Recently, Commanders Gim and Burke, (hereafter Massena respectively) set out to use Legacy of Glory to series of semi- historical corps level battles set along the Danube in 1809. Legacy of Glory is unapologetically challenging. The authors have set out to reproduce the experience of a general in the Napoleonic era while retaining a game format that allows battles to be fought to their conclusion in a reasonable amount of time. The Austrian Grenadiers attack. From a painting by Myrbach The rules work, but glory is never cheap. It may take several playings before the artistry of the LOG system becomes clear. The purpose of this article is to share the experiences of two wargamers who diced their way through wave after wave of acronyms to a first understanding of LOG. LOG players face the tasks of a wing, corps or army cornmander. They must conceive a plan balancing the abilities of the troops with the subordinate leaders they command, translate that plan into orders and then conduct their battle, influencing events only as time, distance and tactical circumstances will allow. Tactical events are not ignored or turned over entirely to the dice. Rather, a corps commander's foresight and wisdom have much more effect on his brigades than the dice. In this respect LOG requires more table top courage than many other games. Once a division is foolishly committed there is no turning back or hoping the dice will save your posterior. Nor can a 1500 foot tall general to intervene at the critical moment. Ney, Murat or Archduke Charles, can lead a picked division on the assault if a key position must be carried or stabilized. But the general who joins his front wave must be confident that his corps can carry on for an hour or so without him. After the smoke cleared from their first three battles both Massena and Hiller felt that LOG's designers had succeeded in their chosen task. Hiller, despite two losses and a tie, insisted he saw a spark of genius at the heart of the gaining system. Massena was too busy counting the loot from captured villages and collecting captives to comment. I have reported on two of the battles here. At first, some aspects of the LOG system may appear unwieldy and needlessly obscure. But once the author's system of acronyms is grasped and the playing concepts experienced the' game moves quickly. Here then are some notes on the structure of play. In LOG troops are deployed in grand tactical formations, usually divisions, according to historical precedent. For most armies this means that two waves of battalions deploy in columns of maneuver with their divisional artillery in the center of the front wave and support cavalry, if any, on an open flank. The main exception to this pattern are British doctrine armies. These deploy in fine and wait on the reverse side of slopes for columns of French conscripts to be led to their doom by over eager chefs de battalion. The designers' intent is that initial GTF deployment should rightly be crucial to an effective attack or defense. Players of LOG will find it takes a lot of effort to redeploy a corps or army once the game is underway. The usual "set 'em up and see what happens" plan can be fatal before the game even starts. Players are issued command points (CP) according to the abilities of their historical counterparts and their staffs. Commander ratings run from E to AA and are specific for Army or wing, corps or divisional commands. Hence Ney is a B commander when leading a division on the assault, a C when trying to organize his Corps and falls all the way to D when trying to win a multicorps battle on his own. Fans of the brave redhead can take heart from the fact that his ability to inspire a wave of troops is the highest in the game. He adds plus three to every tactical die roll when he exposes himself to fire. In the encounters between Massena and Hiller the French commanders ranged from A to C and the Austrians from D to E. This virtually assured that the French would have more options (command points) and would be able to implement those options more quickly. The Austrians had one small, and meaningless, command advantage. Their generals get an automatic bonus to all dice rolls governing potential commander casualties, due to the unique ability of Hapsburg generals to find safety on the battlefield. The command system in LOG involves an army commander issuing orders to his Corps commanders. Army and wing commanders must spend their command points to issue orders. They can also spend extra command points to speed the orders along, and can affect the modifiers to command rolls by moving closer to the affected units. The command ratings and factors such as distance and smoke act as modifiers as army commanders dice to see how long it takes their corps commanders to receive and act upon their orders. This process is repeated by the corps commanders. After receiving their instructions they conceive a plan to implement their commander's wishes and translate that plan into specific GTF orders that are contained in the rules. These orders include various types of assaults such as all out (2 command points) sustained, limited, firefight (all 1 CP each). Forming a grand battery takes 2 Cps, defending a GTF's current position costs I CP, while ordering a division to rest cosis nothing at all. Presumably the fusiliers require little prodding to drop onto nearest grassy spot. The most important orders implemented in the following battles were assault, limited assault, sustained assault, advance to contact and defend. Once an order is initiated, no mean feat, especially for the Austrians, the GTF commander attempts to implement it until he succeeds, receives a new order or his GTF is defeated or fatigued by an accumulation of unfortunate tactical results. The morale of the GTF is measured by its Formational Morale Level (FML) which for the typical French Division is 7. LOG is divided into Grand Battle Turns (GBT's) of about two hours. Each GBT contains 6 bounds called TAC's (you were warned that the acronyms fly thick as grapeshot in LOG) which are the guts of the game. Since the players are corps commanders or above and the combats arc being conducted by division and brigade commanders the authors are encouraging wargamers to step back from the notion that cuirassier brigades dodged about like halfbacks searching for the juiciest target. One refreshing aspect of LOG is its simulation of just how difficult combined arms operations must have been in the smoke and confusion of a napoleonic battlefield. The authors insist that supporting an infantry assault with a cavalry division was more complex than the game of paper, rock, scissors that dominates many Napoleonic rules. Also, LOG encourages players not to treat each battalion as an extension of our cgos, careftilly plotting every step of the advance and then gloating and cackling when the dice go our way. Divisions arc hurled forward or deployed to meet the enemy, isolatcd battalions may be sabred by cavalry or stand like brick granaries, but the art of command in LOG lies in more in cooley waiting upon events and observing the results of one's command decisions (or, in the case of the Habsburg generals, the results of their command indecisions) than in reacting to every ebb and flow of the battle as if one's self image depended on the result of every battalion combat. "So what happens when two GTF's collide?," the reader is no doubt asking. In LOG GTF's are always attacking or defending. Battles Back to Table of Contents -- Courier # 61 To Courier List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1993 by The Courier Publishing Company. This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com