Rebels and Patriots

Fairly quiet at the club last night, one RPG game, one Age of Sigmar and Rebels and Patriots run by Stuart, I volunteered for the latter, it has been played a couple of times at the club but I was still in Saga mode then, I have since escaped from that.

The game was a continuation of a campaign I think or a linked series of games, loosely involving the same characters if not players, this gives a kind of narrative to the players efforts and seems to be de rigueur these days with skirmish games, either this or a whole series of events triggered by dice rolls. Did I like it, it was fine, I can only compare it to Muskets and Tomahawks which I really enjoy. It is very easy to play, all of us picked up the mechanics within a turn or so, when shooting you have to score so many hits to kill, for instance if your target is in open ground every two hits kills one man, in cover every three. Like M&T shooting and combat can be brutal and deadly, shooting is to me strange, you can fire through woods, visibility seems to count for naught, there are no saves which I have gotten used to, five dead is five dead and hence this level of lethality tends to put your unit out of action very quickly. You also have to roll to activate each unit, a six with two D6 is required, it may not seem too hard but see below. One thing which struck me as strange is that line and militia infantry have a range of 18" while elites, like Grenadiers get 12", Stuart opined that this was to force players to use these elites in hand to hand combat rather than a firefight, nonetheless it seems daft to me. A very simple, quick game, with almost no learning curve and perfect perhaps for a club night, but without the bells and whistles of the 'campaign' and events perhaps too simple.

What about the game, well I was commanding two Provincial, one Light and one Highland (elite) battalions these were all twelve men strong. The figures used were as usual very nice and a pleasure to play with and observe. Simon had a motley crew on my right with some regulars and Indians along with six Rangers. We all had different objectives, mine was simply to clear the French from the area. No sooner had my men set off, well some of them, than the Jocks decided they did not like their officer of the moment and shot him in the back thus depriving me of his command incentive, this played havoc with my plan of advancing and shooting down Rob's Frenchies. I then fell foul of the range mechanic and my Highlanders began to be shot down without being able to reply, it would also be suicide to advance them so I was left with no alternative but to withdraw them.

Every player rolls a die at the start of the turn and the highest goes first, it then follows clockwise, although this was to my advantage initially I could not profit from it as turn after turn my units refused to do anything while all the time under a galling fire from the enemy. Simon meanwhile had disturbed a Grizzly with his Rangers and the beast killed most of the unit, he also ran into some quicksand later, Rob was set upon by a swarm of lethal wasps and lost a man to their stings. The events are not all bad and Simon got at least one extra unit. Meanwhile I began to lose units without inflicting any damage, I lost over half my force and the rest decided to go home. Although Simon had managed to remove Ian's men from the table he now had to contend with Rob's almost complete brigade, it was over.

As a bit of fun it played well enough, but as a serious wargame no, for me it joins a long list of perfectly playable games based on history, I know M&T is not serious either but it feels better to me. You will notice I am trying to shrug off my deplorable die luck, Chain of Command on Thursday, a real test for my Karma.

I have a pile of bits and pieces primed and might start them today, I am in no particular hurry at the moment with anything having just finished another map project, I do have a toy cat to paint red today, long story. I admit it is warm but looking out the window it is damp, misty and grey, what a combination.