Well, that has been a miserable failure. I’ve been musing on the resolve rules in Tilly’s Very Bad Day. Thinking up possible tweaks and extensions. Taking a good rule and making it better – or so I thought. This got an interesting conversation going, but I did not get universal endorsement for my suggestions. Quite the reverse. People like the resolve rules as they are. It is time to put that thread to rest and I thought I’d summarise where I’ve got to and why.
Tilly’s Very Bad Day – Musing
Musing on resolve – commander rally at a distance
Commander rally is a key element of the morale rules in Tilly’s Very Bad Day. To rally a unit the commander has to attach to the unit. Should I soften this and allow rallying at a distance?
Musing on resolve – unit rally
Continuing my musing on the resolve mechanism in Tilly’s Very Bad Day, I’m wondering if there is one thing missing … the ability for a unit to self rally.
This is one of a series of posts musing on resolve in Tilly’s Very Bad Day.
Musing on resolve – strengthen before weaken during the morale phase
We really like the morale rules in Tilly’s Very Bad Day, with both positive and negative events affecting a unit’s resolve. But I’ve been wondering whether I should shuffle the steps around in the sequence of play for the morale phase. This would mean we strengthen resolve before we weaken resolve, making units slightly more resilient. I explore three options: (1) current rules; (2) heal before harm; (3) unit morale.
This is one of a series of posts musing on resolve in Tilly’s Very Bad Day.
Musing on resolve – horse and pike+shot in difficult terrain
We really like the resolve mechanism in Tilly’s Very Bad Day. Bundling all morale factors into one number and using that to simulate combat, reaction to the result of combat, and a commander’s ability to rally. We think it one of the things that makes Tilly’s Very Bad Day unique. So I wondered how to take it further. One possibility is to weaken resolve when moving in disrupting terrain.
Musing on distance distortion in Tilly’s Very Bad Day
A couple of people have commented on the seemingly distorted distances in Tilly’s Very Bad Day with ranges being overly generous compared to unit frontages. I thought I’d respond. The truth is, I deliberately distorted the distances to enhance game play and they’re actually not as wrong as folk seem to think.
This post is part of my musing on Tilly’s Very Bad Day.
Musing on Tilly Units of Measure (TUM) in Tilly’s Very Bad Day
As I think about possible changes for a Tilly’s Very Bad Day 2.1, and continue my design of Deep Battle, I’m revisiting my decision to use Tilly Units of Measure (TUM). Should I have gone with Base Widths instead?
Musing on Units and their attributes in Tillys Very Bad Day
Although Tilly’s Very Bad Day is for the Thirty Years War, I’m thinking of expanding the system into other periods. The Ancients, Medieval, and Gunpowder settings all look suitable. I’ve already experimented in the South American Wars of Independence with Bolivar’s Very Bad Day. I’m looking for inspiration so in this post I explore the attributes assigned to units in Tilly’s Very Bad Day.
The ‘To Hit’ Quandary – 5 plus or 2 minus
It is very common for game systems to give different units different to hit scores. The big question for me is, is it better to (1) give good units a higher to hit score or (2) reward higher dice rolls?
Contested river crossings in the Seventeenth Century – Musing for Tilly’s Very Bad Day
Recently we play tested my S12 Fighting Across the River scenario for Tilly’s Very Bad Day (which I’ll post about soon). After the game Adam and I got to talking about the premise of the scenario and Adam encouraged me to take a closer look at some 17th century battles that feature a river crossing. In this post I look at four such battles and look for patterns in four factors: (1) crossing points; (2) forces present; (3) forces engaged; and (4) the battle result. The nature of the river crossings includes whether the river was fordable and how many crossings there were. A lot of men might have been nearby but only a minority were actively engaged, which suggests whether these battles were ‘nasty fights’ or ‘grand battles’. The result of battle is on the list because the defenders of a river crossings had a habit of ‘retreating once things get serious’.
Musing on Commander Ability in Tilly’s Very Bad Day
I like the way John Fletcher (2005, 2006) assigns explicit abilities to the generals of the South American Wars of Liberation. In Liberators QPR generals are classified on a five rating scale from abysmal, through poor, average, good to excellent. And then he gives come generals extra abilities e.g. improved initiative. So how would that work in Tilly’s Very Bad Day for the generals of the Thirty Years War?
Musing on Unmounted Cavalrymen in Tilly’s Very Bad Day
I was just reading Michael Fredholm von Essen’s latest book on the Swedish army of the Thirty Years War (Von Essen, 2000), and it seems the Swedes sometimes had unmounted cavalrymen. Not dismounted, unmounted, i.e. they were horsemen without horses. Naturally I started pondering how to simulate these men in Tilly’s Very Bad Day.
Musing on Polish Winged Hussars in Tilly’s Very Bad Day
After a bit of Spitballing on Eastern Armies in Tilly’s Very Bad Day I decided that the rules as they stand do not simulate Polish Winged Hussars adequately. So here is my current thinking.
Spitballing on Eastern Armies in Tilly’s Very Bad Day
I tend to focus on the Thirty Years War in western and central Europe. Tilly’s Very Bad Day is written with this same focus. But there was a lot going on in the East. Russia, Poland and the Ottoman Empire were all big players. Even closer to home there was also the Hungarians and Transylvanians – sandwiched between the Holy Roman Empire and the Ottomans – and they could field large armies in their own right. So how can we / should we represent these armies in Tilly’s Very Bad Day? I don’t know the answer so figured we should do some “spitballing” on the topic.
Musing on Sequence of Play in Tilly’s Very Bad Day
For Version 2 of Tilly’s Very Bad day I’m thinking of making some changes to the sequence of play. Most of these are to make implicit steps explicit. There is one more radical proposal (changing initiative). But much of the sequence of play remains unchanged, even though some steps have changed names. I thought I’d share a few thoughts on why it is the way it is and why I’m changing some things.