This Quar's War; Clash of Rhyfles review

 

Let's play a game and discuss the rules. 

Everyone likes to discuss rules!

Just like everyone likes pizza and frozen yogurt.

Disclaimer: Opinions about what makes rules good or bad are subjective and a matter of personal taste.

Just like opinions about what are good toppings for pizza or frozen yogurt; it's whatever you like.

Except everyone hates pineapple.  Pineapple is gross.  

Clash of Rhyfles Review / Overview

A Rhyfler's Pocketbook 2.0 is the ruleset included in the Clash of Rhyfles starter box, and in a very class-say move is also available as a free PDF HERE from the Rhyfler website, as is almost all of the past Quar books.   These rules are labeled 'Quickstart' and there is a full version on the way sometime. 

I didn't get the starter box, as I went straight for the big infantry boxes for each faction along with various blisters.   I'm not too fussed about rules, as Quar are World War -ish without magic or anything supernatural, so almost any 20th century rules could work.  I'm seeing Quar more and more as World War Imaginations.  

But it would be nice to like the rules written specifically for the miniatures, and the price was right, so I wanted to give them a try.  Enter Mr. DJ, a fellow Quar enthusiast, from the Lasgunpacker blog and places beyond...for a game.  

Setting Up a Dinner Table Battle

A Rhyfler's Pocketbook (RPB for short) is a skirmish game and needs a small 2x2 or 3x3 table.  My dinning table is 3' and a wee bit more so I claimed it for the game, telling the kids and wife to get out of the house because men were going to be doing some serious wargaming and shouldn't be bothered.

Dining table set

I don't have any Quar specific terrain yet,
but Quar are found in all sorts of environments.
Today they find themselves in an AWI/ACW ish countryside.

I actually told the wife that she and kids didn't have to go anywhere because I don't have people over that my family can't be around.  But she was all "no no, I'll take the kids out to lunch and then maybe to that place with the large bouncy area so you guys can play in peace."  and I thought 'my wife is the best' and I also thought 'this free ruleset just cost me $60.  Kids multiply the price for everything.' 

 

RPB is a little light on the terrain rules but there is enough there that you can define the things on your table as you see fit.  Wanting to try a little bit of everything we declared: The fields and forest bases would be difficult ground (as well crossing any fence or wall) so 1/2 move.  For cover modifiers: we declared fences and the areas with trees without a base would be light cover (-1 to be hit), Forest bases and wood piles would be 'Good' cover (-2), and the stone walls would be the 'best cover' (-3).  In hindsight this was being over generous to the walls and really the 'best cover' should be reserved for trenches / purposely build fortification.  Building were impassable LOS blockers.  LOS could go into a forest base but not through.  

The RPB suggest for the first battle to play at 300 Pts which gets you around 10-12 miniatures.  But Mr. DJ and I are veteran gamers, we don't get to play all that much, we're both handsome and rugged individuals, and I'm not painting all these silly Quar for the fun of it, so we did 400ish points instead.  Giving us 15 miniatures each: 

The Crusaders

The Royalists

Actual lists for the Quar initiated:

Coftyran: Is-Caerten, yawdryl, Cryfen LMG, sharpshooter (sni-PAH), and 11 Rhyflers

Crusaders: Is-Caerten, yawdryl, H-11a LMG, sharpshooter (sni-PAH), and 11 rhyflers but 3 have Ryshi.

-Basically the same lists, but the Crusaders kept coming out like 10 points up; so to even it out I gave the Royalists an extra point of Pluck.   More on Pluck later.

Mr DJ won the roll off so he got to pick which faction he wanted to play, and choose a side to deploy on, and we played "the meeting engagement" scenario which seems to be the one that everyone picks for a first game.  The objectives are to keep more of your Quar alive than the other side, but also advance into the opposite half of the board.  Which creates a nice paradox of conflicting interests.  

Mr. DJ chose the Royalists and deployed behind the barn in one large group

I took the Crusaders and deployed in 3 small groups across the edge.

