"Boxer Rebellion Rules" Topic

I was wondering if anyone had some suggestions for rules sets to use with the part of the Boxer Rebellion that dealt with the push by the relief column from the coast.

Square Bashing specifically covers events from 1900 thru the end of WWI, but I don't know if they'd be useful in this theater. FPW rules may be too early. ACW is surely right out. It'd be really helpful if the suggested rules had stats and ratings for the involved combatants.

Tks in advance.

There was a thread on here a year or so ago covering a number of Boxer Rebellion tabletop battles using Piquet with the Colonial supplement. The author seemed very pleased with the results and the AARs were a lot of fun to read.

And, of course, you might want to check out The Sword and the Flame which has, iirc, a supplement for the Boxer Rebellion. These are a great set of rules and "go to" set for all things colonial.

Thanks. Unfortunately, if I were to mention Piquet in our little gaming group, I, well, let's just say I can smell the tar and feathers already.

Take a look here.

I bought the Zulu rules but they started with The Natives Are Restless Tonight. I haven't played them yet as my colonial project is waiting in line but they look like a lot of fun.

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I second the Sword and the Flame

We've successfully used The Men Who Would Be King for battles of the Siege of Peking as well as the two relief expeditions.

TsATF would a set I would want to use. The Boxer Rebellion was the conflict for my first game of TSATF. I played it with Larry in 1984

Hi

Try the natives are restless rules.

Heres a link

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Another vote for The Sword and The Flame

I recently played two games with The Men Who Would Be King Great set of rules with just the right feel.

@PKinder, if you can send me a private note about your group's objections to Piquet I may come up with some solutions. I play with quite a few modifications to the rules.

Thanks,
Eric Burgess
EBurgess@Carolina.rr.com
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Or better yet carry on the discussion here? I'd love to hear the critiques and possible solutions.

As for the Boxer Rebellion, I'd probably gravitate to TSATF, but some players have a strong aversion to them.

It's been sort of a long time since we tried playing Piquet so my recollections may be a bit faulty, but it mostly came down to problems with the card driven play. We were trying to play AWI. There were several memorable incidents. We had a British Bn with loaded Muskets that couldn't fire on a Continental unit close in front of it because while they had cards for everything else they had no firing card. This went on for some time. There were all sorts of perversions that arose out of the sneaky heathens feature. It was a lot of generalized frustration that normal natural actions were blocked by the cards. The unsupported gun battery that ran off a cavalry charge didn't help. We tried about 4 times then washed our hands of it.

Hi KPinder,

Sounds like your recollections of Piquet are faulty or you may have been playing the rules incorrectly. I know I played Piquet wrong for MONTHS as the rules were so different than other sets of rules I had played before.

With regards to your description, there isn't a "Fire" card. Units, if loaded, may fire for one impetus during their impulse, or use an Opp Fire chip during the enemy's impulse. Also, to reload you need to draw the Musket Reload card, which each side has two or more in their deck. This means you could fire 3 or 4 times a turn.

The biggest complaint about Piquet is the D20 impetus rolls for initiative, where one side or the other could get a vast majority of the impetus. I use the rule of 1/3 in my games at home and rule of 1/2 at conventions. What that means is that the winner of the initiative gets the difference between the two D20 rolls, while the loser would get 1/3 that amount. The winner then decides if they want to act on their impetus first or second.

For example, Prussia rolls a 12 on the D20, while the Austrians roll a 3. Prussia gets 9 impetus to act one while the Austrians get 3. Prussia chooses to go first or second.

I have found this keeps both sides in the game and able to react, but still allow for the drama that the Piquet rule system allows.

Best of luck in your rule search!
Eric

@KPinder, my vote is for The Sword And The Flame. We've played countless successful Boxer Rebellion games with this rules set. They are fast, fun, and furious. The rules and mods can easily be altered and tweaked for scenario specifics. The available Boxer Rebellion supplement uses the standard core rules but provides the unit compositions and all the charts for the units movement, firing, morale, and melee data.

There is even a variant by Larry Brom, author of TSATF, called "To The Gates Of Peking". This variant is its own set of rules which has very similar mechanics to the standard TSATF rules set. It contains (3) scenarios, provides a brief introduction to the history of the conflict, unit compositions, simple naval and fort attacking rules, etc. Both can be purchased from Sergeants3 at the link below.

sergeants3.com

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Cheers,
JB

If you don't want a skirmish set then Victorian Steel is worth a look

"Unfortunately, if I were to mention Piquet in our little gaming group, I, well, let's just say I can smell the tar and feathers already."

Same with my group. We tried that set of rules . . . and everyone just got angrier and more frustrated by the minute. One player even claims just looking at the rules make him feel ill.
As for large scale colonial try: Victoria's Battles. There is no set of rules specifically for the Boxer Rebellion, but we took the rules for the Mahdi and the charts and easily modified them for Boxer, and it made for a great game with numerous units per player.