"Fire & Steel by WRG" Topic

Anyone play these rules?
I just got them and they look good.
Any tips, house rules, web sites or a Yahoo group?

I have run several convention games, with up to 8 factions of 8 figures each, and the players were running the game themselves after 3 turns.

The best tip is to make up a cheat sheet with all the tables by xeroxing the apprpriate tables and pasting them to just two sheets.
Also, make up a roster sheet in WORD or someting similar.

I use Hawkeye, Chingachgook and Uncas as a single group, but give them 5 wounds. Even facing 8 or 10 others, that is more than strong enough.

link

I like them. They are fast, simple and give a good feel for the period. What more can you ask?

Interesting. I have never heard of these rules before.

Sorry then for posing a couple of bunny questions.

Are the rules suitable for 2 player games as well as multi-player jobs?

And, how long is a typical game?

Thanks in advance.

Craig

I've played a couple times, oddly also last of the mohicans. For two players it would work, but I wouldn't want more than a dozen figures a side. With 6 players, 5-6 figures each is plenty.

Strangely the site linked above is the ONLY resource I've found on the net either. I like them for what they are, but generally like to play with more figures than they can handle.

Phil

Here are two I found on ebay.

auction

auction

You keep track of wounds, keep track of reloading time.
You have the typical WRG "add up factors, subtract factors, roll the die" mechanics.
In this case it works, if you keep the factions small.
Make up a cheat sheet, and a roster sheet, and it minimizes the complexity and the game flows.

I have not tried it in a scenario where reloads are almost automatic. The time you take to reload really adds to the suspense. Rifles take longer than muskets. I have never bothered to waste the time to analyze the "realism" of the time scale and all that rubbish, but to me it feels right, and that is enough.

If you have any individually mounted figures already, the game is ready to play. If not, the expense of trying a new period is minimized due to the small numbers. Unless you like to overdo things, like I do. 8^)

What is ment by "tap-laod" a musket?
You only ramrod it once insted of three times?
Done for speed?

Tap load! sorry…

I'm taking a guess, based on Sharpe and I think that I've read of it elsewhere, that it's not using the ramrod at all, misterw, and tapping the butt of the musket on the ground to jiggle the ball down the barrel. (Just don't aim low or the ball may roll out.)

And, I should have added, to make loading quicker.

Old sweats would also enlarge the touch-hole so that when they whacked the musket on the side, some powder would filter through into the pan. Saved the time of priming.

"Tap loading" a musket might work the first time or so, but fouling would make it impossible in short order. And doing so with a rifle would mean that the ball is too small for the rifling to impart a spin on it, in effect making it act like a smoothbore.

Drilling out the touchhole so that powder leaked out into the pan would result in a heck of a lot of blow-back, reducing the force of the bullet. With a smoothbore musket effective range of only 150 yards, this would seem short-sighted measure, trading loading speed for range.

I've definitely read about tap loading so it must be something that was somewhat effective in the right situation.

The rules are that detailed that they go into how a piece is loaded?

No wonder they recommend a max of 8 guys per side.

How long does a game last btw? And if 8 is a maximum per faction, how many is a good average? And a realistic minimum?

Its 8 per player.
I have not played yet.

The tap loading rule is just a way to reload faster, with less accuracy. Rifles taploaded then fire as muskets. I am not sure I buy it, for all the reasons given above, but it givres the player something else to worry about.