"The Can't Hit An Elephant compared to Fire & Fury" Topic

I am looking for some comments from Fire & Fury players that have tried They Can't Hit An Elephant from Too Fat Lardies. I currently am playing F&F but like Too Fat Lardies' skirmish games and am thinking about trying their big unit stuff.

Here is a link to another TMP discussion about the rules as well:

TMP link

I own both but have only played FnF.

Fire and Fury sprung from the concepts of On To Richmond. That much is obvious. It is designed as a game where you fight whole battles and the smallest unit is the brigade. It is a very straight forward game. Command system is an abstraction of a random roll on a table for each unit. It all works pretty well. As a regimental game, I've read RFnF and thought they over thought the game. I tink a few simple changes to OTR or FNF and they both would play pretty well.

TCHAE is designed as a regimental game. The mechanics seem to be pretty straight forward and share some commonalities with it's Napoleonic brother Le Feu Sacre. Command system is a little more involved with command pips which I like when done well. I think this game does nothing out of the ordinary in that respect so it should work well. The card system can cause the turn to end prematurely which adds to the chaos. There are provisions to raise the level to brigade level. Not sure how well this would work but since the mechanics are simple and straight forward, I think it would work pretty well.

In short, FnF is a little more straight forward and TCHAE has some interesting extra detail.

Hope that was what you were looking for.

John

Never had chance to play F&F, but I have two rather detailed posts about IABSM on my blog. Maybe they will be of interest for you.

Cheers
Minondas
link

Does TCHAE have as many blanks to fill in as IABSM?

I have IABSM and while I think the rules are interesting having to determine whethe a shot is a good shot, poor shot, etc. on the fly leaves me cold.

So, how "complete" is TCHAE? Thanks.

Yes, I would say that TCHAE is more of a traditional ruleset – there are no areas that are as 'open-ended' as certain aspects of IABSM. My issue with TCHAE is that text in couple of rules is lacking certain details or is open to interpretation of players, which in the instance that I describe in my blog post led to drastic consequences in the game. At the same time I have to say that it is an excellent ruleset once you get a grip of it, it is quick, has enough period flavor and rewards proper tactics. Also, the Yahoo group is second to none in respect of the support for the rulesets. I'm certain that other people will recommend their favorites, but from what I have seen so far, I really like TCHAE.

In regard of IABSM, solution to your problem in our group was an mandatory umpire and a request for little bit of common sense among the players. If you rotate the umpire roll, the games will become almost like a football game – some umpires will be very strickt and difficult, other will allow a little too much…

I have played both.
Much prefer TCHAE – it's easy , after one game my 9 year old son knew the rules quite well.
The game is fun and exciting to play , it has alot of great things going for it , worth giving it a go.

Would anyone be able to comment on how TCHAE and the Johnny Reb series of games comapare? I am fairly familer with Johnny Reb, and the scale and basing sounds like it is probably interchangable. Thanks for any help.

-BY

Billy Yank, I have very limited experience of JR2, played two-three games a long time ago, so this is hardly an expert opionion. However, I would say that most clear difference is the 'game engine' mechanics. If I recall correctly, JR is a standard IGOUGO ruleset with a lot of player controll over the units. IABSM is card-driven, so the activation sequence is random and special cards add even more randomness to every turn. Also, you have the dreaded/beloved coffee break card, which ends the turn – you never know how many units will activate. This gives you a lot of friction and I would say that it will give a very different game from what you're used to.

Thanks Minondas, sounds incredbly frustrating and realistic at the same time…

-Billy Yank

Having played a game now, I can tell you that it only frustrating when you haven't maneuvered your troops into the right place to counter act the action of your opponent you has done something completely unexpected or lady luck is against you and your cards don't come up.

Darn good fun.