"Looking for Information Regarding WRG Rules 1685-1845" Topic

This ruleset has come up a lot lately here on the TMP, yet there seems to be little info available about them. Can anyone who is familiar with this ruleset provide some background information?

What is the basic unit?

What is the figure ratio?

How is command and control represented?

How is fire combat resolved?

How is melee resolved?

How is morale represented?

Is a points based battle generater or a campaign sysytem included with the rules?

How many units can a player handle during a game?

How long is the average turn? How long does it take to play? With how many units?

Finally, what, in your playing expeerience, do you consider to be the pros and cons of this ruleset?

I am interested in this ruleset so any help would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!

Basic unit – Bn's are made up of elements of 4 figures if line, 2 figs if skirmishers. Bn is 12-20 figs.

1;50 inf, 1;60 cav

C2 is by distance from general.

Fire combat is resolved by throwing a d6 for each element firing. IE Bn of 4 elements firing at a column within close range, throw 4 x D6, 2-5 causes 1 cav, 6 causes 2.

Melee similar but you work thru a chart to decide who has the advantage.

Morale is represented by taking reactions tests if bad things happen or you want to intiate charges etc, D6 moderated by factors, ie plus 1 if general attached, minus 1 if taken a casualty last go etc.

No

With experience, a corps, but designed for a division.

How long is a piece of string. Two divs clashing, call it 3 hours…

Pros – incredible simplicity but authoritive results, the writers consulted widely, including BP Hughes' Firepower so casualty effects resemble studys done in C19th. But beware – whilst based on alternate play, the interleaved move sequence needs to be adhered to ridgidly or confusion results.

Sounds interesting – we'll have to see if we can get a hold of a copy. My game group still uses their WGR 6th ed for ancients and not sure which edition of their Renaissance.

For a set of rules from the late 70's they do stand up rather well. They work better for Napoleonic period, but there were some supplements produced 15/20+ years ago that covered the mid-18th Century. Those supplements were not done by the WRG.

The rule set were still very popular in the UK when I left in the mid 90's.

The WRG Renaissance rules were by George Gush and published c1974 – they are still playable but they do need some record keeping.

Ahh..my first rules set and I still have them, over 20 years later…

K

The WRG Renaissance rules were by George Gush and published c1974 – they are still playable but they do need some record keeping.

Straying slightly off topic. There was a 2nd edition in 1979. They are still amongst the best renaissance rules ever published IMHO.

As I've mentioned elsewhere, we played the 1685-1845 rules extensively during the 80s. Sparker's observations are accurate

This set of rules came as a bit of a surprise when WRG published them. Unlike its ancient rules the Gush Renaissnce rules and its original Napleonic rules, these did not involve keeping a record of casualties and deducting a figure every time you reached 20. From that point of view, we knew them as the "bang you're dead" rules.

I only played them a few times but found them OK.

There are two copies on e-bay UK as I type.

I have WRG 1750 -1850 (red cover 1971) and WRG 1685 – 1845 (white cover 1977) that I'd happily sell.

Both sets are in excellent condition and have play sheets. The only drawback is the covers have been "protected" with red sticky back plastic.

Contact me via my blog if you're interested.

--
Martin Stephenson
Personal web log
vexillia.blogspot.com

I am now going to be negative. I do this not out of anger, but as a public service.

When I got these rules in 1970-something they had a lot of new features that had not been used before. As far as I know, most of them have never been used again. There's a reason for this.

No set of rules ever had so many different reaction tests with modifiers that differed so much from one table to another. This meant you couldn't learn them. Well, I couldn't anyway. And there were many times you had to test.

What this meant was that, instead of the old "Lots of die rolls even things out" you had "Lots of tests to fail."

Indeed, the chance of your best units finding a test to fail disastrously were huge. Not in a 'war is confusing and dangerous' way, but in an annoying, who-the-hell-designed-this? fashion.

We abandoned it in 1979. I played it again in 2005, and the years had not been kind. It seemed even clunkier, slower and more likely to just p%$# off the players than it had first time round. I had more problems out of simply following the rules than fighting my opponent (who, being younger, had not faced it first time round).

