I believe the Napoleonic miniatures game has remained fundamentally static since the rapid growth of the hobby in the 1960s; true, there have been many rulebooks published on both sides of the Atlantic, and models of almost every conceivable nation's troops can be purchased, yet the underlying structure of the game has not changed significantly in twenty years. The typical game, in Britain at any rate, involves two or more players overlooking a table top on which a few hundred (at most!) models attempt to portray a battle that, in reality, was fought by tens of thousands of troops. Most of the players' time is taken up in administering detailed, and often complex, rules which deal with the minutiae of low level tactics, and even on occasion the activities of individual soldiers; they desire, however, to play the part of Divisional commanders and above, but are constrained by the mechanics of the game to concentrate upon matters more properly the concern of a subaltern. This has been the case for many years. The result is a slow, sometimes tedious, unsatisfying game. If we wish to develop more satisfying Napoleonic games we must first be clear exactly why we are gaming Napoleonics, as opposed to other periods, and decide what our games should portray. Then we can begin to design games that will be appropriate to those aims. The games described above have attempted to model reality by beginning with the individual and multiplying effects to portray large formations; they also modelled battle as perceived from the outside by an observer, rather than as experienced by a participant, be he private soldier or general. It is my contention that once the gamer has decided who he wishes to represent, a game designed to recreate that person's perception of the battle will be much more satisfying, and more realistic -- in respect of that individual, whose view may be drastically different from the 'objective' view of the modern military historian. The Duke of Wellington said that one might as well write the history of a ball as of a battle; battles were (and are) frightening, noisy, confusing events which cannot always be reduced to neat, ordered accounts. it is noticeable that many British memoirists relied heavily upon Napier for their accounts of battles in which they had participated in the Peninsula; they had not perceived those actions themselves in a form which would enable them to provide coherent descriptions for their readers. What they remembered, and what makes their memoirs so readable, was a series of vivid images, memorable incidents and notable characters. Recently, reprints of memoirs and collections of soldiers' anecdotes have gone some way to answer Private Wheeler's complaint: "But who shall record the glorious deeds of the soldier whose lot is numbered with the thousands in the ranks who live and die and fight in obscurity." (1) We could, therefore, easily design games to represent these individuals' experiences, though I fancy few would care to participate in a game which recreated Waterloo as remembered by an anonymous British soldier: "I'm hanged if I know anything about it, for I was all day trodden in the mud and ridden over by every scoundrel who had a horse!" I suspect that most Napoleonic wargamers aspire to command the large armies that campaigned in central Europe, however, and will therefore concentrate upon how we may model a general's perception of battle. Firstly, it will be necessary to abandon the 'traditional' game's obsession with trivial detail: "The commander... need not understand anything about the construction of a carriage or the harness of a battery horse" (2) And consider battle from the commander's point of view. Fortunately, our task has recently been made much easier by the publication in English of Reisswitz 'Kriegsspiel': the rules for the Prussian Army's officer training wargame of the early 19th Century. The author explains that the rules are designed so that the players may be subject to the same limitations that affect commanders in real life - were they not so constructed, the game would have no validity as a training system, indeed it would be positively dangerous! Bill Leeson, translator and publisher, makes a significant point that all wargamers should note: "Whether a game is a war game or not does not depend on whether counters or figures are used, but on whether the player is put in a realistic situation asfar as his information of the position of his own forces and the enemy is concerned, and in the giving and communicating of orders." (3) Although von Reisswitz intended that 'Kriegsspiel' be played with scaled counters on maps, there is no reason why the principles of his game should not be applied to games with miniatures. I can do no better than quote the original introduction at length - remember that these rules were written 160 years ago! -to illustrate the structure of the 'Kriegsspiel': "After the umpire has give the 'General Idea' to both players, he will give an intelligence report to each player separately. This will be a detailed outline of the exact strength and position of his