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  • in reply to: Wurttemberg Infantry Flags #64552
    Avatar photoBandit
    Participant

    General Slade,

    I’m under the impression the Württemberger’s carried one flag per battalion in 1812+ (exempting the lights and jägers who did not carry banners). The flags did vary some from the first to second battalion in at least some cases because of date of issue.

    WarFlag has examples in their Napoleonic section. I have not verified these against other sources.

    Cheers,

    The Bandit

    in reply to: ESR Napoleonics Games at NashCon 2017 #64271
    Avatar photoBandit
    Participant

    We’ve now posted the game photos from all of our ESR Napoleonic games as well!

    Cheers,

    The Bandit

    in reply to: 'Elastic measuring' and 'Post Move Nudge'…. #63593
    Avatar photoBandit
    Participant

    Also, some rules make it difficult for themselves. E.g. they insist troops are oriented properly, but when receiving a charge, you can turn to the enemy anyway. Or you can start movement in any direction you want. Then what’s the purpose of having exact orientations to start with … ?

    Which is actually just an internal inconsistency in the design philosophy of that rule system right?

    With ESR, we were very focused on trying to provide internal consistency. One can never be sure if they missed a step, but we tried very hard at it and continue to look for errors in that regard. I think part of what helps is looking at the system holistically any time you engage with any problem.

    It is very common for me to speak with another designer – or a player who dabbles in design – who says, “You can just fix XYZ by adding a modifier [or special case rule].” My concern about that type of solution is that it naturally leads to creating a patchwork of specific cases rather than creating a general case to cover the overwhelming majority of eventualities.

    For instance, in our topic here of precise placement, I have seen rule systems that indicate “when in disorder only the stands that make contact fight mêlée”. Seems straight forward enough. However, “disorder” is elsewhere defined as a “general clump or mob of stands”. Well, a clump or mob is not a defined shape, thus, depending on how they are arranged at contact, you will get more or less stands allowed to fight in the mêlée. I have also seen this same issued addressed more holistically in other systems: “In mêlée a disordered unit may only fight with 1/4 of its stands”. This latter rule means that exact placement of the stands is immaterial. Thus, the player can’t “do it wrong” by placing their stands in an inexact manner.

    Cheers,

    The Bandit

    in reply to: 'Elastic measuring' and 'Post Move Nudge'…. #63537
    Avatar photoBandit
    Participant

    We play some skirmish games (The Sword & the Flame), some really tactical games (Guns of Liberty), and some grand tactical games (Et sans résultat!).

    In TSTF it is a bit of a problem because the arc is like 30º or something that no one seems to be easily able to estimate and aiming is per figure, and supposed to be along the point of their weapon – not their base – and because the collection we play with is based on round bases, doesn’t help either.

    In GoL for the most part it isn’t too much of a problem. The bases are square, the arcs – even if not easier measurements – are easier to measure off square bases. We get the same problem there though.

    With ESR we have very little, if ever, any trouble. But, the system doesn’t really penalize or incentivize exactness. The arcs are 45º, the bases are square, and movement rates are fast.

    What I’m trying to illustrate is that it seems that the more precise players need to be in their game play, the more this stuff becomes a problem in my experience.

    Cheers,

    The Bandit

    Avatar photoBandit
    Participant

    My general disposition is that different sized bodies of troops fight and respond differently to pressure.

    As an example:

    A division that covers perhaps a half mile or mile of frontage does not respond to being outflanked in the same as as a battalion that might control 150-180 yards of frontage. While there are several potential opportunities for a division to repel a flank attack by refusing elements to confront it, a battalion has far less time or resources to confront such a problem. Similarly, the methods for putting pressure forward against the enemy vary as the resources do, so a division fights differently than a battalion does.

