War Games in Review

From Valmy to Waterloo

by William Keyser

Introduction by Jean Lochet We have seen several wargames played at Historicon 93 and Coldwars 94 using William Keyser's rules From Valmy to Waterloo (to be publisshed by Clash of Arms Games). In these games we have seen gamers without any previous experience with his rules being able to use them quite efficiently. These rules are easy to learn and allow for a fast moving game. We asked Mr. Keyser to present the thinking behind the design and the objectives he is trying to achieve with his rules. The Genesis of From Valmy to Waterloo by William Keyser Yes Virginia, another set of Napoleonic rules, and yes, I feel that these are different and better than others. Having said that let me explain how From Valmy to Waterloo came about. In the beginning I was frustrated by many of the complex rules out there. They all seemed to have the right ingredients; unfortunately, they were for the most part unplayable. To the other extreme were the dreaded "beer and pretzel" rules in which the only difference in playing a Napoleonic game and a pre-biblical battle was the clothing of the troops. I began combining the good things from one set of rules with the good parts of others. At about this time I moved from upstate New York to Brewster, which is only a short distance from New York City. So I began to visit the New York City Library and the West Point Library. At the same time I also became acquainted with Brent Noseworthy's Anatomy of Victory and also with Jean Lochet. The result of the many library visits and numerous talks with Brent Noseworthy and Jean Lochet was that I started to look at the tactical aspects of Napoleonic warfare and attempted to put all of the different threads together. After close to six years of research and playtesting, the result is From Valmy to Waterloo, a set of rules that is not another version of older wargame rules but rather a completely new look at the period. I did not want a rehashing of the myths presented in previous rules, such as the myth that British firepower was more muskets on line firing more accurately and faster than anyone else, rather than the fact that it was the result of one or two devastating volleys at close range followed by a bayonet charge of a 100 meters or so. Or, the myth that battalions would attack tightly packed so as to overrun the enemy by sheer weight of numbers. The actual ideal attack would be an attack of battalions at deployment distance followed by a tactical reserve, 200 to 400 meters behind the first, as Bill Jessop stated in his article in EE&L #3. And the list goes on. The rules are easy to learn, and easy to teach. Once the gamer has learned how to play From Valmy to Waterloo then he finds that in order to be successful he must use the actual tactics of the period and not fall back on gimmicks or by becoming a "rules lawyer." In From Valmy to Waterloo a major part of the rules are dedicated to command and control. This is dealt with on the Army, Corps and Divisional levels. At Brigade and lower the command and control is more abstract, but still affects play and forces the gamer to take it into account but without being bogged down by it. Command and control is enforced by a strict adherence to the chain of command. This is accomplished by having a menu of orders which Corps Commanders may issue to their Divisions. The more flexible the army the more choices the Corps Commander has. This also reflects the inherent difference in the "impulse system" and the "linear system" of rules. For example, if one is fighting with a Prussian Army of 1806, which operates on a linear system that lacks flexibility, the Corps or Wing commander will have a limited choice of orders for his Divisions. On the other hand, the French of 1806 will have much more flexibility at this level. The bottom line is that the Prussian Wing operating under a linear system may have any order the French Corps may have available, but the Divisions of that Wing will have less choices than their French counterparts. The abilities of all of the Armies from 1792-1815 changed, sometimes drastically. This is represented by the fact that the "menu" that Corps may chose orders from for their Divisions, also changes accordingly. For the gamer that means that he will have to use his army in a much more historical manner tha ever before. This will force him to mat his battle plan with many of th limitations of that period. In addition, each Corps and Division order has strict guidelines which are meant to make the gamer follow the orders he has been given. For example, Division with an attack order must move all of the units (with the exception of artillery) to within 800 meters of formed enemy units. Once there he may do as he pleases, but given the proximity of the enemy this will induce him to attack, be eliminated. The orders for Division and Corps all follow this theme. I want to force the gamer to make a plan and once his orders have been issued he must place his units in such a position that behooves him to carry out those orders. The timing of issuing of orders From Valmy to Waterloo must also I dealt with in the game. In addition to the restrictions on what orders some armies may have there is also a restriction as when the gamer may issue orders. This represents the difficulty of the commanders in recognizing a needed change the orders and also his staff ability to transmit the orders to his units. This allows the French player to issue orders more frequently than most other nations. The effect in the play of the game is that the French Army is most flexible to changing situations than most of its opponents. Once the order is sent, the Commander who receives the order must activate the order. This represents the chain of events that occur from the time the Commander receives the order until his battalions begin to respond to the order. The activation of the order dependent upon the commander's abilities, the abilities of his staff and number of other modifiers. As you can see, the ability of the gamers to change the orders of their units is often time consuming. The intention here is to make the gamer plan his battle just as the