The Silver Bayonet

So this actually looks like it might be easy and fun to play. Not always the biggest fan of McCullough's games, but this one looks okay. 

To be sure it does have some of the typical gamy rules that seem to be in all of his works. In this case I specifically refer to the composition of the secondary characters. They have set weapons for the non leader characters. Want someone to have a weapon that does not show under their profile? Well it can't be done. Did you find a spare weapon during the game just lying around and you would like to give it to one of these characters? Nope can't be done. At best you might find an advanced version of whatever weapon that they started with, in that case you can replace your initial weapon, but if you started with a pistol then a musket is not in your future.

The only character with serious equipment options is your officer. They also have options regarding their stats as you can customize your officer to some extent. Your officer will take the longest to build and even that will not take too much time. Your secondary characters can only be selected from a predetermined list based on your officers nationality. 

So you might wonder why I said it "looks like it might be easy and fun to play"? 

Well it is these very limitations that will make it quick to set up and quick to play. Not a lot of time would be spent on creating your team. Few choices means less paralysis analysis. Players should become very familiar with the troops they have, any multiples of troop type will be easy as the only difference between figures might be any special piece of equipment. These simplifications should make it easy for new players to integrate into the game and with very few figures per player the price point to get into the game is low. [Mind you the book is kind of pricey as is the PDF] 

There is a campaign system so a club could gather together a number of players and run through a campaign with no problem. I do not think this is a game that will see players bogged down by the minutia of details. I also think it should be a game that can be played when one wants to put away for a while when done, but easy enough to return to after some time away. 

It also could be used in any musket era setting, so battles in North America with Native spirits/monsters are possible. There is a brief discussion about customizing existing monster stats to reflect other types of beasties.

So far it is just the one book, but this is Joseph McCullough, I am sure more books are being worked on.