"Anyone tried Polemos and given up?" Topic

I'm curious to see if anyone has played this ruleset and given up trying to decifer the rules.

I've been trying to get my head round them for a couple of weeks, and have to say they are amongst the poorest set I think I've ever seen considering they're a 2nd edition.

I'm fairly sure there's a core set in there that will prove pretty good, but I have some issues with the way they're presented and explained, and when you go on the Yahoo group and are told that they're very easy to understand and the lack of words is a good thing its a bit wierd to say the least.

I assume you're referring to the Napoleonic set. I also found it… shall we say, "minimalist" in its approach. The basic concepts are sound, but there's just not a whole lot there.

I thought their Great Northern War set suffered from the opposite problem: they spent a page explaining something that could have been summarized by a simple: "Swedish infantry gets +1 on the attack" sort of rule.

I think they're really dedicated to the 6mm crowd. I found the movement rates and weapon ranges tiny. Infantry moves 1 base-width per activation ! You have to start the armies set-up within spitting distance, or you'll be there all day and never get into contact.

Just not enough going on, for my taste. But a lot of people do like them.

I bought the 1st Ed of the Napoleonic rules and i also found them unplayable.

I love Baccus figures and have thousands of them but the rules werent to my taste. I went for Fast Play Grande armee instead.

Steve.

Are the people who made these comments American?
I'm American and I also find that many English sets are rather poorly written and organized. It's like they're club rules that all members of the club know chapter and verse but aren't explained well enough for outsiders to understand or implement.

Or is it that that you don't understand the mother tongue, and will need US Brits to help LOL.

Pete and the guys at Baccus are always help full before giving up try them first.

Jules

Looking at profiles, no they are not all American.

I like the rules so far. Tho I feel the artillery part is to simple and might have to write my own sumpliment.

That Said I'm doing a 4 corps battle with 5000figs in 6mm and a 15mm battle with the same rules with 1400 figs.
The BW ranges work fine. Bigger bases, and each base can move more each turn,, the smaller the bases, the bigger the table gets.
For my 5000 fig battle I'm useing 40x20 bases instead of 60x30, that make it possible to have BIG battles on small tables.

If you want to use the rules with 15mm figs you can use 100x50 bases, that way you can move 20cm each turn and your table will be small again

I gave the first edition a concerted try, came up with a couple of pages of house rules to try and fix things, and then gave up. Like others above, I think that there is a core of good ideas there (the phased combat of MdE, the "store up AP and go" system for activating formations), but the execution didn't live up to the potential.

No, I'm in UK. The problem isn't the language. Its that they're basically badly written despite what others say.

Becks, I'm playing in 6mm, and figured at first that it must be a multiple move per turn set, like Warmaster type thing. Having said that, ranges can be multiplied, basic rules can't! I'm pleased to see that you think the core ideas are good.

Jules, not sure whether you read my post or not, but I've been on their yahoo group.

Im a Brit too, the rules are just badly explained and a lot of knowledge is assumed. As a newbie to Napoleonics i was confused to say the least.

Steve.

I too went with their First Edition. I would call myself an experienced consumer of napoleonic rules. I'm sure some people love them but for me personally I think there are better options available. I've been wargaming napoleonics for 20 years and I've got to say we seem to be in a real "golden age" of rules sets at the moment. Some really great options out there.

I bought the ECW version and after reading them, couldn't imagine them to work and never got past a trial game with counters. It's put me off the Napoleonics version as the problem with very small movements has me scared of them. Like the poster said earlier, unless you want to take hours to get into contact, you have to start just out of musket range.

I've bought them and read them through. I haven't played them yet. I've seen better laid out rulesets, but then again I've seen much, much worse. One of these days I'll give them a try, but with the tempo bidding, I'm fairly sure that they aren't what I'm looking for in a Napoleonic ruleset. Interesting mechanism, just not my sort of thing.

Mark

I gave up on them with the 1st edition. Some of the longest lists of modifiers that I've ever seen in any miniatures rules set. I didn't like the tempo bidding concept either.

