It was with great excitement that I downloaded the Too Fat Lardies Christmas Special a couple of days back, as I had been eagerly awaiting 'Kop That' / 'A Mere Question of Pluck' for some time.
Alas, I am stuck here in Iraq at the moment, so cannot play the game but I have read through it a few times and am very impressed with what I see cannot wait to have a crack at it. It is good to see that the Lardies have not fallen into the trap of making the Boers 'super human' (as they most certainly were not) but at the risk of 'criticising' a game I have not even played yet there are a few very small points which I think I will tinker with when I have a go:
Maxim guns at 4d6 per gun that strikes me as far too powerful: I feel these should be the same as a platoon / half company, as a Maxim was reckoned to be equivalent to 30 magazine rifles.
One thing I would like to toy with is making the Boer player need to spend Tactical Initiative in order to prevent his troops opening fire as soon as British troops are within Long Range. And it should take extra special command and control for them not to open fire once advancing troops are within Effective Range.
This was a feature in several battles, and even the best republican commanders failed to prevent the nervous burghers opening fire early.
As far as I can see and I may well be missing something troops moving in close column should get advantage in moving / control, but don't seem to. Though archaic in most situations, this should be an effective way to handle troops in darkness, for example.
Maybe troops in column should get to move automatically at the end of the turn (ie. when the 'Outspan' card comes up) in the same way that troops who haven't had chance to fire get a chance to fire: this way troops that are in column always get to move, making their movement is vaguely predictable' this would reflect the greater 'grip' commanders had over their men means there is a logical (if very dangerous) reason for a player to utilise this formation. This movement occurs before the shooting is rolled for for those units which have not shot during the turn.
Please do not get the idea that I am having a go at these rules though: I think they look brilliant and am very much looking forward to many happy battles I am just a tinkerer at heart.
Has anyone played them yet? Any thoughts?
One question: as bases from different units seem to be able to join different 'groups' quite easily, if a base gains some 'shock' while in one group, does it carry this 'shock' across when it joins another group? I might be missing something in the rules here (it wouldn't be the first time) but it seems like a bit of a logistical headache to try and track all this?
