""What the......" playing rules" Topic

What individual rules, within a miniature rules set, have you scratching your head saying "What the…?

While going through a review of my many ACW rules collection comparing concepts, I found most of them, even ones that are seemingly popular and/or conceptually sound, had several individual rules that ranged from simply historically wrong, to patently absurd.

These are beyond my usual beef with ground and time scales being incorrect, basic poor mechanics, or just historical inaccuracies. Here are some I found:

Rules that prevent a unit deployed in full battle line from even moving.

Rules that allow units shot to pieces to "rest" and recover to back full strength.

Rules that allow units being charged to withhold shooting to have an "advantage" in the hand to hand combat.

Rules that go into great detail about "Sniping at officers" with Whitworth Rifled artillery.

Rules that can rout units without any consideration at all of their morale.

Rules that allow the ability to field "machine guns" in army OOB's on a regular basis.

And the best one, rules that have a battery of artillery have their guns "Jam" with an unlucky die roll.

Not looking to disparage anyone's favorite rules set, just want to know any specific individual rules within some rules sets that you found to simply make no sense, either historically or logically.

Kim

Rules that allow you to move and coordinate regiments with the clockwork precision of a Swiss watch despite the fact those units can't see each other and are miles from their commander.

Rules that insist a tank commander has precise knowledge of their ammunitions ballistic path and can hit specific areas of an enemy tank a half mile away.

Rules that allow an army advancing through unfamiliar country to, with God-like precision, identify each and every enemy unit waiting for them

Saga … very vague I thought … made more sense once I got some demo play at Battlefield Hobbies but from the book? No – couldn't make sense of it.

Phil

In D&D Battle System, it takes a unit twice as long to face about as to face right or left. And if a unit wants to go into all-around defense, it takes the total of the times to face left, face right, and face about, despite the fact that these maneuvers are being performed by different discreet parts of the unit. Also, the times required are ridiculously long. Meseems that Mr. Niles never did any close order drill.

Saga--I'd love to have an explanation of what all those things on the battle boards are supposed to be simulating.

I had one set of ACW rules that rated all black regiments as the lowest quality. I understand that many were used as line of communication troops, and had no experience fighting. However, other regiments, like the 54th Massachusetts and the 1st KCV, were well trained, took part in combat operations, did quite well, and deserve a better rating.

Grelber

It's "simulating" a SAGA… go read one, then you'll understand.

SAGA is not a simulation. Its a game. A damn fun one.

I bought Fighting Sail from Osprey, read as far as the movement template that lets square-rigged ships move directly upwind (albeit slowly), and closed the book for the last time. I never even noticed the "what the…?" side effects of other rules in that book I have since learned of, such as ships sinking from a lucky shot. Why is sinking even a combat result in an Age of Sail game?

Two more examples outside the OP period:

Nearly all of the rules related to "denizens" of a BUA in DBA (2.0 and up). Overwrought to the point of silliness. I just ignore the entire section of the rules on BUAs.

Reading Lion Rampant, I think I literally uttered "What the….?" when I read the rules requiring a 3" gap between friendly units.

- Ix

DBMM – Phil Barker's effort to 'improve' DBM – I spent an hour trying to translate his description of how a river should be represented on the table into English. I still do not understand what he was trying to achieve. At that point I gave up and haven't opened the rules since.

YA, I don't understand the 3" gap rule myself. I have suggested to my club to just ignore that rule. But they still do it.

Rules that force you to either charge or move – with your whole army.

"Looks like the 45th is charging – order the flanking units, the reserves, and the units on the refused flank to take some time off and rest while we watch."

Rules that force you to either charge or move – with your whole army.

What the….? Seriously? What rules do this?

- Ix

Combining movement and morale in the same phase.

Combining movement and morale in the same phase.

Like the Fire & Fury family of rules? I think that is a beautiful bit of streamlining, myself. Many typical morale results limit or require movement anyway, so combining morale and movement seems very logical to me.

- Ix

Rules that go into great detail about "Sniping at officers" with Whitworth Rifled artillery.

The "General Polk" rule…

Personally I think having specific rules to cover such a rare/unique event are a silly waste of time, more likely to destroy suspension of disbelief than add to it. OTOH, maybe that particular author was reacting to a group of players who wouldn't let that topic rest.

- Ix

@Yellow Admiral – "move or charge, pick one for everyone" was the final nail in the coffin for the "Longstreet" rules for me … Imagine trying something fairly straightforward like an attack en echelon with the refused flank guarding against enemy cavalry, but not being able to charge on one end of your line if you wanted to even simply track a flanking cavalry unit with a single regiment on the other end of the line. (And don't get me started on how that single cavalry regiment was actually a melee threat to my formed infantry.)

@Queen Catherine – I'll agree about the importance of contact rules, but I would expand it to include how rules handle the entire advance to contact, from extreme artillery range through the various threat zones. It's something I'm going to be tinkering with over the summer.

