"Review: John Company and the Conquest of India rules" Topic

Review: John Company and the Conquest of India rules

At Historicon, Lori of “That’s the Way it Was” handed me a copy of the newly-released “John Company - A miniatures Game System for Warfare on the Sub-Continent 1750-1860” rules. I had no plan to purchase them, because I didn’t know very much about the period, and have never been too interested in warfare on a grand-tactical scale, but was pleased to bring them home and peruse them carefully.

The first impression made by any rules set depends upon the quality of the presentation. Production values for these rules are quite high. John Company is a heavy, thick, plastic-spine-bound book of 160 pages, with thick, full-color-printed-cardstock covers, and, as a bonus, includes 23 color-printed heavy-cardstock insert sheets.

A distinct and successful effort has been made to create components which are beautiful as well as functional, using color, pictures, and font styles in pleasing and creative ways.

Dozens of period illustrations are scattered throughout the text at appropriate places. Charts, tables, and examples of play abound.

One interesting idea proposed is that ANY scale of figures and ANY size of base can be used with these rules ! Bases can accommodate any scale or number of figures. Combat losses are always by bases. With this very flexible system, you can almost certainly use your appropriate existing armies without re-basing. This could be a major blessing.

Nominally the following guidelines are given:

Scale - 25mm (or smaller) figures,
1” = 100 feet nominal
One turn approximately 15 minutes
Battalion/Regiment/Battery level
1 base = approx 60 men

Writing is good, knowledgeable without stuffiness, and quite clever while still maintaining focus. I found a wargamer-chuckle every third page. These rules will NOT put you to sleep halfway through. Typos are almost non-existent.

The background and historical notes are concise and yet comprehensive. Everything a wargamer needs to know is included, and at exactly the right level of detail. Really great reading here.

As explained in the fascinating designer’s notes, the philosophical foundation of the rules revolves around the concept of “resolve” of groups of men in combat.

Each multi-base unit carries with it a counter proclaiming its resolve in steps of Heroic, Resolute, Steady, Shaken Wavering or Panicked.

Simply moving about on the battlefield or being under fire or otherwise threatened, not to mention taking casualties, all tend to degrade the resolve of a unit, which negatively affects its effectiveness, reliability and predictability. The current resolve of a unit affects movement rate, fire capability, willingness to follow orders, and just about every other aspect of the game.

It seems that resolve must be tested for almost every unit almost every turn.
Three full pages of +/- modifiers for resolve determination give a very clear view of what the authors consider important to the resolve of a unit in battle.

Evaluating the clever systems built into John Company’s resolve system, one realizes that this is exactly the key to explaining the unusual results of some historical battles. How could Clives 3,000 trained soldiers manage to completely rout an entrenched army of 50,000, capturing all of its guns and baggage, while only suffering 22 killed and 50 wounded? Clives men were “Resolute” and their opponents started the battle with their resolve already “Wavering”. No other rules set I have ever heard of could accommodate results such as this and possibly even reproduce them.

(Yah, I do realize that Mir Jafar’s treachery had a lot to do with that battle, but my above statements stand.)

Command and control is a second aspect which is central to the flavor of the rules named John Company. I found some interesting lessons in the command and control rules sections. These include an explanation of how in John Company the player is a general, but the general is not necessarily a player, a subtle distinction. Your little generals may not always immediately and perfectly carry out your wishes, and for a variety of reasons.

Your miniature army includes a general for every multi-base battalion, as well as higher level brigade and divisional officers. Before the battle each leader is assigned (by die roll with modifiers) both a Generalship and a Leadership attribute.

Generalship rating scale
Incompetent / Inexperienced / Lackluster / Competent / Reliable / Brilliant / Genius

Leaders with high Generalship ratings are permitted to give orders to more units per turn, and have good modifiers when attempting to change an order in an emergency situation. They also have substantially larger radii of command, and this is likely to be important to you as the player.

You will definitely find yourself taking the Generalship and Leadership of your little commanders into account in your preliminary dispositions and orders, based on how much you will need to rely upon those units in combat.

The game does not require written orders, instead using standardized chits chosen for each unit which are, if successfully created and delivered, placed upside down beside the unit until they become revealed to the opposition. Quite a bit of careful thought has obviously been invested into this system of generalized orders, and what they can and should mean in various situations in which a unit finds itself. All of it makes good, logical sense and feels right to me.

Leadership rating scale
Blackguard / Poltroon / Humbug / Plodder / Born Leader / Lion Heart / Fire Eater

Better Leadership ratings give bonuses to units in accurately interpreting and following orders, in maintaining resolve, and in fire and confrontation combat. Correspondingly, lower rated leaders are more likely to go self-preservationist; i.e. take cover, freeze up, or in some cases, inappropriately withdraw, even if still distant from an active enemy.

