Post by daivid on Aug 26, 2010 12:55:28 GMT
Hello chaps (and chapesses, if any)
I played ancients using Tony Bath's rules about forty years ago, and I still have my copy of Featherstone's War Games with them in, but I never knew about P&P until very recently. Can anyone give me a concise idea of how different they are from the rules in Featherstone?
Tede
****************Reply by Scott Johnson on March 26, 2010 at 1:42am
Well, I have just reviewed my copy of Peltast and Pilia (thanks to John Curry Publishing) and I have found that the Tony Bath rules found in Donald Featherstone's War Games differ greatly from those of the former. I see that P&P is evolving toward the Wargames Research rules that dominated the 1970's and 1980's with emphasis on weapon types and lots and lots of different outcomes. In short, complexity is in the offing. The Featherstone version provided my younger brother and I enough entertainment and confusion (aided by a bit of quaffing) for us so we were quite satisfied with them. I'll leave P&P for those who wish to excel in open competitions.
*******************Reply by Matthew on March 26, 2010 at 3:32pm
I would agree with Scott's observations about the differences as well. It is clear that the P&P rules are much more "evolved" in a number of ways.
I really like Tony Bath's rules as presented in the Featherstone book. I've been wanting to use them for a convention game for years, I just haven't gotten around to it. So I couldn't wait to buy the P&P book. I'm very glad I did, the book has far more in it than just the rules, but I think I would be more inclined to use the version in the Featherstone book than the full-on P&P rules.
My first reaction to the rules in Featherstone's book was that they were made for individually based figures given how combat plays out. P&P is not seemingly made for individually based figures, they use an element-based system that, while I think is appealing, has some interesting challenges to folks with troops based only using WRG standards. The different formations actually require a different number of figures per base, even though the unit has not changed. For example, Open Order is 3 figures to a base, while Extended Order is 2 figures to a base, and a light missile type unit could adopt either formation at various points in the game. Similarly, the rules in the Featherstone book make no mention of formations leaving the width and depth of the formation up to the player. P&P has set formations which in many ways is "better." The odd thing is that even in P&P, troop loss appears to be by figures, not by bases unless I am reading that incorrectly which is entirely possible.
The "Combat Engine" and, more or less, the "Morale Engine" are very similar at their core in both sets, although more complex in the P&P rules. For example, counting figures and rolling a number of dice dependent upon the number of figures for combat, etc. are a part of both sets. There are more details in the rules for these engines in P&P. One of the appeals in my opinion are the Morale rules which have different outcomes depending on reason for the check and type of unit.
All in all, I tend to like simple rules so I prefer the ones in the Featherstone book after reading both. That said, there are some nice additions in the P&P rules. For example, in P&P there are "wrap around" rules for units that are wider in melee, and I always thought there should be something like that in the rules in the Featherstone book. In some ways there are probably fewer "discussions" about a rule during a game with the P&P rules (assuming all players have read them) as there is less gray area in this version. However, the P&P rules have a lot of details that are not necessarily intuitive nor do they follow a general rule mechanism that you can fall back on if you forget a rule. I believe you would have to play these rules several times to really get a sense for the sub-rules that you would need to remember existed. My guess is that the first few games of playing the P&P rules you would go back after the game and read the rules again and say to yourself, "darn it, we forgot about that rule!" several times before being able to remember them all.
So, for a convention type game or a game at a club where everyone hasn't read the rules, I would go with Tony's rules in the Featherstone book. They are easier to explain and easier to grasp I think. But, if you have a playing partner that likes the P&P rules, I think many enjoyable evenings at home playing these rules would be quite enjoyable.
Matt
***************Reply by Daivid Barnsdale on March 27, 2010 at 9:56pm
The bit where Tony talks about elements is very misleading - I too interpreted it to mean that the rules were not for individually based figures. But remember that the rules were originally published before WRG7 and the readers of the time would take individual basing for granted. What Tony was really talking about was recommended frontages. He took it as read that as well as the multi figure bases, players would have in addition some individually based figures.
***************Reply by Matthew on March 28, 2010 at 2:07am
That does make some sense about it being before WRG7 and the assumption would be individually based figures. But when thinking about it in this way, I am even more confused.
What is confusing to me is the stuff on the top of page 20 where he writes "bases should be 60mm x 20mm for infantry, 60mm x 40mm for cavalry, ..." and then under that he has the listing for the different formations for the units, "Extended Order 2 figures per base, Open Order 3 figures per base," etc.
I was interpreting these passages as literally Tony meaning a "base" of 60mm wide by 20mm deep and not a "frontage."
So, in other words, the way I read it was that a base has a 60mm frontage regardless of the type of formation the unit is in, there would just be a different number of figures on the same size of base depending upon the formation (a la WRG basing).
I also came to this conclusion because further down where he writes about the different formations all of them regardless of how wide and deep they are, and how many "bases" make them up, have about 20-24 figures in the unit. This lead me to believe that he was talking about literal "bases," all being of a specific size that he mentioned earlier in the paragraph. This would mean that the frontage of an Extended Order unit if it is only 1 stand deep would be 600mm (he recommends 10 stands wide), while the frontage of a Close Order unit (which he says is 3 "trays" wide by 2 deep) would be 180mm.
You are correct, though, I am reading these paragraphs through the filter of the WRG basing knowledge and that may be leading me to make incorrect conclusions.
Could it be that the earlier version of the rules, the one in the Featherstone book, was preWRG7 (or even better, pre Joseph Morschauser's 1962 book where trays of soldiers were the norm even though there was no variation in the number of soldiers on a tray for the type of unit like in WRG basing), but this later version called P&P is actually post WRG7, and hence the change in language to "bases" and/or "trays?"
