FORTE FORTUNA

House rules for Piquet-Archon

 

Mathieu  Lafourcade – version 0.7 —  march 2004

 

Introduction

Introduction

In these rules, we will sometimes refers to the original Piquet (PK) rules and Archon. The present rules called Forte Fortuna (FF) will differs substantially from the original PK rules. Sometimes a rationale for the new or changed rules is presented between [ and ]. This rational is only of interested for people already playing PK

Motivation for these House rules

 

Simplifying some Piquet –Archon mechanisms toward accelerating game pace. Also, the goal is to allow young players to master the rules (I player with my son of 8).

 

Beside filling the Army Characterization Record, no annotations or memorization is required during the game.

 

You can refer to the following links:

http://www.piquet.com for the commercial web site, which includes designer notes and product information.

http://www.piquet.org for the Official Piquet Gamer's Site, which includes news, information, scenarios, and some house rules.

 

Preparing the game

You need:

Before playing you need to:

Generalized die

The notation Dn refers to a n sides die throw. For n values in {2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 20} we can use standard die, alternatively for any other values of n, we simulate with a D100 (two D10 of different colors) and the following table  (for values between 2 and 30 inclusive)..

 

 

Erreur ! Liaison incorrecte.

Scale and Time

When playing with 25mm, each figure roughly represents 50-60 men. A stand might have 4 figure (dense infantry like roman cohort, phalanx), 3 figures (regular infantry, dense cavalry), 2 figures (skirmisher, light cavalry) or even 1 (elephant, chariot). A unit is normally composed of 4 stands. That is to say, a four stands unit represent between 400 and 800 men.

 

One 1" (roughly 2.5 cm) on the tabletop represents 25 yards/meters on the battlefield. Simply enough, a millimeter (mm) is equal to 1 meter. In some games, we speak into “pace” which is equal to 1 mm. If your longbow can fire up to 40 cm on the tabletop, it refers to 400m on the battlefield.

 

There is no more turn (at least as defined in PK), but only phase. Each phase is a sequence of action of various lengths. Roughly each action equals approximately 1 minute. The best way to measure the time of the battle is just to pretend that the simulated times is roughly twice the real (i.e. 1/2 hour of play equals 1 hour of battle)

Initiative and phases

We use the playing card method. Each player has a set of 13 cards (King, Queen, Jack, 10 9 8, 7 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, Ace), which values range from 13 to 1. The set is shuffled and faced down. At initiative time each player draws a card. The higher got the initiative with an impetus number equal to the difference with the next higher value. In case of any draw, everybody draws a new card. When no more cards are available, discarded cards are shuffled again.

[This method seems well suited for more than 2 players, leads to reasonable impetus swing, the max difference being King-Ace = 1, chance eventually swings back]

 

There is no more turn, but only phases. As initiative cards, when a deck is emptied, it is reshuffled and used again.

[any action that occurred at turn end, occur immediately with some differences, see below]

 

Command points

 [Command Points supersede and generalize impetus points, morale chips, etc]

 

Command Points reflect the capacity of the command to handle its troops, to assess its moral, etc. A command with lots of CP will be able to control pace of events more tightly (although not completely) than a command with few CP. Running out of CP might be dramatic as almost no action could be undertaken, no morale test be passed, etc.

 

Each player receives at the beginning of the game an amount of Command Points (CP) equal to 5 times its number of units. The Bank, that is common to all players, receives an amount of PC equal to 2 times the total number of units in the game. So the total amount of CP of the game is fixed. Poker chips can be used for CP.

 

CPs are used for acting on cards, paying for various actions or events (for instance what was done originally with morale chips). We call Budget the amount pf CP in possession by a player.

 

When a player wins the initiative with n impetus points, it is granted n CP points from the bank, that are disposed in front of him (these points are still called player impetus points or PIPs at this time). He can do the following things:

 

Ex: A MOVE card will cost 1 CP for each group to be moved. An Out of Command unit will cost 1 CP to be moved.

 

·      Converting 2 PIPs for 1 PC. This allows to user to replenish his budget but at a cost and also at the expense of acting.

 

 

[ ]

 

When a user has expended all his initiative points, a new initiative sequence is undertaken.

 

During the initiative phase, if there is no more or not enough CP in the bank (which may occur is people are thesaurising CP instead of playing) then the needed CP are taken from the budget of the richest player. In case of equality, we resolve the problem through some dice throw (lower loses and pays).

[This situation is VERY UNLIKELY to happen]

 

It is not mandatory for the player to consume all its PIPs, but unused ones are lost for this phase.

Usages of CP

Unless specified otherwise, any payment is made at the bank.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In all generality every pro-active action has basic cost of one CP. Is the action is automatic (for example, Levy to shoot at extended range, or engaging melee when in contact from rear), adverting it would cost 1 CP.

Losing and Gaining CP

Each time a unit is routed, the loser pays 1 CP to the winner. If routed for external reasons the loser pays the CP to the bank.

 

Each time a stand is lost, the loser pays 1 CP to the winner. If the lost stand are due to external reason like routing out of the map, routing through another troop, etc. the CP are paid to the bank.

 

Deck Card

Cards description

 

Opportunity cards and actions

Actions can be undertaken during someone else phase at a cost of 2 CP per action. The player just says “opportunity action”. Some action requires a card to be undertaken, some other no.

 

 

A unit cannot do more than one opportunity action in a row. This is mainly due to avoid someone who has stored several Reload cards to be able to continuously fire at an incoming target.

A given Opportunity card is played only for one given unit (not an entire command). After playing such a card the unit is immediately Out of Command. The unit can opportunity act only if there is no enemy in its control zone (anywhere closer to one stand depth).

 

 

Units and Formations

A unit is composed of (generally) 4 stands. Each stand contains between 2 and 4 figures. The number of hits of a stand equals the number of figures (elephants and chariot are exceptions).

For light troops (skirmishers), we put 2 figures per stand, so the unit has a total of 8 hits. It is the same for light or regular cavalry. For heavy cavalry and regular infantry, we put 3 figures per stand, the unit total being 12 hits. For heavy infantry, we put 4 figures per stand, the unit total begin 16 hits.

 

Formations

 

Battle line (BL)

 

Battle Order (BO)

Battle Mass (BM)

 

Skirmish (SK)

Combat Column or Phalanx (CC)

Road Column (RC)

Square (SQ)

 

Unit states

A unit can be “in command” (no marker) and “out of command”

Furthermore a unit can be in various states: normal (no marker), disordered, disorganized, routed.

 

Preparing figures, stands, markers

 

The typical stands dimensions are the following

 

 

Cheap stands for quick setup

 

The state of a unit can be marked with colored pins. States are disordered (yellow), disorganized (red), routed (black). The out of command marker is blue

Colored pins for unit states

 

Ex: This heavy roman infantry (legionaries) unit has only two sections left. The unit is disordered (yellow pin) and out of command (blue pin).