Reply To: Is the AWI best served with our current crop of rules?

[eyedeedeeParticipant 29xp 1]

Personally I reckon that for AWI (like many other conflicts) the variation in potential scenarios and scale of operations (let alone terrain types and local variants) kicks  the “One rule set to play them all” idea out the window. Most wars are like this, but AWI is an extreme example of this (for the Black Powder period). Hence any system that tries to have one set of rules to cover everything sets itself up to fail – and anything for AWI which is just a variant on Napoleonic or 7YW is definitely short-changing the buyers….

To reflect the war the rules (like WW2 and good Napoleonic rule sets) have to change to reflect different types of fight, different theatres, – AND the vital changes that occurred as the war progressed. For a start any rule writer needs to look at the “score sheet”*, the reason for the individual results, and adapt the rules to suit. SOME historical battles SHOULD be almost always unwinnable for one side (I never have an issue with that anyway, as most of my games are solo).

(*E.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_Revolutionary_War_battles)

It sounds as if British Grenadier is out of a similar stable LFAAS. British aggression is fine and historical. British success ditto – where circumstances are equal, in a set-piece battle, a lot of the time. But do the rules reflect the above score sheet – or the actual methods used for success in different theatres/time periods..?

As for me, I’ve never found a “perfect” AWI rules set, and I don’t believe one exists to cover the whole of this complex conflict. Some approximations are better than others; but that’s all they’ll be, so we have to compromise  – unless we’re prepared to do the research/writing/tweaking ourselves…