Parthians Aplenty

[CarlL]

Jon & Chris,

"Minefield"!!??

More typical wargamers' mindset!!

I have not yet met a wargamer who doesn't tinker or meddle or mix and match rule ideas!! (Me included!)  Playing as written - which one group may interpret differently to another as I have discovered on many occasions - allows us to develop a lingua franca for face to face gaming. But solo or lone gaming allows us to develop are own rule languages (and mindsets).
 
"spend 30 in currency (and more  ) to have a rule set and then proceed to tinker with it?  What's our motivation? Where's our evidence? What is our goal or what are our goals?"

I leave evidence to another day. But motivation? Well your linked reports / articles are full of motivation: just reading through I think here is someone trying out new things; daring to do it differently, and sharing how it plays and it appears seeking to make something to play well. Without face to face or other discussion, its hard to learn motivation and goals. So its all subjective. But as I said previously the outcome, Chris's game rules, may be different from Armati as  in the book, but its fun and gets you thinking and motivated to discuss / share ideas. All power to your tinkering, sharing and writing. Better to publish than become too worried about structure and editing that 'nowt' gets published.

CarlL

PS your (I assume card based and printed, possibly laminated?) army cards / units are worthy of an article in themselves, to show how you go about producing them. Before then I hope to get time to read about your other match ups and rules ideas. CarlL

[CarlL]

Jon,

I missed: "Perhaps I am reaching here, but is there some connection between rule tweaking and historical refights?"

Many years ago I had pleasure in gaming regularly with Crosby Wargames Group, some of us played ancients regularly, and we did some historical refights, they always led to rule changes or additions to cover aspects of how we read our historical battle, and led to a number of in house and occasionally "Slingshot" articles (sometimes linked to our fix for a particular set of rules). I think Phil Halewood's
article on elephants was a good example of interpretation of historical action leading to rule ideas for tabletop.

IF my memory serves me well (which is doubtful) Phil's article covered ideas on elephants in Armati.
CarlL

[Jon Freitag]

"Minefield"!!??

More typical wargamers' mindset!!

Carl, those finding themselves wandering around in the caverns of my mind might very well discover they have walked into a veritable minefield (mindfield?) of ideas and thoughts.  The easy or logical path back out may not be obvious.

[Jon Freitag]

Jon,
I missed: "Perhaps I am reaching here, but is there some connection between rule tweaking and historical refights?"
CarlL

Carl, for me, the Game Engine ought to be resilient and robust enough to accommodate a historical refight without rules' tweaking.  Now, special scenario rules may be needed but the base engine ought to work without a bunch of special cases or continued adjustments.  The combat model should strive toward generalization not specialization.  Of course, this is my design philosophy only.

[CarlL]

Apologies Chris, and Jon.
I attributed some of Chris's comments to Jon in last post (or two) !!
I should avoid trying to follow and respond to discussion in gaps when my grandson has cat napped... he is only four.... but then he will catch me cat napping too.... and enjoying waking me with a hearty boo or jumping on my lap!! Good job his gran is minding us both!! Our combined 141 years is struggling to keep up with his four this week!!
But apologies if this wrong attribution caused any offence. I was "listening" (reading) but obviously not closely enough!!
CarlL

[Jon Freitag]

No offense taken and no apology required.