Further Reviews

Bill

Played couple of War of the Spanish Succession games. One smallish other large in 15mm and solo. Felt rules worked very well. Worked as I felt an early 18c linear battle would do with firefights and little combat.

Adrian

Dear BelloLudi Team,

I just thought I would give you my thoughts on the Muskets Skirmish rules. I was thinking about posting this on Facebook but it may be too long for social media. However I thought it would be okay to send you my first thoughts as an E mail.

About six weeks ago at the Niederrhein Con in Germany, I had the good fortune of meeting that splendid chap…Peter van Dop of the BelloLudi Team. Maybe he remembers me, the British guy who lives in Germany. After a chat about life, the universe and wargaming he explained the BelloLudi principles to me using his attractive medieval game as an example.

For some time now I have been on the lookout for a good, understandable and playable set of skirmish rues for the black powder period. Rules that can be played on a relatively small table, after work and in the evenings. Rules that are uncomplicated (no rolling a D10 to see if the officer has lost his monocle or not) but still have a period feel and provide tactical challenges.

Peter said he may be able to help and showed me the BelloLudi Musket era skirmish rules which I promptly purchased along with the big battle rules (for later) and the original BelloLudi commander dice.

Several weeks (including two weeks holiday) have passed and I am now in a position to comment.

Superb! Exactly what I was looking for. Although they claim to be designed for people with little or no wargaming experience I can safely say that people like me who have been wargaming for well over forty years will thoroughly enjoy these rules.

The compact A5 booklet packed with colour photos and straightforward no nonsense text is a delight to read…and understand. You also get a quick reference sheet on the inside back cover.

The genius of the rules is the use of the BelloLudi command dice and the fact that the army commander can rally and replace lost figures. A highly original form of morale testing, bringing units on the brink of destruction back into fighting order.

BelloLudi recommends unit sizes but these are not mandatory and currently I am using 8 figure infantry and 4 figure cavalry units (adjusting the disordered/shaken numbers accordingly) until I get more figures painted up for my 28mm Spanish and French Napoleonic units. These units may seem small but they are manageable to paint up and the game still works just fine.

Parallel I am building units on multiple bases and looking forward to the first big battle games of BelloLudi Muskets while seriously contemplating starting a second period with BelloLudi rules …American Civil War?, Ancient or Medieval or a secret favourite of mine…the Spanish war of succession?

We shall see.

Many thanks to the BelloLudi team, a great rules system that breathes fresh air and inspiration into our hobby.

With best regards and many thanks.

John

I am very impressed by these rules which i just bought yesterday. I am looking forward to a game as soon as I sort out some figures. I found and posted on Wargamevault two errors you may like to know. Great work making clean fast rules 

Greg

I think I already own every set of rules you have put out. They are great fun. I have adapted some to using a 10 sided die to allow for different modifiers for soft and hard cover and various weapons types and troop classes. That is not a criticism of the rules but a compliment, as the rules are great by themself and also a good base from which modifications can be added for those wanting more detail. Thanks for putting all these rule sets out, particularly the cards. I had made some cards myself before but yours are great and look far better than my hand made ones.

Matthew

I just received these rules and they are refreshingly perfect! I also have a hard time learning rules and keep a pile of ancient rulebooks next to my bed as a sleep aid. Simple yet elegant, these rules have everything that I desire in an ancient rule set. I can’t wait to play these!

Dave

Review of De Re  Belloludi

INTRO

Having already bought the Bello Ludi Napoleonic/Black Powder rules, read them and enjoyed them, I was most interested to learn that they had brought out an Ancient set of rules.

Having received my copy, the format, layout, use of cards and dice are the same as the above mentioned set, so I was looking forward to reading them.

Before starting  my review of the rules, I have to say that, as I'm getting older, I'm looking for rules that are simple, straightforward, easy to use and give an enjoyable game.

I've never been very good at learning/understanding/working out new rules, especially as some are many pages long. I've always given them to my wargaming friend to read and sort out so that I can learn them "second hand" from him!!!!

Finally, I think I've learned from the other Bello Ludi rules that their "philosophy" is to produce simple, easy to understand and straightforward to play rules, so this has had an impact on the structure and content of their rules.

Remember that they were aimed at the first time/beginner wargamers and were originally designed for corporate team building events. However, I'm also interested in seeing if they also contained ideas/materials that would attract the more experienced wargamers.

As both sets of rules say, if there is a disagreement over a problem, roll a dice to sort it out, and I think this approach is what most experienced wargamers do, and it allows you to introduce "house rules" building on the basics of the rules.

So, with all this in mind, I turned to the rules and started reading.

REVIEW

The rules are in the same A5 format as their first set and are just 21 pages long.

They contain 3 pages of introduction, 4 pages of background to the rules (types of units and weapons, movement distances, number of dice for hand-to-hand combat and shooting, and a morale value) - all easy to follow.

