Pub Battles is now Musket Battles 4.0!

The latest, and probably last, version of Pub Battles is now available. The name has been changed to Musket Battles, the 4.0 version of the rules is mostly the same, and now you can specify whether you want Divisional blocks (2″ wide) or Brigade (1″ wide) blocks. For all the latest news and info, check out my Facebook page “Musket Battles Fans.”

For the posts to long for Facebook, or possibly evolving, I will still use this blog format, with links from the Facebook page.

Here are the changes and updates to the rules that I have found so far:

Dangerous dice.

Upon review, I’ve noticed that the new dice are deadlier than the old method. Even if firing with disadvantage you have a pretty good chance of doing damage (1/3 miss, 1/3 hit, one third two hits). On the other hand, the only way to get 3 hits is to have advantage (1/6).

This should make combat much quicker. More combats with brigades, but fewer rounds of combat.

A unit with a flank attack (Charlie, take your brigade and sneak around the woods there, and hit’em right when we attack) can’t miss, does 2 hits 50% of the time, and has a 1/6 chance of dealing 3 hits.

In 4.0, “Ineffective” returns. A Command that has taken 50% losses can no longer rally.

This was in 2.x, but not 3.x. It was dropped because it rarely got remembered. It’s still a good rule.

Victory conditions don’t really change, but they are explained more fully. This is the same with night turns.

Finally, the Orders rules are included as optional, and are explained more clearly and succinctly.

4.0 has “bloated” from 8 to 10 pages. Roughly one page is the optional orders rules, and the rest is mostly taken up to explain rules more clearly, plus cool period art bits!

As stated in the rules, individual Baggage Trains now come on two blocks that must remain adjacent to each other. Think of them as flexing in the middle.

I had missed this, and was moving them around independently. This isn’t the case in Brandywine (they only use one block), but in Antietam every command with a Baggage Train, has two.