Grande Armee

Napoleonic Rules

by Rob Hamper

I've made several attempts to write a review for these rules ever since I received them some time back, but each time I felt I wasn't getting it right. The reason, I think, was that I never really came to terms with the new rules. I wasn't a big fan of army level games with high levels of abstraction.

Grande Armee is a grand tactical set of rules written by Sam Mustafa, with the brigade being the basic unit on the table. At this level of command, Sam has worked hard to ensure that there are very few minutiae subject to the commanders' whims. He instead focuses on what would be required of higher-level commanders, namely the execution of grand tactical orders.

This method naturally requires a greater degree of abstraction than what most games currently use. For instance, you will not see a single line, column or square. Neither will you see skirmishers ahead of your units. There are no cavalry charges as such and artillery does not limber or unlimber.

This is what turned me off initially until I figured out that I was trying to view this game from the wrong command level. While the visual depictions of these formations and actions are not present, the designer has incorporated them in other ways.

For instance, any move to contact is considered to contain a charge. Cavalry, meanwhile, have a greater chance of success against infantry in the rain presumably because the squares are less effective in that type of weather. Likewise, skirmisher combat is understood to take place and is therefore rolled off and the results applied to parent units if necessary.

The rules are replete with designer notes that, along with careful study of the rules, helped me grasp what exactly Sam was trying to accomplish: speeding play by moving some tabletop maintenance to dice rolls and effects.

The heart of the game system is the command structure. An army commander can only do so much within the bounds of his abilities as well as that of his staff and subordinate commanders. The game replicates these limitations through the use of Control Points (CP's). A commander is given a quota of CP's depending on his ability, army type, weather conditions and a random roll. With this limited resource, the commander can assign orders to subordinates, affect initiative rolls, assist in rallying units and affect army morale. Think of CP's as representing the commander's mental and emotional energy.

Each sub-commander has a control number that basically represents how pliable that leader is to command. For instance, the impulsive Murat is rated a 4 while Davout is rated a 1. Hence, the commander need only spend one CP to give Davout orders. CP expenditure is also dependent on how far away the subordinate is. If there are no CP's spent on a subordinate, that leader must make a Control Test to see if he is under army control or on his own. The test is related to the subordinates control number. Leaders on their own may act in useless or undesirable ways.

Units are assigned two parameters. One is the combination of men and morale, which gives the strength points (SP). The other is the skirmish ability of the entire brigades (SK). The former is used to determine combat results as well as to track the "morale" status on a simple roster. The latter is used to simulate skirmishing and its effect on the parent brigades. Keeping the characteristics of units to two easy numbers greatly simplifies game play and the minimal bookkeeping required.

Time is very abstract in the game. Consisting of pulses, each turn may end unexpectedly as termination is checked at the end of each pulse after the first (both opponents have a phase each pulse). Hence, the exact turn length is unknown. In Sam's words "the turn represents a period of activity" rather than a measured period of time.

Not only is the turn length unknown, but the number of turns in a game may also be variable. Each scenario has a basic game length based on a pre-determined amount of turns. Once the basic length is reached, dice rolls determine if the game terminates or if it continues for at least one more turn. A game can therefore have theoretically no more than 12 turns with a maximum of six phases per turn. The probability is that it will be much less.

I was able to play Grand Armee at Fall-In! '03 with Sam as the GM. This game requires careful thought when moving one's units due to the intricacies of the movement rules, random movement variability and combat rules. The game rewards good grand tactical maneuvering with bonuses for flanking and combined arms. However, it also penalizes players for closing up their units too tightly as a retreating unit can bring disaster.

There is also the consideration of moving "hurt" units from the front line, which complicates the maneuvers for the entire command. However, this is essential since these units can recover SP loss almost fully given enough down time. So, the bottom line is the good players will learn how to think well ahead.

The rulebook itself is a masterpiece. It has full color covers with a sturdy ring binding that allows the manual to be folded flat. That's a nice touch for the gaming table. The text is large enough and clearly written in an easy-going style. Meanwhile all the relevant sections are smoothly organized in basically the same order as the game turn. There are plenty of illustrations as well.

There are two synopsis pages that basically summarize all the rules. A third page on cardstock is provided as a reference sheet for all the charts found in the game. The book runs 106 pages but only the first 54 are "hard" rules. The rest are for special rules, scenarios and data lists.

Sam supports his rules vigorously. Inquiring minds will find the author to be courteous, responsive and extremely helpful. There are two web sources for this support and the addresses are given at the end of the review. The sites include errata as well as the latest updates and optional rules. The Yahoo site has an energetic membership that discusses the rules, provides clarifications as well as scenario and OOB examples.

In the final analysis, Grande Armee is a treat of a game at army level that allows two players to play the very large Napoleonic battles in a reasonable amount of time. It depicts the problems of high command in a refreshing manner with enough unpredictability to keep players thinking continuously. It's low maintenance and doesn't even require you to re-base your current figures. Sam has finally sold me on the concept of army level games with these rules.

The cost of the book is a modest $29.99 and worth every penny. It can be purchased from any good wargaming shop or online hobby store. It can also be obtained from Sam directly, just go to his support site and navigate around. Yahoo Group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GrandeArmee/ Author's Site: http://www.sammustafa.com/grandearmee.htmlHe even takes PayPal - too easy!

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