Additionally, the randomly generated “Command Events”, which are triggered by various circumstances, throw confusion and uncertainty into the process of generating and transmitting orders. These little paragraphs on the event cards are extremely well done, adding much flavor to a simple plus or minus modifier by attributing it to, for example, a divisional commander whose horse has just been killed by long range artillery.

Throughout the book are included good, clear examples of rules and their effects in explicit game situations. These are a blessing, and serve to clarify many things, which might otherwise have been misinterpreted.

Included with the rules is a seven-page summary of all of John Company’s battles. This condensed history presents a huge amount of information in an easily-digested format, and was, for me, definitely a plus.

The three scenarios included are well detailed and portray challenging historical battles which are likely to be exciting in play.

The very extensive section on available figure sources in all scales (5mm, 15mm, 20mm, and 25/28mm) fills three pages, and is both interesting and welcome.

Seven pages towards the end of this value-packed rule-set provide uniform guides. Forty nice line drawings of the various exotic troops with colors in adjacent text are perfect for the purpose. I would be surprised if much of this arcane painting information has ever before been so concentrated in such a useful format. Truly excellent

These rules are nothing if not comprehensive! I still can’t get over the fact that the weather rules in John Company allow me to determine the daytime temperatures, chance of precipitation, visibility and likeliness of wind for any point on the Indian subcontinent in any season !

To illustrate their extent, I’ve compiled a much-compressed version of the table of contents, and include it here for your enjoyment.

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Introduction to the rules - 4 pages
Contents - 4 pages
Army Organization - 8 pages
Command and Control - 4 pages
Sequence of Play - 4 pages
Definition of Game orders - 8 pages
Rating Generals - 7 pages
Resolve levels and tests - 10 pages
Movement - 8 pages
Skirmishers - 3 pages
Terrain effects - 6 pages
Confrontation and close combat - 8 pages
Firing - 8 pages
Events - 3 pages
Optional rules - 20 pages
Stamina and fatigue
Sappers
Confusion
Sunrise and Sunset tables
Chain of Command
Unpredictable terrain
Ammunition
Night fighting
Weather by location and season
Temperature
Precipitation
Visibility
Wind
Designer’s notes - 5 pages
Bibliography - 3 pages
Army Profiles - 8 pages
British
Sepoys (before and during the Mutiny)
Honorable East India Company
Afghans
Marathas
Sikhs (the Khalsa)
Introductory Scenarios - 21 pages
John Company’s battles (extensive and excellent) 7 pages
Figure sources, (all scales) - 3 pages
Uniform guides (truly excellent) - 7 pages

23 accessory sheets - heavy cardstock - most full color printed on one side.
Status markers - 1 sheet
Resolve markers - 1 sheet
Order counters - 6 sheets
Action Deck - 3 sheets
Orders Deck - 5 sheets
Events Deck - 5 sheets
Play reference sheets (very nice) 4 sheets
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What DON’T I like about the John Company rules? Not much, though one rule caught my eye as a perfect opportunity for endless argument. “Enfilade” is defined to be fire coming from +/- 10 degrees to the side of a target unit. Apparently the gaming groups of authors Ferree and Wilson are composed of good-natured gamers who would never consider contesting the difference between ten and eleven degrees, and for this I congratulate them.

I must admit to you, that I am now, for the first time in my life, quite interested in Napoleonic-type grand-tactical maneuvers and combats, as a direct result of these John Company rules ! Amazing and unprecedented. I wonder if I can resist running a few games with John Company? Probably not. Hmmm, WHAT am I going to do for figures? Oh, yeah, I’ll just look on pages 144 through 147 !

Overall I like the rules and their underlying systems very much. If you are wired anything like I am, you will enjoy reading them and very likely learn something thereby. And then you will game with them !

Chick says, “Buy ‘em !” If you have even the slightest interest in the period you will be glad you did.

Chick,

Thanks for the great review! I've been curious about this set, but couldn't make it to the con to see them.

Now for the inevitable ... do you think they could be easily adapted to other Colonial theatres, given a knowledge of the combatants?

Cheers,

Christopher

Not being fortunate enough to see them yet, I hazard a guess that you could adapt it for the Russian campaigns in Asia.

Christopher, what other campaigns/theaters do you have in mind? The John Company rules seem very adaptable to me, but I think they might be less appropriate for warrior cultures such as, say, the Zulus. Should work perfectly for the Boxers, etc.

Excellent review, thanks a lot. This is an area that I've wanted to explore for years, and this could be the thing that tips me over into action. There's only one problem - despite the enthusiasm of the review, I don't like paying a lump of money for anything sight unseen, and I can't think of a way of getting a hands-on view of these rules in UK. But that's my problem - excellent review.

I'm still thick into the Zulus at the moment (900 more figures and I'll have all 40,000 at 1:25), but am planning on expanding into the Sudan over the winter. It does sound like it would be more easily adapted to the Sudan than the Zulu War, but the morale ideas sound very interesting.

