We were working on a English Civil War edition of the Canadian Wargamers' Journal and were very unsatisfied with the selection "out there". Both the editor, Keith Martens and myself, felt that there was no single boardgame that captured the unique quality of the Musket and Pike era. Specifically, no boardgame attempted to catch the interaction between musket and pike. Infantry were merely infantry and as such, could have just as easily been from the Napoleonic era or even the American Civil War, Miniatures rules, I pointed out did a far better job of reflecting the trade-offs involved in presenting a formation's muskets or advancing with the pikes. Keith agreed but pointed out that miniatures like Forlorn Hope and 1644, focused exclusively On 3mall unit actions: a regiment or two of foot, a company of horse and the odd skirmish formation. No miniatures set attempted to deal with musket and pikes on a level that would allow the recreation of Marston Moor, Edgehill or even the limited numbers at Nasbey. We ended by listing the qualities that we felt such a 'grand tactical' set of rules would have. Formations infantry units would have to conform to formations, much as Napoleonic rules sets require infantry to adopt. One formation would enhance firepower (muskets forward) another would be beneficial in melee (Pikes forward) and one would offer a balance. We later added column for speed of movement, This would test the players' abilities at choosing the right tactical formation depending on circumstance and geography. Cavalry had to be a "battle winner" but only when used in the proper situation. Too many rules, we felt, simply made cavalry the "sledgehammer" on the battlefield. Whoever gets his cavalry 'stuck in" first wins, In such games there is hardy any reason to even deploy infantry or artillery on the game table - there only cannon-fodder (in this case cavalry-fodder). Keeping a cavalry reserve only caused your "battle winner" to be out of the battle. Cavalry could easily win a battle, in our rules, but only when deployed in the correct situation and at the correct time, Frontal charges into the front of massed pikes were to be avoided. Having the cavalry come in "just the right place and time" (on the flanks and rear, when the infantry was pinned to its front) would necessitate our rules having a good deal of command and control problems, Command, in that a leader could not get his whole army to do everything at once, and Control, in that once in battle there should be no guarantee that the troops, especially the cavalry, will carry on the way in which the leader wishes, Once we had outlined the priories of our rules there was only one thing left to do - write them. Sometimes, I just throw together" some old mechanics from some other games - not with the expectation that they will produce a good game, as much as for the need to have something to work with, We started Great Battles of World War Two by playing Panzer Blitz on tabletops for example, and then worked from there. In For God, King and Country I started with the movement and command mechanisms of our other gunpowder rules sets - initiative rolls and action cards. The artillery and musket fire rules from Habitant and Highlanders had always worked well, so I threw that in and the melee sequence from Flower of Chivalry had always had a good back-and-forth feel to it, so that went in as well. Some rules sets need years and years of tinkering to got the mechanisms to work "just right", others seem to fall together by themselves. For God. King and Country is of the latter category. The diverse parts of my "Frankenstein" worked together, perfectly, Musket and artillery fire was predictable and methodic; Melees were a much riskier proposition, but one that could offer quick and rewarding dividends (like when you charged with "pikes forward) and the movement and action cards introduced the uncertainty and commander quality that we prefer in our CWG games. Our first priority was covered by the very inception of th~, rules. Flower of Cb:valry demanded that each stand be given a melee number, We simply gave muskets "1's" and pikes more (depending on quality). Units melee with their front rank, so if you have your muskets forward when you are caught in a melee, then you are in trouble - rolling for a bunch of I's. On the other hand, if you can stand back and fire for a few turns, your "muskets forward" guaranty a constant rate of hits until the target withdraws, charges or is broken. The brittle nature of cavalry was handed by limiting them to only three figures per stand, When they fall, they fall hard. To encourage them to wk the flanks and rear of the infantry we assigned them a penalty of -2 for frontal assaults on' infantry and gave them the advantage of not allowing the infantry to change facing or formation once in contact. An infantry unit caught on the flank or rear is in big trouble, indeed, Finally, we made infantry the basis of winning For God. King and Country, This made sure that the cavalry would have to turn inwards and defeat the main body, instead of running hither-and-yon gobbling up victory locations like a crazed "pac-man". Finally, there came the question of control. No student of the English Civil Wars can the conclusion that the key to victory was in keeping CONTROL of one's victorious cavalry. How many times did Prince Rupert win the battle at I o'clock by vanqu;~:hing the Parliamentary horse to his front only to lose the battle at 2 when his cavalry raced off the battlefield in pursuit of the enemy horse or plunder ? We solved this by putting in an extra morale roll, or control roll, ff you like, Once a cavalry stand has been in melee it must roll for control EACH and EVERY TURN afterwards. Failure means the stand will attack the nearest enemy (a good reason to keep a reserve line of cavalry so the enemy horse can turn on your infantry) or charge straight ahead if there is no such target. Because this test is made every turn, gamers tend to not fool around with their victorious cavalry. If a cavalry stand passes the control test they turn and face it towards the middle - where it will be eventually needed -- immediately! One or two moves straight ahead can and will take the valuable 'battle winner" right out of the battle. Virtually all of this was in place for the first playtest of For God, King and Country and worked so well that we have made very few changes to the rules. We had to add scenario rules, of course, like the Irish brigade having only one shot at Tipper-muir, and rules to cover speciality units (highland clans and forlorn hopes). In the end we did lower the melee power of cavalry, to allow for more grinding of the infantry, in the middle (infantry formations were our first priority, remember). However, essentially the basic mechanics to the game did not change, Shows what happens when you set your goals first. Back to MWAN #100 Table of Contents Back to MWAN List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 1999 Hal Thinglum 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