Hex Command Gunpowder
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Hex Command Gunpowder

As with the rest of the Hex Command Series, these rules were designed to bring the ease of board game play into a miniatures game.

The design intention was to replicate the mechanical concepts of the game throughout our other rules -wherever possible- so that once a player has learned how to play one game rules, the other rules are essentially close enough that they can pick up the game very quickly.  Our design intention is to give new players and experienced military gamers, a miniatures game with board game speed so it can be started and finished within an hour.

But these rules should not be seen as "easy" or "fast play."

The Hex Command series creatively handles combat calculation and employs optional rules so players can bring their understanding of balance and variety as well as unpredictability to the game.

The most attractive feature of the system is the use of a d6 for everything, which you can think of as "Average" die. See the rules for an update on the combat system. 

Through research, it turns out that an Average die has profound and accurate meaning.  For instance, at the closest effective range, a smoothbore musket has a 50% chance of scoring an effective hit at a massed body of troops up to 100 yards. Up to 200 yards, it has a one in three chance of effectively hitting, and at furthest effective range, a one in six chance. 

Recent photos with 2 inch size bases and 28mm figures in 4 inch hexagons, 
on painted canvas battlefield showing painted roads and rivers.  At this scale, a single box/purchase of plastic or metal miniatures yields almost an entire division of troops.

Therefore, a rifled musket has a somewhat better range but entails the same probability.  A repeating rifle such as a Henry in the Civil War, simply puts more bullets into the air; they shoot more- not necessarily better.  In fact, their range is actually far LESS than a normal rifled musket and they suffered from reliability issues.

In addition, these rules creatively employ the "Activation Sequence" concept, which is simply the numerical order in which a commander can do something with segments of his force. 

This can also be seen as the "timing" for when troops actually got moving, or managed to come to a stop or even start, by changing their orders because of what their commanders can see at the time.

In this section of the website, you'll find more articles and support document for the Hex Command series.

"..Our design intention is to give new players and experienced
military gamers, a miniatures game with board game speed so it can
be started and finished usually within two hours..."

How to Keep Games from Turning out the Same way

Prior to the game start, use the following table:

Die Roll Result: After the defender and attacker are placed or determined: 
1 Any creeks are low/dry and are essentially trenches
2 Raise the elevation of two farm fields by one level
3 Remove a forest hex 1d6 hex in size
4 Commander: Re-roll the CVS of: Color: one commander. Code: All commanders.  CnC: Add one commander
5 Low ammo: Roll for each side: Color: one unit fires at -1 CP.  Code: one unit fires at +1 hex range.  CnC: Mark one unit as having no bayonets (-1 in melee).
6 Swamp: add a swamp: Color: 1d4 in hex size. Code: same but separate each hex by two hexes of clear good ground.  CnC: Replace a forest with the same size swamp.
7 Fog: Replace each unit with two markers; mark one as fake and move markers without looking at them but mark on top either inf. cav. or artillery. At range of 5 to an enemy reveal marker.
8 Forest: Determine NSEW of game table: Select one random forest:  Roll CnC die: Color: cut forest in equal halves and separate by 3 hexes east/west.  Code: double the size of the forest. CnC: Remove 1d6 hexes of the forest.
9 Attacker Units: Color: Remove one unit and enter it on turn 8. Code: Enter one unit on turn 4. CnC: Split the entire force into 3 parts quantity of each part as owner desires, and enter each part on turn 1, 4, and 7 respectively.
10 Defender Placement: Color: Push two units 4 hexes away from their current location (roll left/right), maintaining the line.  Code: Same as color but also position them 3 hexes forward of current location.  CnC: Same as Code but position them 3 hexes BACK from the line.


"..an attractive feature is the use of a d6 for almost everything.."

 

 

 

"...these rules creatively employ the "Activation Sequence" concept, which is simply a numerical order assigned by a commander to the segments of his force, for instance, components of the 1st Brigade activate third in the turn, 2nd Brigade activates first, and the cavalry activates second; no matter where the parts of a segment are located, they activate when their time comes during the turn.."