Another great game. I ran a solo game last week using the rules and I like them a lot. A fun quick game and some good results. I had a Swedish artillery unit and 8 infantry deployed along a hill and some woods. The Russians ended up losing the game after losing 9 casualties to the Swedish 1 casualty. Fun fast game!
I use small red and blue bingo chips (or use small coloured wooden tokens from a dollar store) to track Activation points; blue chip is 1AP, red chip is 2AP - or any combo for more points. This is an easy way to remember who has already activated and how many action points have been used.
I thought it played well, least of all because the clear objectives directed movement (instead of just a smash in the centre like some skirmish level games can sometimes go). The increased number of figures from the earliest games also give you room to get more tactical. Only note of dissonance is I might have called it a draw because both sides broke? Featherstone apparently said that there’s no perfect rules set because of writer and player and research biases but I actually think solo games are pretty low on bias (if not a desire for an exciting outcome) by virtue of having to remember everything! I’m really keen to try the Men Who Would be Kings because it apparently has quite a fun ‘AI’ for solo play…
Interesting - I'm normally set against cards (partially due to the space they take up) and TBH prefer the idea of selecting the card to play (if playing face to face) but I was pleasantly surprised by the way they drive the action during this game compared to the dice of SOBH.
The rules are a bit unclear about a couple of points, but I think you got nearly everything right here. Muskets do not need a "reload" and fire with one AP. Rifles Fire with two AP [which represents their slow reloading time]. I find it easy to track the weapons needing a reload, so prefer your method [or misinterpretation, as the case may be!]. Overall, the friction of slow loading weapons makes black powder skirmish a great period, so why not double-down on it and say that all BP hand weapons take an AP to reload, and a rifled one 2 AP to reload? A bow and a tomahawk have no need to reload... This is an unusual set of rules, and I playtested the heck out of it, as well as engaged the author who was very approachable.
Nice bat rep. My understanding of the shooting rules for nepoleonics period is that there is no reload action. One assumes the men automatically reload as part of their shoot action. To take account of rifles historically taking longer to reload, the rules state you need to spend 2 action points to shoot the rifle (as opposed to 1 for the musket). Action points are not used to for a separate reload action. Is that your understanding?
@@TheJoyofWargaming I think you seem to wring the very best out of colours. I know there are limits in the historical genres, but still. They "pop" as the cool kids say.
@@johnscarr70 The smaller the scale, the more you turn up the saturation. Those redcoats are just the brightest red contrast pain I can find. Ditto for the bright blue on the French.