Today was never going to be a 'proper wargame' & it wasn't. We'd trialled the 'Victory without Quarter' ECW rules last year twice with small armies. Today, was going to be bigger - about 18 units a side.
My pal lined up his splendid Parliamentarian army opposite my Royalists & we largely experimented with the mechanisms.
I've had some doubts over the rules - particularly as a Big Game set. And it was awkward. Unworkable for our 2024 Show game, I think.
The rules use a card deck for activation. The show deck would have cards for 40+ units as well as the speciality cards. About 75+ cards in total.This is far too cumbersome. EG. your unit is attacked & fired upon. Your response must wait till your unit's card came up - next card? 20 cards later? Or even longer - especially if the Turnover card sends your unit card to the bottom of the deck.
The solution may be simply no unit cards. Each army has cards only for a Commander & Brigadier cards (5-6 per army). When your specific brigadier card is drawn, you can give separate orders (from the order menu) to each of the units in his brigade. NB Commander cards allow an order to any brigade where the brigadier is within 18" command radius of the army commander.
The speciality Cards should also be kept within bounds - 1, maybe 2 event cards, 2 reload cards (1 for each entire side), ditto artillery cards, 1 or 2 Turnover cards.We'll need to experiment to get the numbers right but 'less is more'. So a Show card deck of less than 35 cards.
Feel free to comment.
Some of my Royalist English:
donald