The guys at the Goulburn Valiant Stormer’s are throwing around some ideas for the big project next year, a few of us think be 30 years war could be a possible front runner, as the warlord plastics lend themselves nicely to the period (still some discussion and dissention in the ranks as to basing conventions though), so with that thought a number of us have started to play test some rule sets. On Sunday Dave and I (we both normally play Warhammer English Civil War) had a game using the Free “Victory without Quarter” rules.
Using my ECW figs we each had a C in C, one cavalry general , two pike and shot blocks, one trotter and one galloper horse unit, one gun and a clubman for the parliament and highlanders for the Irish Royalists.
The game was played over 4 hours, I really liked the rules as I found they could be a little unpredictable and I liked the different factors for troop types and the card idea, although I think that VWQ will be a little slow for those players wanting to get two games in on a club day. VWQ still gave a satisfactory result and possibly would speed up after a few games; however I don’t think they would handle much more troop wise, two more pike blocks possibly and another regiment of horse each would slow it down even more. My ECW army is a mix of different figures, the Irish Montrose army are mostly Eureka, the pike and shot, horse, a mix of Old Glory, Perry and Eureka Highlanders and a Foundry gun and crew, On the parliment side, all Foundry and Perry except for the clubmen who are Warlord metals.
As the boys want to play a more grand tactical game I think VWQ will not be suitable for what we have in mind, although I would happily use VWQ for ECW. The next rule set we will play test is the Baroque set from the guys who wrote impetus.
Cheers
Matt