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Tuesday, August 15, 2023

Muskets and Springfields

When I first saw these rules announced, my thought was, "these look interesting."  Played on a grid with no figure removal, Muskets and Springfields (M&S) looked right up my alley.  Now, with my experience with the recent hit and miss nature of books and rules released from the seemingly factory-line quick publishing of some companies, I am a bit wary.  This time, I threw caution to the wind and placed an order, sight unseen.

Having played many rules (see for example the different rulesets played in 2022 alone at Year in Review: Games Played) playtested others, and read many, many more rules across more than 50 years of wargaming, a read from cover to cover with a return to reinforce concepts often provides a good grasp of the mechanisms.  Including a QRS close by as reference helps too.  Hopefully, a core design philosophy can be extracted as well.  

After reading the rules through twice with several returns to reread crucial sections, I had many questions.  Questions arose not only in the rules, themselves, but to the author's understanding of the period.  Given these reservations, I went in search of reviews.  One of the few reviews found was Colin's impression at Carryings On
Up the Dale.  Colin enjoyed the rules with no mention of the mechanisms I found troubling.  Next up was the author's (Nigel Emsen) Design Notes.   

Both Colin and Nigel provide an overview and feel for the flow of the rules.  I make no review of the rules, themselves.  Rules' metadata can be found elsewhere.  As I read the rules, stopping to reflect often, there were many facets that simply either did not make sense or were (in my mind) in error.

Where to begin?

Let's start with the title, itself.  Muskets and Springfields is an odd choice for a title.  First, Springfields were muskets; rifled muskets but still muskets.  Perhaps Smoothbores and Springfields would have been a better title choice?  Second, "...because M&S sits at the operational level, there is no separation between smoothbore and rifle armed small arms" why this title at all, then?  With a ground scale of one square equaling 300 yards and no distinction between smoothbore and rifles, the title has no relevance.

This brings up my second point.  Operational level?  With a ground scale of 300 yards, basic maneuver unit (BMU) of a brigade, and all of the scenarios depicting small ACW battles or only portions of large battles, the rules are tactical not operational.  Perhaps our definitions of "operational level" differ but to me, operational invokes campaigns not refighting portions of battles.  The inclusion of capturing and spiking guns is a bit much when players take roles of Army down to Division command. 

Even setting the basic unit in the game as a brigade is not without ambiguity.  In the six scenarios provided, this basic unit seems to vary.  In some scenarios the BMU is a brigade.  In others, a brigade is composed of multiple regiments.  Still in another, a brigade is composed of a number of stands.  There is no consistency that a BMU is, in fact, a brigade.  Perhaps, "brigade-equivalent" may have been a better term?

Speaking of terminology, each unit carries a Morale State that can be in one of three states.  These are either "Unknown", "Steady", or "Nervous".  A unit's Morale State is not known until it first takes damage.  The author calls this rule, the "fight or flight" rule.  "Fight or flight"?  Why not use the period expression of "Seeing the elephant"?  Even the phrase of "first takes damage" is misleading since the next section in the rules under Attrition states that a unit must receive at least two hits in any one turn to trigger this event.  Another oddity is the use of the term "Shooting and Scooting" for evading.  I have never read of any ACW units "shooting and scooting" as a charge bears down.  Is the use of a deck of cards for activation really a "bag-pull" system?

What about troop types? Any challenges there?  Yes! Zouaves (and Native American warbands) in melee are easier to hit (-2 modifier) and fight with 4D10.  Regular infantry melee with 6D10s.  Why?  Oh, Zouaves and warbands are immune to Morale Tests!  Makes me wonder if the author knows what a Zouave was in the ACW.

In shooting and melee a unit rolls a specified number of D10s looking for successes but nowhere does it specify if the roll must exceed or fall under the target number.  Do the modifiers adjust the Base Number or the die roll?  The answer can be worked out by studying the modifier table but this should be explicit to avoid confusion.  Similarly, nowhere is it mentioned how a melee ends.  Does the losing unit retire from the square if neither is eliminated?