Try Angels barracks hes got a set of rules…..

The tempo bidding is quite an effective mechanism, but yes, the list of combat mods are fairly long. You do get used to them.

Same experience as Dugal. I tired the ECW version with a pile of counters – I just found it a rather dull game that lacked character, IMHO. I was expecting more since I had enjoyed Berry's Forlorn hope in the past.

Anecdotally, I've heard that they are a tad on the poo side.

I bought a set at SELWG and have tried a couple of games with them; I have to say that I am not overly impressed. They feel rather too generic and lacking in character; however, I rather like the tempo bidding system, although it seems somewhat flawed.

I doubt if I will play them again:(.

Not me, but I`m curious now to see how badly written they are.
Maybe it would be useful if we had a model rule set to judge it by… any suggestions for rule sets that are easy to read and understand?

"any suggestions for rule sets that are easy to read and understand?"

Purely for Napoleonics? then Charles Grants 'Napoleonic Wargaming', but obviously it is a book incorporating a set of rules.

In more general terms, one of the best written sets of rules I have come across in recent years is 'Battles for Empire'. Very clear indeed.

This may be a subjective thing as some people like brevity, others lots of diagrams etc etc.

Having just read an advance copy of LaSalle! I can say they are definitely a pleasure to read!

Cheers Grimmnar, there are a couple of sets on my site. (Do I know you btw?)

Well just to balance the reactions here, there are quite a lot of very happy, satisfied Polemos gamers who have actually played games with the rules and enjoyed doing so. They are selling well across all periods and demand for new versions is very high with three more period variants already written and more coming behind them.

The main problem with newcomers to the system is that they do have a different take on the way that armies are handled. They have a top down approach which makes them more abstract than the traditional bottom up rules sets that most people are familiar with.

I've found that those people who have most trouble getting to grips with them have been reacting to the fact that they don't play like the sets they are used to. As a result they continually try to make Polemos fit to the way that they think they should be played, not the way that they were written. For example, the Napoleonics, FPW and ACW rules handle artillery very differently to conventional sets and some people can get very confused because they can't see how it works based on their previous rules experience as oppposed to letting the game play as written.

The concepts and mechanics won't be everyone's cup of tea and we all accept that. Some saying about pleasing some of the people some of the time comes to mind. That is the name of the game. But if they were as bad as some have made out here, then there would be no demand for me continue with them.

If have a go at playing them without an agenda, without bringing baggage from previous sets of rules and work with them as opposed to against them and you could be very pleasantly surprised.

The following quotes come from the a couple of the most recent posts on the Polemos Yahoo Group;

'The Polemos rulest works brilliantly wrt artillery. It just feels right. The Prussians are more manouverable and don't p1ss off every 10 minutes for more ammo. The french if controlled well and are held in a real fighting line are excellent. The Prussians are also good, but here you have a good well drilled and motivated command (again well simulated in the rules), but with troops who only get the advantage when you get close in. Added to Prussian allies who are a "mixed bag" and you've got the makings of a fantastic period.' (Referring to the FPW rules)

'These rules expect you and your opponent to be gentlmanly, to play a "game" in a friendly and considerate manner, albeit with a competetive edge, and moreover to play the game in an historical manner, using figures of a particular scale….I enjoy the rules. There are things we have had to create house rules for, but most of these are largely to provide a quick stategic context for the battles we
fight, so that we waste little time getting down to the "hard pounding".' (Referring to the apparantly unplayable Napoleonic rules.)

Just a few balancing thoughts for you. Please feel free to check out the Polemos group to get more opinions from an informed group.

Cheers

Peter

Peter,

Maybe a few of your pleased gamers who are members of the yahoo group could comment occasionally then or heaven help us the author, rather than leaving it up to 2 people to help newbies out, 1 of whom doesn't own the actual rules but is working from a pre publication draft copy and seems to be convinced he's right and everyone else should play the way HE does. (Not that that follows the rules either!)

