Rules. Rules and more rules.

     Gamers have rules. Usually lot's of rules. The collection of rules is sometimes as large the collection of miniatures. I do have many, many rule sets. Some are older than my children, Some were played many times, some were used only once, and some, were never played at all. You just know when you look at a set of rules that they are not what you are looking for. After gaming for over 50 years, you just know when a set of rules aren't what makes you want to play. I understand these are games, but I feel the need to "feel" as if it is a simulation of actual events.

     Back to the English Civil Wars, and my EPIC armies. There are a few rule sets out there for this period, and a few more for the general period of Pike and Shot. I have several EPIC sets including the Napoleon set. I found a rule set from TFL/Reisswitz press, General d' Armee, by Dave Brown. I liked the idea of orders in the set. Each commander has so many orders he can issue, but these are not set in stone. Which means that not every battalion will actually receive orders and be able to do anything. So you have to figure out which battalions will  get an order. I liked that, it seemed real, added a bit of uncertainty and made you have to actually think about strategy and tactics.                                     I looked for rules that had a similar type Orders section for the ECW. Many do have Orders, but lack the chance the orders will not be received. I bought a few, okay maybe more than a few. But none read like I wanted them to. Then, in my search I found myself at a web site I like League of Augsburg. The main gist of the rules and figures is not a period I game, though it is close. I do like a rule set they produced, Donnybrook. It is a skirmish rule set for the period of muskets and pikes, though you could adapt them easily for many periods. The mechanic that is different is the dice. A D6 is for common troops or green. Then you go up a D for each level of expertise, D8, D10, up to D12 used for leaders. I played quite a few games of Donnybrook. I liked them. 

At any rate, I also saw that the League was releasing a set of rules called Beneath the Lily Banners. Version 4. Again a period after the ECW. But I remembered I had a set of Beneath the Lily Banners V3, abut it was called The War of Three Kings/Beneath the Lily Banners. Which itself was a revamp of Beneath the Lily Banners 2, the main change was the inclusion of some of the mechanics from Donnybrook, i.e. the die system. I can deal with that. I got my hardcover set of BLB3 and read through them. (It had been a while). There it was, the ability to issue orders, and perhaps not being able to give orders to every battalion. BINGO! I really like that part. You can even use miniatures as couriers to show which battalions do receive orders. Now there are orders that do not need to be issued, Shoot, Defend, Retreat. so battalions are not defenseless without actual orders.

    So, off I go now, getting the Parliament Forces painted and ready to go. Yes, I need terrain also.