Eric, Chuck, Arron and I a few weeks back managed to pull together a trial game of Osprey’s Land of the Free. We used our hodgepodge of 28/25mm lead that we have been building across the group.
Eric setup approx a 5’x6′ table and had some new pretty 28mm buildings to put into the fray. They were Miniature Building Authority stuff which always looks first rate.
The rules offer a nice way to put together a points based action to acquire tiny, small, medium or large sized elements as well as artillery and cavalry. The rules go out of their way to be flexible so the definition of what is the range from tiny (a section, a platoon) to large (company 2 companies battalion) is sort of left up to the designer of the scenario. Likewise the exact number of figures of left for you to choose what works. This seemed to actually work quite well.
I decided to field my War of 1812 figures. With my points I picked up a couple of medium elements and some artillery. We all agreed on number of figures per element so like a medium element was 12 figures, large 16 etc.
Likewise Chuck who was on my side picked up a couple of a tiny elements, a large element and then some artillery.
Here Aaron maneuvers across a field and sets his artillery.
So let’s talk about how it plays.
Command in this game is critical. There are several command ratings which influence both command range as well as how many command points a commander can issue. An awful commander will have d3-1 command points per turn, while a great commander will have d3+1.
We rolled up our commanders and as luck would have it, Chuck had a great commander and mine was just down right poor. Our overall army leader was likewise a real turd.
Another important aspect is morale. These tests are taken on 2d6. The morale grades for a unit range from Fit, Shaken, Exhausted and then Shattered. As written once you fall out of Fit, you can’t improve back up to it, best you can do is get up to Shaken.
When the game starts, one side gets initiative and becomes the active side. The active general decides which group commander to activate. The group commander typically will have maybe 3-4 elements under his command. When active then the commander and his units will perform actions and the commander might expend his command points for those units within his command radius. Note that a commander actually MOVES first, then he doles out orders for his troops, so it’s possible for an element to move out of command and then be out of range for the benefits of the commander.
So each element has generally 3 maneuver actions and 3 combat actions. Movement are done first, then combat. Maneuver actions are things like move forward, oblique, backward, turn, column into line and line into column, charge, reload, remove a disorder marker, cross a linear obstacle, or store a maneuver action. The store is handy for use as a counter charge.
Combat actions are fire a volley, fight, or store. Store is good for the purposes of a snap fire, in the case that a unit marches across the threat one.
Then on top of that group commanders or army commanders can use their command points to force orders onto elements. These forced orders are the same as I’ve mentioned above and then a few specials. Regardless in order to force an order, you have to pass a morale check. O in the midst of fire and have lots of minuses and your commander is yelling at you to get another volley off .. and o your commander sucks because he’s awful and the men don’t like him? Yeah… kinda hard to make that die roll…. as it … should … be. Fail the roll and your element gets a disorder.
The special commands are things like encouraging words (ie regain morale), wait for my command (convert a command point to give a element a stored combat or maneuver command), field promotion, inspirational charge, concentrated volley, or rally.
Eric and Aaron’s forces at the start of the game.
Shooting range bands are 12″ for muskets and 18″ for rifles. Cannon are either 36″ or 48″ depending on the size of the gun. They do have mortars and rockets for war of 1812, but we didn’t field any.
Fire is conducted by rolling some number of d6s and a 5 or a 6 is a hit. Generally you roll two dice plus the number of action dice but cover, open order, long range, point blank, flank, disorder might add or remove dice. The number of action dice is dependent on the size of the unit or the type of artillery. If you roll two or more 1s across all the dice, it’s called a ragged volley and you lose a hit (if you had one). If you roll 2 or more 6s, it’s a punishing volley and your target receives a disorder marker.
With hits, you’d think you’d just knock off figures. Well in this game you don’t. Each element has a “discipline” rating which is based on the size of the element. Tiny infantry is a 1. A small is 2. Medium is 3 and large 4. Once you accumulate a number of hits equal to your discipline rating, you take a morale test. As written if you pass the morale test, you still degrade a morale level, discard all your hits but stand fast. Fail and you are forced to withdraw, lose a morale level but you still discard the hits. If you take more hits than your discipline rating, it’s a further -1 for each value past your rating on your morale check.
Remember that special Rally order? If you use it and you’re successful, you’re able to either discard your disorder markers, remove all current hits, or if you have no hits, upgrade it’s discipline level. You can’t get back to fit tho.
The American line late in the game, looking across the field to their opponents.
So for our first game, things were playing a bit slow. The Osprey books while they have a quick reference section in the back, they really need to get into the habit of issuing a condensed quick reference on a single sheet of paper!
The game plays well and I think this is one our group is at least at the stage of initial crush and might indeed fall into deep love as we love the period between seven years war and 1812. We haven’t had a good size game yet to say we’ve given the rules a great shake out for flukey things but it sure looks promising.
The game is a bit counter happy so if you hate table clutter, you’ll be gritting your teeth.
With our play test, Chuck and his excellent commander did quite well, the extra command points allowed him to get the jump and press an advantage. Cannon we found were pretty effective, maybe overly so such that, in the march up on an open field, you can punish the enemy. Ummm wait that feels pretty historical. 🙂 Still the thoughts of the group after the night’s game was that artillery probably could stand to be toned down.
Chuck’s tiny units were also very brittle, they could take a volley or two but would find themselves suffering quickly.
On my side, with my poor command, it was obvious that unless the dice failed him, Eric was probably going to crush me with even numbers. My command couldn’t keep up.
We plan to play another play test next week so stay tuned for another write up.