forces at the beginning of the game, their line of retreat, their objective, and any such information of the enemy as the umpire considers he might have in reality at this stage of the maneuver... "When this has been done the commanders make a brief written plan for the umpire, stating: The intended maneuver, Orders to individual units, Orders given to other players, The intended position of troops, Which units furnish patrols or advance posts. "Within a large corps he will specify the order of battle to be taken up. "All this should be done in exactly the same style and spirit in which a military plan would normally be made, and if one of the players has an independent command he will be required to give a separate plan of his own. "The commanders' reports are handed to the umpire... The umpire can now begin moving the units to their intended positions. Bearing in mind the terrain, he notes which units and marches are in view of the enemy, and which remain hidden. Those troops which are in view of the enemy are noted, and the information will be passed on in due time. Similarly, if during the game, bridges are destroyed, villages occupied, dykes broken, etc., the umpire makes a note, and informs the other party of as much as they would see or find out in reality. "If the opposing forces are at some distance from each other, the umpire may take a number of moves together, noting the time on his chart. The commanders are called to the map separately after each move, to receive any fresh information that may have become available, and to be given the opportunity to make out fresh orders, or make alterations to the existing ones. As positions and marches come into view they are revealed to the players, on the map. It must be realized, however, that the umpire will assess how long it will take for the report of the sighting to get back to the commander, and he will make a note on his time sheet of exactly when a commander should be told of any sighting of the enemy by his troops. "In some cases the umpire may decide that the leaders of a troop wouId act immediately on their own initiative, after discovering a convoy for instance, without waiting for further orders from the commander, and in this he will have to use his own judgement, though naturally, he will be guided by the nature of the original orders which he has received for them. "When a commander is given fresh information which causes him to formulate new orders, it may be necessary to time how long he actually takes to do this, and add the time taken to the amount of time spent by messengers travelling to units with their new orders. "The commander may wish to go personally to an endangered position in order to give instructions. I n such a case, the umpire will note how long it would take him to get there at full gallop... "it will now be clear that all time taken up in the formulation, communication, and assimilation of messages and reports can be taken into account, that surprise can really happen, and that it is important to be able to grasp the implications of a message quickly, reach a decision promptly, and communicate orders clearly and briefly." (4) Several significant points should be noticed: (i) The administration of the rules is entirely in the hands of the umpire. This has never been the case in recreational wargaming. We might ask why it has been so in military wargames: the answer is obvious, if the players were to have access to the rules they would thereby be able to calculate their chances of success far to accurately. Von Reisswitz discusses the need for uncertainty in relation to both fire and close combat: "The officer in the field can predict with some certainty that a skillful placing of his guns will inflict great damage; that a superiority of fire power should give good result; that more damage will be inflicted if the enemy are employed in dense masses than if they are spread out, etc., but he can, even in these favorable circumstances, only predict a generally favorable result, and not an exact one." (5) "The outcome of a fight with sword or bayonet will depend on the concentration of the mental, moral, and physical strength of the combatants. "One may sense, but not know, how much of this strength is present in one's own troops. It is impossible, however, to know in advance how much of it is present in the enemy. His greater strength will only be felt at the moment the fight takes place. A superiority in numbers will be the most obvious condition noticeable. "Again, we must say, that if one wishes to use the apparatus seriously, to strive for a realistic and lively contest, one must put the player in a position of some uncertainty at this point, as he would be in reality. For this reason the dice are again employed to reach decisions over attacks with sword or bayonet." (6) As a result the players, freed from the time-consuming process of making the adjudications themselves in the rulebook, can give their undivided attention to the real arts of generalship. (ii) The fact that only those enemy units which would be visible in reality are placed before the players