Finally, the scenario maps have issues.  Given that this is a grid-based game, the maps carry no grid.  Typos are frequent.  At Cedar Mountain, one of the Confederate commanders is shown as "C. SWINDERS" and a farm is shown as "Crillenden."  Good grief.

First impressions are that this work requires more development.  When one ambiguity surfaces, I question that one exception.  When ambiguities abound, I begin to question everything.  There may be some good ideas in here somewhere but getting to them is a chore.

75 comments:

  1. Am not familiar with M&S but you make some odd observations indeed. Why should zouaves be penalised? They were regulars as much as any other unit. Maybe their colourful clothing made them easy targets? Still doesn't make sense……
    Are the mechanics any good at least?

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    1. Thanks for your thoughts, Mike! Unless I am reading the chart incorrectly not only are Zouaves easier to hit but they cannot throw out as much firepower as regulars. Makes no sense to me. To test the mechanisms, I would actually have to make the effort to put the rules through the paces in a few games. I am not sure I have the fortitude for that exercise.

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  2. Interesting summary and there are some things in there that would frustrate me. Too many obvious typos always undermine my confidence in a set of rules. I find I approach a new set of rules wanting them to be a ten out of ten with a lot of faith placed in the author actually knowing what they are doing, and then it is a matter of deducting points along the way as things begin to annoy me or don't make sense.

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    1. Yeah, there is plenty to find frustrating here. Like you, I tend to give the benefit of the doubt until cracks begin to appear. Then, the work may receive a bit more scrutiny. I always wish for a '10' too but those are quite elusive.

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  3. Hmmm, another miss on the Helion front it would seem:(. I remember reading about these rules when they first came out and IIRC the impression given was similar to your views Jon.

    I'm not sure what they are trying to achieve. I could probably take Bob Cordery's 'The Portable Wargame' and apply period tweaks to the core rules and come up with a half-decent game if I wanted to play on a grid that is.

    For the ACW BPII with the GH! supplement tweaks ticks all the boxes for me and for larger engagements, Bloody Big battles does the same. So for myself no need to go looking for anything else.

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    1. Thanks, Steve! I never saw a review when they were released. I wished that I did although confirming in your own mind is a useful undertaking.

      While I have settled into rules that I enjoy, discovering what is unseen beyond the next horizon always calls.

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  4. Shoot and scoot is more familiar to me as a tank combat technique not an ACW term. I bought one set of Helion rules (the ECW set) they are somewhere on my bookshelves but I have no idea where and I don't miss them. In fact there were aspects that I really couldn't make sense off as they seemed to be bath tubbing unit sizes without saying that they were doing so. I didn't even bother to play a test game.

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    1. "Shoot and scoot" is a modern terminology to me too. It is a shame when under-developed rules are rushed to market. To me, this lack of rigor undermines confidence in the current offering as well as future publications.

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    2. Shoot and Scoot as a term is first used in the Caucasian War (1830-50).

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    3. Interesting provenance for the phrase.

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    4. Also remember Tsar Alexander II backed the Union and provided military support, which may have include offices to support the union army. the tactic was mainly used for Artillery and their supporting infantry.

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  5. It is a shame that the buying / reading experience of this volume just merely reinforces your stated wariness of such things.

    In the UK, we get new releases of boardgames around 4-6 after them being released in the U.S. I spend that time hanging on to every comment that I can find from U.S. customers, to see whether it a game that I want to throw good money at.



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    1. The shame is that these products do not see more development and testing.

      There is an old saying that if a cat sits on a hot stove, that cat won't sit on a hot stove again; nor a cold one.

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  6. All to familiar experience isn’t it?! I’ve finally stopped buying new rule sets completely having found a couple I like or have written myself for the periods I usually game. The thought of the almost inevitable disappointments inherent in new rule purchases has actually put me off exploring different periods and genres in the past.

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    1. JBM, this is becoming much more commonplace as time passes. With books from some of these companies, one wonders if editing and proofreading are tasks from a bygone era.

