The Rising of the Clans Home Brewed Rules for the Jacobite Rebellion

My Jacobite Rebellion project is coming along nicely. I have over 400 figures painted up to, in my humble opionion, a pretty high standard. It has been a joy putting a brush to these Old Glory 28mm figures. While painting them up, I have also been trying to find some rules that suited me. I really tried to make Valour and Fortitude work for me. I made some adjustments to the stats for my units. In the end, though, it just didn't feel right. The goal of those rules is to move a large game along quickly and it does a great job of that. For me, however, it moved a bit too quickly. Most brigades would only last one turn and then be gone. Last night I sat down at my keyboard and tried to incorporate aspects of my favorite rules systems into a suitable hybrid. From Fire and Fury, I like how units go down in effectiveness as they lose figures. The rapidity of this loss is determined by the morale level of the unit. For my game, I will have three morale grades: veteran, line and conscript. Infantry units will be made up of four stands of four, five or six figures. Cavalry will be two to five stands of two figures, artillery 1 stand with five figures. Here is the table I produced to show the progression from steady to wavering to broken.

Next was to work out how the units would be activated and what they could do once they were. For this, I turned to the mechanics of Sharp Practice. I like the randomness of a card driven game. I have simplified the mechanic considerably. Each brigade commander has a card for the deck. When his card is drawn he may activate his units one at a time. A unit may do two actions: move, fire, reload, change formation or rally. To rally off loses, the brigadier must attach himself to the desired unit for the entire turn and that unit can do nothing else. Conscripts can't move and change formation in the same turn. Firing is based on the number of figures in the unit and its morale level. Veterans may roll 1 die for every four men, line 1 for every 5 and conscripts 1 for every six. I hit is scored on a roll of 4,5 or 6. This number can be modified by several factors. There are no saving rolls. 1s are always misses and 6s are always hits. Highlanders use the stats for one morale grade lower than what they are.

I believe that commanders should be at risk, so if one is within 3" of a unit that suffers losses in any way during the turn, the officer must roll two dice. On a roll of 12 he is killed, 11 he is wounded and removed from the game, on a 10 he is wounded but can carry on. Mele is also pretty simple and similar to firing. Here is the chart for that.

This is obviously a work in progress, but my first small play test felt like I am on the right path. For me, simplicity and playability are the primary objectives. I like following individual units, so each is labeled and a historic unit. I just received some reinforcements in the mail today from Old Glory. In the next couple of weeks I will be adding cavalry and artillery to the mix plus more infantry units. Here is what I came up with for movement.