"Anyone playing - For King and Parliament ?" Topic

I've been looking at these for Epic ECW rather than ploughing into Pike an Shotte or it's Epic variation.

I already play Hail Caesar in Ancients and Black Powder in AWI so I'm not keen on adding a third variation on a theme to my games.

Spoke to Simon Miller at a Show some years ago, when they first came out, and was impressed by what he said at the time but was just wondering how people who play them find them in use.

Looked on You Tube but the only thing I could find were demos of the original Ancient version. I understand that the basics are much the same and liked the ideas. Does the switch to ECW work as well as I might hope?

Unfortunately, I can't add alot to the discussion. I own and have played the ancient ruleset To the Strongest and own and have read the pike and shot variant (but haven't played).

Upon reading the rules, many of the mechanics are similar but they are very much an ECW set. There are ammunition shortages, over aggressive cavalry, etc. I'm hoping to see a Thirty Years War variant (as my my armies are for the Continental conflict and I haven't had an opportunity to paint up armies for the ECW).

I will say that I was initially hesitant about the grid system and the cards but once I played with them, I fully appreciated what they brought to the table (literally). Didn't have to get bogged down in fiddly measurements and wasn't sure if I'd be able to execute the plans of a certain wing commander. Very nice ruleset.

FK&P have their own forum…

And Simon's co-author, Mollinary, frequents here. And, now that you have illuminated the FK&P light, he'll be along, Batman like, in 5, 4, 3…

Our group has played them a lot. The basic mechanics are the same but there are some very specific ECW twists on the rules. I know Simon has indicated that when he writes TtS! V2 he might institute some things that were designed into FK&P.

I have enjoyed my initial games of For King and Parliament. Using squares is certainly a preference. The game system is a very heavy user of all manner of markers, which is negative for me. I've worked hard to make sure that I have actual figures/models as alternatives to the counters. "No dice" is a theme for the rules, so I have strenuously avoided using dice as strength point markers too.

Well that's reassuring and very much in line with my conversation that day with Simon. Which was definitely an attempt on my part to glean as much as I could to assess if they were something other than "Macedonians with Muskets"!

I was pretty sure, from what he said, that they were designed to be something more than that and they contained a lot of what I would have wanted to see.

No dice is an attraction, although the playing cards are obviously a substitute. I'm sure that someone with a lot more brain power than Yours Truly, could enlighten me on the relative statistical probabilities of two/three decks verses D10s.

That said, I play so many rules with barrel loads of D6s, it would be a blessed relief to try anything short of H.G.Wells style cannon fire to get things done!

We've played them quite a bit, for ECW, TYW and even GNW. Good fun set of rules that work quite well.
Give them a try you won't be disappointed.

I am a fan of To the Strongest and have also played For King and Parliament. Great sets of rules. The squares can be very discreet and if you use chips in earth tones they do not detract from the look of the thing. Excellent in every way. The best thing is that these rules flow easily with a minimum of charts and no need to measure. Nothing to detract from the game. Results are very historical and believable. Highly recommended.

Hi
Plenty of FK&P AAR can be found here:

link

These include AAR for the ECW and for the 17thC Far East variant that some people play.

Here's a close up shot of a game that shows how unobtrusive the grid can be.

It's a great set of rules. The changes from the Ancient system are subtle, but really add to the feel of a 17th Century game. Thoroughly recommended.

Very good set of rules with a great ECW flavour. If the markers for ammo and ‘dash' are a problem, a paper roster will do the job more discreetly.

I'm painting up my own Warlord Epic ECW to play For King & Parliament to go along with my Steel Fist 15mm figures.

TMP link

I'm going to play on a 150mm grid with close to 100 figures per pike and shotte unit.

I agree with Legionarius and Vis Bellica that the grid unobtrusive and speeds up play. It's a great ruleset!

[shameless plug]

And I've written two scenario packs for the system, both available from the BigRedBat shop and/or Wargames Vault.

If you buy the pdf versions, that's twenty-four linked scenarios for just less than £20.00 GBP: less than £1.00 GBP per scenario!

Hi

Another big thumbs up for FK&P, one of my favourite set of rules of any period.

That said, the group I play with are not fans of using playing cards for many and various reasons (although we tried using them and numbered ‘chits' when we first started to play ‘To the Strongest') and we use a mixture of D10's and chits instead.

As people have mentioned there are differences between FK&P and TtS! and I think FK&P is actually a better set of rules (just don't tell Simon I said so)!

Cheers Paul

We have played a few games of this using 28mm for one game and then my 15mm collection for the others, as they fit better on the. 6 x 4 table. I like the system. At first I was a bit sceptical about using playing cards for activation etc, but soon got over that. We tried them out on an historical scenario [Battle of Montgomery), which we had also played using our own club set and a variant of Warlord's Pike and Shotte rules. The rules worked well, were easy to pick up and we easily completed the set up, play through and clear away in our three hour club session.you do need some way of representing the various allocations of ammo, cavalry impetus etc, I did buy some tokens, but they can easily be made by printing onto thin card. I also bought a gridded mat after our first game (quite subtle grid, hardly noticeable in play and Imuse it/in other games which are not grid based) which does help. Definitely a set which I will be happy to play again.

I have only arrived as summoned by KYPD! There are loads of reviews online you can find by googling FK&P, including a very fair one by KYPD. He does not like grids, but there are many people who share this characteristic. However, from my point of view, it was tricky proposing an ECW version to Simon without including one of the major constituents of TTS! And, as it happens, I love it. Happy to answer any questions anyone may have, equally happy to back out!

Well there's a timely offer!

Only a small question, following my inaugural game, so apologies if I'm totally missing the point.

The game itself was really fun and easy to pick up and so far I've only got one negative. That is the QRS and its layout, or rather its content, or lack of.

I may have over estimated the need to follow a more traditional approach, due to ignorance of both my opponent and myself, but there seemed to be quite a number of occasions where dipping into the rule book was required where in other rules a quick check on a QRS would have solved the question.

Sorry I can't quote chapter and verse here but they were very much the usual "is there a plus or minus for this and that" query that tends to fade with familiarity.

The absence of reference to which on the QRS, took both of us by surprise. What's the thinking behind this?

Interesting- in FK&P, there are rather fewer mods than in the ancient/medieval set, because we managed to do away with a lot of them. :-)

I've used the QRS quite a bit and I can't recall missing anything. Could you please try to recall what the missing modifiers you encountered were? If we can identify any, it should be possible to revise the QRS and add them.

I played yesterday!

link

Hi Simon, Thanks for the response on the QRS.

Like I said it may just be an expectation, based on other rules, where the layout is often presented in the form of lists.

So you get all the modifiers for a given area of play like, Moves, Shooting, Melee, etc arranged under those headings in a + 1 for this, or minus 2 for that notation.

It may well be that FK&P has very few of these and its more us looking for something that doesn't exist. Or its entirely possible we are being thick! 😀

We were too busy enjoying ourselves to note things down as we went along. If we spot items as we go in future games, I'll let you know what we think they are.

I've been looking at the rules and the QRS again and I think the example I was seeking is around Bonus To-Hit Cards.

Which appear in two sections on Page 54 in the Rules but I can't see on the QRS.

Our group has used them quite a bit, and we like them. They do have more period flavour than TTS! but that's hardly surprising when they cover a much smaller slice of history.

All I would ask for is more army lists, please.

More Army Lists would be really great.