In an effort to make this issue shorter I purposely deleted my article on the French Navy artillerists etc. so we can concentrate on more urgent matters such as answering questions on the purchasing values and rating of troops as requested in several past Newsletters especially by Tom. The purchasing values can be found in rule 1.10. The melee values can be found in rule 1.6. Anytime we set up a battle troops are purchased according to 1.10. The higher the rating the more expensive the unit becomes. For instance. (1)A French line battalion has a basic value of one point per soldier i.e.36 points for the complete battalion. (2) A Young Guard Voltigeurs battalion has a value of 64 points (2 points per soldier). (3) An Old Guard battalion (32 men) has a value of 96 points. So, one can get almost 3 line battalions for the point value of 1 Old Guard battalion! In issue #7 I have proposed to do the same for artillery. Horse artillery was already more expensive. In the very near future (I hope) I would like to see the theme of the battle given to each side with a total number of points. It will be then the responsibility of each Commander in Chief to set up his Army as he sees it. For that, we need several things: (1) A good clear rule 1.10 for the purchasing values. (2) A good clear rating system for every type of unit to be used. no new unit should be introduced without a proper rating obtained through discussion in this Newsletter. also marginal evaluations of old units should be reconsidered. (3) A list of all available units to one commander. (4) Several battle themes on hand so we can decide which one to fight and give the C.I.Cs at least 2 weeks to prepare and evaluate the situation. So, battle themes are also requested. To finish it would be a good idea for one of us to be the official reporter to write up the battle report. Any volunteer? Comments please. On the Rule Book It's quite obvious that our rule book is very very fat. It can be streamlined and translated in English instead of the current Frenglish. It would make it easier to make copies for the new members. However the task is enormous and frankly I don't have the time or the ambition to start alone. Any ideas? Comments please? ON POINT VALUES AND CLASSIFICATION It is one of the very basic standards of the game, yet it is one of the most difficult systems to set up: a good purchasing value system. The relative values and rating Guards, elite versus line units is one of the most confusing and really hard to access. I have tried to be fair to the best of my ability and yet I have an uneasy feeling about it. Anyway it is open for discussion, suggestions etc. Do no forget that criticism is easy and that someone had to do the evaluation and start somewhere. However, I do not apologize about the following list used in rule 1.10 because it provides a workable system and it is the result of loads of patient work. I. INFANTRY RATINGS PURCHASING VALUES CATEGORY (1) OLD GUARD- French Old Guard, Russian Guard grenadiers 3.0 (2) MIDDLE GUARD I- 3rd Dutch Grenadiers, Russian Guard, British Guard, Guard Sappers, Guard Artillery 2.75 (3) MIDDLE GUARD II- French Middle Guard, Kilted Highlanders 2.5 (4) YOUNG GUARD- French young guard, Prussian Guard, Saxon Guard, British Fusiliers, British Light Sappers, Line artillery etc. 2.0 (5) GRENADIERS 1.75 (6) LIGHT INFANTRY 1.5 (7) ELITE LINE- 1st Battalion of British line, some selected French units etc. 1.25 (8) LINE- Most of line units, some British 2nd and 3rd Battalion 1.00 (9)LINE RECRUITS-like some of the French temporary Rgts in 1809 .75 (10) LEVY INFANTRY-like French National Guards, Landwehr .5 Note the above list is not complete and lists only a few typical units. II. CAVALRY RATINGS CATEGORY (1) GUARD CAVALRY HEAVY- also French Carabiniers 3.5 (2) CUIRASSIERS (armored) 3.0 (3) ELITE LINE CAVALRY HEAVY (some Dragoons), GUARD CAVALRY LIGHT 2.75 (4) ELITE CAVALRY LIGHT, LINE CAVALRY HEAVY 2.5 (5) LINE CAVALRY LIGHT 2.0 (6) LEVY CAVALRY 1.5 Back to Empire, Eagles, & Lions Table of Contents Vol. 1 No. 8 Back to EEL List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1999 by Jean Lochet 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