[Midisfi]

Ciao. I have been digging into the Lace Wars system and the game "A Lesser Wrath" covering the War of the Hats.

The system is very involved - it's Grognard level. Everything is covered from political situation to minute details in the movement and/or battlefield. The system was created by a Canadian dude called Ian Weir - this is a megasystem by a single guy.

I admit, I would not get anywhere with the system without uploading all files to Claude and asking questions like "after setup, what can I do next". A massive improvement!!! I have purchased both the PDF and print version - the counters in my print copy I have are garbage, but the printer, Blue Panther, has promised to send me new counters (they are unreadable).

Based on a die roll, the war started right away. However, it wasn't clear what could I do, as some details were buried in the rulebooks (plural). Once I got going - with the help of Claude - it got a lot better.



Charts, tables, counters, maps, rulebooks, the works.

The Russians started from Vyborg and moved with most of the army to Lappeenranta/Vilmanstrand.



The battle at Vilmanstrand. It was even more lopsided than back in the days (I think) - each Russian unit actually has 2 counters vs. 1 for Swedish/Finnish units.

With Livesregimentet (inf + cav) reinforcements coming in from Sweden, perhaps we can stop the Russians?



The counters in my print copy are useless, but Blue Panthers has promised to send replacement copies. I have printed out some of them.

The Swedish army was, well, unsuccessful in their defense of the town and retreated. However, several regiments were left in the fort to keep the russkies at bay.


In the system, you'll have politics, leaders, supply, naval event (there is a whole separate game for the naval war called Sommer Skråla!), forts, garrisons, whatever... you'll do a lot of small things in the system. In the end, you will get a true simulation of the 18th century warfare and the system itself is massive. Lots of games cover so many battles, areas, etc.



I must admit, I do have a few books covering the era





Before I moved counters off the map to their HQ tracks:

[Scipio]

Very cool insights in a game that I several times have come close to buy myself.
Love the scope and details, keep it coming!   

[P-O Jönsson]

I made a protoype of the battle of Willmanstand, for BAR, once. I wonder where I have that....

[Midisfi]

I made a protoype of the battle of Willmanstand, for BAR, once. I wonder where I have that....

I would love to see that! The battle is on my list of TO-DOs, I have made some research on it already, acquired books (not many that I could find), etc.

[Midisfi]

Very cool insights in a game that I several times have come close to buy myself.
Love the scope and details, keep it coming! 

We are actually planning to play ALW next April at BWC/Sveaborg (there are some "locals" also interested in this). Or, perhaps "playing" is a strong term, we want to try it out & learn!

Btw, not much else happened on the game, the Russians ran out of time - as the bad weather arrived, the campaign season was practically over. It needs a longer scenario to enjoy it more!