Your example posts are also 2 comments out of the 85 recent posts on the yahoo group. Not particularly representative.

I'm all for someone defending THEIR baby, but the above people can't all be wrong either can they? If people have issues understanding the rules, something is wrong. Either they're brain dead, or the rules are laid out, or explained in such a way as to lead to confusion. I'm going with the latter.

As I've said all along, I believe there is a system in there somewhere that will be very good. However its not evident right from the off.

Gavin,

As was explained to you, Chris Grice, the author, is in the process of starting a new job and is temporarily unable to get to the group to answer questions. If you actually look back at the history you'll find he is very good at answering rules queries promptly and courteously.

In his absence, yes people did try to help you out. They answered your questions as best they could despite some very aggressive comments and lines of argument from yourself. Would you have preferred silence?

Yes, I quoted from two of the latest posts, but I could bring up more. They weren't meant to deny that there are critics, but more to show that there is another side to the coin. The majority of the last 85 posts were either by you or from people trying to help you. They in their turn are hardly representative.

Of course I will defend any Baccus product. It would be a pretty silly world if I didn't. You have your views which are extreme in one direction, others will contradict that.
Like my little men themselves, Polemos will never be everyone's cup of tea, but that's life. I've learned to live with it.

When it comes down to it, the Polemos rules are a commercial product. If they were as awful as you think they are then it would not be worth my while publishing them and there would be no demand for other period editions. I'm happy to let my current and future customers make that decision.

Cheers

Peter

I purchased the Polemos Marlburian set, gave it a good read, and then sold it half price to another gamer on Bartertown. I didn't like the systems used, found the rules themselves difficult to follow and couldn't see myself using them. Most rulesets are more ideas sketched out than a complete system. I've come to really appreciate rules writers like Arty Conliffe who put together systems with full supporting body of rules.

Love the figures – Baccus is, let's get this straight, a great company – but don't use the rules, mostly because the group are Age of Eagles/Fire and Fury players, so I go with the flow

I picked up the Napoleonic rules a while ago. After reading them through I picked up the Great Northern war rules and joined the Polemos SYW development group too (WSS is next on the list). I find them logically laid out and easy to understand the basics. There are nuances to them that are subtle and will take lots of game play to pick up.

And just as an aside, Peter's minis are top notch and his service is second to none.

Regards, Bill

I have not got any Polemos sets, so therefore I know nothing…However I have bought, skimmed read and rejected so many sets in the past that when I have actually played a few times (often against my inclinations)- I have been proved wrong

It is good to see WLBartlett's views as a happy player of this system. Of course it would be better is any set was instantly engrossing in the way a good novel is and simply cries out to the reader to get the figures on the table but alas wargames rules are never going to do that.

Crikey some of my favourite sets of rules are on first inspection either tediously written, look complicated in the extreme but prove not to be or are uninspiring messy to look at.

Step forward DBA, Stargrunt II and Refimente of Foote. If I had given up after a brief look or only a game or two I would have really missed out big time. Buy 'em, try 'em and persevere and we all may be surprised.

Funnily enough, try reading the rules for Risk or Monopoly and try and imaging getting an idea of the game from that without playing several times. Bet they wouldn't work either.

Graham

Peter, you should use your Podcast to go through a particular rulebook explaining game play. Might help some of these gamers.

I don't think it's a question of the existing rules being hard to understand. It's just that there are very few rules, and thus much of the game seems either missing or simply not covered. The whole "Marechal d'Empire" game is about 15 pages of large type, well-spaced. As one person said, it reads like some notes for a set of club house-rules that everybody already knows.

For example, the movement rules seem, well… missing. There's a list of movement rates at the bottom of page 11, but no indication of rules or limitations for them. Can you move by the flank? Obliquely? Backwards? What does the term "retire" mean when used here? (it's never defined). The only maneuver described is a Wheel… is that the only thing permitted? There's a sentence about how to move through a friendly unit, but no indication whether that's limited to any sorts of unit types, in any direction, in any terrain, or even whether you have to have enough movement to be able to move clean through to the other side (which might be impossible, given that most infantry is moving only 1 Base-Width per turn.)

