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Saturday 14 September 2013

The simple ideas are always the most effective!

After reading my blog entry of yesterday, Archduke Piccolo has written a blog entry about his Fin de Siècle Armies and Combat System. This is a strategic-level wargame in which individual figures ('borrowed' from a copy of Eagle Games' WAR: AGE OF IMPERIALISM) represent brigades or divisions.

One aspect of Archduke Piccolo's rules struck me as being simple, memorable, and effective ... his use of normal D6s in place of complex combat dice.

So what had he done? Quite simply, he had used the patterns of the dots on the dice to signify whether or not the score caused a 'hit' on artillery, ...


... on cavalry, ...


... or on infantry.


In each case the NATO icon for each type of unit is shown on the left, and the relevant D6 die scores for 'hitting' that type of unit is shown on the right.

Like all the best ideas, it is very simple and very clever ... and if possible, I am going to use it!

10 comments:

  1. Archduke Piccolo (Ion),

    Many thanks. It is a very simple idea ... but I have never seen anything like it before. It is a real innovation.

    All the best,

    Bob

    ReplyDelete
  2. It is a very neat idea for the 'Modern' period.

    Those of us who play earlier periods, who are more familiar with the traditional plain box for infantry than the NATO symbols will just have to obliterate 4, 5 and 6 from our dice!

    Regards,
    Arthur


    ReplyDelete
  3. Arthur1815,

    You old stick-in-the-mud!

    In fact the answer is simple; the 4, 5, and 6 all have 'pips' in each corner, and these form the corners of your plain square box!

    All the best,

    Bob

    ReplyDelete
  4. Kaptain Kobold,

    I totally agree!

    All the best,

    Bob

    ReplyDelete
  5. Chris Kemp,

    I can't wait to use it!

    All the best,

    Bob

    ReplyDelete
  6. Will have to consider this one. Reminds me a bit of SCRUD.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Jennifer,

      Give it a try! It’s one of those ideas that needs more development.

      All the best,

      Bob

      Delete

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