AWI –what rules do you use? Part Two. Skirmish Rules --Old West Gunfight, Sharpe's Practice, and Donnybrook. 

My collection of American Revolutionary War Jaegers, German riflemen and some of the best light infantry of the war

What rules do you use for American War of Independence gaming? Personally, I'm a fan of the "different rules for different needs" school of thought. And with that in mind, it's nice to have a usable set of skirmish rules for the period. Of course, no one wants to do skirmish gaming ALL the time, but it is fun to do sometimes. It is a nice option to have. For this reason, I always base my figures individually, placing them on movement stands for larger scale battles.

There are many different skirmish rules suitable for the period, especially if you play games without rifles

. Many French and Indian War rules would work easily. I don't claim to be an expert on them and won't pretend to be.

I've also heard many good things about a set of rules called Sharpe's Practice.  While intended specifically for the Napoleonic era, they can he used for any conflict of the "horse and musket era and are intended to be played with about 30 to 120 figures per side, with each figure representing a single man (person?) usually but not always grouped in units. There are two editions, and word is that the second actually is an improvement over the first edition, rather than mere tinkering motivated by the desire to force players to buy a new edition of their favorite rules. Alas! I must confess, however, I have not read or played these rules. Some day I hope to invest in them, but at approximately 50$ for a set, I plan to wait a bit before doing so, at least until I get tired or need a change of pace from the rules I am currently using (Songs of Drums and Tomahawks, which will be covered in more depth in the next installment in these series.)

The newest Lulu.com edition

Moving forward in history, sometimes western gunfight rules, especially those that are intended to also cover the Alamo and Texas War of Independence period.   For instance, if one is a fan of the classic "Old West Gunfight Rules, by Mike Blake, Steve Curtis, and Ian Colwill, be assured that everything one could possibly want in a set of AWI one on one skirmish rules is included. On the other hand, it definitely needs to be mentioned that these rules while much loved are considered slow and clunky by today's standards. They are highly, highly detailed and games often move very, very slowly. Each turn of the game represents about a second or so of real time, and a figure running at a full speed sprint moves four yards per turn, or in game terms four centimeters or four inches depending on the ground and figure scale the players have chosen. If a character walks, then they move only one yard, AKA one inch or centimeter. Reloading a musket in these rules takes 18 turns and reloading a flintlock rifle takes 30 turns. While a classic and much loved set of rules that brings back fond memories to many older gamers, they are rarely played these days. When I have played them, normally movement is plotted several turns at  time with players interrupting the flow of things as necessary to resolve key events one turn, one slow, single turn at a time. Are they good rules? Classics, but classics that show their age. If nothing else, the level of detail is great for providing inspiration or usable statistics for other games as in one or another of the many editions, almost anything one could wish for was included some place in the rules, be it gatling guns, steamboats, buffalo stampedes, bowie knives, bullwhips, or pretty much anything else a gamer might wish. And while none of these might be needed for an AWI game, well, what if you want to include a rattlesnake, or a drunkard, or a mounted cavalryman with a lance, or a canoe? Well, they are all in here somewhere in some edition.

Today they have been reprinted  and can by ordered at lulu.com - I am proud to own this new copy, and keep it proudly in storage near my other two copies of these rules, the early one from Lou Zocchi Gamescience and the later one from Newbury Rules.

The Lou Zocchi edition from long ago.
A welcome alternative to Boot Hill, back
in the day.

The Newbury Rules Edition, a two
volume set. Pretty much everything here is
in the Lulu.com edition

Donnybrook is another popular set of skirmish rules that, more or less, arguably, claim to cover this period. Okay, actually, they say they cover 1660-1760, but, again, if one leaves out rifles, then the rules can be used for AWI conflicts. Now . . . let me be clear here. I hate Donnybrook, hate it with a passion. These are absolutely not rules I wish to use, but I have used them to play an AWI game, and therefore include them here. Now the rules are beautifully packaged with lots of fluff, lots of pretty pictures, and lots of bells and whistles and brief descriptions of all kinds of real and imaginary groups and coalitions and special characters who can wander across the table and so on and so on. And, yes, a lot of people have a lot of fun with them, and, yes, if they are having fun and hurting no one who am I to suddenly pronounce that they are having fun the wrong way, but having said all that I must say, I really hate these rules.

