Twilight of Divine Right

My copies of these two books arrived yesterday. 'Twilight of Divine Right' is an adaptation of 'Twilight of the Sun King', but pitched at the 30 Years War and English Civil War. It's a self-contained set of rules; the core mechanisms are the same as Sun-King, but it has its own chrome and troop-types. I've skimmed through the book, and it looks like the authors have made some attempt to clarify some of the areas of Sun-King that weren't that well explained. A surprisingly useful change is that the morale test factors are grouped by troop type, so there are fewer multi-clause modifiers involving cavalry and infantry exceptions to untangle. There are some odd layout errors though; in one case a short rules-section seems to have been inserted into the text for a longer section, making for a confusing flow. And I've found a few typos as well, the most serious of which is that the text for the -2 factor for having an enemy in the rear is simply a copy of the flank factor text.

The rules include two scenarios, for the 1622 Battle of Fleurus (a 30YW scenario featuring 'conventional' pike & shot units against experienced Spanish tercios), and the 1644 Battle of Cheriton. They also include a system for randomly generating ECW armies, which look adaptable to other rules and does a nice job of reflecting changing unit quality, equipment, experience and fighting styles.

The second book, 'By The Sword Divided' is a volume of ten scenarios for Twilight of Divine Right. It features the battles you'd expect - Naseby, Edgehill, Marston Moor and both Newburys - as well as a few later ones from Ireland and Scotland - Knocknanoss, Winwick Pass and Dunbar. I've read through them and the setups seem clear and the terrain achievable on even the most modest tabletop (a bugbear of mine is scenarios with terrain so complicated you'd pretty much need to create specific game-board for it). They also look easily adaptable to other rules.

If you've read this blog you'll know that I kind of have a love-hate relationship with the Twilight rules. They are a clever set with some great ideas, let down but not being half as clear as they could, and should, be. However even if I never get around to playing the actual game, these booklets are useful to me in their own right though, both in terms of the scenarios and simply because it's helpful to see how elements of a conflict are translated into actual rules.