Irrational Number Line Games, LLChome free-stuff stuff-to-buy about-us contactLittle Crow's Skirmishes - AARThis game was a set of small skirmish scenarios designed to recreate (to some extent) the battles in the Little Crow's War. The scenarios used our free Quick Intermediate Level Skirmish rules. There were different dice for the Dakota Sioux, Settlers, Army, and Militiamen. In general, the die designs had the Dakota strong in close combat and consistent, but not powerful in ranged combat (they had rifles, but not a lot of bullets). The settlers had weak dice (lots of white pips), but had a devestating ranged attack (shotgun) ... when it hit. The Army were very strong in ranged attack (reflecting Fort Ridgely being the sharpshooter school and the later battle hardened troops from the front in the Civil War). Lastly, the militiamen were more of an all-around balanced figure. The scenarios were designed to represent the asymmetric nature of the conflict, both in forces and objectives. For example, the first scenario, a raid on a farm, didn't award any points to the warparty for killing settlers ... only for stealing livestock. The goal was to balance the wargame urge of "if I kill everything, I will win, right?" with some give and take motivations. In the same scenario, the Sioux also got a bonus for not killing any settlers. As the scenario progresses, however, it becomes more difficult to do that and still have some people left to get away with livestock. Notice the lovely square, six-sided sheep behind the barn because somebody forgot to bring the 28mm livestock. All in all, the QILS rules worked fairly well. They are pretty simple, and were easy to pick up. The bonus for me as a game designer was that the conversation in the game centered around things like "should I flank toward or away from the main body of militia?", "is it better to run past and go for the corner of the building or to charge in and start slashing?", "should I just run away now or try to get to the other building?" and "is it worth risking leaving a guy in the open to put that fire out?" instead of references and counter-references of lists of tables and charts.
Each scenario took an hour or so, and they were scaled to fit two on a 5'x6' table. The outcomes were:
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