    To pickup on McLaddie’s point about cavalry, while it was not called ‘doctrine’ at the time, there are definitely elements of what we consider doctrine in terms of how different armies formed, organized, and trained. There is a bit of a joke that while the quality of the Allied cavalry was generally better than the French, the French method was that if the enemy attacked with a squadron, you replied with a regiment, if the enemy attacked with a regiment, you replied with a brigade. Meanwhile, the French had trained to perform mass cavalry actions with upwards of a corps, while the Allies rarely did such, creating an artificial ceiling on how high one side could commonly raise the bet.

    Cheers,

    The Bandit

    in reply to: ESR Games at Historicon 2017 #61329
    Avatar photoBandit
    Participant

    Mike,

    No, that’s not the author of Game of Thrones but rather the designer and publisher of Revolution & Empire, you could also spot the designer of Legacy of Glory.

    Cheers,

    The Bandit

    in reply to: Next Ten Old Glory Napoleonic Battalions #60531
    Avatar photoBandit
    Participant

    Looking good!

    Cheers,

    The Bandit

    in reply to: First Two Old Glory 10mm Napoleonic Battalions #59664
    Avatar photoBandit
    Participant

    Looking good!

    Cheers,

    The Bandit

    in reply to: Rules Support #57729
    Avatar photoBandit
    Participant

    As a gamer…As a designer…

    And I’d agree with all of what Robey said.

    Timeliness of response to inquiry seems so amiss in many cases, we try to reply within a couple hours, I’ll tell people who stop by our vendor booth at conventions that if you e-mail us and haven’t heard back the following morning, we must not have received it. Normally we try to have an answer out immediately upon receiving the inquiry.

    People are asking you about your business and your product, it seems just horrible to make them wait any longer than necessary.

    Cheers,

    The Bandit

    in reply to: Rules Support #57724
    Avatar photoBandit
    Participant

    Speaking from the other side of the counter, we were uncertain what gamers expected when it came to support, some join mailing lists, some seek out dedicated forums, some expect little at all, etc…

    So we try to make ourselves as available as possible.

    To-date we receive and answer questions via the following channels:

    • phone – not common, but it does happen
    • direct e-mail – fairly common
    • Yahoo! Groups mailing list – seems to go in bursts
    • various online forums – none dedicated
    • via Facebook – rare but it happens that we receive a question there

    We also try to provide a lot of supporting material on our website that players might care about, from stuff aimed more at pre-sales questions like 3rd-party reviews, samples of the rules, etc… to stuff you’ll need when playing, like the Quick Reference Guides in various scales and the Second Edition Errata.

    Cheers,

    The Bandit

    Avatar photoBandit
    Participant

    Thank you for the enlightening correction!

    Good to know.

    Cheers,

    The Bandit

    Avatar photoBandit
    Participant

    I’d actually been of the (somewhat uninformed opinion) that Austrian grenadier battalions likely didn’t carry colors as they’d have been withheld by the parent battalions.

    Russian converged grenadier battalions 1810-1815 were of the same basic model and they did not carry colors. The French converged elites (with a notable exception) were of a different model in that they were generally converged in the field and so would not have colors available but were significantly different since they weren’t formed for a campaign or war time. The grenadier division of 1805 did have colors but not French flags and not Eagles. The Prussian converged grenadier battalions (early war 1805-1807) did not carry colors either as they were left with the parent battalions.

    So that was my working presumption.

    Cheers,

    The Bandit

    Avatar photoBandit
    Participant

    General,

    Thank you, I’d looked on the Napoleon Series but had not found the PDF, that will be helpful in general.

    So far it seems the Mayblümel (aka Locher) Grenadiers were the only mixed battalion of grenadiers. I recently did some digging about 1813 (through August) and all the battalions there appeared to be one or the other.

    A few fairly informed people have suggested to me that this may be the one exception.

    Cheers,

    The Bandit

    in reply to: Sexism in Rules? #54297
    Avatar photoBandit
    Participant

    Not terribly long ago one of the Magic: The Gathering expansion sets included a card called “Sex Appeal”, I think it was from “Unglued” or “Unhinged” or something, it was well after I was no longer playing. Anyway, the card has some effect that whatever sex was in least supply at the game received a benefit.