Dear Chick,

Thank you, Sir, for your astonishing review. So help me, I'm blushing. And I was prepared for a good tongue lashing over our "Resolve" model...but not disappointed to avoid it!

To the Gentlemen who asked, I would say "John Company" is not well suited as it stands for "mainstream" Colonial Wargames (Zulus, Pathans, Boers, etc), largely because it doesn't address weaponry beyond the Enfield Rifled Musket. This is a relatively simple fix, though the existing Event Deck would have to be replaced with one that is Campaign/Theater specific.

Regarding Boxers, Tai-Pings, etc, the JC variant "Thunder Out Of China" is in the works. Intended for the the period of 1840 through the 1880's, covering the Opium, "Arrow," and Black Flag Wars, etc, as well as the Tai-Ping Rebellion, we still feel, at this time, that another system will be necessary for the Boxer Rebellion. This latter campaign has too many elements unique to itself to have a model devised for other times and events forced over it and and "hammered" to fit. This is done far too often by gamers looking for a quick fix, and we don't want to repeat that error.

JC does, howver, as a basic system, lend itself nicely to the Mexican-American War, Crimea, and Wars of Unification in Italy (all contemporary with JC's technology and tactical systems). Naturally, variants for these are also in the worksk, depending on the degree of acceptance of "John Company" itself.

Regarding rules for the Zulus, my co-author on JC, Chris Ferree, developed his own 1:10 scale rules model for Isandlwana that accommodates his 2000+ 15mm Zulus. These rules (played on a 3D reproduction of the battlefield) are specific and play to a complete finish in less than four hours. Only OB and terrain changes (with matching tweaks to the rules) need be made to use the same system for Ginginlovhu, Kambula, etc (and even--God Forbid!--Ulundi).

These will also be released in the next few months through our same Publishers, "And That's The Way It Was...."

Thanks again, Chick. You're in the Will.

Patrick Wilson
TVAG

Thank you Patrick - I must say the rules sound interesting enough to pick up just for reading, even though I'm not into the Indian theatre at the moment. I remember seeing Chris Ferree's Zulu rules on the internet a few years ago, and now look forward to seeing them in print.

Cheers,

Christopher

Dear Christopher,

Thanks for the encouraging words! These rules for (originally) Isandlwana haven't been named yet, and will be released with additional OB's and other background data, along with detailed maps of the various battlefields of the war.

Hopefully, these will be out early next year, but "Science Vs. Pluck," "Rough Riders," and "Boilers And Breechloaders" all have to come first, roughly in that order, and I'm up to my neck in editing/formatting these right now.

Oh, and regarding JC and it's possible other uses, I was definitely asleep at the switch earlier when I forgot to point out, as Chick did, that the system would work with no appreciable changes for Seven Years War/Napoleonics, for such were the systems of warfare that "John Company" reflects on the Sub-Continent.

Race you to The Drift!

TVAG

So, how does "John Company" play ?

I like the basic premise of resolve being the main factor but some things in the description (resolve being tested for almost every unit almost every turn, 3 full pages of modifiers for resolve, officers with every unit each rated for Generalship and Leadership) give the impression that this must play pretty slowly.

Since I am quite interested by 18th century conflicts in India, I'd like to know if anyone can give some feedback about the rules in action, as opposed to a read through.

Dear Risaldar Singh,

Sorry I didn't catch your post until now, and that by accident!

As co-author, I am of course prejudiced, so take my words with a grain of the White Queen's salt!

In practice, while there are indeed a number of modifiers to Resolve, not all apply at any one time. Further, we suggest in the rules that unless more than "+2" of new Circumstantial Modifiers apply from the previous test, no nw one need be made (save in obvious cases such as charges).

Play actually still surprises me at how fast it can go, espcially once the GM has picked up the "rhythm" of play. The detailed Sequence of Play Chart lays out everything to do, and in what order, though most steps are not necessary in any give turn.

It is always possible upon playing the game through a few times to observe your own "house rules" on frequency of Resolve Checks.

The refight of Assaye I ran at H'Con in 2005 suffered from a nearly two hour start delay due to a scheduling conflict, but was "nearly" decided in the remaining two hours or so. That it was not finished is a great disappointment, but the players all expressed their enthusiasm over how it was going and the sense of authenticity.

Since the original review was printed years ago, the rules have been extensively updated, many small errors and typos repaired, and other important changes have been made. The Second Edition is now available from link where you can read a bit more about it.

Thanks for your interest, and please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any other questions.

TVAG

Great review. It makes me want to take a look at these rules.

Great review, will buy these rules

Fred

The review has been rather helpful, and along with the recent Black Hat release of their new 15mm Sikh War range, coupled with the fact I scored some great deals on some Dixon 15mm Indian Mutiny figures, I have also ordered the rules.