"Battles For Empire" Topic

Any reviews on the above rules and can anyone give me an idea of army compositions – I can then order my figures whilst awaiting the rules.

It would be a bit cheeky to review my own rules, but when you get them, send me an email (address is in the rules) and I will send you up-dates and useful playsheets.

I am working on a second edition, but most of the tested changes are in the materials I will send to you -- nothing drastic.

Cheers

I would just go and order them… they are some of the best rules I have ever played and produce good 'historical results'. Damn hard to break a British square if you are the Mahdists, but don't go into Afghan territory and expect a walkover if your are Brits. Interesting to hear that there is a second edition coming.

'Officer or mule' hit. Very amusing.

An interesting set of rules.

The command system is a bit like Fire & Fury, but you have one table for each type of troop: Imperial, trained colonial troops, Zulu, Pathan, Dervish, Boer. Depending on the tactical situation, your troops may or may not perform as you want them to.

Troops are also graded by experience (Elite, regular, Green) and equipment (3 grades for small arms, 4 for artillery).

A reinforcement system allows the numerical disparity between native and imperial forces to be represented, as not all native troops are deployed on-table at the beginning of the game, but appear on the table with a random roll. This also allows you to reuse casualties, meaning you need not buy a very big horde of natives.

As for figure requirement, the game utilises a generic 4-element unit, with suggested base sizes. All foot and mounted units are made up of 4 bases (when killed you remove a unit as a whole, not by element), and it does not really matter how many figures you put on one base. The author recommends you put the same number of figures on each base for consistency, but that doesn't actually affect game play. Generally I would say you are looking at a 12 to 16 figure foot unit, and a 8 to 12 figure mounted unit if going by DBX standards. Artillery and MG pieces are based singly, as are commander figures and ammo mules.

As for total figure requirement for a game, I give a summarised version of the Sudan scenario in the rulebook:

British:

1st Brigade -
1 Command figure
6 Infantry units
2 Artillery pieces
1 Ammo Mule

2nd Brigade –
1 Command figure
6 Infantry units
2 MG pieces
1 Ammo Mule

3rd Brigade -
1 Command figure
2 Cavalry units

Dervish:

4 command figures
20 melee-armed Infantry units
1 rifle-armed Infantry unit

8 melee-armed Infantry units start off-table

Overall I like the rules, but there are some typesetting errors as well as rule changes which gave me some difficulty initially. But the errata and changes can be found on the BFE website and their Yahoo group. Depending on how soon the new edition is coming out, you might want to wait while you paint your figures up.

Anyone knows when the new edition will be released?

Thankyou to all for your input. sausagesca – I will take you up on that offer. many thanks.

Don't hold your breath about 2nd edition. I have made lots of revisions to the text and it is ready for serious editing, but lots of work to do yet. Also, I am only just now negociating with a distributor. I am going to make the book available as a pdf.

Like I said, the basic game is relatively unchanged and most of the second edition revisions are already on the yahoo group for free down-load.

Cheers

I love the rules BFE, they are quick and yet capture the feel of the period. There are similarities to both F&F but also Shako.

Each combatant have their own activation tables which also have re-enforcement tables depending upon tribe/enemy. These force certain actions depending upon modifiers and the situations.

Definately worth purchasing

Sausagesca,

let us know if the PDF becomes available before the paper version, as I'd like to try these rules.

Thanks,
Norberto

I think pfd will be the only format available.