As Mr. DJ deployed first, he starts as the active player, so I drew a card from the Activation Deck and gave him my best shit eating grin.

Rounds, Actions, and Reactions

Because his card was a 3.

In RPB, the active player gets a certain number of Activations based on a card from an Activation deck (I used normal playing cards, you need three 3s, four 4s, and three 5s).  But the player doesn't know how many activations they actually have; they know it's at least 3, is probably 4, and might be 5.  So the player does 3 Activations and then looks expectantly at their opponent who will tell them if they have a fourth, the player does a fourth activation and then looks slit eyed at their opponent to see if they have a 5th.  When the active player uses all their activations the opponent shows the card and says something snide or mocking like "Nope, you all done." The round ends, then switch, a new round begins.  

I thought I would dislike this.  I thought it would be annoying.

I actually loved it. It was fun.  

The Royalist yawdryl does a group advance 

RPB uses the terms Activations and Actions kinda interchangeably which can get confusing, but they are not the same thing.  Basically the player uses Activations (from 3 to 5) to perform Actions with his miniatures.  Each Miniature can take up to 2 actions during a round (but only 1 combat action).  Most Actions cost 1 Activation, but some Actions cost 2 Activations but are still only 1 Action. 

Stompin through the forest, Gonna shot someone.

If you know you have at least 1 Activation left but want to take an Action that costs 2 Activations (like throw a grenade) you can push your luck and try it.  If you have the required Activation you do the action, if not then you lose that activation and your round ends.  It's a fun gamble to take because you feel like a genius when it works.  

Actions are what you think they are: shoot, move, recover from being stunned, eat some bugs off the ground (Quar are insectivores), ponder the meaning of life, wonder if she left you due to her damage or your own....

It's not really an action economy game; there are NEVER enough actions.  Even if you have 5 activations and 10 miniatures, at least 5 of them won't do anything that round.  What you get are like cut scenes of intense action in various places of the battlefield, but not the whole thing at once.    

2 of my Crusaders are having a firefight with some advancing Royalists.
The one on the ground is Out of Action

Most rolls are 3d6 versus a target number determined by the Skill of the miniature, plus / minus modifiers.  

A unique aspect of the rules is the Reaction system.  When you're not the active player and one of your miniatures is getting shot at, you can choose a reaction.  I think this has to expanded on / explained more and maybe it will be in the full rules; but what I like about it is that when it's not your turn you still get to make meaningful choices.  The only 3 reactions available are do nothing (no reaction I guess, be all stoic), fire back, or dive for cover.  These are meaningful because if you choose fire back you get a free shot at the Quar shooting at you...but you only get it if his shot misses....risk versus reward.

Dive for cover is great because you get miniatures just diving everywhere and it reminds you of every war movie EVER where someone is running around being chased by bullet impacts.  Diving for cover is a big negative modifier to be hit but leaves your miniature prone.  Actually, it's kinda unclear if you miniature HAS to be prone after a dive but we declared that made sense.  It's also unclear if you can dive for cover if you're already prone; and we declared one couldn't because how would that work?  Which was rare because prone miniatures in / behind terrain can't be seen (another original concept). 

Also if you dive for cover and your opponent misses but still rolls pretty well it's your opponent that chooses where the miniature dove to and it ends up prone and Gobsmacked / stunned.  And that's still significant because stunned miniatures are useless until they recover and that takes Actions and you never have enough actions....

The Quar in the foreground is about to throw a grenade...

Status States (Mine and Yours)

In RPB there are more states that miniatures can be in than I am used to; some uniquely done.  

Prone is one of those.  Miniatures that are prone and in cover / behind something have no LOS.

Gobsmacked is stunned.  Gobsmacked is a stupid word, sounds like a punch line to a dirty joke.

Out of Action is uniquely done.  Usually, OOA that means the miniature is taken off the board, but it's different in RPB.  