generals of the time had to. The restrictions placed on issuing orders and activating the orders will compensate some for the ability of the gamer to see more of the battlefield than an actual commander of that period would have been able to see. In one of my playtesters' battles, a French Army of 1809 was fighting an Austrian Army. At one point the French commander swung one of his divisions out of the line and wheeled to his right. The Austrian Commander had a fresh Division which was about 1,500 meters away and he wanted to attack the flank of the French Division. Unfortunately for him, his Division had a "Defend" order and he had to send a new order from the Corps Commander to the Division. By the time the Austrian Division received the new order and activated the order the French Division had moved away and in its place a fresh Division of infantry and a Corps of Cuirassier with supporting artillery had moved into place. The poor-Austrian Division had to fulfill its orders and obediently marched into the valley, was shot to pieces by numerous artillery batteries, and the survivors ridden down by the cavalry. The Austrian Corps Commander was unable to send the Division a new order in time to save it. As you can see, giving orders in From Valmy to Waterloo is restricting and force the gamer to really plan his battle, but this does not infringe on the tactical aspect of the rules. Once a Division has received an order, that order will have certain restrictions and sometimes requirements that the units of that Division must adhere to. On the tactical level the gamer is left to his own devices and may do just about anything he desires so long as it is within the orders of the Division. In effect you are playing two roles: the first as Army and/or Corps commander. Here you issue orders and designate objectives to the Divisions of your army; second, on the tactical level you must move the brigades and Battalions so as to fulfill the orders of the Corps. Another New Concept Another new concept to many Napoleonic gainers is the method of "targeting" enemy units with artillery fire. This is done with the aid of an artillery template which designates the "beaten zone." It is used by placing the artillery template over a target and any enemy units which fall within this "beaten zone" will be targets. After the first few rounds, artillery in a Napoleonic battle was an "area effect" weapon, in that the target would become quickly obscured by smoke, and the often overlooked difficulty of determining where one unit started and another ended. One aspect that enhances this area effect concept is the way most batteries fire. The poor Austrian Division had to fulfill its orders and obediently marched into the valley, was shot to pieces ... Battery Powered Let's look at a Battery of six to eight guns in battle. The first thing that would be done is placing the guns in the line of battle. This would be the job of the Battery Commander. He would ride to the area indicated by his superior and find the best sight for his guns, based on a number of criteria, such as being almost level with the enemy so as to get the best ricochet, and to be able to shield the rest of the vehicles of the battery from enemy fire. Next the guns would be brought up. The guns would have a tactical composition of two guns to a section and the section commanders would be informed of the battery commander's "fire plan." Once firing began the gunners would in all likelihood be firing at the area indicated by his section commander. With the recoil of the gun, the smoke, and the confusion it is very difficult to believe that the gunner would fire at or be able to fire at an individual battalion the way we have been taught through the use of the artillery fire stick of so many rules. The fact is that given the capabilities of the artillery piece and the organization of the battery the guns are firing at an area which probably would be the densest concentration of the enemy. This is represented by my artillery template. Another factor which is important in the use of the artillery template is the fact that as gainers we have all been led to believe that it is best to concentrate on one target unit, usually a battalion. This has been supported by the fact that most rules have a "fear of disaster" type morale check and as gainers we see this as a way of affecting the enemy attack. The thinking becomes: "If we make one unit rout we will have a chance of the entire attack running away." This line of thought is unfortunately only slightly true. First, the gunners of the artillery battery will look at all of the units attacking as an equal threat and will try to affect all of the units. The reason is simple. If you have six battalions attacking and you concentrate your fire on only one battalion it is very likely that the other five will accomplish their mission. A most important factor is communication: the artillery battery could not coordinate with any other battery in firing at a single battalion. Proper Spacing One important aspect of the artillery template is to instill in the gamer the concept of proper spacing of the units both laterally and in depth. During the period 1792-1815 most attacks would have the battalions deployed at deployment distance. This is the distance needed to the flanks of units so that all of the units in the front line could deploy into line. We see this over and over. At Wagram the Austrians deployed in the defense in a line of columns at deployment distance. At Auerstadt Morand formed his battalions in line of columns at deployment distance before he entered combat. Even earlier at Hondschoote (September 8, 1793) Jourdan's Division advanced in line of columns at deployment distance. The list goes on and on. We must assume that the reason for using this "deployment distance" was a very real one. In From Valmy to Waterloo the gamer is given many reasons to do so. One reason is the artillery template which will affect units that bunch up and increase their casualties dramatically. Again this makes the gamer deploy and attack at "historical frontages." He may bunch up his troops if he wishes although this is a risky prospect in From Valmy to Waterloo