Then you come to the "advance to contact" section and it's similarly vague. No rules for what you do when you make contact: do you square up? can you contact the enemy by wheeling? by moving in some way other than by the front? There's a rule mentioning that you can't change formation when attacking… but that's the first mention in the book that there ARE any formations in the first place. (The word "formation" is used a few pages earlier to describe something entirely different.)

And so on.

So I don't think any of the concepts are that strange or unfamiliar. The Tempo Bidding thing isn't too different from the CPs "spent" to activate forces or shift the initiative in Grand Armee, and even a bit like the Warmaster system, where it's easier to move clusters of bases than individual bases.

It's just very incompletely written, and the game – we found – was plodding. When an infantry force moves one base-width per turn (!?), then there's obviously not going to be any maneuver or use of grand reserves. (Cavalry, admittedly, moves two BW per turn.) When the forces are so slow and movement so incremental, then there's not much point to having a clever command system that steals initiative or shifts the sequence, because everybody can see everything coming for hours in advance.

As everybody else has noted, Baccus makes great figures. And Peter seems like a top-shelf guy. But we just couldn't get our heads around the Polemos games.

I second what Rat of Toburk said…

Plus I gave up on the Polemos rules, I played 2 games and spent so much time reading and re-reading paragraphs once the armies got stuck in that I lost the feeling and gave up. Not a complaint about Baccus or Polomeos, but I didnt have anyone around to help me chew through the iffy parts.

My main gripe with the Nap version was it didn't represent the British army command method properly.

Having said that, I don't think Grand Armee does either.

The central control used by Wellington was not only unique, its also hard to replicate in rule sets geared round European armies of the period.

I own over 150 sets of Napoleonic miniatures rules, including the Polemos rules which though I have not played I have throughly read. Becks Dark gave a good review and critique.

The only thing I have to add is there are multiple dozens of rules like Polemos that are not detailed. While these were initially frustrating to me over the years I came to the conclusion that these type of rules allow the player to bring his own prejudices to them by adopting home rules to fill in the blanks. As long a as gamers or groups are comfortable with this rules such as Polemos are eminently playable. Problems arise when different groups play each other. Then there is a conflict caused by the fact that rules conventions adopted by one club differ from those adopted by another. Other than that the rules provide a reasonable outline of a game and seem playable.

Good gaming.

Bob Coggins

First off let me state that I'm a very strong supporter of Baccus and the Polemos rule system. I recognize some people
here, even some hiding behind some creative names.

It's sad when some people who don't really understand something or have even tried it, can only talk trash about it. It's even sadder when they try to encourage others to do the same without revealing their true intentions.

It's also interesting to see that some who have played Polemos don't understand it and were clearly playing it wrong. Peter has not only managed to create a truly unique system for 6mm but also has put in place an outstanding support system via a Yahoo Group. Sadly it seems that some here failed to use this system. If so it's very likely they would have had very different comments.

It also seems that some people (yes the same ones) want to drag this system down as well and have gone to great lengths to bad mouth it by saying anything they can.

Polemos like anything new did have some problems. Most of these have been overcome and the rest have been noted and will no doubt be fixed in the future. In the interim the support system works wonders when not being purposely attacked.

I have a collection of rules and have played many others. I've never seen or played one that didn't create questions for the players. If there is a perfect rule set please tell me what it is.

The Polemos system really is unique and there is a learning curve. Once learned a number of players have told me it's really pretty simple. I've shown many players one game and they got it. I'm not aware of anyone who has mastered Polemos that does not see it as a great system. Now please keep in mind that one system does not work for everybody.

If anyone here is seriously interested in Polemos or 6mm Napoleonic's please drop into the Polemos forum at Yahoo Groups and look me up. I will glady do what I can to help you out.

