Fire and Steel - cutting edge 20 years ago?

Andy, in my Thursday club, looked to me to try a set of skirmish rules, suitable for the Napoleonics erase.   Always looking for a decent set myself I was willing to give them a try.

The ruleset is called Fire and Steel, they are not particularly new.  Long out of print would be more truthful.

Circa 1996

We set up a simple encounter scenario from the rules, with two basically identical forces of troops, representing two dawn patrols.

Opening Dispositions - Imagine it's foggy

The rules are from Wargames Research Group, and so are familiar fare....   Tables and modifiers.

Both sides advance unaware the enemy is out there

In fairness there are a few neat mechanics, but they are hardly ground breaking.  soldiers activate randomly by drawing lots, and can carry out any three of a variety of actions in a turn.

Fog lifts; contact!

But it does come down to the combat table, and fistfuls of modifiers.  Compared to say, DBMM its farly simple stuff, but WRG can't let a dice fall unmodified.

The British begin to withdraw with heavy losses

There are other problems too.  The rules are staggeringly vague - lacking the legal clausing of Barkerese, that sees each rule in DBMM run for several paragraphs of 'ifs', 'ands' and 'unless''.  Several items were seemingly key mechanics, but barely referenced or explained.  Also the Morale system seemed to lack any ability to resolve a game, troops would keep running back and forth into or out of combat, as long as they lived.  Finally, it was apparent it was going to be token heavy, and from an aesthetic standpoint that didn't appeal.

So long as you are happy to concede when it is clear you have been beaten, and can come to some sensible conclusions about the intention of the rules as written, these are not a bad system, as good as Drums and Shako anyway.  But they would struggle with more than a dozen or so models each, and I don't see them as my solution yet.

The search therefore must continue...

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