as it was historically. This is also emphasized in the game rules charge reaction phase where the attacking unit gets the bonus of mass but the effect of casualties and disorganization is more of a detriment than the massing of troops is a benefit. Light Infantry Yes, This is the point of most contention in Napoleonic games. They have been presented as anything from supermen to a useless mob. In From Valmy to Waterloo I attempt to deal with them in perspective. Yes they were effective, but if they were so effective why didn't the French (who used them very effectively) not inflict many more major crushing defeats on its enemies until 1805 or after the camp of Boulogne? Could it be that Light Infantry were only one part of the building block that was the "impulse system?" The whole concept of Line, Column, and skirmishers, in concert with the artillery and cavalry, was a complex combined arms affair where if everything was working well and together it could be devastating. We know that French Lights would screen the attack of columns and lines but how effective was this if the attacking units could cover the last X meters in X minutes, how many rounds could be fired by the Lights? And another question about other nations' Lights was the title Jager, Fusiliers, etc., which was applied but their role as Light Infantry was limited to the "petite guerre." If they did contribute to a battle, and in many instances they did not, they fought as formed troops. Skirmishers in From Valmy to Waterloo are important in towns and woods and to a lesser extent in the open field of battle. Some units such as the French can form what Bressonet calls the "tirailleurs en grandes bandes." In this role they can be effective in disordering terrain but are not overly strong in the open field of battle. If we look at the effectiveness of Lights we often see conflicting comments on their use and also on their effectiveness. Which leads me to believe that given certain situations they could be effective but I do not feel that they were as overwhelming as they seem to be in some rules. We can take General Duhesme's comments during Jena about a unit of Lights that they were useless in open order and should form up and advance. And as the wars progressed the Allied armies became more proficient, with the result that the French and Allied Light troops would often cancel each other. There are also special rules to catch the essence of some armies, an example is the rule covering the Russian artillery. This states that in order to move, i.e., limber and move to a new position, the artillery commander must be within his command distance of 200-300 meters for Divisional Commanders to 350 meters for the Army Artillery Commander. In addition he must roll on a D 10 a 1 or 2 in order to limber, then the commander must move with the artillery to the predesignated area and then roll on a D10 a 1 to 4 to unlimber. Each number increases by one each turn that the artillery was unsuccessful in limbering or unlimbering. This may seem very artificial but it accomplishes two things: first, it makes the Russian player aware that the initial placement of his guns is critical; and, second, that in order to be flexible enough to react to the enemy he would be smart to have an artillery park of limbered batteries that the Artillery Commander can then move "easily" to a threatened sector. What I have found by using this rule is that the Russian player will, after a few, sometimes sharp lessons, use the artillery almost identically to the way in which it was used by the Russian army of this period. Even though I have placed an abundance of detail in the rules the playing of the game is surprisingly fast. This was one of my primary goals, to have a game with lots of detail that really captured the feel of the period both on the grand tactical level and also on the tactical level, but still have it playable i an acceptable time. This is accomplishe by not using "cheat sheets" but a rule outline book. This book is set up so that each page or spread covers one of the phases of the turn sequence and is laid out so that all tables follow the flow of the game. All the gamer has to do is start on page on and just continue through until the last page and he will have finished the turn. All the tables that are used in playing are in this book. What this means is that even though you only use a fraction the tables on the page for that phase, when the time comes for "forming square" or seeing how effective the Cossacks are this turn, you do not have to hunt for the table, it's right there. In what seems to me innumerable games using my rules at conventions have found that most of the garners who have never played the game can, after two to three turns of instruction, be left to their own devices and I am only neede for the occasional interpretation of what is a "flank," or how do you define a "enfilade," etc. With gamers who have played two three games and are commanding Division to a Corps the time for each time is in the 15 to 20 minutes area. This very good considering that one game turn represents 15 minutes of real time. Another subject dear to most Napoleonic gamers is basing or rebasing their miniatures. In From Valmy to Waterloo no rebasing of your figures is necessary for most of the popular rule including Empire and Napoleon Battles. The figure scale is 1 to 60 is there in a section in the rules which tells the gamer how to use most of the popular basing systems to reflect this scale. They work equally well with 5mm or l5mm However, for the larger scales such as 25mm the problem becomes the ground scale and the ability to have a table enough. From Valmy to Waterloo was designed as a game with multiple corps on each side and therefore the table has to reflect the space that these corps would use in deploying. If this brief article has piqued yo interest then I hope to see you Coldwars 95, next March, where I will I hosting another series of games. En avant! Back to Empire, Eagles, & Lions Table of Contents Vol. 2 No. 7 Back to EEL List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1994 by Emperor's Headquarters This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com