Well, you're thinking. So what's to write about in part 4 of this amazing and exciting masterpiece? France has come out dominant, I've made the compulsory cock up in part 3 by claiming that the Russians declared war on the Prussians when of course it should have read the French (although in hindsight I think I'll leave it the way it was) and everything was wrapped up nicely. So what else is there to write about.

It struck me that so many articles go about their subject in great depth yet are really bog-all good for Joe Wargamer because the real meat is left out. That is, the game mechanics. Sure enough, some go half heartedly into giving a few suggestions but by and large in my opinion they leave me thinking, sounds O.K but I haven't the time to prepare all this. What is needed is inspiration, so with that in mind I will attempt to explain the various house rules and mechanisms used in our campaign. Obviously a lot is relevant to the board game used - Empires in Arms - but much of what we did can be transposed to any suitable background game.

The nuts and bolts of Empires in Arms was retained. That being the movement and attrition system, the recruitment and economics and really anything that had nothing to do with actual combat. For battles we used the Editor's own Follow The Eagle 5 (you'd think he gets enough publicity without forcing me to write this) as I'm a computer wargaming addict and frankly I can't be bothered to leaf through a rule book when the machine is perfectly willing to do it for me. Thus by intending to convert the boardgame to tabletop the first amendments are needed. Obviously the game's combat system takes no account of the identity of individual units so some system of working out what was present was required. What I did was to work out army lists for every country which could actually field Army Corps using a percentage dice system with the troops split up into four categories: Infantry, Cavalry and either Guard or Line. Using all the reference books I could muster I worked out rough percentages for each army based upon the player's personal preferred date so for instance the Prussian player picked 1813, the French 1812, and so on. In fact most of the players picked their list within those two years already mentioned, although frankly It would not have mattered as the whole point of it is fun. If purists object to such a method then who cares?

Having mentioned the Prussians I have included their list along with the French at the end of this article for you to see the combatants of Magdeburg and so you can feel good as you think, "What a load of cobblers. I'd never rate the Old Guard like that!" The army lists are obviously set up for Follow the Eagle but you can see that with only minor tinkering they can be used with anything, being based on the ubiquitous letter-grading system. The Miscellaneous category at the end of each list is for units that are either fixed in strength or have a counter specif ically representing them. For example artillery, which was fixed at 3 guns per 1000 men and militia. As for my major sources these were Napoleonic Armies by Ray Johnson, Scotty Bowden's Empire 4 rules (the troop gradings only) the guidelines in Follow the Eagle 5 and my own knowledge (cue laughing). All are recommended although don't play Empire unless you have any or all of these: a degree/sense of humour/48 spare hours/your wife's permission. I only had one of these and thus was unable to play.

The final consideration was whether to generate all the armies on the map (about 40) or whether to simply roll up each force when you require it, and assume that next time it is required you simply roll it again. From a realism point of view the first is preferential; however from the bookkeeping angle and because some of the players wanted to see their womenfolk occasionally we decided on the latter. In fact it was not relevant, because no army fought twice.

By not having fixed armies the attrition and recruitment was used straight from the boardgame and calculated in gains or losses in round thousands. As we were playing at a Grand tactical level with one gun equalling one battery and one figure equalling 125 men this was easy. I should point out that the smallest non-artillery unit was the brigade of 2000 men for infantry, and 1000 men for cavalry. Each dice roll on the table equalled 1000 foot or 500 horse, and the owning player put them into the Corps he commanded as he felt appropriate. Thus the French sported 4000 man brigades and the Prussians 2000. Both had their advantages although it was generally felt that the Kaiser's blokes would have stood more of a chance if they had been in 3000's.

That pretty much covers combat. Whoever was spare amongst our group was umpire, although the computer is notorious for not allowing cheating. Generals were created in the same way. A chart of generals was provided for each nationality in order for immediate subordinates of corps level to be found to complement those characters with their own counters. The number of generals was relevant to the potential number of available corps, thus making sure there were plenty of options. As you will see from the Prussian list at the back they are graded for ability and troop loyalty as per the FTE rules. The actual gradings were obtained by converting the general lists in Avalon Hill's Napoleon's Battles. The activity rating was transferred to loyalty, there being five classes in each (8 to 4) in NB and Excellent to Despicable in FTE. The ability ratings were compared directly ,but as there were only 4 in NB we decided that no general would be Despicable in both categories, so we crossed them over straight. It's probably not perfect but it'll do for me.

