A quick one today
I traded off Across the Narva by Revolution Games (should post something on this) for an oldish (2000) copy of an S&T magazine.
The mag came with two battles reprinted from the 1978 Quad game on the Crimean War. The full Quad also contained Inkerman and Balaklava, this magazine version just has Tchernaya River and Alma.
Initial setup
Early SPI games (and actually GDW and AH come to think of it) of the 70s tend to have lots of rules you already know. I go, U go, movement, fire, melee, rally, and most of the rules are standard. Command and control rules and friction of war arrived a lot later.
To couter this I have added a simple house rule. For each division (units are brigates and regiments, about 2-8 per division) roll. On a 1 in 6 movement is halved unless the unit can charge, in which case it must charge the nearest enemy.
A simple easy to apply rule for generating those light brigade charges. You could also easily convert this to a chit pull game by division.
House rules aside, is this any good? Yes in short. The main trick here is the morale rules. When you take fire damage from arty or neighbouring infantry if their attack result exceeds your units morale you disrupt and retreat. Quite simple but it works really well. Mostly allied units with high morale are very difficult to budge with cannonades where as low morale units can run up and then back down the hill very quickly. It gives the game a good Crimea feel which was characterised by units breaking under fire or slogging through hails of bullets.
Russian assault on French right stuck at first redoubt.
Strategically the Tchernaya River scenario has some good options. The French defenders have less to do early as they start in a really great position. The Russians do however have a few advantages; numbers, better melee, better artillery. If they just frontal assault they will likely get creamed, but they can work the ground on both flanks and test the French resolve.
If have had a good year with magazine games this year, which is unusual. This is another winner.
Interesting you made some additions for friction to the rules. Did you play solo? Would these have been necessary for face to face play still?
ReplyDeleteStill need to learn more about Crimea as it is a whole in my 19th C knowledge.
Cheers,
Pete.
Yeah. Even opposed i think Igo-Ugo all units perform exactly as ordered can feel a bit dated. Sometimes I don't mind as every rule slows down the game and adds more effort. If i were a publisher looking to put this back in print I would want to add some sort of C&C, whether a simple die roll or an activation system such as chit pull or impulse.
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