""With Fury Unabated":Soldier's Companion/Alexandria AAR" Topic

Greetings, One and all!

A much-delayed AAR for an unusual and rarely-played aspect of the 1881/2 Anglo-Egyptian War, using a modified Soldier's Companion, on my blog at Syrtis Major: link

Imshi!

Regards,
Keith F.

Looks great. I always loved Soldier's Companion, it being one of the very first wargames I played. Mind commenting on what changes you made? It gets me motivated to pull out my old rules and try a game at the club.

Hi Paul,

There were a lot of little tweaks, some directly approved by Frank Chadwick, others just given a tolerant shrug. :)

Things like limiting the number of turns one side can win initiative to three, allowing Leadership to grant an action despite having lost initiative, clarifying weak opponents vs. bayonets, and granting swordsmen immunity from the disorder melee penalty.

One of Bob's refinements was to introduce action points for the units, to make movement and maneuvre a bit easier to teach.

At least one version of the amended rules were printed in one of the issues of the Heliograph, when Richard Brooks was publishing. Bob Burke probably has an archive copy you can pick up.

He might be reached through the Virtual Armchair General: link

Regards,
Keith F.

Thank for this.
Reminded me that we used to have a house rule for initiative.
The side who didn't win last turn gains a +1 to their next throw.
For each turn they didn't win, which could be cumulative. So 3 turns = +3 to your throw.

Deflatermouse – we use that rule as well. We just capped it at three turns because Strange Stuff Happens and your average convention gamer doesn't want to hear that when they've lost initiative four times in a row. : )

Actually, one correction. The maximum of three turns of losing initiative has been discarded in favor of giving a +2 modifier (for each consecutive turn) to the side which lost the previous initiative.

The reason for this, was that it was too predictable that one would definitely get initiative on the third turn if you lost it two turns (and nothing should be that predictable!). Plus, it allows for more volleying of initiative back-and-forth, if you will, yet still adhere to the general initiative rule. Which, btw, I really like about the SC rules, and always have.

The Alexandria 1882 scenario might be an article or two in an upcoming WI mag, with all the rules modifications.

Regards,
Bob Giglio

Bob, we'll be looking forward to this new WI article!