Naval actions were worked out using the Broadside system from Battle Honours with ship numbers scaled down to fit in with the 16 available within the system. What each ship was was simple. For every boat roll a D6. 1= 1st Rate, 2=2nd Rate, 3-5= 3rd Rate and six meant you were lumbered with a frigate (the British were particularly good at rolling 6's. Vic Chamberlain claimed that it is the only time in his life that he rolled more sixes than ones. The member who suggested we should immediately play In The Grand Manner was cashiered from the group and has had his ruler broken. Broadside is by no means the perfect set of naval rules but you tell me what other set would allow the French admiral to fight his first ever naval engagement commanding 7 models having only had a five minute briefing from the British admiral (rumours that one of these hints was "It's ungentlemanly to fire first" have been greatly exaggerated.)

The other major requirement for playing a game where not all the places are filled is the control of the NPC countries. We decided that the Spanish and the Turks should be controlled on a chart which would be used at the end of every three month economic phase. This was a D100 roll with about 60% chance of doing nothing and a list of target countries. There was only a 1% chance of attacking a player rather than picking off a minor. We also decided that players could influence the NPC's by expending up to 5 money points in order to obtain a 0-5% swing on the table. If more than one player should invest in a country, the order of `swings' would be determined by dice throw.

However, there would also be a chance that the NPC's would support a minor state if it were attacked. This was worked out by the throw of a D8 with eight being required to intervene. This was modified by the country's natural relationship with attacker and victim. These charts are supplied with Empires in Arms for other purposes but provide excellent guidelines for NPC's attitudes. Thus when Britain attacked Portugal the Spanish were rolling with a +1 modifier. Needless to say they rolled a 7 and Bob's-your-uncle!

The game itself was played without an umpire and with all five players in the same room, although much use was made of the hall and balcony by players keen to indulge in subterfuge. The nature of a boardgame allows such behaviour providing your players all live close enough to meet regularly. My advice to any wargamer considering campaigning is to try it like this. Using a commercial boardgame as a basis provides a good and ready made map and playing pieces, as well as fundamental rules. It took us four years to fully develop Empires in Arms into what we required, and three failed campaigns abandoned , but it is only by experimentation that you can learn. The important thing is not to take it seriously or give yourself a headache pondering over minutiae when the object is to batter your opponents into submission. If your like me and you want to suffer for your art, play Harpoon occasionally. That should keep you on the straight and narrow!

FRENCH ARMY LIST
Percentage	Type	Morale	Skirm.	Firing	Combat	Depl.
Guard Infantry
01-33	Old Guard	A2	SK	G	E	R
34-66	Middle Guard	A2	SK	G	G	R
67-00	Young Guard	B2	SK	F	G	R
Guard Cavalry
01-16	Dutch Lancers	B2	SK	P	G	R
17-33	Polish Lancers	A2	SK	P	E	R
34-50	Horse Grenadiers	A2	SK	F	E	R
51-67	Guard Chasseurs	A2	SK	P	G	R
68-84	Empress Dragoons	B2	SK	F	G	R
85-00	Guards d'Honneur	B2	SK	P	F	R
Line Infantry
01-82	Line Infantry	C2	SS	F	F	R
83-00	Legere Infantry	B2	SK	F	G	R
Line Cavalry
01-16	Cuirassiers	B2	-	F	G	R
17-19	Carabiniers	B1	-	F	G	R
20-47	Dragoons	C2	SK	F	F	R
48-77	Chasseurs	C2	SK	P	F	R
78-87	Light Lancers	C2	SK	P	F	R
88-00	Hussars	B2	SK	P	F	R
Miscellaneous
-	National Guards	D2	-	P	P	M
-	Foot Artillery	B2	-	F	P	R
-	Horse Artillery	B2	-	F	D	R
-	OG Foot Arty.	A2	-	E	F	R
-	OG Horse Arty.	A2	-	E	F	R
-	YG Foot Arty.	B2	-	G	F	R