Some people love it. Some people love liver, brocolli and Kylie Minogue. It's your choice.

They are the rules I started with, and after much playing around with Shako and General de Brigade and Grand Manner and several freely available rulesets from on-line, they are the ruleset that I have come back to. I can understand Mexican Jack's issues, but I enjoy them (and liver and brocolli… even partial to some Kylie!).

"No set of rules ever had so many different reaction tests with modifiers that differed so much from one table to another. This meant you couldn't learn them. Well, I couldn't anyway. And there were many times you had to test."

I played these rules on Weds 10th Dec 08, last time I played them was in the mid 70's. Most of the tables I remembered well and they did not proved problematic. The only issue was our enthusiasm meant that with Sparker acting as umpire we got ahead of ourselves throughout the turn sequence. That was down to youthful ha!) impetuosity. I have played many rule sets over the years and these still proved good for a fun game.

Desert Fox
We have been using the WRG 1685-1845 since the 1970's and still use them. If you plan to try them out, them may I suggest looking to the WRG 1685-1845 or the WRG SYW Yahoo groups for any assistance with rule questions. Good information in the files and photos section.

Regarding the reaction tests; though there are eight conditions which require a test, the amount of testing in any given bound can be zero to possibly two or three for initiating a charge, any casualties from musket fire and eventually any hand to hand combat if your battalion is the unlucky target.

Each reaction table list specific conditions which may factor towards a passing or failing of that particular test; these are small in number. Because of that, you can easily memorize a few tests during your first evening. Even a failed test does not necessarily mean a disaster.

As a number of us enjoy larger battalions, we made minor changes to time, ground and troop scale. At 1:25, this doubled the amount of figures per battalion and squadron. A pair of bounds equals 15 minutes of historical time.

We further developed a grand-tactical system which allowed us to maneuver armies without the need of placing every unit on the table. The game table therefore, reflected the point of contact between battle lines which necessitated only the placement of a few brigades per side.

Aren't the ELAN rules, available free on the web, an improved version of these rules?

"Some people love liver, brocolli and Kylie Minogue"

Mmmm. That sounds like a good night in.

I have nothing but fond memories of WRG 16xx-18xx, we used them to refight Waterloo (albeit at 1:100 rather than 1:50). A great weekend, pausing only to go and see Big Audio Dynamite in Brockwell Park.

Only caveats are:

a) we found guns to easily overrun by cavalry. Count them as massed muskets within 100 paces instead.
b) the turn sequence can get some getting getting used too
c) a gaming friend said the points system was broken for Irregular troops ie you could build killer armies. I was never interested any anything apart from 'proper' Napoleonics so it wasn't a problem.

Vexillia, I tried emailing you through your website re: your offer to sell WRG rules, but had it come back as undeliverable. Would you mind e-mailing me at mrutz at verizon dot net?

Thanks.

My memory is similar to Mexican Jack's. Even in the 1980s, WRG seemed way behind the state of the art. I recall entire pages containing nothing but lists of modifiers.

The whole thing was like doing my taxes, except it took longer.

Even in the 1980s, WRG seemed way behind the state of the art. I recall entire pages containing nothing but lists of modifiers.

All rules back in the 80s were weighed down with lists of modifiers. At least the WRG set didn't have the 'wrong' sort of modifiers. You know, the 'extra detail means realistic' modifiers. French muskets +1, unless it's raining -2, (or if Napoleon is CinC +3), except on Tuesdays. OK, want to fire your artillery? Here's three pages of modifiers, including a graph for windage. Are you enjoying yourself yet?

The Yahoo group is here:

link

The site is geared towards the Napoleonic period. It includes play sheets incorporating minor modifications introduced by the Stoke Wargames Group over the last 25 years or so.

The key to the rules is the move sequence. The sequence as printed is too loose, so one of our members, Phil Callcott, drafted a quick reference sheet including all the reaction tables set out in the required sequence. Deviating from the sequence gets you into all sorts of trouble since the alternate move sequence falls apart if you don't follow it properly.

- Allan (Group Moderator)

Playing WRG with Kylie.
Could it get any better?

picture
I wouldnt open this at work or in front of your novia.

