The English Civil War, or ECW, always has had an appeal to me ever since I started gaming with historical intrests.
I always say when they ask me my favorite period, the "era between the two civil wars, namely the English and the American ones".
There just is something about those ranks of muskets marching on the table that catches my fancy, the at times sheer amateurism of commanders, and literally at times a regiment drawn from the local pub or hamlet.
And as such, this ruleset by Baccus was actually my first set of the Polemos series that I obtained recently, never having tried the rulessystem before, so let's have a look at them and see if I "get" them.
The first part of the book handles the "generics" like how to base your models (60x30 as is seemingly the most common way in Polemos systems I have been told), troop types and qualities, how to identify and brigade your units (a single base is a unit, and there are pointers on how to base pike and shotte intermixed for ease of indetification) all up to how to deploy armies.
Then we move to the actual rules of the gamesystem, which is based around a system of "Tempo Bidding" to see who grabs initiative, and what one can still do in that turn with his units and brigades. Not everything will be able to activate, so one must choose wisely.
Movement itself is expressed in "Base Width's or BW), which means in general 6cm normally, and 12cm in march column for most infantry, and double that for cavalry. As you can see, these short movement ranges make the game actually suited to be played on a small or normal size table, and still give the impression of large crossed distances and grand manouevers. Especially as they are doubled as long as they end the move outside 4BW of known enemies. As usual in most rulesets, changing formations and terrain has an influence on the move rates.
Ranged Combat was nothing to write home about in the ECW, as muskets where fairly new technology in those days, and the rate of fire was poor, as was the range. Now, charges are also resolved in this phase, to represent the fire at the moving troops closing in on them.
Ranges themselves are pretty short, again to represent the era, with short range being 3cm and maximum range being a measly 6 cm aka a BW. Players then crossreference their Offensive and Defensive base value on a table, and add a d6 to it as well as some other modifiers to get the combat result.
Close Combat follows the same procedure, although with a different table, as Ranged Combat, and the results might be just that bit bloodier due to multiple units being in combat with each other.
Army Morale, the next section, is of course the decider of victory or defeat, asthe army starts to fall apart as bases are removed from the game.
The third part of the rules cover Terrain, as well as Optional Rules. The terrain itself is split up in either Area terrain like woods and settlements, or Linear like rivers, all of whom affect the movement rules. A handy terrain generator is included to roll for the layout of your table for those random battles.
In the optional rules we also find things like Defensive points, Ammunition Supplies and a heap of other stuff to add an extra layer of detailing to your games.
The fourth part is, from what I have been told, the bread and butter of Polemos gamerules: the Army Generators. These allow you to first generate the number of brigades in each arm of the army, depending on the year. A second roll then decides the morale, strength and either armament (for foot) or tactics (for horse) of your troops. The generators also include the Polemos equivqlents of the historical forces present, to give you a good start on what force to assemble and paint. Something I'll be definitly looking towards when I start an army soonish.
The final part of the rules brings about the scenario's, as well as some information of the ECW and the Designer's Notes, and includes some lovely colour pictures of painted Baccus armies in the field.
A great looking book, and the rules don't seem to complicated for an old fart like me. I will definitly be building and ECW army in the future (after first completing so many more other projects for the scale), and then I'll see if I can find an opponent / convince one or more of my posse to start the period as well...
Now to only pick a side...