We then come to the main body of the rules - 6 pages (how nice after the dozens of pages in some rules).

These are arranged as a Sequence of Play, and then each action is carefully explained, using 3 photographs and a diagram to expand on various parts of the rules.

Sequence of Play is as follows:

* making a plan

* roll for initiative

* Command (movement, including initiative moves)

* shooting

* hand-to-hand

An IGo UGo system, already familiar to experienced players.

The Command Phase is when the specially produced dice come into action.

The dice have  0, 1, 2, 3 and B on them

0-3 dictates how many moves can be made by units in a Command.

Any unit within 12" of an enemy unit have an automatic movement.

B is the BLUNDER (familiar with users of other rules) and a D6 is rolled to find the result of the BLUNDER.

This table is given on the Quick Reference Sheet (QRS) at the back of the rule book. (also downloadable at www.belloludi.nl/downloads)

Then comes the rules for SHOOTING, using a D6.

This needs a 5 or 6 to hit (with only 4+ modifiers - not the long A4 list some rules have).

HAND-TO-HAND is similar, with a 5-6 to hit, a few modifiers and the test the loser has to take given in a box.

There then follows instructions for SUPPORT and PURSUIT and the DISORDER/SHAKEN nature of a unit.

MORALE "points" are given in the opening pages of the rules when describing the types of units.

All units are given a morale rating of 4/7

All units are "safe" if they have 0-3 hits.

When they reach 4-6 they become shaken (receiving a -1 for shooting/hand-to-hand). Once 7+ is reached, the unit is removed from play.

Players can keep track of hits in many ways - using chips, markers or a note for each unit.

Experienced players will already have their own method for doing this.

* Just a note here for experienced players.

All units are given the same Morale rating - 4/7.

Experienced Ancient players may find this unusual, given the different roles, armour and size of units.

So here is a chance for you to use the rules, but adapt these figures to suit your own understanding of the period.

For the beginner, it is useful to have a standard set of numbers to make the game easier to learn.

This then leads to a discussion about brokengrouos/commands and  victory conditions.

This is the end of the basic rules.

They are straightforward, easy to implement and understand.

Do I think they will produce a good game?

Yes, I do and will certainly use them as a reasonably experienced Ancient  war gamer of 20+ years. You DON'T have to rebase figures you already have. Although suggestions are given at the beginning regarding sizes. You can play these rules with figures that are based in different ways

We now come to 6 pages of what are called ADVANCED RULES.

Any first time/beginner war gamer will need to play the basic game a few times before launching into these.

These are the pages that the more experienced wargamer will be interested in.

These pages discuss Terrain and obstacles, different troop types and weapons (including pikes, pilums and longbows).

It is this section that shows there are is a greater variety of troop types in the Ancient period than in the Black Powder era.

Different types of fighting units ranging from Heavy/light cavalry, camels, cavalry using kontos and lance, elephants and chariots.

New charts for movement, hand-to-hand, shooting and morale are included here along with a section on unit size and relevant charts for small units and large units.

For those who like a points system to help build armies, there is a page devoted to this, indicating the points values for all types of units mentioned in the ADVANCED rules.

** Just be careful here.

    The heading for the Points System is at the top of the page, but is actually over the large units box.

The points system box is actually half way down that page!!!

Bello Ludi uses cards to give more interaction in the game and produce a set to go with these rules.

What I like about this Ancient set is that this is outlined fully on the final pages of the rules (in the Black Powder/Napoleonic set, they are just mentioned in a short paragraph and one has to look at the card deck and instructions that come with them in order to find out how to use them).

They give a nice flavour to the rules for those who choose to use them  (they are optional)

There are 21 positive cards, 21 negative cards and 12 command cards (which can be positive or negative).

The final page of the booklet is the all important QRS

SUMMARY

So there we are. An overview of the Bello Ludi Ancient rules.

They are good value too.

For around £30 (including postage) you get a rules booklet, deck of cards (in a plastic container) and 2 special BelloLudi dice.

In this age of very expensive rules, I think that is very good value for money.

Although aimed at first time players, the ADVANCED rules give something for the more experienced player.

They offer a good rules base from which experienced players can develop their own tastes, but retain a good rules mechanism.

I've sure that many of my fellow 54/60mm gamers will find these rules fast and easy to play and ideal for this size of figure.

With the Covid pandemic, I haven't had chance to play through the rules yet - that will have to wait til the New Year- but having read them through I'm convinced that they are going to give me a good game.

Paul

In these days of social distancing I am using the rules for solo games. Figures are 10mm 1st Schleswig Holstein War and the scenario was taken from One Hour Wargames by Neil Thomas. I am using half distances for moves and ranges. The cards produce some very interesting challenges.