I think Kylie much preferable to those clunky, hard to understand WRG rules, an awful pile of semantically challenged and syntactiaclly tortured waffle

Cardinal, I thought you guys over at Cumberland loved these rules!? Only place I've evr seen them played. What are you playing then?

Nick

I have recently started playing these rules, having played the original set in the 1970s. I found the turn sequence very hard to get my head around until a colleague at our club produced a tabulated version (will look at the one at the Yahoo group as well now). I tried to show the game to another friend, and to my surprise he picked it up really easily, so it seemed that I had in fact mastered the turn sequence in the end.

We fight SYW games (for which you really need the supplement) and find they go very quickly with these rules, giving an enjoyable evening's game (1250 points fought to a reasonable conclusion in 3 hours) . And it looks and feels realistic too, with serried ranks of infantry marching across the table, blocks of heavy cavalry clashing and hussars tearing round your flanks.

The reaction tests make sense once you breakdwon the sequence, and understand that it is not a true IGOUGO, and not a true simultaneous turn sequence either.

When I described it to my friend, I said that each players turn was like a cycle as opposed to a set number of steps (so akin to looking down a spring or spiral). The other players turn is obviously the same, and the key I found was to visualise those two springs overlapping slightly. So that at certain stages of one person's turn, something is still happening in the other player's. The process of initiating a charge, reacting to a charge and shooting at the chargers, and finally testing to charge home, illustrates this quite well.

Good set of rules, and I think they are just as playable now as they were 30 years ago (or dear Lord, is it that long…).

Malc

Forgot to say, here is a demo game put on with the rules at Attack in Devizes this July;

link

We had some cracking games with these rules, using them for Napoleonics and adapting them for WSS, GNW and SYW. We played standard club games on a 6x4 table, but also pressed them into use for massive refights of Wagram and Austerlitz.

Once you've got the hang of the move sequence the game flows really well. The morale checks are very simple, and most of the time you could just throw a dice and experience players could tell immediately whether it was a pass or fail,

If I were still using big figures to play Napoleonics I'd be happy to bring these out of retirement.

Cheers

Peter

I've been using the "Bang You're Dead" rules since 1982. Here is my honest assessment.

- my collection of 25mm Naps is based and organized for these rules. Unless a ruleset is compatible with my miniatures, I will not use it. This is just out of being practical.

- The sequence of play is very different from anything else I've used. You really need to pay attention. For example, you fight melees in your opponent's turn, not yours….

- The greatest of all wargaming modifiers: " -2 for Spanish"

- "Roll a five or six to charge!" is heard often in my group. These rules do not allow infantry charges to happen against fresh troops as easy as you think.

- Cavalry movement can be a bit geeky, because you want to catch your opponent flat footed. That's a small point though.

I organize my games for each player to have about a brigade of infantry and maybe a support unit, like guns or some Cavalry. That seems to be the right amount of units per person for an evening's game.

Lately I've gotten a little tired of the rules because teaching a new player at a convention is a bit annoying. You have to get used to the sequence of play. The Yahoo group has a file download where they expanded the sequence out and what you do in each step, it is very helpful as you get older and your brain doesn't work as quickly as it used to.

A good set but one limitation is time, you just run out of time playing them, i still use mine occassionally (like once every ten years) but only for no more than a Corps size game in 15mm i'd much rather play with what looks like an army on the table.

This is the move sequence taken directly from the downloadable play sheets. The reaction tables are included with the sheets but omitted here for brevity.

