 1??? as a movement unit. 1??? would certainly read more intuitively in the rules (there are enough strange abbreviation there already) and you can always include the suggestion that 25 mm could be substituted by consent of all where appropriate.
Roger
felt that the quick reference sheets were horrifying to decipher. We did remark that there were more sets of reading glasses on the wargame table at the end of the evening than tape measures.
also liked the examples given in the text and looks forward to seeing the diagrams and pictures.
Adrian
agrees with Roger's first point above. You mention in the most recent mailing that the rules are geared for ???beginners and youngsters??? (which is admirable) but do not forget that some of us have been exposed to the ravages of time for many decades. My personal belief is that no document intended for reading by human beings should be printed in a font size of less than 10.
As the QR sheets are going to be laminated back to back by most players anyway, why not spread the data onto four sides and increase the font size substantially? Even better, get rid of them altogether and design the original rule book with colour-coded tabs, headers, etc for ease of reference. You could always put a couple of quick reference pages in the back of the main rules set as an alternative, I suppose.
The trouble with quick reference sheets generally is that once a couple of players are using them you have 4 - 6 sheets and two rule books on a wargame table as well as all the troops, rulers, dice and other appurtenances of wargaming, which greatly detracts from the aesthetic appeal of proceedings. Your ideas for a quick play version as an introduction sounds like a better way of easing people into the rules. If you get things right, not just the quick reference sheets but the rule book itself should become largely redundant after a while.
On a personal level, I enjoyed using the rules and am quite prepared to invest a bit of time in getting to know them better although, like Graham, I will certainly be taking a close look at DBMM when it appears. I think this is a very detailed and methodical ruleset, though I admit to a tinge of disappointment that none of the mechanisms employed seem to me to break really new ground.
I imagine marketing this set will be quite a trick. If you want to appeal to players of DBM, WAB, schoolchildren and afficionados of PC-based strategy games alike, you're going to have your work cut out! My personal hope was for something a little bit simpler than this, which I could play alongside other rule sets. Something this size really demands absolute loyalty and that may limit take up, I feel.
I appreciate that you have been commendably open to suggestions from all quarters during development. One side-effect of this is that the rules??™ size is inflated as you try to take everybody's opinion into account. My suggestion at the present time would be to take a red line some of the detail and condense the rules a bit. This may cause widespread distress in the short term but I believe it would have long-term benefits. The appendix is a very safe place to put optional rules and factors that you can??™t bear to chuck out altogether. I think it??™s the army list detail that gives any ruleset its historical feel as much as complexity of detail within the rules themselves.
The next game we plan is a Hungarians versus Ottoman with pre-prepared lists (and updated war wagon rules, hopefully) which will give us more experience of different troop types. I look forward to it. In the meantime I'm off to buy more printer paper!
Adrian Clarke
Fred Cartwright
Roger Draper
Graham Lock