    While it is very, very uncommon to find woman outnumbering men in a game of Magic, it is a neat example of the fact that a rule can be written sex specific to allow either sex equal advantage given the circumstances “on the ground” and thus be sex/gender neutral while being focused on it at the same time.

    Cheers,

    The Bandit

    in reply to: 15mm resin buildings #54257
    Avatar photoBandit
    Participant

    Most of our new 15mm building line is solid, though we are looking at making them hollow. However, the purpose we have in mind is to reduce the shipment cost (a couple of the larger buildings weigh about 2 lbs…), not to provide a void for figures.

    Cheers,

    The Bandit

    in reply to: Kudos to TWW #54206
    Avatar photoBandit
    Participant

    It has been a good year at TWW, I can say that I enjoy the quality of discussions here and their depth more than those I find elsewhere. While posting is less prolific than in other places <cough> Facebook <sigh>, the threads are more focused, less fly-by-night, less politically charged, and overall healthier.

    There are a lot of places to find forums on the internet, but there are very few that offer general discussion forums where discussion actually takes place on a wide variety of subjects, and fewer yet that aren’t full of rhetoric and ill will, not because other places are bad, but because it is a hard thing to create.

    You’ve made a nice place here Mike. I think we’re all better off that it exists.

    Cheers,

    The Bandit

    in reply to: Flames of War Rules 4th Edition. #54013
    Avatar photoBandit
    Participant

    I’m just the messenger……..

    Don’t shoot !!!!

    No worries, “I likely won’t play 4th when I haven’t even really played 3rd” – which seemed to be what you posted – seems perfectly reasonable. I’m just reacting to the concerns expressed that Battlefront is being greedy and that this somehow harms their player base.

    Battlefront (my opinion) is massively focused on profit over substance, but I don’t see this as a good example of it.

    Cheers,

    The Bandit

    in reply to: Sexism in Rules? #54011
    Avatar photoBandit
    Participant

    I think this is a fundamental truth that cuts through much of the chaff. Using gender-neutral (and therefore gender-irrelevant) terminology costs nothing, so the cost-to-benefit is nought-to-something-greater-than-nought.

    Yes. (And thank you.)

    To always write of the player as male suggests, to some at least, that the author thinks of the hobby (perhaps unconsciously) as a boys’ club, which can be off-putting to a subset of readers – including some of us male readers for whatever that may be worth. (And by “off-putting” I mean potentially putting us off the hobby as a whole, not just the book or its author, because the author may well be taken as representative of much of the greater hobby community).

    Yes.

    Ultimately, which is the more professional thing to do? To write of the players as men, or to write of them more generally as people?

    Given that we expect a reasonable degree of professionalism from a rules author in practically all other respects (proper grammar, inoffensive attitude, instructive presentation of the rules, avoidance of overly much slang, avoidance of partisanship vis-a-vis “contested history”, etc), why not this one?

    Agreed.

    Cheers,

    The Bandit

    in reply to: Sexism in Rules? #54010
    Avatar photoBandit
    Participant

    no idea what ‘troll’s mate in 3’ or ‘intro to pub rhetoric’ is/means

    I think Jonathan was saying that the points he was referring to are/were commonly used in argumentative traps used by trolls online and prior to the internet it was used in other venues.

    I’m privileged, let me check my calendar to see who I’m oppressing in the afternoon slot.

    I hear statements like this from time to time from people I know. I don’t know your intent, so I won’t presume it. I do know their intent from having spoken with them, so I will address it. They have used it as a sarcastic statement to indicate that they aren’t oppressing anyone, thus, any criticism or reference to their privilege is invalid.

    The notion that a privileged person is oppressing others is a logical falsehood. Essentially a misrepresentation of the argument being opposed, i.e. a straw man argument.

