Friday, November 04, 2016

Picketts Charge rules tried

Game at Stephens today using his newly acquired 'Picketts Charge' rules for ACW by Dave Brown (with input from Too Fat Lardies ?).
These are a Regimental Level set and we played the introductory scenario 'The Bloody Lane' set during Antietam battle of 1862.
I was Confederates positioned in defence along said lane and Stephen had Federals assaulting.

The rules are fast playing and quite easy to pick up as I was able to garner most stuff from the Quick Reference Sheets and of course a few look ups in Stephens rules.

Command and Control is nicely done by use of Staff Officers sent out by the CinC (a Divisional or Corps leader).
You get one staff officer per Brigade basically but must roll a 3-6 to have these available each turn.
There are varying numbers of Staff Officers required for several tasks (essentially orders) such as Attaching (allowing a failed Brigade activation re-roll), a mandatory attachment for Faltering Brigades (woe betide you if insufficient officers available), Rallying and several other tasks some of which may require more than one officer (ie Rallying requires 3 to attempt to recover hits once per Brigade per game).
Brigades also require activation again on a 3+ without those failing classed as Hesitant (no charges or advancing).
After then establishing Initiative for the turn its Player A then B declares charges then A then B conducting the charges.
Then A/B Move then A/B shoot.
The movement and shooting systems are quick and easily picked up, charges are as always a tad more involved  due to multiple possible outcomes and so forth but nothing too difficult.
One quirk we discovered was that whilst Cover (walls etc) modify shooting not so when it comes to charges.
However most (it seems anyhow) charges result in one side retiring or routing with only occasional actual hand to hand occurring, which feels correct.
Whilst foot in line move 15cm/6" any that are forced to Retire or are 'Whipped' fall back 30cm/12" (in 15mm 'scale').
Two units Whipped causes a Brigade to Falter or having a single unit Rout.
Faltering Brigades have a separate Command Table to roll on with possible outcomes ranging from Obey Orders through to Quiting The Field type results, all based around unit quality etc.
Units vary in size from small (3-4 bases) to standard (4-5 bases) up to large (6+ bases) sort of like Black Powder and with the number of actual figures per base being of no import.

Overall we enjoyed these rules and indeed Stephen is having another game on the morrow with his brother (the owner of the Confederates).
Am no Civil War expert but felt the rules gave a flavoursome and plausible game.
I could be tempted to collect a Rebel force and most certainly am tempted to obtain the rules.







































I also obtained a couple of interesting rule sets from Lance Flint but not read either yet






















And made a pre-order of latest from Battlegroup series (a large scale re-print of the mini rulebook with some additions)





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