Escalade is a set of skirmish rules designed for keen Father Tilly players - and anyone else interested in seventeenth-century warfare. Escalade takes the basic mechanics used in Father Tilly and incorporates that extra layer of detail required for battles at the skirmish level. The rules feature organisation at the company level and focus on the role of officers and NCOs in low level engagements. Also included in the rules are a number of different troop types: those interesting and exotic units that are too small or rare to feature in most big battles. Players can field units of Jägers, Shützen, Sturmtruppen and Trabanten. For the experienced Father Tilly player, Escalade contains several familiar features. Rules for movement, morale, shooting and combat have the same basic mechanics but with additional detail. The sections on terrain and scenario generation are also included plus a new section detailing mortars, incendiaries and other methods of mayhem and destruction. The popular "war-tokens" section is also included, this describes how players can use their existing Father Tilly tokens and apply them to skirmish games. And because of the more uncertain nature of skirmish games, the initiative system has been modified too. Despite its similarities to Father Tilly, Escalade is a game that can be played on its own without any prior experience of other AB One games. Players of Father Tilly will already be familiar with many of its processes, however, new players will quickly find an easy to use, exciting and enjoyable system ideally suited to fighting skirmish level games in the seventeenth century. —description from the publisher