...The Story So Far

The story so far...

Well, a dozen games of ECW Baroque played over the last month or so ranging from 600pts to 1200 pts.

Each game has been terrific in its own unique way.

The system is simple enough that my eight year old son is writing lists and has played ten games and won five of them.

Everyone I've introduced to it has really liked it. Two have decided to play it exclusively now for ECW.

Plus points....

Gaming Narrative. Each game feels like a story. For my gaming group this is very important. The games seem packed with incident and drama and are never boring. During a game our players seem to constantly reference what's going on tabletop to incidents in the actual War/s. We really like this.

Lack of Control. Always a plus point with the Impetus/Baroque system for our group. Generally, we don't go for rules where everything is pretty much a given. The mechanisms have bags of Clausewitz's 'Friction'. You can deploy everything 'properly', do all the right things and still end up with 'egg on your face'. It's not a random thing though. You play the percentages in your head to minimise disasters but there is always a possibility that something unforseen will happen, either way. The Special Characteristic re-rolls and Reaction system help. Horse seem to be able to move like lightning if double moving, charging, pursuing then reacting to someone else's move. It all feels very Edgehill/Marston Moor. To us, this is a good thing.

Reaction System. Very simple but effective way of dealing with situations that arise. Much better than the old ZOC system in impetus which always seemed to have involved lots of discussion and thumbing through the rules to constantly check, even after 50+ games. We particularly like the way the reaction system engages inactive players. Almost a game within a game of if, when and how to react. Almost like a staring competition at times.

Special Characteristics. Seem to add bags of character to the game which all helps the narrative. The re-rolls introduce key moments of drama. We found now that a score of 3 or 4 is not a good thing as often either end of the dice score often has a key effect. My kid loves the re-roll system having cut his teeth on X-Wing and so is very used to the idea of what you initially roll is not necessarily what you score. This has to be a good thing for introducing younger players to the hobby.

....Negative Points. Or rather point, as there's really just one.

Massed Reiters. Still seem cheap. Our Royalist players HATE them. Our Parliamentarian players LOVE them. The pros far outweigh the cons of being Massed. Fresh, in close combat, Massed Reiters are a real handful, especially if they haven't discharged their Point Blank pistol. Tactically they seem a fabulous way to meet HRH Gallopers and blunt them before allowing one's own Trotters to get in there and finish them off. The way they can fire (occasionally twice) in between movement is HUGE in the right circumstances, often resulting in the enemy command being broken as a result of them 'moving the goalposts'. I'm toying with the idea of making them have a VD of three points instead of two at the very least.

All in all a fabulous set of rules where two games will seldom be the same.

Congratulations . Now please crack on with Impetus 2 using similar mechanisms and Late ECW lists....

Nice summary and I'd broadly agree with it for the ECW (which is all I've played as well). I'd mutter something about worthless guns though

I do note that others have raised questions over the power of Swedish foot against Tercios - similar issue of interrupting fire allowing constant shots against disordered units, thus picking away the VBU in a somewhat unrealistic manner.

Cheers mate.

I agree about guns but played a game yesterday Zipp where artillery (B) made a massive contribution firing and opportunity firing at HRH at close range devastating them.

That said, this is the first game in 13 I think they've actually hit something.

The other issue I have is that the rule book fell apart within 10 days. I've now got it in plastic sleeves. I'm not exactly heavy handed though it did involve a lot of thumbing to check things in the first week.

Ah well the law of large numbers and all that

Oh that's not good!

Mine is fine, perhaps you got a dodgy copy?

Zippee wrote:Nice summary and I'd broadly agree with it for the ECW (which is all I've played as well). I'd mutter something about worthless guns though

I do note that others have raised questions over the power of Swedish foot against Tercios - similar issue of interrupting fire allowing constant shots against disordered units, thus picking away the VBU in a somewhat unrealistic manner.

After another game perhaps I just had a very lucky day rolling sixes.  So far it is Late Tercios 2, Swedes 1.  The +2 MM on top of impetus & VDU 7 is just too much if they get close.  I also agree that becoming slow is not an equal trade for +2 MM.  All massed units should be +1 VD to VD 3 or even 4 like the Early Tercios.

I still believe that there should a distance limit of 2 BU  for reactions.  Reacting to units 4-8 BU away that are causing no immediate threat  just seems too much.

I'd say right now that biggest need is more army lists so we can test across a wider spectrum of armies.

We've had games where heavy artillery have blown away tercios and at reasonable distance(over a number of turns) but most games they haven't played a major roll. Feels about right all up

What went wrong Fat Wally with your copy?
It is the same product as Impetus and never registered issues. Spiral bound allows to put the pages in plain.
Was damaged? Spiral bound not fixed properly?

Hi Lorenzo.

The spiral bound got bent a bit in the post from Italy I think. Then the pages just seemed to wear where they joined the spiral, and fall out. All within the first ten days. It did get thumbed quite a bit but I'm not that heavy handed.

I have Impetus and it's still fine after all these years.

Not asking for a replacement or anything, just saying.

Kev