1 React for first opposition.
2 React to being charged.
3 React to start a charge or countercharge unit not charging the tester.
4 Move own countercharging and evading units and make emergency formation changes.
5 Move own units initial routs due to shooting hits, or losing melee, in last move (opponents) and those units who routed against charges this move (see section 20).
6 Move opponents pursuing units.
7 Test to rally from continued rout.
8 Opponent tests to feint charge.
9 Move opposing units still charging into contact or limit of their move forward.
10 Attempt to rally own pursuers.
11 Move own pursuers to maintain contact. Position those who have just rallied.
12 Shoot at targets presented at any time during opponents last move.
13 Test own units under friendly fire and opponent tests for shooting hits.
14 Opponent reacts to charge home.
15 Position repulsed units.
16 Resolve hand to hand combats and test losers reaction.
17 Position repulsed cavalry and cavalry who have elected to pass through opponents. Elements caught in flank or rear who have reacted to continue melee, turn to face attackers unless already engaged to their front.
18 Make own initial charge and rally moves justified by earlier reaction tests.
19 Make own initial rout moves for units breaking after hand to hand combat or from friendly fire this move.
20 Make own continued rout moves for units breaking after shooting hits last move, or after losing hand to hand combat last move. Initial rout may have been earlier in this move but not (19) above.
21 Mark the path taken by friendly routers as only other friendly routers may pass through it. Others must halt or go around.
22 Make own moves forced by earlier reactions to First Opposition or as a result of shooting hits, e.g. "Retire".
23 Make all normal moves – evading detachments who did not reach their parent body must do so now. If two players on the same side dispute who gets to a point first, priority goes to the faster moving unit.
24 Dice for own General ridden over after failing to halt routing cavalry.

Sundance:

Vexillia, I tried emailing you through your website re: your offer to sell WRG rules, but had it come back as undeliverable. Would you mind e-mailing me at mrutz at verizon dot net?

Done.

--
Martin Stephenson
vexillia.blogspot.com

I remember playing them way back in the very early 80's at the local war gaming club and at home. The yellow book – July 1979 issue. I still have these rules in very good condition complete with the single yellow cheat sheet as well.

They were a really good set of rules to play, once you understood them, they were very different to most other sets out there at the time. No national characteristics as such but thorough details on troop types and tendencies etc. The Morale tests were several in number but each chart was simple with no more than about half a dozen modifiers to check on each and a simple dice roll, easy as that.

The fire charts were simple, firers matrix ed against target formation resulting in a number and the letter, "H" either one or two. a 56H meant that if you rolled a s or a 6 on a D6 you got a single "Hit". a 6HH would mean if you rolled a 6 on a D6 you got "2 Hits", simple as that.

It was the turn sequence that was the hard part, it put many people off if they could not grasp it. Our club held many competitions using these rules for years until Empire hit the club. with its nice, sexy national characteristic charts WRG pretty much died a long slow agonising death after that.

Now, I think most of the old WRG players in my area probably still hold on to their Yellow WRG book (like I have) and might even flick through it once or twice every few years but put it back in that dark unseen spot on their shelves again once they flash back and remember that the set is pretty much dated now and not much used by many gamers anymore.

One thing that did strike me with these rules was that later on the DBM, DBA rules that appeared for ancients and medieval etc were, I think, modelled on many of the concepts of these old rules, in layout and design to a degree but with enough differences to make them seem not to be to those who never played the old WRG book we are talking about.

Shane

I remember playing them way back in the very early 80's at the local war gaming club and at home. The yellow book – July 1979 issue. I still have these rules in very good condition complete with the single yellow cheat sheet as well.

Your memory's going. White cover, June 1979

link

actually, no Connard, I have them sitting right in front of me, the cover is indeed yellow and dated July 1979…

p.s. I also have the White covered book as well.

I find it hard to understand why, after publishing the June 1979 rules, WRG would issue another edition a month later in a different cover

I'd be interested to see a photo of them, being a WRG completist. Before DBx that is, we rather parted company after that :)

Is the yellow one a set of army lists? I have aset of those, with a picture of the corner of a British square, dated June 1979.

Is the yellow one a set of army lists? I have aset of those, with a picture of the corner of a British square, dated June 1979.

Never heard of those either, I wasn't aware that WRG ever published a set of army lists for these rules

This wiki page provides a listing of WRG rules, lists and reference books

link

It misses the first edition of Gushs' rules though

link

Uploaded a picture of the set now, with cheat sheet also.

Shane

Thanks.

Interesting, are there any differences between them and the June edition?

you aint going to believe this but the white book is dated the exact same month and year. Looking inside they are identical (no differences whatsoever).

link

I do apologise Shane, having checked my copy they are indeed dated July 1979. It doesn't explain the different covers though.

