I like the boiled down scenarios from the book but the last time I tried the rules I wasn't impressed. Dale has got me thinking that I may not have given them a fair shake. So I decided to try them. Dale had been discussing an ancient game and, no longer having ancient armies (I can't believe I just wrote that after 45 years as an ancient's player!!), I grabbed some 16thC Scots and English and used them with the ancients rules.
The army selection gave the English (Blue Army though dressed in Red) 4 infantry, 1 skirmisher, 1 cavalry and the Scots (Red Army though dressed in White) 3 Infantry, 1 skirmisher and 2 cavalry.
The scenario has the Scots arriving en masse at the start of the game except that all units arrive on the single road so get stacked up. The English start with two units with another pair arriving on each of turns 5 & 10. To complicate things there is an impassible hill and a wood which only the skirmishers can move through.
I had hoped that the Scots would roll more skirmishers so that one could flank the English while the other ran fast and nabbed the town which is the objective. Having only rolled one, I sent it to the town.
What followed was a prolinged melee with the dice favouring one side then the other. English reinforcements arrived in time to restore the line and retake the town.
At least in the English counterattack the dice favoured one side over the other through the whole short fight. If the dice hadn't rolled English 5's and 6's vs Scots 2's and 3's the outcome of the game would have been different with the English being too damaged to hold out later if indeed they had had time to break in.
So what did I think?
Well, it was fast, actual playing time was not quite 1/2 hour. In that time I made something close to 100 die rolls and made perhaps 6 or 8 decisions, all important. Since each die roll counted, there was some tension that built towards the end of the game when a few good rolls by the Scots would have reversed the decision.
On the whole, the rules are better than my original assessment. They aren't my cup of tea and I still have some objections on the historical side, for example, most units are allowed one and only one tactic although in many wars many, not all but many, unit types had a choice of tactics and all arms forces are not allowed if using the lists. With those exceptions, when it comes to how the rules play, they work and whether you enjoy their style is a matter of taste.
I decided to reset the table and play the scenario again later using a different period and rules but that's another post.
