Muskets In Action

For some time we've been looking for a smaller scale game than Hail Whoever - a game that could be played with small forces with more tactical detail - a game that would allow us to get into new periods & paint up interesting new troops without having to paint hundreds of them.   We have tried Muskets & Tomahawks and Sharp's Practice but neither of them really appealed.  They have some good ideas but are too slow to play, bogged down in unnecessary detail,  & too often you feel that the cards are in charge not you.   Bolt Action on the other hand, is a rattling good game at the scale we're looking for that's very easy to play & we like the BA command dice system.  I've been thinking about house ruling BA into a brigade level horse & musket game for some time & yesterday I wrote the first draft of Muskets In Action.  Tonight we tried it out in an ACW game. 

The scenario had a small CSA force holding a village.  Two Federal forces attacked the village, one from the left on turn 1 & one over the bridge at the far end on turn 2.  A CSA relief column arrived on the near side on turn 3 & another on the right on turn 6 (delayed by bad dice).

 Uncle & nephew command the Rebels.

The rebel gun on the crossroads did a good job disrupting Steve's deployment over the bridge, but Mark's regiment over-ran most of the village before the Rebel relief columns could make themselves felt. The late arrival of the 2nd Rebel column didn't help.

By our customary knock off time of 10pm only the railway station remained in Reb hands & the Rebs had lost 6 units, the Union only 2.  So a Union victory was declared.

With 15 or 16 units a side it was a big battle by BA standards & it was an ambitious scenario for a first battle with a day old set of rules.  But we have form in morphing rules between periods & as expected it all worked very well.  The experience gave us a few ideas for further improvements, some of which we adopted as we played.  Everyone enjoyed the game & is keen for more of it. 

The MIA rules comprise 2 pages.  They cover the basic things that need to be tweaked to move BA into another era - with a bit of Hail Whoever thrown in.  But as with Hail Whoever we dip back into the Warlords rule book to fill in gaps when they turn up.