Pony Soldiers is a new set of skirmish rules designed to cover the period from roughly 1865 to the turn of the century. Written primarily for 15mm figures the groundscale is 1 inch equals ten feet. The time scale is roughly fifteen seconds for a turn of combat. The author recommends that a player control not more than six figures. The format is professional and examples are presented for many of the rules. Instructions are given for creating characters, each of which have certain skills such as brawling, coolness, melee etc. There are point costs to developing the characters with the average for a beginning character being 16-18 points. The authors have also provided a variety of pre-generated characters so that you can get started right away. The game mechanics revolve around skill challenges. A General Skill Challenge(GSC) is used to attempt actions while a Resisted Skill Challenge(RSC) is used to determine observation or damage from firing. Missile combat is straight forward with players making Weapon GSCs and comparing them to a to hit number on the chart. Melee is resolved in a similar manner There are additional rules for quickdrawing, brawling and artillery. Also included are a set of short but interesting campaign rules as well as a bibliography and reading list. Four appendices list organization information, historical data and names of famous Indians and outlaws. Sample character sheets for copying are provided along with summary sheets. These rules appear to be very playable and would lend themselves to a variety of skirmish scenarios. At $7.95, they are not a major investment for a nicely printed set of rules. The rules are available from StarLance Publications, 50 Basin Drive, Basin City, Washington 99343 More Reviews Errata: That Deadly Ground Rules Mirliton 15mm 15th Century Italian Command Bicorne Miniatures 25mm ACW Essex 15mm ACW Band Musicians Dixon 25mm Seven Years War Prussians Front Rank 25mm Jacobite Rebellion Imperial Enterprises 25mm Marlborough Connoisseur 25mm AWI GHQ 1/2400 WWI and WWII Ships Bull Dancer 25mm Minoan Mycenean Quality Castings 15mm Pz VIe Tiger I Architectural Heritage 15mm and 25mm Buildings 20mm WWI German Trench Mortar and Crew Brittania Miniatures 20mm WWII US Infantry Washington's Wars Rules Frontline Skirmish Rules 1900-1950 Pony Soldiers Indian Wars Old West Rules Swedish Colors and Standards of the Great Northern War 1700-21 Danish Army Museum Booklets GHQ WWII TO&E Files 1,2,3 Poltava Osprey Campaign Series From Golan to Sinai Command Post Quarterly Rapid Fire WWII Rules WWII Orders of Battle How to Win Wargames DBM Army Lists 1071-1500AD Napoleonic Uniform Books Battles of the American Civil War 15mm ACW Flags Scale Specialties WWI Ship Names Back to Table of Contents -- Courier #67 To Courier List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1995 by The Courier Publishing Company. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com