PRUSSIAN ARMY LIST
Percentage	Type	Morale	Skirm.	Firing	Combat	Depl.
Guard Infantry
01-33	Guard Grenadiers	A2	SS	G	G	M
34-66	Guard Jagers	A2	SK	G	G	M
67-00	Converged Gren.	B2	SS	F	G	M
Guard Cavalry
01-25	Guard Uhlans	B2	SK	F	G	M
26-50	Guard Hussars	B2	SK	F	G	M
51-75	Guard Dragoons	B2	-	F	G	M
76-00	Guard du Corps	A2	-	F	E	M
Line Infantry
01-06	Field Jagers	B2	SK	F	F	M
07-12	Fusiliers	B2	SS	F	F	M
13-72	Musketeers	B2	-	F	F	M
73-00	Reserve Regts.	D2	-	P	F	M
Line Cavalry
01-21	Cuirassiers	B2	-	P	F	M
22-53	Dragoons	C2	-	P	F	M
54-89	Hussars	B2	SK	F	F	M
90-00	Uhlans	B2	SK	F	F	M
Miscellaneous
-	Guard Foot Arty.	B2	-	G	F	M
-	Line Foot Arty.	C2	-	F	P	M
-	Line Horse Arty.	C2	-	F	P	M
-	Landwehr	D2	-	D	P	S

GENERAL OFFICER DETAILS

FRENCH

Name	Ability	Loyalty
1. Arrighi de Casanova (c)	Good	Good
2. Vandamme	Good	Good
3. Marmont	Exc.	Good
4. Augereau	Fair	Fair
5. Bertrand	Fair	Good
6. Bessieres (c)	Exc.	Good
7. Rapp	Fair	Good
8. Drouot	Good	Fair
9. Clauzel	Good	Good
10. Drouet d'Erlon	Good	Fair
11. St.Cyr	Exc.	Fair
12. Exelmans (c)	Good	Fair
13. Gazan	Good	Good
14. Oudinot	Fair	Good
15. Grouchy (c)	Exc.	Good
16. MacDonald	Poor	Fair
17. Gerard	Good	Good
18. Joseph Bonaparte	Desp.	Fair
19. Jourdan	Poor	Fair
20. Junot	Fair	Good
21. Kellermann (c)	Exc.	Good
22. Lannes	Exc.	Exc.
23. Latour-Maubourg (c)	Exc.	Good
24. Lefebvre	Good	Good
25. L'Heritier (c)	Good	Good
26. Milhaud (c)	Good	Good
27. Mortier	Good	Fair
28. Victor	Fair	Good
29. Sebastiani (c)	Fair	Good
30. Loison	Fair	Good

PRUSSIAN

Name	Ability	Loyalty
1. Bulow	Good	Fair
2. Kleist	Good	Good
3. Pirch	Good	Fair
4. Thielemann	Fair	Fair
5. Ziethen	Good	Good
6. Alvensleben	Fair	Good
7. Borcke	Poor	Poor
8. Gneisenau	Fair	Exc.
9. Holtzendorf	Poor	Fair
10. Lestocq	Fair	Exc.
11. Tippelskirchen	Poor	Desp.
12. Warburg	Poor	Desp.
13. Arnim	Poor	Desp.
14. Borstell	Poor	Good
15. Lindenau	Poor	Poor
16. Prittwitz	Poor	Fair
17. Steinmetz	Poor	Poor
18. Saxe-Weimer	Poor	Fair
19. Scharnhorst	Good	Exc.
20. Lutzow	Fair	Good

A few notes on these lists is probably in order. Firstly the troop types were selected by reference to corps counters. Thus Guards counters received guards and all others line. The system in the game is quite handy for assimilating what' required. The two types of skirmishing - SK and SS - are taken from Empire 4 and refer to whether a unit is rated as specialist light troops or as line who can skirmish. This only applies to infantry. All cavalry rate as SK if relevant.

`Depl.' refers to deployment speed and is Rapid, Medium or Slow.

Under Firing and Combat there are 5 grades: (E)xcellent, (G)ood, (F)air, (P)oor and (D)espicable. The number after the morale rating letter is either 1, 2 or 3 and refers to the level of training. For the point of view of this game most units were rated as 2 or Trained to make things simple. Under the generals the system of allocation was simply rolling the nearest convenient dice (in the Prussians' case a D20) and noting down which corps counter he commanded.

A "c" after the general's name means he can command one of the nation's independent cavalry corps. Not all nations have such corps and those without did not receive a "c" rating even if they might have historically been entitled. "c" commanders could also command ordinary corps.

More 1805

Campaign of 1805 Wargame: Part 1
Campaign of 1805 Wargame: Part 2
Campaign of 1805 Wargame: Part 3
Campaign of 1805 Wargame: Part 4