QUESTION 1: What is the scale in the game, ground, figure, time?
ANSWER: There is no particular ground or time scale. You could say that 4” = 100 yards which would key the musket range to 200 yards, but the game was set up to play well on a 6’ x 12’ table. The Mexican/American TO & E was approximately a 1:20 ratio.
QUESTION 2: If one of the bonus cards is drawn does this allow a brigade/battery to move again, or is it something that can be used as a "passive" card, to delay acting?
ANSWER: It allows a brigade to move again even if it has already moved. The commander-in-chief determines who gets the bonus card. Players are encouraged to beg for the card. There are no passive cards, however, it sounds like it might be fun to do it that way. Let me know how it works out!
QUESTION 3: For artillery fire it is one die per figure (so a 6-gun battery has six figures). I roll the first six, look for mis-fires, then roll the remaining dice again? This means that if there are no mis-fires I would be rolling twelve dice with the above battery?
ANSWERS: The “misfire” concept was invented by Larry to reduce the effectiveness of ranged artillery fire as opposed to cannister fire. You would roll a 6 mis-fire dice for a 6 gun battery (3 guns & 6 gunners). Mexicans would discard any dice that were a result of 1 or 2. Americans would discard any dice that were a result of 1. Then the remaining dice for that battery would be rolled again to see if hits occurred.
EXAMPLE: A Mexican battery which has been reduced to 5 gunners because of casualties would roll 5 mis-fire dice when firing on an American unit which was out of cannister range. The dice results were 1, 2, 4, 5, and 5. The dice with results of 1 and 2 would be discarded. The results of 4, 5 and 5 are of no matter except that they were NOT 1 or 2. Then these three remaining dice would be gathered gently into the palm again, a small prayer said, and re-rolled to see if casualties occurred. Note that IF the Gringo target unit WAS IN cannister range, we would not worry about mis-fires. The above 5-man Mexican battery would just roll 5 dice to see what hits occurred.
QUESTION 4: What points should the units of the MAW have and what do they misfire on?
ANSWER: I am not certain what you mean by “points”. Mexican Batteries mis-fire on 1 or 2. American batteries mis-fire on 1.
QUESTION 5: What are your recommendations for formation appearances? What constitutes a line, column, square, etc.
ANSWER: We use 8 stands for Mexican infantry units. We call 4 across and 2 deep a line. Anything deeper is a column. You can group them any way into a square or rectangular formation and call it a square. Cavalry is the same except they do not form square. American volunteer units are organized the same as the Mexican units. American regular infantry units have ten companies so 5 across and 2 deep would be a line.
NOTE: If you mount the figures in 2-deep ranks on stands instead of our single-rank stands, then lines would be one deep by however many stands in the unit wide. Columns would be anything deeper than that.
QUESTION 1: How does charging work? Is each charge and melee resolved as they occur or is there a process? We were playing where the charge was declared and the unit moved into contact, stopping 1" away.
ANSWER: The charging unit should stop at 1" from the target unit and close combats are fought after all movement is finished and all fire done and all morale tests done. The "target unit(s) may not move UNLESS they test and pass a morale test after testing command response when their move card is drawn. If this morale test is passed, the "target" unit may move or change formation. If this morale test is failed, the "target" unit routs no matter what the actual dice roll was.
Note that if the "target" of the charge does pass morale and moves away, the charging unit gets to use any un-utilized movement distance at that time.
QUESTION 2: Another gamer proposed that charges should be done the instant they occur, that is the unit moves to within 1" of the unit, the defender may fire, the attacker checks morale and if he passes the defender checks, then melee (whereby other units within 4" of the defender may support). This is resolved before drawing a new card.
ANSWER: I have done this and it worked pretty well. It slowed the game down a bit but it was a BIG game. Probably would be fun.
QUESTION 3: Regarding melee, stands are fought on a 1-1 basis with> extra stands ganging up on others. Now is melee fought in one round, or several?
ANSWER: Each side picks one stand which is matched with the enemy and the die is rolled for each stand. The winning stand stays in place and the losing stand is moved "to the rear". If the losing stand lost the die roll with a "1" it loses 1 casualty. if the losing stand lost the die roll with a "2" it loses 2 casualty. A new stand is moved up to fight the victorious stand and the dice are rolled again.
Sooner or later, one side runs out of stands, all of them having fallen back "to the rear". At that point, the side which is out of stands has lost the close combat. It then tests morale, a pass allowing a fall back move and any failure being a rout. The other side has won the close combat and all of it's stands (less any casualties incurred by losing close combat rolls on a 1 or a 2) occupy the position. After all close combats have been adjudicated, then winning units are eligable for bonus moves.
QUESTION 4: We still cannot figure the role of command response with higher echelon commanders. Since they don't have any actual units to move. I assume that their response roll would be for their personal movement only.
ANSWER: The lowest level of commanders on the field (usually brigadiers) are the level normally used when testing command response. However the presence of a higher ranking officer supercedes the lower officer's command control.
EXAMPLE: A brigade of 5 infantry regiments' move card has been drawn. The brigadier is within command range of all his reigments, but the divisional commander is also within range of three of the units. Two command rolls would be made. One for the divisional general's effect on the 3 units he is within 12" of, and then a second roll for the units under the command response of the brigadier only. This is so simple to pick up if you can see it in action, but "deucedly difficult to describe, old boy!"
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