Gridded Horse & Musket Rules Recommendations

[Whirlwind]

Hi,

I am looking for a set of gridded horse & musket rules. These could be generic horse and musket, or for any period between the WSS and the Napoleonic Wars. The number of grids has to be ‘relatively’ small (maximum of 15 x 15 or so, I think), with no more than 20-25 units per side. It has to be intuitive enough so that players not familiar with it, but familiar with wargames in general, could pick it up and play effectively in a short period of time. The games would probably be played like e-mail Chess or on Whatsapp, but need also to be suitable for a Teams or Zoom call or somesuch. It would ideally also be quite suitable for solo play. The basic game would have to be for units representing battalions/regiments, but if it scaled up to a unit representing a brigade (and down to a company) that would be even better.

What are the contenders, and what comments do you have about them?

[hammurabi70]

Command and Colors: Napoleonics

Played it over ZOOM during Covid crisis.

www.olivercromwell.org; www.battlefieldstrust.com
6mm wargames group: [email protected]; 2mm wargames group: [email protected]

[Konstantinos Travlos]

<p style=”text-align: left;”>Check this website out</p>
 

https://www.hexesandminiatures.com/pike-shot-squares-baroque

[Tony S]

I’d suggest Portable Wargames, by Bob Cordery.

https://www.amazon.ca/s?k=portable+wargame+cordery&crid=1YNJ4HA3P7W8R&sprefix=portable+wargame+cordery%2Caps%2C312&ref=nb_sb_noss

It’s somewhat akin to One Hour Wargames in that they are quite simple, and therefore very easy to modify or build upon, but are grid based.  If memory serves, Bob originally used a chess board to develop them.  Larger squares are of course possible.

There are a number of period variants available, together with a simple solo modification (that I suggest should be used with two player games as well).

They’re also available through Wargames Vault if you want a cheaper flutter at them.  I’ve got most of the various rules.  There are some clever ideas in there, even if the writing style is less enjoyable than OHW.  But for my tastes, the game itself is more interesting and better than OHW.

(Except for the OHW scenarios – they are a fantastic resource that can be used for many different rules including the Portable ones!)

[Olaf Meys]

You could look at TtS! For King and Parliament rules at https://bigredbatshop.co.uk/collections/all/wargames-rules

http://mainly28s.com
wargames review site...

[Thaddeus Blanchette]

Might I suggest Horse & Musket? It’s played on a 13×9 hexgrid, but you could easily make it square if you want.

We get slapped around, but we have a good time!

[MartinR]

It is easy enough to convert many rules to grids as well, all Neil Thomas’s rules (OHW, Simplicity in Practice, Napoleonic, Nineteenth Century and ACW) work fine on a grid. I also converted Horse, Foot and Guns to a grid.

Otherwise you have the obvious ones, Portable Wargame and Command and Colours and it’s numerous variants, plus Mike Smiths Grid Based Wargames although I find the latter a bit too like Morschauser for my tastes.

I do a lot of remote gaming and grids just make them so much easier.

 

 

"Mistakes in the initial deployment cannot be rectified" - Helmuth von Moltke

[bobm]

I’m a big fan of square gridded games.  RFCM (Peter Pig) rules set me off down the track although they’ve generally replaced the sets featuring a grid.  Games play much faster is my experience.

I’ve also written sets myself.  Dark Ages & ACW were my earliest efforts and now have a set for the year 1700 under playtest.  Early signs are good, the 4 of us who have played so far have enjoyed the experience.  It is deliberately DBA/Chess-like in play.  Not quite as “gamey” as Commands & Colors.

TBH I haven’t come across a published square gridded horse & musket system…if I had I might not have bothered to start on my own!

 

There's 10 types of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who don't.....

[Whirlwind]

Thanks for all the comments and recommendations so far.

[Author]

Posts