forces them to use reconnaissance to gather intelligence -- something never seen (because unnecessary) in the face to face game -- and creates the 'fog of war' without recourse to complex and rarely satisfactory devices used in some rules. (iii) Orders are only written when a general would write them; players do not need to order batallions to make formation or open fire. Nor is the transmission of orders or messages instantaneous, so that emphasis is placed on prompt, yet considered, decision making - no dithering about sending new orders every two minutes! - and upon the initial dispositions and orders before the battle, drawn up with less than total knowledge of the enemy, which were important, as von Reisswitz makes clear: "The sequence of events on the battlefield, the directions in which the troops will strike out, and the positions where actual attacks will take place, are in most cases, pre-determined by the dispositions of the troops at the outset. These positions, in turn, have been arrived at by troop movements which have themselves been influenced by the commanders' understanding of the intentions and objectives of the enemy - an understanding, incidentally, which may turn out to be not entirely accurate. "In a sense, then, the commander has to leave each unit to fend for itself in the actual conflict, most of the decisions having already been made, as far as their employment is concerned. Nevertheless a commander may wish to take immediate and direct control at some crisis point, and he can only do this if he is actually there." (7) The reader may object that whilst the 'Kriegsspiel' system seems admirable in theory, it will not work in practice. For a start, duplicate troops and terrain will be required; the expense, never mind the effort of painting, will be prohibitive. Secondly, an umpire is unnecessary. I shall endeavor to provide solutions to both these problems in ways that will not detract from the realism of the individual player's experience as he takes part in the game. Relatively inexpensive 1/300 miniatures are available that put duplicate troops within wargamers' budgets (those extra troops can, of course, be used for very large face to face games as well); an even cheaper solution has been suggested by Andy Callan of Wargame Developments: making your own armies of hair rollers! (8) it is worth remembering that it will not be necessary to place all the troops on the table: "Good eyesight recognizes masses of troops at 1700 yards; beyond this the glitter of arms may be observed. At 1300 yards infantry may be distinguished f rom cavalry, and the movement of troops may be seen... A single individual detached from the rest of the corps may be seen at 1000 yards, but his head does not appear as a round ball until he has approached up to 700 yards, at which distance white crossbelts and white trousers may be seen. At 500 yards the face may be observed as a light colored spot; the head, body, arms and their movements, as well as the uniform and the firelock (when bright barrels) can be made out. At between 200 and 250 yards all parts of the body are clearly visible, the details of the uniform are tolerably clear, and the officers may be distinguished from the men." (9) By the time the climax of the battle is reached, powder smoke will have reduced visibility even further. if the general is not in the front line with the troops he may see very little of the action: "But physically it was actually necessary for Wellington to be close up if he was to see what was going on. Prevailing visibilities are difficult to reconstruct in retrospect. Quite good at the start of the day - he could see to the far skyline, we know - by the late afternoon that had come down to a few hundred yards. We do know that at six o'clock, when La Haye Sainte was lost, he could not seethe light infantry of the KGL leaving the farm buildings from his station at the crossroads even though the distance between the two points is only about two hundred and fifty yards." (10) As one who finds painting figures a chore, I am surprised that wargamers have not adopted the extremely practical attitude of the Duke of Wellington: "I think it indifferent how a soldier is clothed... At a distance, or in action, colors are nothing: the profile, and shape of a man's cap, and his general appearance are what guide us..." (11) In battle, as the quotation from the Artillerist's Manual makes clear, the level of detail often painted on wargame figures is superfluous, if not unrealistic since it prevents mistaken identification and takes no account of the effect of campaigning upon dress regulations. Personally, I have participated in several large games in which all sorts of figures were pressed into service - in a refight of the battle of Novi, 1799, ACW, Crimean War and Garibaldi's Redshirts swelled the numbers of the French, Austrian and Russian armies! - and this did not detract in the least from the enjoyment of the game. Indeed, when units came into view it required some thought whether to open fire or not. Wargamers should concentrate on the problems of generalship - not