Friday, May 13, 2016

Regimental Fire and Fury

Wednesday night at the club I put together this rough and ready Regimental Fire and Fury game.  I was very rusty with the rules and worse really only know the brigade level rules.  All I was able to do was assemble the forces and put down heaps of the club's terrain.

The Union had two brigades: Naglee and Palmer from Casey's Division as listed for the Casey's Redoubt scenario plus two batteries.  All green.  I took Naglee and Simon had Palmer.

The Rebs were Garland and Rains brigades from DH Hill's division, same scenario.  Stephen went Rains and Joey Garland.  Luckily Joey had played two games recently, although in 28mm.  Either way, that made him the expert,

The Rebs have to attack.

The move distances gave the impression they would soon be upon us, but they were very tardy.

The woods slowed em down too.

I actually started moving my guys forward.

The rest of the Union clung to their ridge.  There was a developing Reb outflanking move on the Union right.

Fighting in the woods.

Union battery wrecked, but not before it had inflicted heavy casualties, so many in fact I began to think the Union had a chance.

The Union left fully engaged.

The right at risk of being outflanked.

The Reb outflanking move succeeded.  The Union being green also turned out not to have much fight in them (as you'd expect).

Brave colonel taking one for the team.

Game played really well.  I much prefer the brigade size for 15mm, but like the improvements to the Fire and Fury rules in the regimental version. 28mm maybe better for depicting regiments.

In checking the status of the Fire and Fury rules I came across this post dated 30 June 2014 from the game designer, Richard Hasenauer:

If I were to redo Fire and Fury, there would be temptation to make changes using some of the game mechanics developed for the regimental version. The old brigade game was published 24 years ago and you can add four more years to that before it had a name and was still in development. Hopefully over the years we've learned a few things about game design that could improve upon the old version. Some of the things I'd want to change are:

1. Rate brigades separately for unit effectiveness (fresh/worn/spent) and experience (crack/veteran/green). I might even be tempted to add a fourth experience rating called "experienced" for brigades that have fair mix of green and veteran units.

2. Add double quick movement rate and use a fixed movement rate based on terrain type instead of prorating.

3. Expand weapon types to at least Early War and Late-War Union and Confederate, or perhaps an even greater level of detail for weapon types. I don't know how much detail would be more popular.

4. Use the regimental version of the fire combat table where there is a greater chance becoming disordered depending on the experience level of the target unit. I also like the Galling Fire combat effect where a unit loses a stand if already disorder. The old no effect from double disorder was annoying.

5. Fight with your best unit when determining modifiers in charge combat. Stop using the -1 for each stands lost from fire during the charge and simply base that charge modifier on the unit's effectiveness level at the moment charge combat is being resolved.

6. Add victory conditions for heavy casualties, greater losses and key positions lost. The heavy casualties level can be by division or corps.

These are a few of the changes I'd make. I also realize you can't have all of the detail of a regimental game. Also, speed of play has always been an issue with playing both versions of Fire and Fury. Are there changes that can be made to speed up gameplay and still be able to recreate a historical battle with near historical results? I don't know.

Redoing the brigade game has crossed my mind. Just not decided if I should take that path, or more important, if my circle of friends, who contribute their time and ideas, are willing to go there with me. They might be needing a break from the ACW.


That seems pretty spot on to me.

2 comments:

  1. Excellent post Mark - as you know we do very much enjoy RFF in 28mm at the club. Your figures look sensational.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Carlo. I need to invest in the ambulance/hospital set by Blue Moon.

      Delete