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"Test Game of Tin Soldiers in Action" Topic


Tin Soldiers in Action

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Dale Hurtt28 Nov 2016 10:37 a.m. PST

After buying Cigar Box's new mat with a 6" square grid:

picture

I had to give the new rules that were cross-promoted with it, Tin Soldiers in Action. Of course, I had to break out the wooden 42mm Napoleonic soldiers that I make myself.

picture

You can read the battle report here: link

Dale

Frederick Supporting Member of TMP28 Nov 2016 11:35 a.m. PST

Now that is a neat little battle – love the not so mini minis!

jambo128 Nov 2016 12:07 p.m. PST

Great overview of the rules and what great figures you make!! They are superb!!

IUsedToBeSomeone29 Nov 2016 2:21 a.m. PST

Really interesting report – I have read the book and struggled with seeing how it would play out (not helped by the translation from german to english).

The report helps a lot – not sure it would replace The Portable Wargame for me for simple grid-based gaming but I might give it a go for Napoleonics.

thanks

Mike

P.S. And love the wooden soldiers!

arthur181529 Nov 2016 3:30 a.m. PST

Black Hat Miniatures' comment pretty well duplicates my view of these rules.

I love your wooden soldiers too! If my children weren't too old (in their opinion) for such things, I'd make some of my own.

Dale Hurtt29 Nov 2016 8:12 a.m. PST

Children, schmildren! The wooden soldiers are for me! Seriously, I love making them (although making MASSES of them can be tedious). Just like some people find painting relaxing, so do I with cutting, sanding, and gluing.

I think we have come to expect certain 'components' in our rules and when certain components are not there, it is like when we think a part is missing from the Ikea box we just opened. "Where are the flank attack rules? Where are the forming square rules? Where are the rules for wheeling a formation?" If we don't see what we see in every other set of rules, it frankly confuses us, or at least me.

Having played some, and read all, of Neil Thomas' books I am starting to understand that we are now going through a phase where some rules are radically simplifying. The special case rules are simply not in there.

I did not find any confusing translations – at least nothing on the order that I found with About Bonaparte – but I did get confused at times because I had the expectation that certain concepts would have associated rules. When I did not find those rules I figured I was missing something. If the rules say you can move one square in any direction is it missing a rule when you are looking for the rule on how the unit moves backwards?

That is my take at least. Maybe I am used to reading translated texts.

The Portable Wargame is a good set of rules and largely covers the same basic concepts: one unit per square, simple combat resolution, easy movement rules.

I am working on the final part and I will be going deeper into the rules because the game ended shortly after where I left off. Once the CiC dies …

Samurai Elb29 Nov 2016 10:28 a.m. PST

This was a very good battle report about a battle with my favorite rule system including a very good explanation of the rules too.

The battle report showed how much action will be released in a battle with "Tin Soldiers in Action" even with that small numbers of units. With more units you will even have more action in each turn. With that rules you have quickly realistic results which forced the enemy to react straight away.

I understand that you have missed special rules. There are two reasons why you don´t need them: Firstly the rules are played from the view of an army commander and not from the view if a commander of the smallest tactical unit who decides about changing to a square. And secondly one turn is not a few minutes of a battle but represents about one hour. At this level a unit can easely fall back in good order and then facing the enemy again therefore there is no reason for special rules for falling back.

I like your wooden soldiers very much too

Please execuse any errors english is not my native language.

Dale Hurtt29 Nov 2016 11:12 a.m. PST

@Samurai: I agree with your comment regarding the rules not being "missing" but being abstracted away. I was trying to explain why I think these rules have a reputation of being hard to understand. (Not just comments here, but in other forums that I have posted to and have read.) I think it is a natural reaction to look for a catalog of rules – special exceptions is probably a better description – and when we don't see them, we wonder what is going on. At least that is the way for me. Not trying to explain away other people's comments.

Neil Thomas' rules – especially One Hour Wargames, his most recent and simplest – are very much in this vein.

It is good to hear that there are others playing them. I see you are from Hessen Germany. Were you one of the playtesters in the group mentioned in the Forward? Are they more popular in Germany or are they pretty niche there too?

vonFalkenberg29 Nov 2016 12:10 p.m. PST

I bought the rules as soon as they were out from caliver and I am glad I did.

Arthur1815 is mostly the person claiming in the forums that the rules are hard to read. The rules are excellent and a pleasure to play. This could and should be more important than the pleasure of reading.

I bought the book for playing… and that´s exactly what I am doing now.

These is the last time I bought rules, because I just found what I always wanted. I have played many years WRG and Warhammer and the constant discussions over rules were driving me nuts. With these rules I can play all my armies against each other and not be distracted with detailed analysis.

I have a huge collection of 25mm for the crimean war and also a heap of french foreigen legion. I played with them the naval landing scenario from the book many times in one weekend and I just love it. You have in one game a naval landing with boats, a duel between a gun boat and forts, infantry charges uphill into low tech enemies and house o house street fighting …. And heroic generals dying on the beach… All this in less than 2 hours without looking up any special rules.

So i found my set of rules and I prefer abstract rules which work over highly detailed rules which suck. I want to play, not change arguments with my friends.

Samurai Elb30 Nov 2016 8:46 a.m. PST

Dale Hurth: Yes I was one of the play testers. The rules are relly new I think from August this year but become more and popular among expierenced players at least here in Frankfurt. I know there is a great group playing it in Belgium too.

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