Saturday 22 January 2022

With Pike And Musket

 


My book came! The 2009 reprint of Wesencraft's 'With Pike And Musket'. Given various postal issues, four weeks or so from the US to Australia was pretty good.

Anyway, this book was originally published in 1975, and, despite the title, is focused very much on warfare in the British Isles from 1550 to 1650, with a strong emphasis on the English Civil War. I have no objection to this.

It starts with a look at the weapons of the period, then covers the organisation of some of the armies - Elizabethan English, Irish, Scots and then those of the Civil War. It then dives into a series of chapters which build up a set of wargames rules for the period. Finally - and the bit I primarily bought it for - it has scenarios for 27 battles from the period, 20 of which are ECW actions.

The rules are kind of what you'd expect for the time, but are not without interest. They are centred around units having an effectiveness rating from 1-4, which can fluctuate temporarily or permanently during the game, and which affects firing, melee and what passes for morale tests in the game. The 'morale' tests are rolled when you want a unit to move, to charge or to receive a charge, and are a D6 roll with the effectiveness rating added to it. Read the result from a simple table to find out if the unit obeys order, stands its ground, falls back or simply flees for good. It's a prototype of the Fire & Fury system really. As a system I rather like it, although testing for every unit every time it moves could get tedious maybe.

The only gap I found in the rules was what happens after a melee. The rules cover how casualties are inflicted, but there didn't seem to be an assessment of winner and loser or any kind of morale test, implying that units simply fight until one is wiped out. And yet the rules do assume that one unit can force another to rout. But maybe I missed it in my first read-through.

The scenarios look pretty good, and cover a range of battles throughout the conflict; all the big classics are there, and some smaller one too. Unit details are deliberately kept a bit vague, and deployments, within certain limits, are up to the players. I like the simple terrain maps too; almost One Hour Wargames in their minimalism.

This is a fun book to read as well. I'm sure I read some of Wesencraft's stuff back in the day, but as a spotty teenager scouring his local library for any wargames books he could find. As a discerning adult I found the author's style as entertaining as the ideas an information he presented. I especially loved his section of why he adopts alternate moves rather than simultaneous ones.

I'm going to finish with my favourite quote:

"The secret of rule-writing lies in the ability to be able to take a detail of movement. fire effect, etc. study it, stretch it to its ultimate in an effort to cover all possibilities and then to simplify it until a playable rule emerges. So often that simplification is ignored."

8 comments:

  1. Sounds good. I’m sure all your readers are looking forward to you trying out the rules.
    How does the book compare to Donald Featherstone’s “Wargaming - Pike and Shot”?

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    1. I'll let you know the comparison when I get the Featherstone book - I've not read it :)

      Not sure about actually trying the rules - I don't have the individual figures it needs. But I think I can use some of the ideas in them to maybe create a set of my own (or add to existing sets)

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  2. It's very much a book of it's time. Some of the scenario maps are completely wrong according to more recent research.

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    1. Oh, I realised that some of the maps and so forth would be wrong after nearly 40 more years of research. But, at the end of the day, if they translate to an interesting game, I'm not overly concerned.

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  3. It’s a delightful book. I dig it out occasionally just for the pleasure of reading it. I’ve never tried the rules. Too fiddly got my little chaps (10mm).

    I much prefer it to the Featherstone pike and shot book, purely on the style of writing.

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  4. I enjoy Wesencraft above all others. He cuts to the chase like an efficiency expert.

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  5. I've got both and enjoy each for different reasons. If you sent me to a desert island and I could only take one it would be Wesencraft.

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    1. I think I'd choose him simply because he spends 2 1/2 pages arguing for the use of alternate moves, and most of it is explaining why he *doesn't* like simultaneous moves :)

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