    I happen to have privilege. It is a matter of happenstance. It really isn’t something I can shed, presuming I wanted to. The problem with privilege isn’t that I oppress anyone, but that other people have less, i.e. they are not privileged. It isn’t that *I* oppress anyone, it is that they are oppressed and a demonstration of that is that I don’t have to worry about their problems.

    Privilege can be practically defined in two clear ways:

    1) Privilege means that a person is more likely to be less screwed than someone without privilege, i.e. There is always someone more likely to be worse off.

    2) Privilege means that a person can deny the validity of someone else’s complain, concern, or gripe, because they themselves do not have to worry about that issue, i.e. Your problem doesn’t happen to me, so I don’t think it is really a problem.
    ______________________

    I think there are larger two issues at play:

    A) Is there an improvement to be made and are there tangible gains to be had from it in the market and community at no cost.

    Yes. And such will require community discussion to take place.

    B) Are there people who oppose discussion of any change, including that of (A) for a vaguely articulated “But what is *their* problem anyway?”

    Yes. And what is problematic is whenever anyone who doesn’t immediately voice agreement with (A) is assumed to be part of (B), that, to my mind, is not useful or practical.

    There’s a good example of someone in this thread, doing “the wrong thing” for a reason that was not wrong: [paraphrased] “We wrote in our own voice and didn’t consider it.” That isn’t malicious intent and it is important it is not conflated with malice.

    At the same time, people who actually are doing (B) have to be called out on it, else the community just participates in willful blindness and ignores positive change.

    This can be difficult and is typically messy.

    Cheers,

    The Bandit

    in reply to: Sexism in Rules? #54003
    Avatar photoBandit
    Participant

    Speaking as a publisher / business owner, there is a practical aspect to this. I don’t know why I’d do anything that might alienate a portion of the potential market while otherwise costing nothing and bothering no one.

    I don’t think anyone can reasonably say conclude that a person who reads a rulebook which uses ‘he’ and doesn’t react is innately “unenlightened or bigoted”, though technically “unenlightened” taken in its pure meaning vs as a simple putdown is correct.

    Nor would I be willing to assume that any author who wrote ‘he’ because the author was male and it was his default should be assumed to have negative intent behind the action.

    I simply think the change of the language will improve the market and community.

    Cheers,

    The Bandit

    in reply to: Flames of War Rules 4th Edition. #53998
    Avatar photoBandit
    Participant

    Hasn’t 3rd edition been out for more than five years?

    I’m not sure how a revision + free updates to owners of the past edition is poor after that period of time.

    And there is always the fact that if not playing in official tournaments, couldn’t a gaming group just keep playing 3rd edition? I play Johnny Reb 2 with our gaming group despite JR3 and Across a Deadly Field having been released. And I play D&D 3.5 Edition with people despite the company being on like 5th or 6th Edition now…

    DISCLAIMER: I don’t even like Flames of War.

    Cheers,

    The Bandit

    in reply to: Sexism in Rules? #53906
    Avatar photoBandit
    Participant

    Of the discussions I’ve read on this subject, this is one of the more interesting ones, it is by far the least argumentative, headed, and distracted of them.

    Good example of TWW.

    Cheers,

    The Bandit

    in reply to: Sexism in Rules? #53773
    Avatar photoBandit
    Participant

    While TWC’s publications use “the player” or “they” as I noted, when referring to historical generals, even generically, i.e. “the Prussian corps commander” we use “he/his” as there were no female generals during the Napoleonic Wars. Often times the Prussian corps commander at the tabletop will be controlled by a player, who could be of a gender other than male, but as our rules have specific terms that refer to a player (Force Commander is a game term generally referring to the player who commands a force), we treat the two instances differently.

    If we were writing in a context where the presumption of the ‘actual’ general could be of variable gender – say a modern game, a historical period in which there were female officers, or a fantasy or Sci-Fi universe where the characters were not exclusively male, then we’d switch it up from one example to another when referring to those in-game personas.

