"TSATF - Speeding up play?" Topic

We have 3 – 4 hrs of gaming time on our now too infrequent game nights. Suggestions/ house rules for speeding play when using TSATF please?
thx
Mike

Reduce the # of units

Turn multiple cards each turn

Put > 1 unit per card turned for each side
(both movement and shooting)

Time moves (no more than 30 seconds to move)

Anyone else ?

No wounded rules hits are all kills this cuts down on half the card draws.

No push back in hand to hand, you lose you are dead.

Until shooting or contact is made all units can activate on one card draw for movement purposes.

Smaller number of units.

Smaller playing surface or start armies closer together. (i.e. The natives were able to approach the wall under the cover of darkness.)

Movement trays?

I guess the basic question is: what seems to be taking so long in your games? Where does it seem to slow down and drag. That is the area to focus on fixing.

Use 10 man units. I have heard of the suggestion to use the Battles by Gaslight Close Combat chart to resolve those in TSATF. Melee is what can slow a game to a crawl in TSATF.

Thanks,

John

Look at your scenarios for starters. IMO most people try to play games significantly larger than TSATF was ever intended to be used with. As noted above, less units, no wounds and multiple cards turned.

Use half-size units with not too many units on the table. We did so and it worked great. Our AAR and force list is over on my blog. Abelp01 and I need to play another game. TS&TF is one of the few sets of rules I really really enjoy.

link

Heretics.

Combat does take a bit of time. This will speed things up:

To resolve combat, roll one die for each man plus or minus all standard modifiers for each man. Total everything at once. Highest total wins. Keep your dice on the table as is!
(d) Pick out all natural 1's and 2's from the winner's roll. The total is the number of possible hits ON the loser. Distribute loses throughout. Three natural 6's in the winner's roll is a possible "leader kill" to the loser; treat as if possible loss of leader from fire. Multiple three 6's is multiple leader loss.
(e) Winner rolls one die. If a natural 3,4,5, or 6, the winner takes 1/3 of loser's possible loss (rounding up). No possible leader loss for winner. If a 2, winner takes same number of possible loses as loser with no possible leader loss. If a 1, winner takes "double losses" (round down) and every participating winning leader rolls for possible casualty loss.
(f) Winning attacker can advance onto enemy-held position. Winner can take further actions if desired on next phase(s) by expending command points. If attacking winner's combat total is twice that of defender, winner has option to stay locked in combat with retreating enemy after loser withdraws; fight another close combat. Winning defender sits in place.
(g) Loser WITHDRAWS. Loser throws 4 dice; use the natural result The unit falls back that many inches (ignore terrain penalties) and draws a morale chit. Unit stays in formation it was in at time of combat. Unit faces away from enemy. If unit was unlimbered artillery as in case (h). Combat Loser takes two morale chits: one for losing combat and one for withdrawing (plus a chit for any leader loss).
(h) Artillery close combat is resolved differently. Each non-casualty figure counts as if were a stand but at a minus 1 modifier. If the artillery withdraws or loses the combat the gunners are deemed to have run away but the guns remain. The artillery rolls a 4,5, or 6 to spike the guns in which case they are removed; otherwise they are captured

Never had any trouble getting through a game in 3-4 hours. Used to do convention games with large numbers of players with no problem.

1. Movement trays. Use until units are in melee.

2. Turn several cards over at once to determine how many units to move. So if you get multiple of one color, that side moves that number of units.

3. Ignore wounded or killed. Every hit is a figure out of the game. Turn over cards still, but face cards are used to take out leaders or rifle armed native figures.

4. I push the players when I run the games too. I get through the steps as quickly as I can. Still have to leave time for joking or banter though. One can do this when they know the game rules and charts well.

5. Have fun. It is only a game.

I commonly used Doug's steps (which are pretty common in TSATF gaming) and things moved along fairly well. Make sure not too exceed the core game size of about max. 6 Imperial units vs. appropriate numbers of natives (which are the most important to have on movement stands), and you don't really need to reduce unit size. Melee combat is what really slows down in most games, but it's also the high point, so getting in the practice of lining up the figures and moving quickly through the rounds is better than using shortcuts there I think.

The "turn over cards until the color changes and move that number of units" technique is key, as it overcomes a significant amount of the bottlenecking caused by card activation systems. I also experimented with a system where we turned over the card as usual to see which side moved, but then rolled a d3 (Imperial) or d6 (Native) to see how many units moved. It really sped up play, but it removed some of the nail-biting "Ai! Which unit do I choose!" aspect of TSTAF game play.

Cheers,

Christopher

Turn 1 and 2:
Only one card is pulled. All units of one side move followed by the foe's units.
-----
Movement:
Increase by a couple inches per turn.
+1" per die thrown for foot and arty.
+1.5" per die thrown for mounted.
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Card Draw:
Allow several adjacent units to move on one card.
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Good luck,
Bill

One way in which figure-to-figure melee can be speeded-up
is to select two sets of matching dice in six colors.

