Men Who Would be Kings question

[vtsaogames]

I’m getting ready to run my first game with these rules Thursday afternoon, New York time. It will feature my long overlooked 28mm French Foreign Legion, Senegalese Tirailleurs and pack mules against Old Glory Arabs. Most of the Arab infantry have the fieldcraft trait, which allows them to go to ground and not be targeted by enemy at long range. The rules say they can remain this way by choosing stand to as their activation afterwards. I gather this means that if they fire, they are no longer gone to ground? Most of the Arab infantry has this trait and I’d hate to mess this up. Thanks in advance.

It's never too late to have a happy childhood

[Deleted User]

That’s the way we play it. I remember there was a lot of discussion on this point & I don’t believe the rules are clear on it. We tried a mechanism where the Mahdist rifle units who’d Gone to Ground were allowed half their number to shoot & remain in cover. It made them way too powerful. I did think if you did this & limit their range to Short it might emulate the “sniping” of some Native armies.

BTW you’ll see we regard the rules as a spring board for any mods we deem suitable. I believe this was Daniel Mersey’s concept.

 

donald

[vtsaogames]

Thank you, that’s very helpful.

It's never too late to have a happy childhood

[Deleted User]

Not a problem.

If you find you’re into “tweaking” the rules, I’ve found TWW to be a very helpful sounding board for my, no doubt, wacky ideas.

 

donald

[vtsaogames]

I also posted this on the Lead Adventure Forum and got the following tweak:

“We house-rule it that certain troop types (Boers, Pathans etc) with fieldcraft can go to ground and then fire at half effect (‘sniping’)while remaining GTG.

However, they may still be fired upon in the opponent’s turn after they fired (at both long and short range) but needing 1 more hit than usual to inflict a kill. So, Pathans hunkered down in stone sangers and sniping at long range will only suffer one kill for every 5 hits inflicted on them (2 for long range, 2 for hard cover and 1 for GTG).

Pinned units stay GTG and cannot snipe. Units Attacked while GTG fight at half strength (we’ve always assumed there’s a missing ‘with’ in the 4th bullet point on p21)

It does encourage historic tactics on both sides – Brits on the NWF would engage with artillery and then storm up the hillside with fixed bayonets for a good reason.”

In any case, I’m not going to monkey with tweaks while introducing the rules to my buddies. First thing is to see if the lads cotton to the new rules.

It's never too late to have a happy childhood

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