    Something to consider is that our first intent was to use ‘he’ in some examples and ‘she’ in others throughout the text. We chose to use “the player” and “they” to exclusively refer to the player because we figured that in historical wargaming we might actually irritate some potential customers if we sometimes used “she”. In a fantasy or Sci-Fi genre game where the notion of people who aren’t men participating is less explosive, we would not have hesitated. Which I suppose does insert some irony at the comment “party lines” in this debate.

    Cheers,

    The Bandit

    in reply to: Sexism in Rules? #53735
    Avatar photoBandit
    Participant

    Indeed. If it costs me nothing and it makes them feel better, what reason is there not to do it?

    Cheers,

    The Bandit

    in reply to: Sexism in Rules? #53704
    Avatar photoBandit
    Participant

    Does this make me sexist or even a misogynist?

    I do not believe it does. Male authors generally write “he”, because we are he’s. I concur with Mike when he says that it simply doesn’t occur to many people. That tendency does not make a person sexist. It also doesn’t help that most languages, including English, use the male article as the default indefinite article.

    No doubt, Gary. But that’s actually part of the problem. Because this is a small thing that is very, very easily remedied, there’s really no reason not to — unless, of course, you have an ideological reason not to.

    Yes, the question – to my mind – is not if you are sexist or misogynist, the question is if there is a benefit or cost to using inclusive language?

    I don’t see a practical cost in using inclusive language.

    I do see a practical benefit in using inclusive language: Someone who might not otherwise feel included, may.

    That might be a high or low percentage chance, but I don’t know why I’d care, since I can’t see a practical cost. Therefore, any chance of including more people in the hobby, in our customer base, in the greater market and community of wargaming, seems a net positive.

    D&D began using exclusively “she” many, many moons ago to refer to “the player”. As I understand it their reason was that because their male player base wasn’t likely to care, and they wanted to begin lowering barriers to women using their product. The lowest cost and most fundamental was *how they defined the player*.

    I can’t say that there is any observable detriment to D&D as a business or as a gaming community.

    When we began publishing titles, we made a conscious decision to make sure we used “the player” or “they”. The first reason was it seemed the most professional – despite there being an argument over the grammatical correctness of “they” to refer to a singular player – and it was practical, why would we want to potentially alienate any proportion of potential customers? If there is no cost to making sure they are included, it seems a no-brainer once you realize it.

    Cheers,

    The Bandit

    in reply to: Cossacks at Borodino help #53436
    Avatar photoBandit
    Participant

    Appreciated!

    Cheers,

    The Bandit

    in reply to: New convert says hello #53086
    Avatar photoBandit
    Participant

    Welcome!

    Cheers,

    The Bandit

    in reply to: Too Much Information Clutter on Wargame Tables? #52430
    Avatar photoBandit
    Participant

    Generally I think the onus is on rules designers to anticipate and preclude these problems.

    Completely agree. In the original edition of ESR we used a fair number of counters: casualty markers, order markers, fatigue markers, etc…

    But once ESR Original Edition was released and “out amongst the people”, we realized what we should have known before, that players would accept a little bit more abstraction (like not tracking per battalion casualties in a grand tactical game) in order to get a cleaner and prettier looking game.

    So with ESR Second Edition we moved to a system where no markers were necessary and those few optional markers could be with miniatures if the players desired.

    The result is very clean looking tabletops, provided the players don’t roll their dice everywhere :-p

    ESR Second Edition encourages players to track divisional level fatigue either on a roster or with on-table casualty figures or dice. Routed units are identified by their placement next to their division’s rear area marker, aka Reformation Area, typically a supply wagon, caisson, or the like. Orders can be indicated with a single letter, such as [A] for attack, on a roster or with an on or off-table marker marker as the player chooses.

    These are highly flexible solutions, easy to implement, don’t require purchase of special game play aids, and could be used in nearly any game design to prevent the heavy use of cardboard chits or the like.

    Cheers,

    The Bandit

    Avatar photoBandit
    Participant

    I dont believe so.
    However they must include this on their TAX returns to HMRC.

