Series two rules in hand

[Blackcloud6]

From AP:  "It's a six-gun battery, with 5 officers, 188 enlisted and 139 horses. In Infantry Attacks terms, that's two pieces, the guns and the wagons. Each piece has a gun crew of six, with five more handling the caisson."

So, the gun counter includes everything in the battery except for the transportation sections.   Thus, the battery symbol is spot on.

[plloyd1010]

I an sure the general point has already been communicated to those less argumentative and detracted by minutia.

For those who might not have grasped what Fred's argument would look like in game terms, let me know.

[Blackcloud6]

In games terms?  Exactly in games terms is simple, it is exactly what the designer said:   "It's a six-gun battery, with 5 officers, 188 enlisted and 139 horses. In Infantry Attacks terms, that's two pieces, the guns and the wagons. Each piece has a gun crew of six, with five more handling the caisson."

Now to the motivation behind this whole thread, you accused AP of being "sloppy" without evidence nor asking the designer, in private, what he intended.  Maybe you should self-reflect on that, and your over-all posting style for a while and then get back to me.  And if you need to get "the last word on this," go right ahead, but it is telling if you do so.

[Blackcloud6]

 I may have to do it the comparison of these rules in multiple parts.   I will try to complete over the next few months.  

Greyfox, did you ever do this "cheat sheet?"

[Tony M]

For what it's worth (not much, I know) I really appreciate this comparison of PG rules to IA rules. PG is going to be my go-to tactical system from now on. I'm still learning it, and eventually I will expand to the IA series. It will help to know in advance what I will find when I buy my first IA game.

Back in the 70s and 80s I was hoping for a *squad level* tactical game that is playable. That's obviously not going to happen in my lifetime. But now that the PG maps are so much nicer to look at than they used to be, I will settle for PG and be happy for the adventures in cardboard that the system lets me create.

[treadasaurusrex]

Alas, so far I have found the 2nd edition of the Infantry Attacks rules to be a poorly-written, disorganized, unrealistic mess with very few examples of play.

[Tubac52]

And they are user-unfriendly, too!

[Tony M]

That's not good news! Some fellows here have also described the PG rules in similar terms.

Still, things could be worse. Over the years I have wasted a great deal of money on some real dogs. Even though I have told myself that I'm mostly done with this hobby, I recently bought another company's solitaire game on the US Navy's PT boat war in the Pacific. Let's just say more dice rolling absolutely DOES NOT mean more fun.

[Tony M]

Alas, so far I have found the 2nd edition of the Infantry Attacks rules to be a poorly-written, disorganized, unrealistic mess with very few examples of play.

But why is that? I've exchanged emails with Doc B several times and have found him to be a very intelligent fellow. There is no excuse for rules that are poorly written. PG is a well-established system, and IA is supposedly an offshoot of that. Rules writing for a system that is not all that complicated should not be hard. There will always be ambiguities, but this hobby has been around for, what, 60+ years? Writing a coherent set of rules should not be rocket science.

Many people in this hobby have technical and legal backgrounds. Many have military backgrounds and are therefore accustomed to expressing themselves clearly. A company that asks for volunteers to review a rules set will have no trouble finding them. 

Several years ago I bought a solitaire game dealing with the US bombing campaign against Germany in WWII. There was a lot of eager anticipation from the community on BGG. Many of us asked to see an advance version of the rules. The guy who ran the company refused. He insisted that the rules would be released when the game was released. Well, when the game was released, the rules turned out to be a complete freaking disaster. Typos, paragraphs that simply did not make sense, etc. Some of us pointed out that this could have been avoided if only some outside eyes had been allowed to see the rules. I pointed out that I had more than 30 years (at that time) of editing and technical writing experience and would gladly have looked over the rules for free.

I'll never deal with that company again.

Some people here have described the PG system as "fiddly" and frustrating. That's a shame. It should not be that way! These games are darned expensive, and interpreting the rules should not feel like a job itself.

[Tankodactyl]

There maybe some AI-generated writing creeping into APL rules and written communications. The misspellings, typos, odd tone changes, unorthodox interjections and whimsical capitalization all lead my to think that an AI algorithm may be lurking in the background.