(& BLOODY BIG EUROPEAN BATTLES)
Written by Chris Pringle 56-page softback / Format: D6 with IGO-UGO (with tweaks in each turn) / Published by Skirmish Campaigns / $25 (per book) Reviewed by: Eoghan Kelly
When I was a student and soon afterwards, there was nothing I loved more than gaming really big battles. I mean massive games that might take a weekend just to set up and another weekend to play. It wasn’t the time involved; it was the scale that I loved – huge, titanic battles that changed world history.
This set of rules and their supporting scenario book attempt to replicate this, while allowing players to play big battles in an evening. Coupled with the designer’s self-professed aim to design an elegant game, it seems to be quite a tall order.
The author has quite a bit of experience in designing games, so this is not a first attempt and he makes a serious effort to explain the thinking in a concise and well-written foreword. First and foremost, these rules are expressly written for battles which had in excess of 100,000 troops on the field, with a handful on the cusp, making them exceptionally bloody affairs.
The system does have a certain degree of simplicity, cou-pled with some clever structuring of the turn, which lends a degree of elegance to how the game plays out. I espe-cially like the fact that the non-phasing player shoots first
in a turn, which makes attacking especially bloody, unless you have overwhelming numbers (which neatly reflects the mentality of this period). There is no set scale for fig-ures, but there is a recommended base-size for units, and although it’s possible to squeeze 28mm figures into this, both the basing guidelines and the ranges involved would make the game feel a little strange. For me, it would seem to work best with 10mm or even 6mm to get the right feel for the enormous size of these battles.
The rules have several levels of unit quality as well as weapon types, ranging from smoothbore muskets to repeating rifles.
Units may also have attributes, which can make a unit better or worse than you might wish, but will allow for some nuances in how they behave in combat. There is a detailed terrain section that allows for pretty much anything, although I am a little mysti-fied about the rules on forts, as these have no effect on move-ment, and I would have thought that, given the scale of these rules, forts in the game would have a serious interdicting effect.
Similarly, there aren’t any rules covering fortresses, which would exclude one of the key features of the Battle of Metz.
In combat, units can be disrupted, forced to retire, or rout-ed. If routed, a unit is removed from play – not something I particularly like, as I enjoy seeing broken units rallied and sent back into the line, but at this scale, it’s probably the best way to deal with divisional-sized bodies.
The rules are comprehensive and cover night fighting and so on. The main rulebook also includes nine battles from the Franco-Prussian War, with the accompanying scenario book covering an additional sixteen battles from a variety of Euro-pean conflicts of the late nineteenth century. The presentation of each battle is well done, with a map, history, forces, and special rules, all captured in around three pages. All in all,
these are a good set of rules, which will allow players of this period to recreate the battles of the title in an evening.
“This all sounds too nice”, you cry. “What are the down-sides?” Some things I didn’t like:
From a superficial point of view, the author uses a lot of imag-es, especially in each scenario, but none are attributed and none are in colour, which is a pity, as these look very good and would give a great flavour of the colours and styles of the armies. (I personally have collected armies in the past based on how they look, and I can’t believe I’m alone in this.) On a more significant note, my big issue is that this rules sys-tem is really for bespoke battles. I cannot see how you could use them for a ‘fictional’ battle. In fact, I can’t see how you can even draw up a non-historical army, as there is no mechanism
for drawing a list of forces from a nation; and so this means that, if the army is not included in a particular battle in the two vol-umes, how do you know what it would really have been like?
On the back of the rulebook, the blurb reads that you can recreate epic battles such as Solferino, Gettysburg, König-grätz, Sedan, Plevna, and so on. The key flaw is that the Civil War bit is clearly not possible, as you have no idea what forc-es and qualitiforc-es the two sidforc-es possforc-ess unlforc-ess you are using an order of battle from a different game or games system.
If you want your game set up for you to take a straight run at an historical battle, this is a good set of rules. However, I feel the author has missed a real opportunity to make these a great set of rules by allowing players the chance to develop some DIY historical battles, as these do not lend themselves to a campaign game as they are currently published.
POCKET BATTLES: Contents: 60 Troops, 20 order/wound tiles, six dice, two player aids, rulebook.
Reviewed by: Chris Payne
Several years ago, I reviewed the first Pocket Battles games (Romans vs Celts and Orcs vs Elves) for WS&S, but with this new release, Z-Man make their first foray into the gunpowder era.
The basic format remains unchanged. Each counter (unit) has a points value and players build armies around a set number of points. The battlefield consists of sectors, representing the centre, the left flank, and the right flank, with each sector hav-ing a front and rear zone for each side and an engagement zone. Units have an attack roll and wounds, and sometimes special traits. Combat is resolved by rolling dice.
This is the first game in the series where the two sides are poten-tially very similar. Both sides have counters available to repre-sent cavalry, mounted infantry, regular infantry, and some scouts (Partisan Rangers or Bushwhackers) that are essentially identical.
Both sides then have some specialized troops available, such as the Confederate sharpshooters (Skirmish and Deadly traits) or the Union marksmen (Deadly trait only). The Confederate militia and Union volunteers differ only in grouping limits. The special items can subtly tweak an army list: the Confederate ones (Drummer and various officers) are mostly geared towards combat (either shooting or mêlée), whilst the Union ones (Chaplain, Signal
Corps, and various officers) are generally more geared towards command and control. The Union ambulance corps is the only item that can heal a unit of wounds, and a single counter repre-sents the Iron Brigade (Tough trait, with 3 wounds).
Notwithstanding that this is a gunpowder-era game, the base shooting and combat mechanics are the same as in the lower technology games. Most of the artillery gets the ability to make a long range attack and has a wide arc of fire, enabling an attack on an adjacent sector. Each side has a choice of three different artillery tiles. The Confederate Whitworth and Union Napoleon gun are identical, but the Confederate Parrot rifle gets an extra wound, whilst the Union Howitzer gets +3 shooting dice.
The component quality is to the same good standard as the previous releases, although the ready reference sheets are now paper and not card. The tile backs are labelled and are blue or grey for easy sorting, and graphically the game draws on the blue/grey stereotype image.
Careful planning will enable many of the aspects of the war to be recreated. For example, a Drummer and a General with enough infantry can replicate Pickett’s charge. The Union Colonel, with his bonus to shooting and combat, reminds me of Joshua Chamberlain at Little Round Top.
It would have been nice to see a tile representing an elite unit for the Confederacy, such as the Louisiana Tigers or Jeb Stuart’s Cavalry. The game repeats the challenges of the other games: firstly, design an army (with many possible variations), and then play it to victory. Sometimes counters may look very similar (e.g. Roman and some ACW artil-lery), but there are still subtle differences. Confederacy vs Union is not just a case of the emperors’ new clothes; the new traits of Deadly and Disengage, together with new combinations, make this a fresh challenge to play.
As with other games in the series, it is possible to fit armies from other sets, so ‘Confederates versus Orcs’ becomes a pos-sibility! The abstracted nature of the combat system means that this will still give a challenging game.