    So if they charge VAT to a US customer they are only breaking the law if they dont pay HMRC that same VAT amount back.

    I’m not sure.

    In the US my understanding is that it is not legal to collect a tax that isn’t owed as well as illegal to collect a tax and not turn it over.

    Cheers,

    The Bandit

    Avatar photoBandit
    Participant

    We (The Wargaming Company, LLC) routinely ships internationally from the United States to:

    • Italy
    • England
    • Australia
    • Canada
    • France

    We are shipping almost exclusively books.

    We declare for purpose of customs only the value of the book (MSRP) and the type of item (book). Our understanding is that we are not under any obligation to declaring shipping costs as part of the product’s value.

    I was recently speaking with a friend who said he regularly bought from book sellers in England and was being charged VAT by them which confused him since his understanding was that they are not obligated to collect VAT on outgoing exports.

    TL;DR: International trade is really a mess.

    Cheers,

    The Bandit

    Avatar photoBandit
    Participant

    Thank you for the correction! We’ll see what we can do to address that better.

    Cheers,

    The Bandit

    Avatar photoBandit
    Participant

    And we just added Lasalle and Quarrie’s Rules!

    Cheers,

    The Bandit

    in reply to: Prendel Streifkorps Info #51663
    Avatar photoBandit
    Participant

    Thanks Paul, it is more than I had.

    Cheers,

    The Bandit

    in reply to: Miniatures Wargames rip-off #51410
    Avatar photoBandit
    Participant

    The ones you got when subscribed were never available to download, just to view online?

    That was my first thought as well, if you view all the content online, your subscription is for that access, when you stop subscribing, you stop receiving access. No different from HBO Now, Netflix, iTunes Match, etc…

    If you subscribe to a “pay to play” service, when you stop subscribing, you don’t get to pay any more, it isn’t theft, it is the nature of the thing.

    If in fact the service allowed you to download the files for off-line viewing, and your subscription was cancelled without you actually notifying anyone, that seems a valid complaint and dispute.

    Cheers,

    The Bandit

    in reply to: A Teeny Tiny Town in Belgium #51192
    Avatar photoBandit
    Participant

    I would go mad if I painted the 100 Days Campaign at 15mm…

    Yes, and a glorious madness it would be 😉

    I like your town tiles, they are very nice.

    Cheers,

    The Bandit

    in reply to: 1807 AAR, French vs Russo-Prussians #51190
    Avatar photoBandit
    Participant

    Thank you!

    Cheers,

    The Bandit

    Avatar photoBandit
    Participant

    Yeah, actions like that, where there is a precursor that historically was a hard fight where the underdog held out long enough for support to come up but which on the wargames table it is more common to skip that precursor – *I think* – because we fear they’d be a walkover and change the whole course of the larger action too predictably.

    Cheers,

    The Bandit

    in reply to: TWW Issues #50700
    Avatar photoBandit
    Participant

    Pages are taking a long time to load.

    For me they are snappy.

    Cheers,

    The Bandit

    in reply to: Looking for information on Möckern, April 1813 #50227
    Avatar photoBandit
    Participant

    Hope it helps.

    Thanks Bryce, same here. I have found battalion and squadron totals as well as manpower estimates elsewhere. I may end up using those in conjunction with George’s May OB. I’m hoping to track down something specific to April because I believe there were major re-orgs before May. So goes, we do what we can with the tools we have.

    Cheers,

    The Bandit

    in reply to: Guest Accounts #50209
    Avatar photoBandit
    Participant

    I rather dislike Facebook myself and hate the idea of the wargaming community migrating to that platform, as has happened to some degree with the 15mm sci-fi crowd.

    There has been a massive migration of folks to *participating* in wargaming via Facebook, but notice I don’t say “discussing” I say participating, because participation via Facebook is nothing similar in quality to the discussions that forums allow for.

    Not sure how to address that.

    Cheers,

    The Bandit

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