I tried to advance over the wall and through the field and got hit by a bunch of shots. Didn't go well.
The guy laying down in OOA, the ones by the wall are both prone and gobsmacked.
I chose to mark prone with a marker and OOA by lying the miniature down.

The Coftyran sprue comes with these backs with baguettes sticking out.
I thought they would make great Gobsmacked markers.

When a miniature is OOA, it stays on the table.  We just laid it down.  You don't really know it's final status until you go up and do a 'tend wounded' action.  he might be OK!  this creates motivation to go help and is another call back to EVERY war / action movie you've ever seen where someone is wounded in the field and his friends are behind in cover shouting "We have to go get Henry!  He might be OK!" "Are you crazy?!  he's done for! Don't go out there!"  (explosions) "No, I can make it, cover MEEEEEEEE!"  

You don't have to do this or course, you could just ignore the wounded.  But it's amazing that just the chance of getting a miniature back can be such a powerful motivator.  

1-2 the guy is OK and back in the fight; 5-6 the guy is KIA.

3 is walking wounded; is up and about but can only take movement actions rearward.

4 is wounded; lie there, but not dead.  

Both DJ and I liked this mechanic, but 3 and 4 proved to be troublesome as we didn't understand how they affected the scenario, because you got points for having Quar alive at the end.

So if walking wounded: why would I spend any of my precious few activations to move him rearward? just leave him where he is; but then what's the difference from being actually wounded.

if Wounded: He counts for being alive, which means the enemy is motivated to change that from a game perspective; but shooting or bayonetting the wounded who are just lying there is not pretty.  If I wanted to play the SS I could do real WW2.  

3 of my Crusaders take the flank
while an OOA Royalist lies by the fence.
He foolishly tried to stop them.

Ultimately, we left OOA miniatures on the table until they were tended to, and if that roll was 3+ we just took the miniature off the table.  It was just easier.

But I like the idea so much that I'm very interested in how the full rules will expand on it.  Otherwise I might do a houserule; something like 1-2 is OK, 3 is wounded so only allowed one action, and 4+ take off the table.

Pluck Off 

'Pluck' is a resource you keep track of on the side.  We didn't really 'get it' at first.  Part of the idea is that you could batter with your opponent like "hey, if I spend 2 pluck can this guy here do a back flip off the house, onto the log pile, then to the ground landing in the splits and fire his pistol?"  

"better make it three pluck."

I just don't see anyone doing that.

For the first 2 turns we just kinda spent it where it was obvious; like if you miss a skill check by 1, you can spend 1 pluck to pass the skill check.  BUT MOST skill checks are shooting, and a successful shot puts a miniature OOA, putting a miniature OOA earns you a pluck, so you really didn't spend anything and it's just a free +1?  Odd.

Though by turn 3; I will say that we were spending it way more often on things like supporting fire and opportunity fire, etc.. and it became a more dynamic resource, though in 5 turns we never ran out.  

Protip: a Quar with an LMG with a Quar providing supporting fire becomes a Murder Quar.  

Wrapping Up

Hopefully I've provided an idea of how the game plays.   It's fun, you stay involved and there are plenty of moments when you are making choices, which are the things that make games fun.  Overall it's a 20th century skirmish game with some unique mechanics / concepts.  In the game there is a lot of back and forth and jumping around the battlefield as spots become the priority.  

As said in the beginning, these rules are labeled Quickstart, which to me always read as 'incomplete.'  That sounds meaner than I intent it.  RPB is enough to get you playing but some processes need more details or examples to make them clearer.  I've pointed out some in the above wall of expertly crafted text.  There are others but I don't need to bang on about it.  That's what the Facebook group is for....

I will definitely play again.  Kinda wish now that I got the starter box as it's the only way currently to get the physical copy plus the cool Quar-ish playing cards for the activation deck.  When the full rules come out I'll for sure pick those up. 

Thanks for reading

Double thanks for writing a comment.

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