      Like you, I have a stable of rules I enjoy and readily dabble in writing my own. Bad rules would not deter me from exploring new periods. Heaven forbid!

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    2. Helion books are 'notorious' for their variable quality. I heard through the grapevine a few years ago that they don't pay for an editor for their books (this may have changed since then) which would explain the variability issue. I have some that, although having lots of really useful info, are nigh on impossible to read:(.

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    3. From one of the authors, so direct from the horses mouth so to speak. IIRC the cost was £500 to have each book edited, so quite an outlay for relatively modest sales I would have thought,

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    4. Perhaps modest sales are a direct result of lacking an editor?

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  7. Sounds like wasted money and a lesson learned mate. Which is a shame when one has pushed through one's typical weariness surrounding new offerings due to past piss poor experiences.

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    1. Wasted money? More like sunk costs. If anyone reads my opinion here and these words provide reason to pause for reconsideration before purchase, that is worth something, no?

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    2. You are a smashing leader of the community Jon. Not many others would look at it that way

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  8. A good warning to the curious there Jonathan.

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  9. I have a high bar when it comes to ACW rulesets, simply because I already have a good go-to and many more that don't get played. Based off this alone I wouldn't pick this up unless I played it somewhere else and had a blast doing it.

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    1. Stew, I tend to collect rulesets too hoping to find some useful nugget buried within. Sometimes, I get lucky. As mentioned above, I have a collection of those rules I play regularly and a HUGE pile that rarely (if ever) see an outing. If you play these rules, report back whether you had a blast or not.

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  10. You make some very good points. Ones I find myself nodding along to.
    As far as ACW rules for high level actions (I.e. army level) have you ever tried Altar of Freedom Jon?
    Chris/Nundanket

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    1. Good to have you in agreement, Chris! I have not played AoF. Have you?

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    2. Yes I have. They have some novel mechanisms which take a bit of getting used to, but they seem to really capture that frustration a C-in-C must have felt. Played Gettysburg (the whole thing) with them.
      They’re by one of the guys who does Little Wars TV so there’s probably a video about them on their YouTube channel.
      Chris.

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    3. I really rather like Altar of Freedom it forces the player into a different decision space more akin to that of an actual army general. They editing is first rate and someone clearly spent more time proof reading them than the Helion rules!

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    4. While I have a couple of favored ACW rules, I should look into AoF.

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  11. I virtually never (maybe once or twice) buy commercial rules and I am not particularly interested in the ACW (its alright Stew, sit down and take some deep breaths!) but even I would question why zouaves were WORSE that regular troops - if anything, I would expect them to be better (although I do realise that is probably wrong because, really, they were just standard troops in a different uniform!)
    Sounds like they aren't worth looking at any further Jon!

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    1. Stew’s reputation is becoming set in stone and predictable. You forgot to mention that the ACW is the best CW! There are a number of decisions in these rules leaving me to scratch my head in wonder.

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    2. /takes deep breaths.
      Phew. I feel better. 😀

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  12. Jon, thank you for the heads up on the rules. If you find nothing new or useful in the set, then it is hard to recommend. I would agree with Kevin on the status of Zouaves.

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    1. You are welcome. Of course, your mileage may vary based upon your preferences in rules.

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    2. I am guessing I am "Kevin"...... LOL As to the status of CW - its a matter of opinion.......open to debate :)

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    3. I'd suggest that if anything in the early part of the ACW Zouaves may be better drilled than most volunteers as many of them were formed from "Drill companies" which were a fashionable militia phenomenon in the late 1850's.

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    4. Jonathan,Keith, thanks, too late to catch the auto correct.

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  13. I find these rules a great departure for the button counter rules of the past which put me off the ACW period. If you are playing a linked set of games then the morale status can be carried over. By the way Shoot and Scoot as a term is first used in the Caucasian War (1830-50).

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    1. Thanks, Leslie! Glad to see you enjoy the rules.

