Saturday 27 June 2020

Rolling out Ramekin part 1.

With the arrival of my new Commands & Colors printed mat and some quiet time on my hands this morning I decided to give the Ramekin order/activation system a shot. I placed some simple terrain on the mat (still waiting for hills), and a fair number of troops of various types. Whilst it it fresh in my mind I want to record some initial impressions of how the game plays with this system, which I present more as a series of notes than a full AAR.

Ramekin replaces the command cards with Order Chits and does away with the left/centre/right play of C&C which I frequently found frustrating and slow. Each army commander holds a stash of chits according to his leadership quality, for this trial I just went with both Good commanders and 5 chits each in the stash. The stash can be added to each turn by rolling for additional chits and again for my run through I simplified the activation roll with a standard D6 allowing 1 to 3 additional chits. This really opens up the game and speeds up play, there is an option to give a unit 2 orders and units need to be within 3 hexes of a Leader to be activated. Where an ordered unit is more than 3 hexes from a Leader it is Out of Command and the order can be challenged by the other side where a roll of 5 or 6 is required for the unit to act.

Ramekin introduces a new concept to C&C, that of bounds. Each bound now comprises a pair of turns, this is rather clever and adds a whole new dimension to C&C as it is possible for a player to make two consecutive turns. This is tied in with the activation roll for the bound, I won't go into further detail due to copyright but it is something I think will work very well,  especially against a live opponent.

This game flew along and I felt a real sense of freedom to move units right across the front. I retained the standard C&C firing rules at this stage, although Tony has tweaked the rules by reducing the effectiveness of standing fire combat which can be very deadly, an opposing unit can be wiped out by a single volley. I will introduce this idea next game as I did feel a couple of units were blown away too easily.

Squares were a bit tricky and I had to retire to read and think about it. In the absence of the brilliantly simple C&C square tracker which retains a command card from the players hand an order chit is required to form square which reduces the stash whilst the unit remains in square (?). Two regiments of French Dragoons charged two infantry units side by side, one was 'bounced' by a flag roll the other engaged the square but the combat was not resolved. I'm still giving this some thought in the meantime, being a bit rusty on the finer points of some C&C rules, especially around fighting in square and combat resolution.

Another note to self to check the rules around defending/attacking a town/village. Where artillery for example at just 3 hexes range are reduced to zero dice due to the -2 for firing/fighting into a BUA this seems very harsh and I wasted a couple of orders before I worked this out! I must be doing something wrong here? The defending French infantry were finally forced out by a retreat flag, I'm sure this is not correct but I can't see anything about being able to ignore a flag if defending such? Again I am just making notes here and will correct them once I have figured out the answers.

I need to acquire some order chits next, as you can see I used the larger white dice for the game, the micro dice being used to show current unit strength after losses, they work quite well for me. There were a lot of dice about!

The game is still set up and in play and no doubt I will begin to get more to grips with some of the above as things move along.

Overall, so far I'm really pleased with the flow of the game over the card driven system, there is an option of using the tactician cards from expansion 5 which could introduce some more random events, additional combat dice etc but for the time being I'm keeping it simple. Any comments or suggestion/corrections to the above are welcome and part 2 will hopefully see more clarification.









14 comments:

  1. Lee - artillery into a bua in C&CN is only -1 die. I'll maybe drop you an email over some of the Ramekin things - thank you for doing some playtesting for me! Normally defenders in a bua can't ignore a flag unless the bua is a church or a fortification of some sort (from memory...?)

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  2. Cheers Tony, so that explains why the artillery were so dismal! I'm obviously very rusty still but it will soon come back, and on this initial test I can see that ramekin will be a great improvement in terms of playability once I get to grips with it.

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  3. Lee, the figures make the C&C game look really tasty and the buildings set it off beautifully - although is there room for a unit in them or do you use 'garrison' markers?. The whole set up look quick to set up and put away and with C&C being such a fast game you should bags of opportunities for games if you can let someone into your 'bubble'.
    I've just stood a Royalist regiment in a tub to soak off the bases as now I've finished rebasing my SSMs (c. 1100 single figures) I'm going to do a couple more ECW units and then some 20mm Naps. Unfortunately my painting is a lot slower than yours.

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    1. Hi Rob, great to hear from you. I thought long and hard over the size of hex, too big and the 'units' looked too spaced out, too small and it's hard to fit terrain in the along with the bases. This is printed with 3" hexes which just works out ideal, at least to my eyes. With a couple of the Hovels buildings I can just fit a base in the hex when with them when they occupy a BUA, same with woods, 3 trees and a base works. Woods look better when spread over two or three hexes. Will be making hills next, foamboard sandwiched between MDF cut hexes and topped with a printed image of a textured hex shot from the mat.

      Look forward to seeing your next ECW units. As for those Spencer Smiths, as said before some of the best painted I have ever seen :) Got any pics of the new basing style?

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  4. What a lovely looking game.

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    1. Thank you Norm. It's taken time but I have finally achieved what I was looking for, small space/portable wargaming with a choice of two systems, C&CN on the printed mat or DBN on the folding card table, perfect! Thanks for the inspiration.

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  5. The troops look great on the mat Lee - nice work! We've found that Ramekin does work best with the reduced musketry effect rule otherwise the units get destroyed too easily. I definitely prefer it to the standard game which I find a bit restrictive.

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    1. Hi Iain and thank you. Next time I will use the reduced musketry effect rule.I always fund the cards a bit too restrictive even though I knew it was part of the challenge of the game, building a strong hand and having limited command and control options. It was always fun to whack down that bayonet charge card though!

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  6. I agree with Norm, a lovely looking game Lee.
    I really like slowly working through a game (and rules), taking time to check and to think about the mechanics, as you are.

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    1. Hi James, Tony has clarified the ramekin rule re forming and fighting in square, I always liked the way C&C handled that.

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  7. great looking game, have to admit i haven't played C&C for a few years, last time was in Dublin, hazy memory due to copious amounts of Guiness and Irish whiskey while playing, but great fun, your terrain and buildings look superb, and the troops again look fantastic, well done mate
    cheers Old John

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    1. Cheers John. I do remember you telling me about the Dublin trip to Mr Kinch's!

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  8. Great looking game, nice combo of playability and efficiency with the added bonus of your splendid looking troops!
    Best Iain

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    1. Thanks Iain, I'm still playing around with things, see my latest post!

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