Best regards,

Glenn

I'm surprised to see you pop up here Glenn.

I'd very much encourage anyone to take him up on his offer of help at the Yahoo group. I hope it works out better for you than it did for me.

Personally, I've bowed out of the discussion over there, since I can't get Glenn to see where I'm coming from at all. Clearly my fault, and not the fact he keeps quoting rules which don't appear in the rulebook.

As Bob Coggins has pointed out, there's plenty of scope for House rules.

I'm not sure what I've done to suggest I'm not seriously interested in 6mm Napoleonics. Shrug.

Oh, I make that 17 people who've given up with polemos one way or another, and 5 people defending it.

Many rule sets have gotten away from the old SPI-style board games which were written in the case style. Very easy to read as they are simple one or two lines per case. Easy to point out key mechanics in thje incidences of disagreement too.

NO NO NO NO NO!!!! Red Fox, this is swiss gamer, over (I'm just doing this because your name on here sounds like you are fighter pilot).

I came on here for a bit of a breather from the Polemos yahoo napoleonic meltdown. And here you are doing some more coal raking! Are you head of the professional coal rakers union or something? Yeah, you don't like Polemos. Yeah, you don't understand it.
Yeah well, I don't overly like cauliflower (unless its cauliflower cheese), but I'm not on some cauliflower yahoo group or everywhere else I can find slighty related to cauliflowers (i.e world of sprouts) saying "yeah, cauliflower, tried it, don't like it. Hey who's with me? Lets get a gang up and start bad mouthing cauliflower"!
It doesn't work for you. It works for others. Move on. The fact that you are now dredging up a little scorecard says to me that you are:
a) desperate to prove some kind of point.
b) some sort of (edited… i wrote a nasty word there, but decided against putting it).
c) both.
I tell you what. I live in switzerland. Economically its not great, but its not a disaster. If you have the rules, I will buy them off you and pay the postage. That way it will have cost you nothing.
Oh, (I love it when people do that, at the end of messages,its like some kind of pedantic c**t who we all know that's desperate to get their last point in), its not 17 vs 5. My neighbour has had a go with it. Likes it. My wife has had a go with it. Likes it as well. We're still talking Polemos rules here btw… 17 vs 7! Read it and weep Red Fox! Ha!

Swiss Gamer

Thanks.

No problem. You've done a great job. 17 vs 9 now btw.

All class, that.

Mind you, my post was anything but.

Sentient, don't do yourself down. I think you got your point across pretty well, even if I disagree with your point. It gets you from A to B very in a very smooth way.

And you used the word tad. Which is good. And you don't end with Oh… (insert random statistic). And, unlike mine, its pretty much fact based. For example, I don't think there is a web group called World of Sprouts. And its certainly not hosted by Dickie Davies.

Anyway, I'd best let you all get back to the rules bashing.

So you're now agreeing with Sentient by saying his post is fact and the rules are a tad poo?

nope. I am saying I like the use of the word tad. See the bit where I wrote "even if I disagree with your point"…

thats the crucial bit. The bit with Dickie Davies only works if you have ever watched World of Sports. You see how I used that angle with World of Sprouts? Clever eh?

So its still 17 vs 9 not 18 vs 8.

Ah I see Alan. Apologies, I got confused by the "unlike mine, its pretty much fact based."

You and Glenn will be pleased to know I've left the Yahoo group, so I won't disturb the peace any more. The pair of you can continue to have a go at me as much as you like, I am not there to defend myself.

Oh, (I know how you like these last bits) we've decided to have another go at Polemos too, although I think we'll probably tweak a few bits.

thats the way forward! I thought you would get confused to be honest.

oh, i'm glad that you are having another go. Yes,try try and try again.

oh oh (or is it double oh…anyway…) I couldn't give a monkeys if you left the yahoo group or not. I'm more worried having to buy a new raclette machine tonight. The wife wants the most expensive version… I think we'll be having a row.