Introduction By early February, 1814, Napoleon was at Nogent and caught in a blizzard of ill-tidings. Northwaid, Biilow had entered Brussels; Antwerp was cut off. Paris was clutched by a mounting panic, with Joseph one of the worst afflicted. Realizing that he could not afford further retreats, Napoleon coolly held to his central position at Nogent and sought to determine the general positions of Blucher's various corps. During 8 February, he sent most of his cavalry and part of the Guard to join Marmont at Sezanne. Information concerning Blucher was unexpectedly difficult to obtain, but Yorck was known to be following Macdonald and, early on 9 February, Marmont reported Sacken halted at Montmirail. Napoleon inimediately left Nogent, followed by the rest of the Guard. (Esposito & Elting, Atlas). Anybody who has played Napoleon at Bay will recognize this period as a tiine of peak performance for the French Forces. The campaign over the next six days would be forever recognized as a masterpiece and one I desperately wanted to model as a wargame. So began The Six Days of Glory. The History I began design work on The Six Day of Glory design in July of 1991. The original idea was to treat the three battles like Napoleon's Last Battles, at the same scale: 480 meters per hex, one-hour tums and brigade-sized units. This conception gradually changed over the course of development. Until July of 1995, development continued with the 480- meter scale, when the developer urged a complete change in scope. Though the battles worked fine, we kept running into the problem of off-map forces, particularly Macdonald's corps near Meaux which, though weak, posed enough of a threat to occasionally throw the Allies off balance. I had another project underway at this time, called Rossbach Avenged, on the 1806 campaign, at the scale of one mile per hex. I decided to redesign using the Rossbach Standard Rules, and was immediately pleased with the open feel, no longer cramped by the map edge. The change entailed going to six hour turns and division- size( units, so the game really started flying along. When I originally designed Napoleon at Bay, the first prototype was set at one-mile hexes, but I couldn't accomplish what I wanted, basically to show corps-level operations, at that scale; so the final result was 2-mile hexes in NAB. This game is quite a bit different; instead of NABs two-day turns, it has six hours (and twelve hours of night). Note that as the ground scale increases arithmetically, from one to two miles, the time scale is squared and then some (6 x 6 = 36, and not 48, hours). But the ground covered by a hex also increases geometrically, which means the area of a hex goes from one square mile (in Six Days of Glory) to four square miles (in NAB). It took me many years to develop a good system for showing operations at this scale, and I am very proud of the result. I visited Phoenixville in February 1997 to conduct a final playtest of the game using mounted counters and the final press sheets. I was excited upon seeing the map; it help, carry the "feel" for this winter campaign. Ed Wimble played the Coalition, and I took the French. Actually, I didn't play that well, but I was inspired by my mistakes to write up some Players Notes which I've tagged on at the rear of this article. In addition to playing the game, Ed and I compared note on what a marching unit would actually look like and how much space it would really occupy; to answer the question of how many Movement Points it should cost to end Road March. There's a picture of an Old Guard marching column passing through Montmirail in the original Napoleon at Bay rules folder. The men are marching seven abreast and about six feet between files. If the column could continue like that indefinitely, 5,950 men could squeeze into one hex on the road. (A hex is just under one mile, 1700 yards.) That's more than the strength of either Old Guard division: Friant had 4,600, and Michel had 3,900 men in their two divisions. There are very few if any units in a game that exceed 6,000 men. What that tells us is that one-half MP is enough to cover the cost of changing formation, but to allow for some confusion, we made it a whole MP. That represents about an hour's marching for the infantry (which have 5 MPs) in a six-hour turn (they had at least an hour's halt every four hours). The Six Days of Glory is thus the first game published in the new system. The scale is in between the Grand Tactical level of Last Battles /Leipzig, and the Operational Level, 2- mile hexes/2-day turns of Napoleon at Bay and 1807. In The Six Days of Glory there are some similarities with bodi the lower and higher scale games. Yet it plays much quicker than either of its predecessors, thanks to some measures I took to make sure this is a playerfriendly design, and I can tell you - despite the discussion in the dusty old warehouse in Phoenixville - we played through to a result! The Design For those with a copy of Napoleon at Bay, the game map centers on Montmirail (W-3228), and stretches from Chiteau-Thierry south to Sezanne, and from Meaux east to E-0628. In the Study Folder on pages 7 and 8, you can read about the Six Days Campaign. The French player , has 32 Leaders and Combat Units. If he employs all