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    2. Wikipedia states the tactic as first recorded in the Caucasian War (though, as it references this to a Russian-language history, I doubt the exact term was used) but for artillery. Jon can clarify but I read him as saying the rules apply the term to an infantry evade, which he finds anachronistic.

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    3. ok was original "Shoot and Run (with Purpose)" according to my Russian speaking friends. Run with Purpose sounds like scoot to me [стрелять и удирать]

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    4. Yes, Anonymous, I find the use of the phrase anachronistic as I have never seen this used in ACW writings.

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    5. Leslie, so the original, Russian phrase does not exactly translate as ‘shoot and scoot”.

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    6. Jonathan a lot of words do to directly translate to English, or if they do some of the meaning is lost. Something I have to deal within Kyudo manuals. So I asked a native Russian speaking friend to check the the original source, they came back with the the translate of "Run with Purpose, F**k off or Scoot".

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    7. Excellent researching, Leslie! Very interesting to see an unexpected twist to the post and this conversation. Thank you.

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    8. Leslie, if you wish, please expound on which rules of the past are "button counting" and how you reconcile the classification of Zouaves and how to end a melee in these rules.

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    9. Johnathan "Zouaves in Bright uniforms" are easy to see, therefore could be seen in the smoke of the battlefield. However if you look at a Zouaves group in Melee hit easier and are Medium Units of 4xd10 as to a standard unit which gets 6xd10, however if you have 3 Medium Units that would be the equivalent of two standard units you are rolling the same number of dice. so no real difference between Line troops and Zouaves. Zouaves where often sent to the rear as broken units. and when rushed back were often not the super troops we see in other rules. The guns of the period where very similar and at this scale other rules try to make different rifles have different stats.

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    10. Leslie, I appreciate your answers to my questions. However, to me, this does not make much sense.

      A few comments, if I may:

      1. The rules make no mention to varying unit size. Where are you coming up with a "Medium" size classification for Zouaves? Besides, the combat model is based upon brigade. Are brigades containing Zouave regiments naturally one-third smaller than Regular brigades?

      2. Zouaves are allocated 4D10 in melee while Regulars are allocated 6D10. In shooting, both are given 4D10. If Zouaves are, indeed, smaller units, why is firepower the same as for Regulars?

      3. "Zouaves in bright uniforms" reasoning for easier To Hits make a Zouave brigade 33% more likely to sustain hits than a regular infantry base. Where is the evidence to support this thesis especially at the brigade level?

      4. "Zouaves where often sent to the rear as broken units. and when rushed back were often not the super troops we see in other rules." Where is the evidence of this? Zouaves in the ACW were not super troops yet these rules allow them to auto-pass morale checks. Looks like super-human to me.

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    11. Not got my rule book with me on Holiday.
      1. Unit definition around page 26-27.
      2. Frontage of Units about the same for Line units and Zouaves, is the author reasoning, also better training allowing them to keep up a better rate of fire.
      3. The 5th New York thus suffered the highest percentage of casualties in the shortest amount of time of any unit in the Civil War – of 525 men, approximately 120 were killed and 330 were wounded in less than 10 minutes. also it's 10% modification -1 to hit on D10. 50:50 becomes a Base 60:40.
      4. "The 11th New York was badly mauled during the First Battle of Bull Run in July 1861 as it acted as the rear guard for the retreating Army of the Potomac." take from The History of the Fighting Fourteenth: Published in Commemoration of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Muster of the Regiment Into the United States Service, May 23, 1861. New York: Brooklyn Eagle Press. Also the Civil War Documentary, had a statement from a general Zouaves are good at getting the ladies and not the field.

      This is while not having access to my library and not a ACW scholar

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    12. 1. Still see no reference to size.
      2. If frontage the same and infantry fought in two lines, all muskets are firing in both situations. Smaller unit ought to have less firepower than larger unit. Zouaves were better trained and could sustain a higher rate of fire?
      3. The modifier is -2DRM not -1DRM in my book.
      4. My point here centered on your comment that,
      "(Zouaves)...were often not the super troops we see in other rules." These rules allow them to auto-pass morale checks. Looks like super-human to me.

