"Running drills" Topic

We have our first 'Hail Caesar' game for the Punic/Successor period this Saturday. Although we've used HC for many Bronze Age games, this period has a lot of different troop types eg elephants.Weve gamed this period a lot using other rules but HC is, obviously, different.

I'm certainly not hyper-competitive but I like things
to run smoothly. In order to do so, I occasionally run what I call 'drills' before the game to check out a new rule set & its mechanisms.

Successor nellies versus Galatian warband:
theminiaturespage.com

‌"TMP link

theminiaturespage.com

‌"TMP link

theminiaturespage.com

‌"TMP link

What I have learned? How to arrange the elephants & their supporting sub-unit of javelin skirmishers. Charging & fighting protocols. Break test consequences (NB the nellies thankfully did not stampede!)

I've run this through a number of times & concluded elephants aren't invincible. They mostly lose this drill.

Do you ever use drills?

I've sometimes tried out segments of new rules solo to see how they work. That way, I don't have to deal with everything all at once--I get to learn it bit by bit.

Grelber

Excellent idea.
Rule sets can fail with a group.
This often happens when the "lead" player puts all options on the table. He then invites the gang around and only then looks up rules as the game starts. Previously he has had a flick through. This can lead to the rules being dismissed as far too complicated.

martin

Certainly when writing the rules like at work, you run test cases, often small like the one illustrated. We know what outcome we want, and check the rules give the outcome we expected.

It seems to me if a player is not prepared to read the rules before a proper game then he/she is not much of a player. In one-off games then players have to be spoon fed, but you are not going to get tha same challenge of satisfaction from such games. If you are running at your limit (where the real fun is) then you have no spare capacity to teach.

Much depends on you vision of what agood game is, and that varies greatly between diffrent folk.

A little harsh, UshCha, but essentially correct. It does boil down to a new-ish game will be more enjoyable if at least one of you is conversant with the rules.

I wish I'd done that for my ACW game (finished yesterday). I was surprised at how much of the rules I'd forgotten.

<sulk>No, I won't tell you the result.</sulk>

Yeah, yeah. I've known some of my group to use drills instead of short games. But not even a piece of green felt?

We do rules run throughs. Just get the figs on the table, no guarantees of a balanced scenario and give them a go. When situations/questions come up as they will we stop and discuss it. The goal is not to really get in the game but to understand the rules, their nuances and the flow of the turns. We expect to flub a few things, take notes and to make adjustments as the day progresses.

I see your point, Fitz. But the precious times we can organise a get-together really need something formal.
I can -as you can see- run a drill in my office easily & quickly. I later substituted a cavalry unit for the warband & then tried out a scythed chariot unit against sundry Successor units.All this took under a hour & on Saturday, when we have a 500 point game, I'm confident things will go well.

I have done "drills" by myself. I used this concept when I was writing my Army Men rules. It works, to a point.

When I run my "drilled" rules in a game, with players, I discovered that when I ran them by myself, I was wearing blinders: I did not see things which my players did see, and they exploited the things which I did not see -- sometimes good, sometimes bad.

Drills are a valuable part of the process, whether writing your own rules, or if you are learning someone else's rules system. Just don't rely too heavily upon them, as you still only have your sole viewpoint.

Drills help, but actual game play, with multiple players, really shakes the bugs out of any rules system. Cheers!