Napoleonic Rules Review

Miniature Warfare

Battalionmasse

by Bruce Weeks

By Order Games, 66 Palisade Avenue, Bergenfield, N.J. 07621. 20 pps of rules, 30 pps of unit summary information with 3 two-sided thick card summary sheets in a plastic spiral holder with thick paper and covers. Copiously illustrated with diagrams and old lithograph reproductions. $10.00.

Major Playing Concepts - BM introduces itself as a game that puts the wargamer into the position of a Corps commander. It then proceeds in traditional fashion to describe specific unit organizations, ground scales, and figure ratios. By the second page, however, it is apparent that what we are looking at is a three dimensional board game. A great deal of thought has gone into developing the idea that Napoleonic battle can be simulated by regularizing the units and terrain features through the use of a hexagonal grid. In particular, the use of a Grand Tactical approach to large Corps sized actions would seem to follow naturally from their assumptions. One is amazed therefore to find that the basic units in this game are battalions of figures mounted one or two to a stand and with two to four stands per each unit.

Why some decision about regularizing unit size and the shape of the unit stand was not made at the same time is curious indeed. One gets even more confused when finding in the 20 plus page annex that army basic units change dramatically over the period and that one is expected to be able to use anywhere from five to sixteen figures in a French line infantry unit, depending on the period and theatre of war. Obviously with all the care and attention given to these annexes the authors have felt that by providing a variety of unit sizes and morale classifications they have helped create the flavour of each army in the particular theatre that they fought in. To our minds they have created the potential for great deal of confusion and make it much more difficult for the player to concentrate on handling his forces.

This comes out dramatically in the scenarios presented in the game where in the Quatre Bras scenario the French player must be expected to push around fourty-four basic units, most of which have four, six, or eight figures with presumably two or four stands per unit (or approximately one-hundred and thirty stands). In addition to that task, the French player also must keep track of the fact that his troops are of a half dozen differing morale types. The British player, on the other hand only faces a situation of having fifty-six units with 2,3,4,7,8, or 10 figures to each base giving him only one-hundred eighty five stands of troops spanning twelve different morale classifications.

Playability - BM seems to be extremely playable. The rules are well organized, the tabular data is collected on playsheets and the mechanics of going through a turn is well detailed. The chief difficulty we would find as mentioned above would be in trying to keep track of all the units and their status. BM uses the old familiar chit markers dear to boarclgamers hearts to note units in disordered or poor morale states and this itself can cause a lot of confusion particularly where 2 units occupy the same hex at once (after all you just can't stack lead soldiers on top of one another). Overall though we must give an excellent rating to the understandability and playability of the rules.

Mechanisms - BM contains no new major mechanisms that most players would not already be familiar with. This is particularly true when one considers the order of operations and how the turns are set up. The split movement phases and firing phases are an attempt to reinforce some of the confusion and fog of war inherent in the close in fighting of the period. It also gives the players a chance to catch their opponent temporarily off guard - which is certainly a welcome and important option. The rules concerning commanders chain of control are simple and straight forward. They can add to the morale and performance of units under their control.

Organization - As mentioned above these rules are well thought out and organized. The cross referencing is well done so that finding your way through them is very easy. They basically are written in such a way as to follow the turn sequence. The rules are also organized in basic/stanclard/advanced sections to allow players to pick the level of complexity which they prefer. The only criticism we have in this respect is that the seperate charts are all printed to the same size as the text and are poortly organized. Instead of three charts printed both front to back a more logical format would have been to delete the artwork on the charts and have them printed with larger type face and clearer type so as to be more useful. No index is provided and this is an amazing oversight for such a well thought effort.

Completeness - BM is primarily a set of table top rules for battle field engagements. The authors apparently feeling that the system of using historical OB's in their games allows player to simply find or make a boardgame for their campaign needs. No explanation of how to convert from a map situation to the table top is given. In the same vein, although a point system is established for purchasing basic units, no guidance is forthcoming as to setting up an interesting encounter game.

Further, no procedure to determine the victor in the games is provided. True, the scenarios included list victory conditions but some idea of how one might construct fair and equitable conditions based on the author's experiences would have been helpful. The employment of specialized troop types is fully covered in thr rules to include small engineering works, pontoon bridges, redoubts, etc... but no coverages are included for siege works or how to conduct a siege. No comments are made on how to play a large multi-player, multi-Corps game or how to maneuver troops off table who may be marching to the battlefield.

Compatability - BM is primarily a game in and for itself. Had the decision been make to go to standard sized units then an argument could be made that it was compatable with other sets of rules with a similar figure ratio, but with units varying in size depending on period or theatre some of this potential is lost immediately. By the same token no other set of rules that we are aware of, especially those claiming to be grand tactical, use unit base sizes as small as one or two figures per base. The fact that BM is organized to be played on a hex pattern can easily be overlooked and conversion to a regular playing table would be a simple matter.

Cost vs Content - As we have indicated through out this review, BM is a well organized and traditional wargame that gives a player an excellent run for his money. Many will criticize that it is simply a 3 dimensional board game and that all the development work was done by others but that reasoning is simply rubbish. The product works, offers something to the gamer and should produce good games between reasonable opponents. At $10.00 per set, BM is a reasonable value.

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