I have no idea.
Matt
Daivid
I played ancients using Tony Bath's rules about forty years ago, and I still have my copy of Featherstone's War Games with them in, but I never knew about P&P until very recently. Can anyone give me a concise idea of how different they are from the rules in Featherstone?
Tede
****************Reply by Scott Johnson on March 26, 2010 at 1:42am
Well, I have just reviewed my copy of Peltast and Pilia (thanks to John Curry Publishing) and I have found that the Tony Bath rules found in Donald Featherstone's War Games differ greatly from those of the former. I see that P&P is evolving toward the Wargames Research rules that dominated the 1970's and 1980's with emphasis on weapon types and lots and lots of different outcomes. In short, complexity is in the offing. The Featherstone version provided my younger brother and I enough entertainment and confusion (aided by a bit of quaffing) for us so we were quite satisfied with them. I'll leave P&P for those who wish to excel in open competitions.
*******************Reply by Matthew on March 26, 2010 at 3:32pm
I would agree with Scott's observations about the differences as well. It is clear that the P&P rules are much more "evolved" in a number of ways.
I really like Tony Bath's rules as presented in the Featherstone book. I've been wanting to use them for a convention game for years, I just haven't gotten around to it. So I couldn't wait to buy the P&P book. I'm very glad I did, the book has far more in it than just the rules, but I think I would be more inclined to use the version in the Featherstone book than the full-on P&P rules.
My first reaction to the rules in Featherstone's book was that they were made for individually based figures given how combat plays out. P&P is not seemingly made for individually based figures, they use an element-based system that, while I think is appealing, has some interesting challenges to folks with troops based only using WRG standards. The different formations actually require a different number of figures per base, even though the unit has not changed. For example, Open Order is 3 figures to a base, while Extended Order is 2 figures to a base, and a light missile type unit could adopt either formation at various points in the game. Similarly, the rules in the Featherstone book make no mention of formations leaving the width and depth of the formation up to the player. P&P has set formations which in many ways is "better." The odd thing is that even in P&P, troop loss appears to be by figures, not by bases unless I am reading that incorrectly which is entirely possible.
The "Combat Engine" and, more or less, the "Morale Engine" are very similar at their core in both sets, although more complex in the P&P rules. For example, counting figures and rolling a number of dice dependent upon the number of figures for combat, etc. are a part of both sets. There are more details in the rules for these engines in P&P. One of the appeals in my opinion are the Morale rules which have different outcomes depending on reason for the check and type of unit.
All in all, I tend to like simple rules so I prefer the ones in the Featherstone book after reading both. That said, there are some nice additions in the P&P rules. For example, in P&P there are "wrap around" rules for units that are wider in melee, and I always thought there should be something like that in the rules in the Featherstone book. In some ways there are probably fewer "discussions" about a rule during a game with the P&P rules (assuming all players have read them) as there is less gray area in this version. However, the P&P rules have a lot of details that are not necessarily intuitive nor do they follow a general rule mechanism that you can fall back on if you forget a rule. I believe you would have to play these rules several times to really get a sense for the sub-rules that you would need to remember existed. My guess is that the first few games of playing the P&P rules you would go back after the game and read the rules again and say to yourself, "darn it, we forgot about that rule!" several times before being able to remember them all.
So, for a convention type game or a game at a club where everyone hasn't read the rules, I would go with Tony's rules in the Featherstone book. They are easier to explain and easier to grasp I think. But, if you have a playing partner that likes the P&P rules, I think many enjoyable evenings at home playing these rules would be quite enjoyable.
Matt
***************Reply by Daivid Barnsdale on March 27, 2010 at 9:56pm
The bit where Tony talks about elements is very misleading - I too interpreted it to mean that the rules were not for individually based figures. But remember that the rules were originally published before WRG7 and the readers of the time would take individual basing for granted. What Tony was really talking about was recommended frontages. He took it as read that as well as the multi figure bases, players would have in addition some individually based figures.
***************Reply by Matthew on March 28, 2010 at 2:07am
That does make some sense about it being before WRG7 and the assumption would be individually based figures. But when thinking about it in this way, I am even more confused.
What is confusing to me is the stuff on the top of page 20 where he writes "bases should be 60mm x 20mm for infantry, 60mm x 40mm for cavalry, ..." and then under that he has the listing for the different formations for the units, "Extended Order 2 figures per base, Open Order 3 figures per base," etc.
I was interpreting these passages as literally Tony meaning a "base" of 60mm wide by 20mm deep and not a "frontage."
So, in other words, the way I read it was that a base has a 60mm frontage regardless of the type of formation the unit is in, there would just be a different number of figures on the same size of base depending upon the formation (a la WRG basing).
I also came to this conclusion because further down where he writes about the different formations all of them regardless of how wide and deep they are, and how many "bases" make them up, have about 20-24 figures in the unit. This lead me to believe that he was talking about literal "bases," all being of a specific size that he mentioned earlier in the paragraph. This would mean that the frontage of an Extended Order unit if it is only 1 stand deep would be 600mm (he recommends 10 stands wide), while the frontage of a Close Order unit (which he says is 3 "trays" wide by 2 deep) would be 180mm.
You are correct, though, I am reading these paragraphs through the filter of the WRG basing knowledge and that may be leading me to make incorrect conclusions.
Could it be that the earlier version of the rules, the one in the Featherstone book, was preWRG7 (or even better, pre Joseph Morschauser's 1962 book where trays of soldiers were the norm even though there was no variation in the number of soldiers on a tray for the type of unit like in WRG basing), but this later version called P&P is actually post WRG7, and hence the change in language to "bases" and/or "trays?"
I have no idea.
Matt
Daivid