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  14. In general, I find that your analysis of these rules corresponds to my reaction to many contemporary systems. Most seem to depend, either explicitly or by assumption, on the unchallenged canards of the last two decades about friction and fog of war to excuse holes in the system or to rationalize whatever odd thing is embodied in the rules. We're just being unrealistic to expect a set of rules to cover every circumstance (so the argument goes) and we just want to be the "ten thousand foot tall" generals who can't deal with a bit of ambiguity or chance.

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    1. Ed, you must have read a number of rules’ systems and given this topic some thought to arrive at this thesis about “unchallenged canards” on friction and fog of war. You make a good point on design. I often see abstraction as a much used tool to cover and explain these same deficiencies. Good stuff.

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  15. How did the grid concept seem to work?
    No grid on a map for a gridded game seems, well, lazy in the extreme. "Shoot and Skedaddle" would have been a more period term, as well as a "Seeing the Elephant" test...
    Aside from all that Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?!

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    1. To answer your question to Mrs. Lincoln, we did not stay for the play. We heard it was under-rehearsed.

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  16. Very interesting read Jonathan. I have to bow to your greater knowledge on ACW. Sadly reinforces my view that commercial rules should only be bought after much research on the mechanics and garnering of a range of reviews. I'm not likely to buy M&S but found much to reflect in your observations.

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    1. Thanks, Richard. As with many things where preferences drive satisfaction, your mileage may vary with these rules. For me, I cannot accept the underlying game engine and design theory. This discussion has been useful, though.

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  17. I don't think I own any of the Helion rules sets , defo not this one, so have to bow to your knowledge of the period Jon. I do own plenty of their reference books, which are brilliant.

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    1. The author knows very well how the rules work but conveying that to the reader is difficult when some aspects are taken for granted.

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  18. These were reviewed in 'Miniature Wargames' August issue by Chris Jarvis ( read-through only) and he highlighted that 'variable proof-reading combines with unclear or ambiguous text to make some sections a bit of a puzzle, despite several reads'. So I think you are not alone..
    Writing rules is tricky - I remember my 'Intro to Systems Analysis' training where one exercise was 'write simple and clear instructions for making a good cup of tea'. Not as easy as it might seem!

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    1. David, it provides some comfort knowing I am not the only critical or dissenting voice in a crowd. I see that Helion's website does a bit of cherrypicking on Jarvis' review stating that,

      "....These are useful rules that you could borrow for any period: one particularly helpful one is that units are of 'unknown' quality until first contact, at which point, a dieroll determines whether they are 'nervous' or 'steady'." Chris Jarvis, Miniature Wargames Magazine, Aug 2023

      No sense of the problems you cite.

      Writing is hard. Rules' writing even harder. Having spent a career reading, writing, and editing complex technical documentation, I know this all too well.

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    2. Black Powder has had an 'Untested' option for units since its inception and is a good idea for units that haven't 'seen the elephant' so to speak.

      Writing rules or anything else for that matter is hard as you say. This is where playtesting and feedback becomes so important.

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    3. Playtesting, feedback, and clear and concise writing are essential.

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  19. Interesting review Jon but sounds like they need some work

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  20. Jon I seem to have some issue with posting comments feel free to delete my test 🙂

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  21. Interesting as always, I thought smooth and rifled was the Impetus ruleset for this period? At least that would have been proofread! I haven't got any Helion rules but have heard they're a bit variable due to lack of editing, zouaves getting penalised for wearing bright uniforms does seem odd when you're still firmly in black powder era, but it does sound like tgere are a few anomalies!
    Best Iain

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    1. Iain, there are more than a few anomalies and many head-scratchers.

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  22. Thanks for the review, I might very well have been snared by these as the grid system is appealing to me. Tried to post a comment a few days ago, but not letting me. I'm about to embark on a 10mm ACW project, amoung other things and will be reading your previous posts with greater interest than normal. Cheers Meic

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