Cheers,

Christopher

@CATenWolde – I always thought the Longstreet rules were justified for the reasons given for that command limitation. I can't think of a time of the top of my head when a brigade (the designed scale of Longstreet) would peel off a regiment like that while in the midst of a headlong charge. Now, a division could peel off a brigade, sure, but I see that as overly complicated for the scale Longstreet claims to represent. Heck, with multiple brigades under multiple commanders, what you describe is perfectly feasible under the rules. I know some claim Longstreet scales really well, and I think it may be scalable with some modification to address things like what you bring up. However, I think it is reasonable for the designed scale. Now, I fully expect you to list a dozen counter examples :)

No … I won't be listing any counter-examples (which include virtually every action where a group of units refused a flank or maneuvered reserves at any rate). :)

Well, I will say, though, that Longstreet is not really a brigade game – each player's force is some sort of hybrid, reinforced brigade of all arms or reduced division, acting completely independently, so drawing examples from actual brigades fighting parts of larger actions is a bit misleading. However, I think that much of that could be "fixed" by removing cavalry from the infantry formations and limiting artillery to a single battery of 4-6 guns.

But seriously, I have friends who really like the Longstreet system, and as you say it appears to make sense to you, so there's no reason to go back and forth about it. It just was a "What the …" sticking point for *me*, per the subject of the thread, which shouldn't impinge on other people's enjoyment of their hobby!

Cheers,

Christopher

@ Dave Woodchuck

A dozen is way too few, could be hundreds. But just to keep it short and focused:

First day Gettysburg the Iron Brigade, as it launched its attack against Archers brigade, dispatched the 6th Wisconsin to cover its right flank where it joined regiments from Cutlers Brigade in the fight for the rail road cut.

Later as the Confederates made their attack on Seminary Ridge, Lanes Confederate Brigade sent a regiment out perpendicular to its right flank to cover against a cavalry threat. Perrins Brigade did likewise.

Dispatching individual regiments away from the parent Brigade was common, whether to cover the flanks, support an artillery battery, support another Brigade, protect a line of march, seize a key piece of unoccupied ground, etc.

Regiments were more than capable of functioning independently as needed, and the lines of communication to do so were not as difficult as most wargamers think they were (or should be).

If the game rules are using regiments as the base maneuver element, they should be allowed to function as they did historically without artificial constraints to satisfy some bogus perception that there was always a great deal of difficulty for them to do so.

Kim

Fair enough. My only contention is that the actual charge action itself is a discrete event from the approach and detachment of troops. I'm not saying it was impossible or even that hard to refuse a flank. I think we seem to disagree on the "timing" of the abstraction.

I see the charge action as the final part, with the detachment occurring in the previous turn. The charge is that last moment where the rapid push happens, whereas detailing a unit off to do something else is generally decided beforehand.

My perception of your reservations has more to do with the fact that an advance, once ordered, stops for a particular unit at the end of a turn and cannot continue until countermanded. I can respect that.

There's no "Take that hill yonder" when it is more than one move away. It ends up requiring the order be issued repeatedly until concluded. And I agree with you on the odd effect that has.

I'm only trying to explain so that no one thinks I'm that simple. No hurt feelings here, just mild insecurities :)

My head tilt with Longstreet is with how aggressive cavalry can be in melee. That's easy enough to avoid, though

My beef? Civil war rule (American) that gives musket fire out to what? 400-450 yards? You have maybe 50 rounds? You are going to order your five rgt brigade to start spending cartridges at 400 plus yards? Average civil war firefight was about 120-150 yards and many many time much closer due to our terrain.
Civil war rule (English) why do rule writes treat musket parties separate units from the center stand of pikes. If I was a musketeer, your couldn't drive me off from the pike company (s) unless they were running too.

KimRYoung: Just a thought on the jamming guns complaint. I remember reading somewhere that the Blakley Rifles, used in ANV horse artillery batteries in the earlier campaigns, (1862), were known on occasion to suffer damage when firing that rendered them inoperable. We were considering making that a feature of batteries equipped with them in our games. This would only be used for the Blakleys of course. John Miller

John,

At Antietam the CSA had 2 Blakely Rifles (Brockenbrough's Battery of J.R. Jones Division) in service. At Gettysburg, there are 3 Blakely's in Hart's battery with the horse artillery.

Having rules for 2 or 3 guns in the entire army seems like total minutia to even worry about.

The only guns that having a rule worth considering, would be for the 20 pound Parrot Rifles which had a propensity to rupture far more than any other type gun. You would be looking at a small chance that one gun out of a single battery might become unserviceable for the balance of the game.

After Antietam, the Union removed most of their 20 pounders from service, replacing them with 10 pound Parrott rifles or 3"ordinance rifles.

Other than that, there is no real reason for putting in such rules in place and focus more on the big picture of the battle you are playing.

Kim

Actually, I think Polk was hit by a 20 lbs Parrot Rifle.

KimRYoung: I admit it is kind of trivial. Thanks for getting back to me. John Miller

"+1 to close combat if you're playing confederates"

I never considered that a "What the…?" rule, because the intent is so clear (induce Confederate players to charge), and it works. It's also seriously fun, even if it's a silly, unrealistic distortion of history.

- Ix