W ith a bit of luck you should be reading this about two months after issue 3--Battlefields lives up to its claim of being a bimonthly magazine. Hurrah!

I'm pleased with this issue, for although Wargames Forum does not contain the two pieces I was looking for I think we have a good mix if scenarios and articles, many of which contain ideas which would are of "forumish" nature- for example "Operation Red" or John Grehan's piece on Busaco. Talking of Wargames Forum, ideally I would like it to have two articles per issue, one a "think tank" piece along the lines of Derek Henderson's "Who do we think we are?" (issue 3) and the other a rules mechanism piece (such as "here is a morale system for the Franco-Prussian War). All I need now is for someone to write them! Whilst on this subject MWAN 79 had two excellent pieces, one by Bruce McFarlane (The Canadian Wargames Group) on the design philosophy behind "Great Battles of WW2" and the other by Charles Sharp on the concepts behind "Spearhead" (WW2 rules by Arty Conliffe) and "Battleground" (the new WW2 rules by Rich Hasenaur, not yet published). I'd be delighted to see something along these lines from other designers, developers or playtesters, especially as I think understanding the philosophy behind a design can be crucial to enjoying/agreeing with a rules system (to the same extent as analysing the various tables and factors for this, that and the other).

Meanwhile, at the Exiles there has been a lot of discussion on formations and doctrine recently. The main stimulus for this has come from the club Renaissance campaign and mainly regards the Spanish. The Spanish in the early 1500s seem to have had more shot and made more (and more effective) use of this than most armies in Italy, but this is difficult to simulate on the tabletop (generally speaking less pikes and more shot mean you get rolled over by other peoples pikes). Did the Spanish have a more effective "combined arms" doctrine than the others and if so how do we portray this on the table? I have suggested counting the Spanish pike and shot units as a tercio (which gets a bonus under our rules) despite the fact that tercios (as we know them) did not start to appear until the 1530s (?). It's wrong but it get the right effect.

However, complicating the issue is the fact that the Spanish tend only to fight when the situation was right (that is they could hide behind earthworks, ditches or walls- preferable all 3!) which obviously emphasises the importance of firearms compared to pikes, but I cannot see a campaign rule stating that the Spanish will always have these advantages on the tabletop being too popular with other players. The other issue we have to think about is why did the Spanish develop their shot- was it a piece of inspired and farsighted tactical thinking or was it force of circumstances- they knew they could never match the Swiss pikes and so were compelled to "make the best of a bad job?" Finally I should point out that I have long been a fan of the Spanish, have a Spanish army and am playing the Spanish in the above campaign- so is the above just a rather pathetic attempt at special pleading!?

Another problem we have when looking at the effectiveness of the "Spanish system" (and caracole cavalry too for that matter) is that it was eventually swept away by Gustavus Adolphus, one of the "great captains." This being so, "it must have been crap" seems a fairly general attitude. Yet these two doctrines dominated European battlefields for 100 years so they must have had something going for them. I also have a suspicion that (in the UK) the Spanish system is sneered at because it goes against the British tradition of "thin red lines" and so forth.

Another issue we have debating is how do we depict formations at a higher level and what is their effect. I've developed a brigade level set of Napoleonic rules which we used to refight Eylau recently. They worked well but I'm not convinced about formations- I still have the old line, column, square mix which is probably wrong for brigades. At any one time the various units are likely to be in all of these formations, not all or none. Also the brigades frontage is unlikely to change due to everyone following deployment intervals.

The other side of the coin is that formations make it clear where everyone stands and I think players are more comfortable with knowing that the infantry has just been ridden down because they didn't form square than because the cavalry rolled a high number of the melee die and so the infantry were "deemed" not to form square. Last but not least- they're my toy soldiers and I like to see them in all their various formations! For me part of the flavour of Napoleonic warfare is the relationship between the various arms and their formations. This is an aspect I'm loath to give up- or am I merely caught in a rut as for years I played battalion level games where formations really were crucial? Oh well, if formations have to go I can always console myself by gazing at pictures of Murat in his astonishingly tight trousers!

I'm also not completely comfortable with the brigade level idea (although it is convenient for wargaming the larger battles) as I have a suspicion that it was not really a tactical unit (at least not in the French army).

Anyone else have any thoughts on the above ramblings?

Looking forward to hearing from you, Ben