Honours of War, by Keith Flint, is the latest Osprey foray into the world of wargaming rules. It follows others in the series, in that they are published in an Osprey format, at a decent price, mine cost £11.00, with various illustrations taken from Osprey books etc.
I like this format, and I also like the concept that Osprey are offering.
I expect Colin will post a full account of the battle on his blog, so I wont steal his thunder too much.
What I will say is that I really like these rules. Keith Flint has clearly put a lot of effort into writing these rules for the Seven Years War, and I thought they captured the period well.
One will have to put a lot of thought into deployment prior to the battle, because faulty deployment will be punished.
Certainly this happened in our game, where the retreat of the first Prussian attack on Lobositz, resulted in additional causalities for the supporting units.
The cavalry melees are very bloody affairs, and I would suggest that you never allow Austrian inferior class hussars to be caught by superior Prussian cuirassiers. It wasn't a pretty sight.
I was particularly impressed by the way the command was handled, with generals ranging from dithering, to aggressive.
I found the rules easy to understand, and pick up. I only had two little gripes, and that concerned the use/ non use of battalion guns, and the range of canister. We will probably reduce the range of canister, and introduce a rule regarding the range of battalions with attached artillery.
Apart from that I thought the rules were excellent, and are definitely worth using for the Seven Years War period.This of course may change when I use my French army, which is plagued by poor command, and not so well trained troops.
A good days wargaming, matched by a decent set of wargames rules.
Osprey have produced some nice little rules books of late - also a couple of fails, too - and I'm looking forward to seeing their Musketeers book, in view to my idea for a 15-minute participation game at Shildon. I'm also interested in whether they do pursue the ACW riverine naval rules that I saw mentioned over on another blog (one of the Edinburgh Club members if memory serves me right).
ReplyDeleteThey seem really good value, all the rule systems they have published.
DeleteRobbie,
ReplyDeleteSounds promising I've just started reading through these and they sound promising, may need a little tweaking to fit my units and I've read quite a few people with small house rules like you say canister etc although somewhere forum possibly he mentions battalion gun use.
Graham,
DeleteThe rules played really well, and didn't take long to pick up. What I like was that they captured the period really well, and made you think carefully before you made your move. Recommended.
Be posting the AAR tomorrow. We need to do it again
ReplyDeleteWe do, with maybe less artillery.
Deletesadly the artillery ratio is correct
DeleteI think you are being a bit hard on the French, and I'm no Francophile by any means. They won their fair share of battles when Soubise wasn't in charge.
ReplyDeleteFritz
Your right Jim, but the rule writers tend to be harsh on the French. Probably all the preconceived ideas spouted after Rossbach.
DeleteThanks for your comments Robbie. Very encouraging; I hope to give them a try some time.
ReplyDeleteChris
Chris,
DeleteThey are definitely worth a punt.
Interesting thought Robbie. Does that mean that under Black Powder you don't have to think about deployment? Like you I'd adjust the battalion gun thing to the same range with or without - they are support weapons after all not mobile artillery batteries.
ReplyDeleteEvening Paul,
DeleteWhat I meant was that in Black Powder, interpenetration isn't penalised, whereas in Honours of War, a routing unit that passes through friendly troops, inflicts causalities on each unit passed through. So best not stack your troops up one behind the other.
The battalion guns can also be easily amended, but we are going to try out the rules again before we make any decisions about amendments.I think you will really like them.
John is already tweaking them for the Malburian period, and he reckons they play the period really well.
and its not only routing units but those forced to retreat who cause casualties IIRC. Actually the -1 for not having btn guns is an optional rule.
DeleteRobbie, I appreciate your kind comments. It's good to see wargamers both enjoying the rules and considering tweaks in accordance with their own interpretations - just the kind of thing I do with other peoples rules.
ReplyDeleteI tried not to be too harsh ion the French - I certainly didn't have any preconceived ideas, as I had not wargamed with them before developing HoW. They are hard to get right, as the secondary sources often describe them negatively, whilst the battle descriptions show them capable of both holding their own and winning during the western campaign. Nevertheless, we have to bear in mind that they outnumbered the allied army under Ferdinand most of the time. However, I don't think you'll find commanding them too bad an experience!
Best wishes, Keith.
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