In comparison to many miserable hobby commentators we Dicestudz can all agree that we are currently in a golden age! We have SAGA, Commands and Colors and To the Strongest/ For King and Parliament in rude health. And now, he’s done it again, we have yet another source of inspiration, Michael Lane continues the tale….

At Firestorm Games, four of us played our first full Seven Years War battle using Simon Miller’s new “Lust for Glory” rules based on his “To the Strongest!” rules. It was a play test with the current version of what will be a new set of rules.
James Churchill and Douglas Baldwin played the Austrians while Phil Sweeting and I played the Prussians. Each army had four brigades, two of horse and two of foot with some artillery. Each was commanded by a Major General but in addition, we each had a Commanding General and a Lieutenant General who were supernumerary. We also had five Colonels who are attached permanently to a single unit.

I laid out the terrain so we didn’t use the system in the rules. We didn’t try the new stratagems either. The Austrians outscouted us, James drawing two ‘10’s’, so we deployed first. We began slowly but we began to speed up play as we went along. We did have a number of queries which I reported back to Simon. We were playtesting the rules after all.

Simon has set three different levels for victory, losing 30% of your Victory Points for an encounter battle and up to 50% for a “bloody battle”. I am pleased to report that the Prussians took the final one of 24 Austrian Victory Medals (30% of the total Victory Points) in what was going to be the last game turn anyway as time was moving on.

Our main query was the interaction between the various generals. Simon has confirmed that a brigade’s turn still ends whenever an activation is failed even if other Generals or Colonels were present to attempt to activate the brigade. I think therefore that the TTS rule no. 1 (activate your General’s unit first) needs to be modified – “Activate your Generals’ and Colonel’s units first”.
Phil had to leave early – he had only popped in on the off chance – but all four of us very much enjoyed the game. We are all very happy to play it again. I was more than delighted to get out my SYW collection out and see action.

On the evidence of our game I would certainly recommend these new rules.

The battle moves at a good pace. Shooting is exciting: no static lines blasting away and, the cavalry combat is very well handled. In short, a most promising ruleset with endless possibilities for expansion.