Most peculiar

aye, I have had my yellow book since pretty much when it came out all those years ago. The White book, I bought on eBay only last year thinking it was a totally different set of rules. To my disappointment when I opened them I saw they were identical to my yellow book.

I think the rules (as they stood) were dated as the July 1979 edition but the two books might have been printed in two locations, the white book in the USA and the yellow book down here in OZ, inside the back cover it does list and Aussie address – Battlefield in Campsie NSW. I do remember that Battlefield carried a great deal of war gaming stuff and printed a large proportion of it themselves under licence (I think?). This might explain the differences, I have seen this kind of thing B4.

Shane

There was a set of army lists with a yellow cover – but it was not a WRG publication. I don't have them to hand and can't recall who did put them out.

I know the Cheltenham Wargames Scoiety did a set of 18thC army lists c1990

There was a set of Napoleonic army lists for these rules published by Tabletop Games, with WRG lists at the front and 1/20 'Sound of the Guns' lists at the back.

link

Regards

I hate them, more than 20 odd years of experience with them , including 8 years of Running every H&M comp in sydney and Canberra, shocking bloody things….some revisionists put on the odd game with them these days but I am thinking of having them shot….we are now playing Might & Reason in 28mm as we are slowly drifting back into horse and musket after many years of WWII…If I had my way we would make a big bonfire of them, irresepective of the colour of the covers..

Yellow cover was the local, australian , printed under liscenc edition, printed by Battlefield.. they were printed around 1983, no modifications to the more common British white/red cover..they are a set of rules that encouraged cheezy play and exploitation by rules lawyers, still popular in small pockets in sydney, mostly by those who, in reality, are lawyers. If you think you understand them then you are probably incorrect.. as far as I know I am the only person who actually understood them as written and if you understand them as written it is hard to be beaten.Battlea can be won or lost understanding the rally rules…how to stop a french colum from shaking you..easy..all to do with skirmishers..oh aweful complicated things…had problems about artilley firing and moiving…that debate raged a cross 3 clubs for years, for years!!!! and then try and run a comp with them , nightmare..people just ammended them, in writing or in their head and then were shocked when they met somebody who actually under stood them.. death dealt out all round..I am surprised the Warhmmer persons haven't got onto them, make them 1:1 ratio and they would be right at home with that pile of convoluted nonsense.

If you think you understand them then you are probably incorrect.. as far as I know I am the only person who actually understood them as written

Ah. Yes. We see.

convoluted nonsense.

Quite

I don't mind them, especially when players' forces are limited to a couple of foot brigades and a small cavalry brigade, but our group does prefer the grand tactical Volley & Bayonet for H&M.

There isn't a campaign rule-set included with them, Desert Fox, but there is a points system for buying foot, mounted, guns and transportation, fieldworks, and staff (along with buying them as veteran or raw). So if you wanted to run a campaign using them, it would be easy enough to translate the WRG points into campaign "supply" points or monetary points (e.g. Town A income = 150 WRG pts per annum).

About WRG, but not for the Napoleonic use topic, in January 1992 a red cover set of Seven Years War Army Lists that included rule amendments for 18th Century linear tactics etc. and a new, 18th C. cheat sheet was published by WRG.

And the Cheltenham Wargaming Association published a set of "18th Century Army Lists" that included modifiers for the (basically) Napoleonic original rules to change them into linear-friendly ones published by Tabletop Games in November 1988.

That yellow covered set of the rules has the same cover picture as the army lists I mentioned. It was produced in Australia, by Battlefield (Campsie NSW), so perhaps that explains it.

I have played these rules a few times and the only phases I had trouble with were the cavalry rout and pursuit phases. Other than that they seemed to play OK. I was using them for SYW so was using the supplement.

Also, I have been thinking of using the Gush Rules, 1979 edition for SYW as well. I always liked the way the reaction tests worked.

V/R

Joe

I haven;t played these ruoles for a long time but I still have fond memories. I always found that they worked better for really big battles. we used to have these 10-15,000 point monsters and always got what seemed to be realistic results. And more importantly, had fun. They were a lot less dificult to understand than WRG 7th Ed ancients.

Cardinal

How did you manage to move and fire artillery in the same move?

- Allan