Corps Commander

Napoleonic Campaign Rules

Reviewed by Pat Condray

Corps Commander is a collection of grand tactical, naval, and campaign rules for Napoleonic warfare in 176 spiral bound pages, plus half a dozen loose pages of errata. One set of three double-sided play charts and a campaign map are provided on card stock.

The campaign rules seem to be the strong point of this effort. They use a seasonal turn, area-movement system. There are five seasons per year, each divided into diplomacy, movement, combat, economics, and withdrawal/surrender segments. A map of Europe is divided into areas (France has about 20) with indicators for mountains, ports, fortified towns, and tax values. Formations may move up to three areas per season (French move up to 5). Supply is traced to friendly sources, and some armies are allowed to forage.

Encounters between hostile forces lead to dicing for circumstances, evasion attempts, reinforcements from adjoining areas, and so forth. Battles occur on randomly generated terrain in random conditions. In Italy or Spain, for example, a 4x8 foot table would get the following features, each a foot square: four hills, one woods, one town, two gullies, two brushy bits, and one river/stream. Each of these features has four possible (random) variations. The defender (or the player with initiative for meeting engagements) places the terrain.

Controlled territory generates economic points which can be turned into troops, intrigues, tolerance points, and the like. There is a system of political points (the currency of winning and losing the campaigns), and one of tolerance points (which determine the nation's attitude towards its ruler).

There are scenarios for campaigns beginning in 1792-1795, 1805-1808, 1809-1812, 1813-1814, and 1815. Each of these is for the complete world-wide conflict, with one player for each major power. I did not play a campaign, but went through a few turns of the 1805 scenario, and found the system workable. With only a little thought it can be adapted to be used with other sets of rules for the tactical battles.

The campaign rules are marred by a lack of editing, organization, and clarity of expression, but an experienced group whose taste runs to this style of campaign should be able to enjoy themselves. The map is indifferently drawn and poorly reproduced, but is adequate. There is a sample campaign turn (heavy on florid description and very light on explanation) and some questions and answers which contain some useful information. On the other hand, the answer "Yes. You begin with a General Staff. I will have this information on Saturday," is unfortunately indicative of the level of editing of much of the material included in this section. The tactical rules (34 pages, 20 pages of troop ratings, 10 pages of leader ratings) are an alternate-movement, roster casualty system using three bases of 4 figures per battalion. No ground scale is given, but in 25mm an infantry battalion has a frontage of 3.75" in line, moves 5", and fires 12". There are 6 segments per day, with a stochastically determined 0-4 turns/ segment. Aides and skirmishers add turns, bad conditions decrease turns.

The players roll for initiative each segment. The player with initiative may force skirmish contact, moves first, and apparently fires first. Division, column and corps commanders have activation points they use to issue orders. Army/corps/column orders are written before the game. Division orders can be changed each day segment. The advantage of corps structure over columns is that corps commanders can be outside the command radius of the army commander (typically 25-28").

Fire, melee, and morale systems are fairly conventional in most respects. If musket fire breaks out, the units involved have a 40% chance of being locked immobile in a firefight that lasts until one is broken. The most effective defensive technique in our test game was to open fire at the maximum possible range, hoping to lock the attacker in a long-range (slow) firefight.

The editing and organizational deficiencies which are annoying in the campaign rules are a significant problem for the tactical rules, which are plagued with poor writing, unreconciled references, and internal conflicts. The rules are full of special cases and extra factors listed in a variety of places and lack a clear statement of basic procedures. In our single test game we found them nearly unplayable. This does not mean that the rules as played by the author and his group are unplayable, but that they are presented poorly. A beginner with no prior knowledge of wargaming would have little hope of playing a game.

One particularly egregious example is the definition of a flank. For fire: "Flank fire is defined by checking the flank line from the firing unit from the center of the target unit. If the line crosses the targets front but less than crossing the targets rear, then it is considered a flank shot." (p18) For melee: "This is determined by drawing an imaginary line from the center of the charging unit to the center of the target unit. If this line is not parallel and crosses the front of the target unit, then the unit is considered flanked." (p 26) On page 110, buried within the naval rules, is a diagram illustrating flank or rear determination for fire and melee for infantry. It is not referred to from anyplace in the tactical rules that I could find, nor is it listed in the Table of Contents.

The naval rules, supplied in two levels of abstraction, are designed to resolve the naval encounters generated by the campaign game. They serve this purpose, at least minimally, but will be of little interest to anyone who enjoys a naval game. Fortunately, you can substitute whatever naval rules float your boat without modifying the campaign system. If you're an experienced player looking for a campaign system which allows for strategic, economic, and diplomatic play with area movement and random terrain generation, and these rules may be what you're looking for. If you're looking for tabletop land or naval rules, there are lots of better choices available.

Published by Hoplite Research, PO Box 24762, Oakland, CA 94623, email PARMENIO@msn.com, for $26, plus $3 shipping. - GREG RICE

AND.........THE REBUTTAL

by MANNY PARMENIO

Corps Command takes its initial drive from the need to find a common ground when it comes to complexity and simplicity. On the surface, there are some organizational issues which will be clarified in the second edition which upon glancing through the rules may turn off the player. Since these rules are made by gamers, that is inherent in any project were alot of thought was put into them while trying to get the product out. As a result of our amateur approach, Corps Command suffers from the lack of visual chrome that has become commonplace in our hobby.

I do hope that players will see beyond the lack of color and some of the minor editing issues and decide to dive into the substance of the rules. There was a comment about one of the charts was located in another section of the rules. This actually was added at the last minute to allow players to better understand flank and rear determination. The chart is referenced by a page number in the main body of the tactical rules.

Corps Command was designed to allow players to use any tactical system for their miniatures battles while using the Campaign game. We try and allow for a common format which gives running a campaign game a leg up when it comes to a system that people understand.

With regards to our Naval Rules included with Corps Command free of charge, they are the only set of Fleet level rules out there. They are designed to allow players to refight large naval engagements without taking into account every detail that Wooden Ships & Iron Men and all its clones out there do very well. No longer do players have to limit their "realistic" naval gaming to 3 to 7 ships per side, but can actually fight battles like Trafalgar within four hours to a complete conclusion. We hope that players will not mistake these rules to be just one of the many "tactical" rules out there.

We have many novel concepts and provide gamers with a "toolbox" for them to create their own worlds and campaigns in the Age of Napoleon with the freedom for gamemasters who are running a campaign.

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