I was lucky enough to be sent a pre-release copy of Land and
Freedom from the lovely people at Osprey.
This is the latest in their steady stream of rulesets that
seem to be coming out every month at present.
I’d expected these to be in the same format as the other Osprey rules
I’ve played [In Her Majesty’s Name, Ronin and World in Flames] which are
relatively slight softcover rules but this is a much chunkier 192 page hardback
book, retailing at £25. It’s a very
pretty book to look at with lots of illustrations, both the artwork you’d
expect to see in an Osprey, but also lots of photos of figures on the tabletop.
As the title suggests it covers conflicts in North America,
from the French Indian War through to the War of 1812. Most of my FIW gaming is at a very skirmish
scale with rulesets such as Musket and Tomahawk and La Longue Carabine [the
Sharpe Practice variant] and these rules
would appear to allow the player to field units ranging from ‘tiny’, consisting
of 2-6 men, up to ‘large’ units of up to 30 figures.
Throughout the rules the author stresses that there is no
mandatory size of unit of composition of armies other than each side having to
field a Force Commander and a minimum of 2 Group Commanders to take charge of
parts of the army [which in turn have between 2 and 6 ‘elements’]. Because of this attempt to keep things
flexible, the rules use quite generic
terms for units/regiments/companies etc: the unit of manoeuvre is
referred to throughout as an ‘Element’ which I must admit I found a little
confusing at first... too much DBA in the past perhaps!
Each Element has a number of stats including its Manoeuvre
rating [the number of movement actions it can take each turn ...move, change
formation, reload etc], Combat rating [the number of times it can fire or melee
in an activation], Discipline [how well it maintains cohesion/casualties],
Morale [kind of obvious] and Action Dice which are added to firing or
melee. These stats vary depending on the
size of the unit . At this point in the
rules I was a bit concerned as the unit descriptions seem very generic with no
distinction between different armies etc...more on this later.
Units.. sorry...Elements... are activated each turn by
either the Force Commander or their respective Group Commander, each of whom
has a Command rating. This gives him a
variable number of points each turn with which he can order Elements to do
additional things such as extra actions. Boosting morale, an inspirational
charge or a concentrated volley among others.
Each commander has a sphere of
influence dependent on his skill rating , so has to make sure his troops are
within a specific radius.
Combat seems fairly straightforward with each factor adding
or subtracting a d6 from a starting
total and 5s or 6s needed to cause a hit.
Melee follows a similar structure.
These sections of the rules, like the others, are well illustrated with
examples of play and there are plenty of diagrams to aid clarification.
Casualties aren’t represented by figure removal but instead
cause units to take a Discipline Morale
test which can force a unit to withdraw if they fail and also degrade the units Discipline level,
moving it from ‘Fit’ down to ‘Shattered’ [via ‘Shaken’ and
‘Exhausted’...actually this sounds like the effects of my normal day at work!]
but this can be improved by Commanders judicious use of Command points to rally
the troops. This is likely to involve
the use of markers or tokens which may be a turn-off for some gamers. Apparently tokens are already in production....
There is a comprehensive, and again well illustrated,
section on the effects of terrain and then a section of Advanced Rules. These include ‘specialist’ unit types which
are specific to different theatres or combat roles. This came as a bit of a relief after my
worries about the generic feel. Here
there are troops such as Dragoons, Hessians, Grenadiers, Light Infantry,
Indians, Militia etc as well as special
skills for some troop types such as Vanguard units, Ambushing, Woodsmen,
Marksmen etc, allowing you to tailor your army to suit the period and scenario.
There are a series of general scenarios ranging from straightforward encounters to
Flank Attacks and Ambushes before the
rules conclude with 20 Historical Scenarios: 4 from the FIW, 7 for the AWI, 2
for the Northwest Indian War and 7 for the War of 1812.
So, what’s the verdict?? ......
Well, I haven’t played them yet, but plan to soon. The rules seem clear and well-explained once
you get past the use of terms like Force Commander and Element which do feel a
bit generic and don’t give a feel for the period. I like the way they reflect combat with
casualties degrading the units morale and ability to fight rather than figure
or stand removal [shades of Black Powder].
There are lots of explanations and illustrations which was
helpful]. No index sadly which might have helped, but there’s a pretty clear
contents and the layout and sequence makes sense [which is more than can be said for some
rules!].
On first reading I’d been a bit concerned as it places a lot
of emphasis on each unit/Element being made up of a number of stands and has a
section of how these should be made up, but having read them again it’s clear
that this isn’t really necessary. All my
FIW troops are based singly and although this can be a bit of a pain when
manoeuvring them, it wouldn’t really make a difference to using these rules. My only reservation is that they might lack some of period and
theatre specific flavour that works so well in Musket and Tomahawk but could make a good alternative
to other rulesets covering this period and are well worth looking out for... definitely worth looking out for if you've an interest in this period.