The advertisements say: "Besides leading government troops into battle, you can choose mobs of armed peasants, murderous brigands, religious fanatics, sinister cultists, ferocious highlanders, or tribal natives. The book includes the rules, faction lists, weapons primer, random events, seven scenarios, a thrilling battle report, a period and theater guide, and a double sided playsheet. The finished book is 112 pages and contains more than 150 awesome photographs by Mr Hilton!" 

While these claims are true, they are padding, all padding. The rules are mostly very pretty, very brightly colored packaging wrapped around a very, very thin set of rules. Second, and this is my real complaint, they cannot accurately recreate the style of warfare of the period or recreate historical battles.

Some Iroquois marching down a road in a game of Songs of Drums and Tomahawks

First, unit sizes are determined by the quality of the unit, not by any actual historic number of troops present. Which means good luck trying to use the rules as written without modification to represent a historical battle.

Second, and more importantly, the rules do not allow one to use historical tactics and plans that would work in real life during the period depicted, do not work in these rules.

Therefore I remember in the game we played, I had a unit or two of Butler's Rangers and a couple more of Mohawk warriors and we were supposed to raid and attack a village somewhere in the Mohawk Valley of western or central New York. Each unit had a number of regular combatants. (I remember a minor verbal squabble with my opponent when he saw that my "indian shaman / spiritual leader" was a figure of a Catholic priest but he let it stand,)

An obvious strategy would be to march down the road, units in a column muskets loaded and ready to fire. The opponents was to more or less meet them and defend the village.

So, off I went, trying to move a group of three or so units down a road. Alas! Screeching halt. Units activate one by one in these rules. When a unit is activated it could choose between a few different actions, the two most common being move or fire. Which mean I could not march my units down the road in a column. They had to leap frog one over another, moving ahead as activated, the rules do allow units to pass through one another fortunately.

Inevitably one of my units got to the head of this strangely leap frogging group of units (I was reminded of the 1980s US standard infantry tactic of bounding overwatch where one unit advances while another covers it, then they reverse roles, and move forward, one after another. HOWEVER, this is NOT an eighteenth century style of combat.)

Now naturally, when the opponent's units got their chance, they opened fire on the nearest unit, the one closest to them on the road. Of course, I asked, "Can I return fire?" and was told that I could not do that until my unit was next activated. Which put me in the awkward position of having to decide whether to stop all movement down the road (the strange leap frogging movement) and leave them out of range or have the rear movements move up where they could then take fire but not return fire.

Which is an interesting dilemma but one that does not resemble eighteenth century warfare as I understand it at all. If I recall correctly the game ended with a pair of giant melees as my forces and his wound up in hand to hand combat. I forget who won, but if someone asks, tell them I did.

After the game, I whined and complained about how the rules did not resemble 18th C warfare at all and was told "that's because they are a skirmish game. And look at them, see the rules for Scotsmen in Panama and Satanic cults? Isn't that cool?" Yeah, whatever. People have told me over the years that sometimes I am too negative and when other people are having fun, I should not criticize what they are doing if it doesn't hurt anybody.

So, in conclusion, a lot of people think Donnybrook is fun, and when they are using it to have fun, they aren't hurting anybody.

There . . . wasn't that much nicer than reminding people with how much I hate these rules?

I'm a good boy, it seems. 

Donnybrook Rules, while not able to recreate historical combat,
they don't actually hurt anybody and some people like them even if they shouldn't

Another shot of my 28mm Jaeger collection

Next time, more on this set of rules.

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