At melee, toss all six for each side, match colors,
determine results. Any ties, the number rolled applies
to EACH figure to which that roll applies. So, both figures
could be killed or put out of the game if not
using kills/wounds/push-back.

Of course, as the game progresses, the number of dice
can probably be reduced.

It goes quickly with practice.

I use TSATF because it is a fast set of rules. Over the years I have found that familiarity with any rule system increases speed.

Often speed of play comes down to scenario design. If getting into combat is a problem, perhaps you are using too large a table, or the terrain is too restrictive. Also, movement trays really keep things moving in the earlier portions of the game.

When drawing movement cards, roll a D4 and that number of units may move. Once all units on one side have moved then the rest of the units on the other side can move.

Rest of ideas above, especially about reducing number of units and treating all casualties as kills can speed up play.

Also take a look at your sceanrio, trying to reduce the amount of moves required to get into firing range and to complete the projected objective(s).

Jim

Years ago, when involved in a game using TSATF, melee dice were "rolled" inside a large tray that was taped shut. Thus, several melee were resolved at once. Seemed clever to me!! Sal Sr out!!!

Try some of the card decks from TVAG:

link

I suggest 'un-inviting' those of your players who suffer from analysis paralysis, and take five minutes minimum to make each trivial decision, fifteen minutes for an important one.

Increasing the lethality of the rules will speed things up. Try boosting the numbers needed to hit on the fire tables by, say, two across the board, and you'll see units shrink much faster. At the same time, you could always cut the morale table by a factor of one to allow units to break sooner.

A problem with TS&TF rules is that it can take a long time for small units to disappear and this drags out the movement and firing phases in particular, plus leads to lots of ineffectual firings and ridiculous sacrificial melees of tiny remnants throwing themselves at big units.

Thus I have some Overrun rules I use in an 18th century (Jacobite rebellion) variant I designed that could work just as well in the Colonial era. Here they are:

****

OVERRUN
Small units in The Sword in the Heather may be Overrun by significantly larger units without the need for a Charge or Close Combat.

An Overrun is conducted during a unit's movement phase. If a unit is at least four times the size of an enemy unit (three times larger for an attacking cavalry unit), it may Overrun its targeted unit(s) by simply moving to contact them; a Charge move is not required. A unit that is at least five figures in size (three figures in a small-unit game)
is not subject to being Overrun.

Overrun is normally checked for before the Fire phase, unless a unit subject to being Overrun is blocking an intended advance or charge rather than being the targeted unit itself; in this case, the Overrun is resolved during movement so the advance or charge can be maintained by the moving unit.

A unit that is Overrun by a larger unit is treated exactly like the normal rules for Shaken units charged by enemy units before they can attempt to rally: it rolls a d6 for casualties and survivors immediately move 4d6 toward the nearest table edge and go into Rout.

An Overrun in Rough Terrain requires an extra step of odds superiority (i.e., 5:1 for infantry and 4:1 for cavalry), and Overrun is never possible against buildings or walls or barricades.

If a unit is Charging and either unit involved in the charge becomes eligible for Overrun due to losses taken during the Fire phase, then if the charge is completed the close combat is replaced by an Overrun result instead. A unit may not be Overrun while engaged in Close Combat.

Leaders and Overrun
Leaders in a unit being Overrun are vulnerable to being eliminated from the losses received by the overrun unit, but unless an Ace card is drawn when determining casualties, Leaders will be the last figures lost (if desired by the owning player). If an unaccompanied Leader is attacked in a manner subject to being Overrun, the attacker may choose to either engage the Leader in close combat (no morale checks required for any figures) or remove the Leader immediately from play as a Routing escapee.

Charge Move – Small Units Charging Much Larger Units
If a unit attempts to Charge a unit large enough to Overrun it (see Overrun, below), that unit must pass two Close to Combat checks to complete its charge and the target unit(s) must only pass one Stand and Fight check on two rolls.

Great ideas and I love the Heretic comment! I picked out a lot of good ideas since I have not "put on" many TSAF games yet. And now leading up to Colonial Barracks in November 2014, I will get as many games under my belt as possible. Someone above mentioned the familiarity of the rules. Good comment! Because if your gamers are familiar with the rules it tends to move things quickly. Like our huge Nappy battles, everyone in our groups have or has played Age of Eagles (or Fire and Fury). In the last one I posted it went by very quickly. So I would say to get the core of your gamers into some "TSAF training" or put on a "TSAF boot camp." In the upcoming campaign I am running I am going to start out small to get those that haven't played into a rhythm. Each battle will introduce something different in the way of defending, attacking, fighting withdrawals, gunboat combat, small battles, larger battles, etc. By the time we are done with this campaign everyone will know the rules well. Just my two peso's worth.

For movement and firing we roll six sided dice at the start of the move or fire process. 1's move first etc. If movement does not impact on the game, all 1's move and so forth. The same goes for firing. This speeds up our games.