by Jim Owczarski, 30 January 2025
When setting out to choose a rule set, I assume a lot of things. I assume they will be well-written. I assume they will be play-tested. I assume they will make internal sense. I assume they will come with an excellent library of play-tested scenarios that demonstrate what the author had in mind. &c. While it is distressing how frequently I am disappointed in these things, they are nonetheless that which I expect even before I consider the two truly decisive aspects of a rule set, namely: scale and what I call “crunch”.
The former always seems simple enough, but, on reflection, becomes more complicated. And this is true even if one avoids, as a happy hobbyist, any reference to the largely academic debate about what precisely constitutes “strategic”, “operational”, “grand tactical”, and “tactical” gaming. Rather, I always ask: When you look out onto your tabletop and fancy yourself a commander, who do you want to be? Are you Napoleon? Are you Ney? Are you, perhaps, Brigadier Gerard1? Or are you, at the last, that jumped-up Richard Sharpe, wooer of women and slayer of dragoons? This analysis applies to every period even if some of the middle ranks vanish and the titles change. It also applies even if you intend, as I always do, to divide up each side into multiple commands. Yes, in our largest miniatures games there are bunches of marshals running about, but somebody is Napoleon.
In passing I would observe that, for gamers not blessed with a virtual tabletop, scale has a number of knock-on effects. It will likely interact with your available space to determine just how much game you can put on. There is, after all, a reason attempts have been made to establish a 4′ x 6′ table standard; anything larger threatens relationships and drives us into our he-sheds. Related thereunto, it will also likely determine the scale of miniatures you purchase. There are gamers in our group who love their 28mm World War II miniatures like their own kids, but realize one cannot get too much bigger than a large skirmish with them. Also, those who write rules tend to follow an inverse principle between the scale of the battles simulated by their rules and the scale of the miniatures for which they write. Besides, unless you are on a virtual tabletop, trying to jam 28mm miniatures into company+ setups looks off.
click images to enlarge
If you thought scale was subjective, crunch is well worse. It is more than complexity, more than chrome. It relates only imperfectly to the chimerical quest for “simulation”. It is an allow of these three. El jefe of this joint and I have a long-standing ramble about how RPG players will roll their eyes, sigh, and turn away from “complicated” wargame rules while deep-diving into rule books that run to the hundreds of densely-written pages. After all, have you read Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay? Pathfinder? I am not even going to mention you Traveller weirdos. Whatever became of the wee pamphlets?2 Even worse are those who deign to call themselves wargamers because they play Warhammer 40k or one of its nigh-infinite derivations3 and then dare call Bolt Action, Black Powder, or even Squad Leader a bar to entry into the hobby. As I write above, it is subjective.
Long ago — very, very long ago, in fact — the great Donald Featherstone and his generation gave us rule books that were lacking in crunch. Formations were rudimentary, combat resolved with a d6 or two, troops were free to move about the field nearly at will, morale was often limited to activation rolls if it existed at all, and, more than anything, battles were bath-tubbed affairs with a handful of men depicting a battalion and few hundred enough for Waterloo. As the 1960s became the 1970s we yearned for simulation and the crunch that we thought could get us to the top of that mountain. We were no longer going to be playing with toy soldiers. We were going to be men with secret knowledge and a deeper understanding of history. Dr. Griffith wept and much silliness occurred, but the rules that were brought forth from these dreams we dreamed are still with us. Napoleonics has more than its share with offerings like Empire, but the Wargames Research Group and others did their level best to give each era its Tractics or Close Action. And, to be sure, they still have their devotees yearning for square buttons and the smell of diesel smoke.
 |
We’ve previously covered Donald Featherstone’s wargames in our History of Early Wargaming |
As I have aged, I believe I have turned away from crunch. I think this is generally the case. I cannot for certain say why. Perhaps it is the imminence of mortality or perhaps something less profound like an increase in irritability and decrease in patience. And it is not as if I do not want some. After all, I want to feel like my 1815 grenadiers are in some way different from that mob of Normans charging up Senlac Hill. Not long ago, though, I revisited my well-thumbed set of Napoleon’s Battles from Avalon Hill. An on-line associate swears by it and had posted a number of engaging battle reports. I have very fond memories of building armies for what promised to be real, honest-to-goodness battles, not skirmishes, and playing them out on the ping-pong table my father had let me convert to wargaming. It had great orders of battle, painting guides, and even a handful of cardboard bases to practice with before you finished your soldiers.
I say with all respect: oh, heavens no. I forgot the ultra-dense text, the clunky d10 combat system ornate with modifiers, the government by exception to permit all the national modifiers we were once so fond of, and, yes-oh-yes, a template to manage wheeling. I recall none of this bringing more verisimilitude to the table than its near competition, either Blucher or Bloody Big Battles. This, of course, is me. Each of us, though, will have to choose just how much crunch we want for ourselves. Pretending you do not have to make this sort of decision is a recipe for disappointment if not aggravation.
This, then, leaves us needing to choose the right amount of crunch for just the right scale. One might even plot one against the other on a graph. If you want a Star Wars skirmish with near no crunch, for example, I cannot imagine recommending anything other than Xenos Rampant. Another child of Dan Mersey’s excellent “Rampant” series, its light, flexible, and a great deal of fun.
Personally, I wanted a bit more of each, and this is why I turned back to my months-long obsession with I Ain’t Been Shot, Mum. It is a company-level game, meaning the table will have a great many men dashing about it and they will have support — APCs, AFVs, and even flyers. The system handles a large player count well and, because it is card-activated, players are never quite certain when they are next; looking away from the table can have consequences. It cares about the differences between infantry and armor and emphasizes the role of commanders in battles. And, because it is based on the Kriegsspiel, it really needs an umpire to manage not only its fog-of-war mechanics (which are excellent), but to manage certain rudimentary aspects of movement and combat that would otherwise need to be committed to pages of rules. Best of all, one of its well-known scenario designers, Robert Avery, put out an official variant rule set that he dubbed Quadrant 13, purpose-built to cover science fiction and providing a fairly solid system (thus far) for converting universes into game terms.
Would, then, that all were in best order. To the contrary, the struggle has only begun as next we seek to organize the protean world of Star Wars armies into something that Quadrant 13 can understand. Subtitle of this next installment is: “what is THAT?”
Until next time.
Thank you for visiting the Regiment of Strategy Gaming and riding with The Armchair Dragoons.
Rather than list a bunch of social media links, the easiest thing to do is to check out our LinkTree, which connects you to all of our various locales around the web.
You can also support The Armchair Dragoons through our Patreon, and find us at a variety of conventions and other events.
Feel free to talk back to us either in our discussion forum, or in the comments below.
