Rules, rules, rules

With about a corps a side painted for the Napoleonics and the first division of Bavarians on the painting desk and well advanced, I have been thinking about rules. A couple of goes with Polemos Marechal de Empire have been OK and I like aspects of the rules, but other parts seem a bit clunky and lack the elegance of a really well tought out mechanism. I also like Grande Armee, but it is a bit complex for a club-night game, even in its streamlined fast play version available from Sam Mustafa'a website. It still relies on rosters and unit strength points, something that Polemos manages to avoid.

I have decided to go with a hybrid. From Polemos I am lifting the Tempo system and the movemment, terrain, combat + morale mechanics while from Fast-Play Grande Armee I will lift the bulk of the command and control. Having drafted out a playsheet this all seesm to hang together well. I have removed the skirmisher influence from the Polemos combat mechanic and instead used this for a skirmisher phase for the tempo player (like in FPGA). I have also merged the bombardment rules for both sets to get a mixed version. Obviously, as both rules are copyrighted I won't be publishing any detailed information about them, but if anyone wants to get hold of Polemos and download FPGA then you'll be able to follow most of what I've done.

I think the distances in the rules may then need a bit of a tweak as Polemos seemed to crawl along at times - perhaps more accurate, but as a game it felt a bit unfulfilling. Hopefully this can all get a run-out next week at the club.

...and then I can re-write it all again!

cheers

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