In the previous post to this one I detailed a fictional engagement in West Africa which we played recently using Sons of the Forest, which were really my adaptation of a set of 1990s rules called Sons of the Desert, about the French Foreign Legion. These are rules for skirmish level colonial battles in the latter quarter of the 19th century. I adapted our scenario from a patrol mission that appears in Warpaint, a sister game to Sons of the Desert, which is written for engagements in the so-called Pony Wars in America.
I am really looking for a set of rules that can entertainingly resolve a fictional battle from Africa in this time period in about 3 to 3.5 hours. I currently don't have the luxury of the all day battles which are detailed elsewhere on this blog. In this case, we kept things small, with the British patrol limited to 20 figures plus their mules, and the Africans fielding twice that number. I was hoping the Africans would be able to capitalise on the jungle and the fact they started the battle in hidden positions, but this was not to be. The jungle, as ever, is neutral.
What's to like
The game can be played within the time parameters available, and it is possible to get a good resolution. I like the fact that troops can have varying qualities, and that the British can be hobbled by a less than competent leader. This was modelled well.
The poor quality of the African muskets also seemed realistic. The game uses various pools of polyhedral dice to model troop quality - so d12 represent elite / seasoned soldiers, and d8 relatively poorly trained militia. Civilians, when they appear, receive d6s.
I also like the way rolling a 1 when shooting indicates an individual soldier is running out of ammo. If he rolls another 1, then he's out completely. We had two or three of the British expedition starting to run out of bullets by the end, but low ammo was by no means a major issue.
I would like to get more of my miniatures on the table though - this was a good length game, but we had 60 figures on the table and it took just over three hours.
What's not to like
The spotting rules are intended to make hidden troops harder to hit - ergo, Africans in the bush should be well concealed. The British had native scouts who were there for the purpose of pinpointing hidden enemies, and they proved remarkably effective. There seemed to be no limits to the distance at which they could spot at, however. Well-hidden troops half the table away could still be seen if a roll of 5+ was made. This seemed too powerful to me and took away some of the local advantages I felt the Africans needed. I feel local troops should be able to capitalise on the terrain, as this is one of the few edges they possess.
African morale was very brittle. As soon as they started to take losses, natives began slinking off, including at one stage the commander of the African force. While units are not as brittle as, say, in Dragon Rampant, where they can break and run remarkably quickly, once a unit had taken, say 30-40% losses, they became very unreliable. It was good to see they could still be rallied though.
One could argue that this is actually quite a realistic reaction for a poorly armed tribal force faced with modern European rifles, but it meant that the African army was on the back foot from the start. The smaller, more highly trained European army was less likely to take heavy losses. There are additional penalties in there for European irregulars who get surrounded, but there was never any danger of that in this game.
I think I made the African forces too small, to be honest. If their units had been made of, say, 20 models, they would have stood more chance, but that would have extended the game - unless I just had two big units of troops. That would have reduced the African tactical flexibility however.
Movement is variable in this game, which is no bad thing. I happen to prefer variable movement in wargames. Regiments are not marching across football fields, after all. However, even native troops are subject to severe penalties in rough terrain like jungle. The British expedition stuck to the trails, as they would have done in reality, but I was hoping the Africans could make more use of the jungle. Bad rolling meant that they frequently ended up ensnared in vines and swamp. But these are the locals! They should be able to handle themselves better in jungle.
When I have time, I may re-write these to take into consideration everything mentioned above, and see how we get on. I think they show their age, however - e.g. loads of modifiers are very much the product of 1980s/90s games design.
I liked how there were different tiers of morale effects, so a unit that has taken 25% casualties is going to react differently to one that has taken 50%. I'm used to games where the chance of breaking increases as casualties are taken, but it's still a binary broken/not broken test. This was much more interesting.
ReplyDelete(Although I wasn't hugely fond of the switching between rolling low for morale and rolling high for everything else.)
I also liked the varying die sizes for troop quality, the elegance of which stands in contrast to the fiddliness of the rest of the rules! I very much liked the "special" results, like 1s signifying low ammo on shooting, or the instant morale failure.
Spotting was very broken. You want to preserve the scouts' ability to spot enemies, but it seems off to have units on the other side of the table be able to benefit in a setting without radios. How do you keep track of which units can see what targets without bogging down in a sea of counters? One to ponder.
Movement: I don't mind random movement, but I think there needs to be some clarity about moving between different terrain types. Probably something as simple as "difficult terrain halves remaining movement" is fine, but the rules as written seemed to be overcomplicated.
Unit coherency: we made an on-the-spot ruling that models needed to be within 2" of another in their unit, and it worked fine, but on the other hand it never really came up. It probably needs something more robust; I imagine the locals could benefit from more scattered formations.
Modifiers: I wonder if a form of advantage/disadvantage would work? I don't think I've ever seen in in a wargame, but something like adding an extra die if the conditions favour the unit, or removing a die (to a minimum of one) in more difficult conditions.