Voltigeur Skirmish Rules


Voltigeur is a pair of related sets of rules for Peninsular War infantry skirmish battles, one with company-sized units, the other with smaller units They are intended to address those situations where skirmishing infantry were correctly employed in interesting circumstances. This means, primarily, against other skirmishing infantry. Potting away at formed infantry, although an important function, is relatively uninteresting, so formed troops are not included. Similarly, if cavalry is in the area infantry skirmishers should not be, so cavalry is by and large excluded. Provision is made for artillery, so that you can try skirmishing up and driving off the gunners, and some skimmishing cavalry is permitted in the optional rules for the small-unit game.

The company-unit rules use individually mounted figures each representing 5 troops with a ground scale of 1 inch to 10 yards. A player commands as many as half a dozen companies. The basic concept is intriguing: each company is deployed in a continuous skirmish line with a third of the company 50 to 100 yards to the rear, again in a line, forming the reserve. The skirmish line is reinforced from the reserve (fire casualties are removed from the reserve), it may fall back on the reserve, and the reserve forms the first rallying point in the event of a morale failure. This seems to me a much better treatment of skirmishing than the more common games with dozens of figures dashing individually about the tabletop. Maneuver is constrained to reflect the difficulty of controlling dispersed formations, with the probability of completing a maneuver dependent on its complexity. Almost any unit, even in degraded morale status, will fire effectively on order, while wheeling the skirmish line or performing a passage of lines is much more unlikely to be completely successful.

Orders to each unit are apparently intended to be given aloud in order of increasing control and command ability. This is supposed to simulate the ability of the commanders to react to the bugle calls of their opponents. Reenactment experience leads me to the belief that it was hard enough to hear and interpret your own signals, and that effective response to enemy signals must have been uncommon.

In any case the first test game had more than half of the units commanded by average officers. With no clear direction on who should go first, we diced for sequence the first turn, then evaded the issue by writing orders thereafter. This also avoided the necessity of remembering what orders you had given. Units may be given one, two, or three orders a turn depending on their commander's ability, and these are clearly described so there is little ambiguity (wheel left, advance, fire, for example). Actual movement is described as simultaneous, but actually uses an "initiative" system to break it into sequential moves of one unit per player at a time.

Most often the opposing units moving at the same time are not interacting, so there is some simultaneous play. I could find no guidance for the case when two interacting units move on the same initiative, so we borrowed the mechanism used in the small engagement rules and diced for first movement when necessary. Fire (and defensive fire if charged) is resolved along with the resulting morale checks when each unit moves. If a unit is broken the commander must check his personal morale and may decide that he would be prudent to attempt to extricate his command from the battle.

My impression after two test games is that there is something here well worth pursuing. The focus of the game is interesting, forces the gamer to think about a part of battles that we tend to abstract and could produce some fascinating scenarios (five example scenarios are provided). There are a few problems. The way in which the reserve is moved relative to the firing line, how it behaves when the firing line is driven back upon it, and some other similar issues need to be addressed at some length given the importance and novelty of the reserve. The initiative mechanism is clumsy and leads to more than its share of the (relatively few) contradictions and unclear language.

I found gameplay a bit disappointing. Most of a unit's effect on the enemy correctly results from morale effect rather than inflicting casualties. Unfortunately, the random variation in the morale check is large relative to the various modifiers and combat between two relatively similar units felt like a pure coin toss. In our games, both skirmishes for position rather than assaults on works, melees were far more common than fit my prejudices about skimmish actions, although this could have been a result of the players and their unfamiliarity with the rules. Melees were highly unpredictable and generally devastating to the loser.

The small-unit rules are more conventional, with one-to-one basing and a 1 inch to two yard ground scale, roughly figure scale for 25 mm. Battle units of up to 10 figures are centered on an NCO and form groups commanded by a officer. The battle units and groups are kept together by the necessity of staying within command radius, so the number of radio-controlled individuals zipping about is reduced, although there are no formal constraints on forming or maneuvering and figures can move 20" a turn. The initiative process used in the company-based game is extended to ensure that movement is purely sequential. Fire is supposed to be simultaneous for units with the same initiative, but it is unclear just when this happens: a fire and charge is deemed to have all fire before movement in one place and fire at half way through the move in another, for example.

The role of officers is more varied in this game: if he is lucky enough to have his initiative come up early enough in the turn, or if he is already attached to a unit, the leader can attempt to raise the morale of the battle unit, get all nearby figures which have not yet moved to charge, or get a battle unit to hold its fire, to be triggered by appropriate targets later in the turn. In the our single test game the balance of fire and morale felt somewhat more comfortable than in the company-unit game. In the company-unit game shaken units often fall back out of contact, but in the small-unit game shaken and wavering units remain in place and function less effectively. This led to more interaction of troops in good and bad morale, making for a wider range of base morale values compared to the random variable, and may have influenced this impression. I enjoyed the games played with both sets of rules. Those for company-unit games were far more interesting, although they were more difficult to interpret and render playable than those for small-unit games. I am aware of no other set of rules which specifically addresses this type of combat.

The price ($24.95) is a bit high for just the first set of rules, but if you also need individual-figure rules it is very reasonable. There are more than a couple of ideas here worth stealing for your own home rules. 80 pages, with card summary sheets and 10 scenarios. Strategic Simulations Services Group, PO Box 551, Wilton, CA 95693-0551. - GREG RICE

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