It is with some trepidation that I present this article for you're reading consumption. I know that a battle report is not everyone's cup of tea, but I feel that it is important to discuss some of the rules systems that are available to us the gaming public, and specifically those germane to us Seven Years War enthusiasts. I think it is safe to say that the vast majority of us are wargamers and generally need some sort of rules framework to run our games. Of course I could be terribly wrong in this assessment. It was after playing in several ACW games with my local wargaming group, using the Volley and Bayonet rules, that I decided to host a SYW battle and see if the rules would work for me. For those of you unfamiliar with the V&B (Short for Volley & Bayonet) gaming system and concepts I will now outline them for you.
V&B is written by Frank Chadwick and Greg Novak, and covers the entire horse and musket period roughly from 1700-1870's and ending with the advent of the machine-gun. The game then has period specific rules as well as varying weapons charts to distinguish one period from another. V&B are very definitely a grand tactical level game with some concepts that hearken back to the very early days of wargaming. Lets first discuss stand sizes so here is a quick rundown on what the game suggests.
A standard 3-inch by 3-inch base is used to represent a brigade of cavalry or a brigade of infantry. However smaller stands are used for the earlier periods. For the SYW game a 1 1/2 -inch deep by 3-inch wide base, referred to as a regimental infantry stand, are used, with cavalry mounted on the 3-inch by 3-inch stand. Artillery and skirmish cavalry are mounted on the regimental base and skirmish infantry on an 1 1/2 -inch by 1 1/2 -inch base. My personnel collection doesn't match up to this but I was able to get along with what I have. Conveniently my cavalry is mounted on 1 1/2 inch wide by 3-inch deep stands so two stands side by side gave me the cavalry base.
V&B uses the very traditional move counter move turn sequence with the defending player able to shoot back at anyone who shoots at him. The turn sequence consists of a command check, movement, rally, morale test, and combat phases. All combat and morale is done with six sided dice. Each unit is assigned strength points which are maintained on a roster, (Oh my God did he say roster!?).
Yes, the 1970's are back with V&B because it does indeed use a roster system to keep track of hits and overall army exhaustion levels, more on this later. Each players turn represents a half-hour of combat so an entire turn with both sides moving represents an hour of battle. Movement rates are generous with infantry moving 12 inches and some cavalry moving 20 inches, just to give you an idea of what I'm talking about. I will outline in detail the morale and combat rules as I describe our rendition of the battle.
Now that I have generally outlined the rules I want to quickly discuss the one factor which is different from playing a conventional V&B game on a blank felt ground cover. Tony Adams the host for our monthly games has constructed a hex system using the Terrain Maker hex products. Tony is an extremely devoted hobbyist and has taken about a year to create his tabletop, which is made up entirely of 4-inch hexes. Tony has flocked each one and made many hundreds of hill, river, and road hexes. Through many decades of wargaming Tony has become extremely jaded to conventional wargames played on a non hexed surface. Tony has created a 3d board game on his gaming table and has thus eliminated a great deal of traditional gaming headaches. Hexes are used for rate of movement (bye bye rulers), weapon ranges, line of sight, unit facings, flanks, rear, exactly where forests lie and where hills begin. All of this eliminates an unbelievable amount of agony from regular games, which use up vast amounts of playing time haggling over these very issues. No longer can that certain gamer that we all know too well be able to "fudge" an 8-inch move into a 9-inch move, while additionally crossing hills and waterways without a penalty and end up on your flank. I must confess that I am completely taken in by these little hexes. I literally feel as if a fog has been lifted from my eyes and I can now see clearly. The hex system is such a clean way of doing things that I just can't believe I have lived this long without it.
Enough of my idle rambling; on to the battle. I have taken the liberty of using (plagiarizing?) the map provided in the rulebook and also the order of battle, which will appear at the end of this article. If you would be so kind as to look at map #1 while I describe the deployment restrictions, it will make things much more clear later on.
More Lobositz using Volley & Bayonet
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© Copyright 1999 by James J. Mitchell
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