"rules, rules, it's always the rules..." Topic

Well, for me it is. (grin)
Okay, I have been moving all my stuff into either 6 mm or the bargain bin over the last few years.
My primary historical building will be the period for the WSS to circa 1860 (okay I will bleed over eventually to the end of the century...) but current priority is the early part of the period.
I am looking at Volley and Bayonet [V&B] (ease of play from what I read, and the ability to use the same rules over the whole period but I am concerned about having a bland play because of that) and Guns of Liberty, the current front runner, [GOL] and I am rereading Habitants and Highlanders with the Whiters of their Eyes and Rockets Red Glare supplements as a possible alternative.
Who has played two or more of GOL, H&H, and V&B? What is the historicity (i.e., does a use of period tactics result in relatively period results) factor? What is the ease of play (both look good in that category)? What about period specific flavor, is it there in V&B versus GOL/H&H-WotE?
Gracias,
Glenn

And this is cross posted to the other lists because some people who play V&B in other 'periods' might have input I can use. If the general tenor of the AWi offends anyone by my cross posting, please accept my apology for offending you but I do believe it was germane and proper to cross post this.

Gracias,
Glenn

Outta the whole lot you mention above, V&B is easy but un-realistic, I would at least go with GOL but it too is somewhat lacking in detail but if you want an easy game go with it. On the whole if you are looking for a Historicaly accurate feel for the AWI period and dont mind details, I personally play Flint & Steel by far the best, I keep coming back to it. (Nothing like watching your drunk Commander take his whole brigade after a regiment of retreating Brits and continue off the board ignoring all requests from you CinC to break off the attack! -optional rules are great!).

I would definitely go with Volley and Bayonet, assuming you want to do actual battle to completion. If you use correct OB's, you'll find plenty of appropriate period flavor and also get a very realistic view of large scale horse and musket combat. The best results will come with multi-player games of course, as that's how V+B recreates command friction. Of course, if you are more intersted in the tactical evolutions of battalions and companies, V+B is not for you.

What is the historicity (i.e., does a use of period tactics result in relatively period results) factor?GOL and H&H are both high in the historocity value.

What is the ease of play (both look good in that category)? Actually all three games are easy to play.

What about period specific flavor, is it there in V&B versus GOL/H&H? IMO, GOL and H&H rate highest in those values. Personally I feel that GOL will be the easier to modify to fit specific situations. I am finding that the only modification that I will need to make to fit GOL to the SYW is inserting troop values. That will not be hard to do, using the Brits as a base to work from. I find that players can pick up on GOL in about the length of one turn and that one turn averages less then the real time value. 1 turn = 15 minutes and the average turn is faster then this. You can get a large game of GOL completed in 4-5 hours. I really like these rules and feel that I have the "Holy Grail" of AWI/SYW rules in this set!!!

What is the scale of GoL? I like V+B because it lets me play all of a battle in one sitting. How long do you think it would it take to play Leuthen or Monmouth in GoL?

Hi Glenn,

As the author of Guns of Liberty I usually don't participate in this discussions as I am a little biased.
: - )

One thing I would like to recommend to you Glenn is to play a very small battle with GOL just to try it out. We have fought battles ranging from 4 units per side to 30 units per side. (Plus several campaigns, which have lead to some unusual orders of battle) Playing a small game will give you some of the flavor of the rules without too much commitment. Also if you have any questions about GOL in particular you can send them to my home email address (EBurgess@Carolina.rr.com) and I'll be glad to answer them.

I also want to thank Mike for the very nice comments. They made my day!

- Eric Burgess

Depends on what you want. If you want to be an army general, V&B is your game. If you get into the tactical nuances of formations, etc., you won't like V&B.

I've played both V&B and GOL (only one game of this so far).

V&B has each stand represent from 1,000 to 2,000 infantry, and 12 guns. You will not get tactical grain, but it produces clear cut decisions in a reasonable amount of time and the results usually are not off the wall.

In GOL an stand of infantry represents 40 soldiers. There is much more of a tactical feel. In fact, your whole battle may represent what a couple of stands do in V&B in one or two turns. A lot of fights in the American Revolution were small affairs, hard to do well with V&B.

Of course, if you fudge the measurements a little, you can play both games with the same figures.

I don't know what the basing size is for GoL, but you could mount your figs on metal bases for GoL and make "blank" magnetic bases for V&B. Then when you want to play V&B you just attach several GoL stands to the V&B bases (or blue-tack 'em if you don't want to go through the expense of metal\magnetic bases).

Also, the upcoming (someday) V&B v2 rules have optional rules for playing smaller scales (all the way down to 1 strength point equals something like 20 men instead of the usual 1SP=500 men). Still single bases per unit with no column\line\square formations, tho'.

A nice feature of H&H is the ability to have each figure represent a varied number of soldiers allowing gaming in skirmish to larger scale; the rules are well written and the campaign is a nice addition.

Fields of Honor can also be adapted to this scale.

Warfare in the Age of Reason bogs down with cavalry so not a problem in this era and is a good representation also.

GOL is 1 fig=20 men, 1 turn= 15 minutes and 1"= 25 yrds scale. I have found it easy to lower the scale by making larger units. The game uses a D20 per stand for firing.
Given that most AWI battles where pretty small affairs, you should be able to do most of them. Formations are easily represented without going into intricate formation changes, like Volley Fire does. The combat is easy to calculate. I find myself enjoying Umpiring a game and maintaining the flow instead of firing out combat results and refereeing arguments.

I have tried V&B, Napoleon's Battles and even Fredrick's Battles (the NB supplement). I like NB but V&B didn't do it for me. I still have the rules, because I collect rules, but I won't play the game since a couple of times was enough to make my mind up on it.

Interesting. I too have Napoleon's Battles, and I don;t enjoy it becasue it confuses the scales and levels of command. What I really want in a game is a clear understanding of my role as a player and decision points the reflect this role. In other words, if I'm a Corps/Army Coomander, I only want to deal with Coprs Commander decisions . If I'm a Brigade Commander, I only want to deal with Brigade issues. NB does not keep these things seperate. V+B does.

Take a look at the "Napoleonic Fire and Fury" Yahoo Group. Besides the Napoleonic version, an 18th c. version is available, and a later 19th c. version is in the works. And they're free!

Allen

I like Tactical games, games like V&B just aint my cup of tea, they're too watered down and very generic.

i wounder if any can help me,i have a set of rules called legacy of glory (made by glory games )i have looked all over the web for any thing about them. the only site i found was a french site just showing pics i want to find someone who has played them as i do not understand some parts of the rules please could any one help me thanks david

Thought I was bad about necro-posting…

M Air did some digging, n'est-ce pas?

Well, I play almost exclusively V&B, so cannot say so much how the rules feel compared to the others mentioned here. But in our group we play SYW with my collection and also a lot of Napoleonics and ACW with the miniatures of the others. I must say each period has its distinctive flavour despite using the same rules for each. The different command control structures along with different composition of arms within the corps or divisions make for a very different feel. I can only recommend V&B if you should plan to play medium to big battles. If you're more into forming lines from column and the line into square, then V&B won't be your cup of tea.
Cheers