military millinery! The umpiring problem can be solved by portraying only one side in the battle, the other being pre-programmed using methods suggested by Charles S. Grant (12), or controlled by the umpire. Many battles in this period were between one side attacking and their opponents defending. For example: Albuera Busaco, Victoria, Borodino and Waterloo. The player or players will take the part of the attacker; the less active defense can be programmed. This system has been called the 'Multi-Player Solo Game' (MPSG for short), and is widely used within Wargame Developments (13). The players have the challenge of operating with very limited information; the umpire enjoys watching the whole battle unfold, and their mistakes! The MPSG also reduces the number of miniatures needed since many of the enemy's troops will not appear, and the umpire plots both sides' movements on a map. it would be possible to stage an MPSG with only two people, a player and an umpire. Two regular opponents could take it in turns to be the player in a series of games. The other area in which Napoleonic games could be improved is by reducing the detail and complexity of mathematics of the rules. The 'traditional' table top rules contain an unnecessary amount of detail that would never be apparent to a general. In particular, much time is devoted to the mechanics of close combat, melee or whatever you choose to call it. Yet there is some reason to believe that the emphasis placed thereby upon close combat is incorrect, or at least tends to create a different impression of battle than that of the participants. Clausewitz suggests that much of any battle is taken up in skirmishing: "What actually happens in a great battle? A position is methodically occupied with great masses arranged alongside and behind one another. Only a relatively small part of the whole is deployed, and it is left to be worn out for several hours in the fire of combat, only interrupted from time to time by some smaller activity from bayonet or cavalry charges, which result in some movement in one way or another. When this part of the army has in this way gradually exhausted its warlike ardour and there remains nothing but cinders, it is withdrawn and replaced by another. So the battle burns, with an element of moderation, slowly away like wet powder." When the final bayonet attack goes in, provided there has been proper artillery preparation and skirmishing, there may well be none of the hand to hand combat beloved of wargamers: "During the recent wars Russian, French and Prussian columns have frequently been seen to carry positions with shouldered arms, and without firing a shot; this represents the triumph of the impetus and morale effect which is produced." (14) "This (Borodino), like all our great battles, was won by the artillery." (15) So perhaps our rules should be adjusted to represent artillery and skirmish line fire in more detail, and charges in less detail. One approach we could profitably adopt is that of Jim Wallman's 'One Brain Cell' rules (OBC), which determine the outcome of combat and then calculate casualties, rather than working out casualties and morale in great detail in order to try to determine the result of an attack. (16) Von Reisswitz similarly employs a die to find the outcome of charges, which also gives the casualties suffered and morale result. Since the players will not be administering the rules, it will be unnecessary to persuade them that the rules are realistic by using masses of detail; all they need to know are the results. The umpire requires a simple system that is easy to use/remember without the need for a pocket calculator. I hope the above has stimulated you to think about your Napoleonic games, and perhaps consider changing them so that you enjoy your generalship far more in the future. SOURCES 1. 'Letters of Private Wheeler', ed. B.H. Liddell-Hart, 1951. p144 2. 'On War' C. von Clausewitz, Book 11, Chap. 2 3.'Kriegsspiel', B. von Reisswitz, 1824. Translated into English and published by: Bill LEeson, 5 St. Angelis Lane Cottages, Hemel Hemstead, Herts, England, HP2 7HJ. p vii. 4. Ibid, pp 3-5 5. Ibid, p8 6. Ibid, pp 11-2 7. Ibid, p 53 8. 'Miniature Wargames' No. 9, p 13 9. 'Artillerist's Manual' 1839 10.'Under Fire: Wellington at Waterloo' J. Keegan. A lecture delivered at Apsley House, London, 18 June 1983 11. Wellington to Torrens, 6 November 1811 12. 'Programmed Wargames Scenarios', C.S. Grant, WRG 1983 13. 'MPSG Workshop', Mike Elliott, 'Nugget' the journal of Wargame Developments, No. 17, p 32 14. 'Precis de l'Art de la Guerre', Jornini, Paris 1855. II p 231 15. 'Memoirs of Sergeant Bourgogne', ed. Sir John Fortescue, 1926. p 8 16 'OBC Rules: A Recap', Jim Waliman,'Nugget', No. 20, p 13 Note: 'Nugget' subscription and Wargames Development membership information available from Bob Cordery, 50 Booth Close, Thamesmead, London SE28, England. 1983/84 membership was 7112 pounds sterling for UK members, 10 pounds sterling sea mail for overseas. 'Kriegsspeil' was reviewed in Nugget 18, December 1983 issue. 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