nine vedettes, his total on the map will be 37. The Coalition Player has 38 Leaders and Combat Units, his maximum 46. Combat Strengths are printed on the units. Markers include Hidden Force, Reorganized, Demoralized, Road March, Damaged Bridge, VP and Casualty Level Markers, Game-Turn, as well as three aide-de-camps per side to carry messages. There are three quick battle scenarios you can play in two hours, and the campaign game which takes up to 10 hours to play. The Sequence of Play There are two six-hour daylight turns and one night turn each day: AM is Frost and PM Mud. Each Player Turn begins with a Command and Reorganization Phase in which eliminated combat units return to play at reduced strength, and Officers and Combat Units are placed in Command. The Command range is two hexes (up to 4 hexes on roads and trails). Movement The Movement Phase follows, beginning with the Command Movement Segment (for units in command), then the Individual Movement Segment (Movement by Initiative for corps and individual units out of command). In order to obtain the full benefit of the road, units must be in road march column which requires no stacking. This entails corps formations getting strung-out on the roads and it takes an extra MP to deploy for battle. It costs an extra MP to cross a bridge unless you are moving in road march. Stacking limits allow up to an entire corps in one hex if the leader is present. Players use cavalry scouts ("Vedettes") to screen friendly forces and probe the enemy. This is an important aspect of operations at this level which has never before been adequately handled. Combat This is a game of maneuver punctuated by short, sharp battles. The Combat Phase requires Hidden Force Markers to be removed, optional cavalry retreat before combat, bombardment by artillery, and then all other combat is resolved. Combat Results include De, Dr, Ex, etc. However, there are more elimination and exchange results, and some Dr2s, because of six-hour turn duration. Supply and Other Considerations Each Player has a Baggage Train to which he must trace a supply line. The Baggage Train must have a supply line to a Supply Source. (There are no APs.) I've included special ruies to cover Pontoon Trains, limits on Night Marching, Damaging and Repairing Bridges, Repulse, Demoralization, Chateaux and Fortresses. French Player's Notes, Opening Moves The game begins at night on February 9th. Napoleon has moved the Guard Cavalry, Ney's Young Guard, and Marmont's VI Corps up from Nogent through Sezanne toward Blucher's army spread out along the highway toward Meaux and Paris. Once the French Player moves up from Sezanne to occupy the central position, he will have enemy forces on opposite flanks. Thus, the situation is unlike most wargames, where forces tend to begin at the extreme opposite ends of the map. As a further wrinkle, the Coalition forces come into play according to their historical position somewhere on the main highway, on a turn determined by die roll, and not on the map edge. On the. very first turn, the French Player should consider sending at least Ney's and Grouchy's Corps by the direct road northwest to Montmirail, in order to forestall the conjunction of Sacken and York. Other corps may be sent as well; these should be chosen on the basis of their Officers Initiative. Even the Guard, which generally should remain under Napoleon's direct command, may begin its march down west while Olsufief is still resisting. Napoleon can catch up with diem, if indeed his presence is even necessary at Champaubert. Don't allow Karpow and Krepow to remain near the French Line of Communication. Take an ainple cavalry force to deal with diem. If you decide to send infantry, make sure you have cavalry along - otherwise the Cossacks can retreat before combat. (it's always good to have at least one vedette in any attack, to fulfill a potential exchange result.) The French Player has a tough row to hoe. You'll have to dispatch Olsufief quickly while tying up a minimum of strengthdoing so. And make sure your units are all in supply at the end of the first day; otherwise they can't road march. The Cavalry corp ' s and Marmont's corps alone (for example) can take care of Olsufief. But even while dispatching Olsufief, the French Player must be looking ahead at the Coalition reinforcements. - remember, they don't all arrive on the map edge. Sacken's in particular appear well down the road to Montmirail. You will have to decide how much of your army to apportion against Blucher - at the minimum, retain enough around Champaubert to have a reserve for counterattacks against Blucher's thrusts. Leaving a more substantial force in the east is probably not viable, because Sacken and York's forces, should they be allowed to combine, will probably overwhelm your rearguard before you can finish Blucher, who usually arrives last. If he arrives more quickly, and the northern and western armies are delayed, Blucher may present a tempting target. For those who have the game, many thanks and I hope you play it a hundred times! Back to Art of War Issue #27/28 Table of Contents Back to Art of War List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1997 by Clash of Arms Games. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com