The wargaming field has seen quite a bit of innovation in the area of Napoleonic games over the last few years, and designer Kevin Zucker has been behind much of it. Napoleon at Leipzig is the latest effort in his series of games covering the campaigns of Napoleon, containing still more new ideas on how to simulate the subject. The game is published by Operational Studies Group, a relative newcomer to the wargaming industry.

Napoleon at Leipzig is a brigade-level simulation of the Battle of Nations (1813), the decisive confrontation between the French and Allied armies (the Allied armies are composed of forces from Austria, Prussia, Russia, and Sweden). The mapboard depicts the river valley around the town of Leipzig, where the battle was fought. Napoleon arrived at Leipzig with the intention to prevent the junction of the Allied armies; he accomplished this at the outset, but he had insufficient time to attack either enemy army separately. Accordingly, he went over to the defensive. Napoleon at Leipzig (NAL) begins at this point.

PHYSICAL COMPONENTS

Napoleon at Leipzig is packaged in an attractive bookshelf-sized box; the box contains two 22 X 34 inch map- sheets, 400 backprinted counters, and two booklets of rules, starting positions, and historical notes. Not included is a die, necessary for the play of the game, nor are there any counter sorting trays.

The game sells for $18.00; this seems slightly overpriced when compared to similar products from other publishers, at least as far as the physical components are concerned.

The quality of the artwork in NAL varies from good to bad. The game map, using an attractive green and gold color scheme, is the best feature of the components. The artist reversed the traditional applications of color to terrain, using green for high ground and autumn gold for forests. The net effect is to make the map one of the best efforts I have seen in some time.

Unfortunately, the counters are below the quality of the map. They would be about average, except that the corps designations are superimposed in a contrasting color over the fronts of all the combat units. I find this feature offensive when viewing the game from a distance and distracting when trying to handle the units - my eyes are drawn to the garish Roman numerals rather than the counter's small combat factors.

Also, some of the color combinations were poor selections, particularly the pinkish-red used on the blue French units. Although the corps designation has an important function in the advanced versions of the game, I believe that printing the unit identification at the top of the counter would be preferrable. This is one innovation that did not turn out so well. Overall, the graphics in NAL are above average, flawed only by the counters.

GAME SYSTEMS

The rules to NAL are written in three layers of increasing complexity. At the lowest level, there is the Standard Game, laying the basic framework of the game, such as movement, combat, and the like. Next is the Campaign Game, which introduces command control. Finally, the Grand Tactical Game intensifies the command restrictions and adds rules designed to simulate the differing personal traits of the important commanders.

The Standard Game reminds me of nothing so much as SPI's old Borodino game. Locking ZOCs, mandatory combat, two-hex-range artillery, and all the rest are present - in short, there is nothing new here.

Only when players advance to the Campaign Game do they discover some of the new ideas in the game. In this version, players must control commanders and officers in addition to the combat units. Commanders represent the ultimate source of control for the armies; they transmit their orders through their officers or directly to nearby units.

While identical in function, their abilities are differentiated by their engagement capacity, limiting the number of officers and units that may be controlled in a game turn. For example, Napoleon is rated as a three, while poor Schwartzenburg must struggle as a one.

Units that do not receive orders from a commander may not enter enemy ZOCs. This might seem minor, but its effect is to prevent units from closing to combat. Thus, any serious offensive requires the attention of a commander; attacks along the entire line, prevalent in the Standard Game, are no longer possible.

In the Campaign Game, destroyed units are allowed to return to combat at reduced strength by means of reorganization. Whenever a full- strength unit is destroyed, it is placed off-map for the remainder of the day. Any time thereafter, it is eligible for reorganization by its commanding officer. Since the officer must be a certain distance from enemy units and can not transmit orders to his formation while reorganizing, players will find themselves forced to withdraw a corps from fighting in order to return its destroyed units to play.

Demoralization levels are maintained, as in the Standard Game, but are assigned by corps rather than to entire armies. No longer will the French army be slowly ground away, with no ill effects until the last unit. Now, players may find that the VI Corps, reduced after a desperate defense, will be demoralized while the remainder of the army remains unaffected.

Each formation has an individual demoralization level which ,must be exceeded before the formation breaks, thus, some corps can take more losses than others. The penalty for demoralization is primarily an increase in movement costs, but also makes reorganization more difficult. Two other morale rules cover the effects of a demoralized corps on its neighbors, when certain "unbeatable" units such as the French, Russian, and Prussian Guards are defeated in an attack.

When the players advance to the Grand Tactical Game, they will encounter even more restrictions on what they can do with their units. Command is traced from the commanders to the leaders as before, but now the commanders have two capabilities instead of one: movement capacity, and the old engagement capacity. This addition is necessary, because in this version units out of command can not move anywhere, instead of simply being unable to enter zones of control.

The movement and engagement capacities of each commander are not always equal, and the commander can split his capacity between two units. For example, VI Corps might be able to move but not engage, while III Corps could engage but not move.

The Grand Tactical Game also adds a new step to the sequence of play: the order interphase, which occurs once every four turns. The movement and engagement capacities of a commander change depending on his strategy; on the offensive, movement and engagement would be about equal, but on a retreat, movement would be high and engagement low.

For the Allied player, these capacities change with roll of a die. Since there was no overall Allied commander, the Allied player has no direct control over the strategies of his commanders. This, as one might imagine, can cause quite a bit of consternation in the Allied camp; it can be very frustrating to watch a well- planned offensive go down the drain when Schwartzenburg decides to quit moving. The French player has a little more control over his commanders. Every four turns, he must issue general orders to Murat and Ney, the French subordinate commanders. (Napoleon, being a military genius, doesn't need orders, having constant movement and engagement capacity.)

There are six missions for the French commanders, ranging from a general offensive to a general retreat, and each places specific restrictions on how the commander may move and fight his units.

The Grand Tactical Game differentiates between the officers, in the form of initiative ratings. The higher this number, the better the officer's chance of moving and fighting his formation without supervision from a commander. The risks in this are considerable; no officer has better than a 50% chance to move and fight, and his formation might very well freeze at a crucial moment.

The final section of the Grand Tactical rules provide for special artillery benefits, cavalry charges, and the Congreve rocket unit. Basically, any time the line of fire from an artillery unit crosses a slope hexside, the firepower of the unit is increased. Presumably this is because the artillery crews can fire better when they do not have to worry about interveneing friendly troops.

Also, artillery defending against an infantry attack is allowed to use cannister fire, which doubles their defense strength. The cavalry charge rules allow cavalry units to move through an enemy zone of control in order to overrun the enemy unit. If successful, the cavalry unit remains in the hex cutting off the retreat route of the defenders; in this case, DR results become D E for the rest of the turn.

The idea here is to simulate the reaction of infantry when charged - the infantry would form square against the cavalry, but would then be vulnerable to artillery and infantry attacks. Finally, the rocket artillery rules are designed to reproduce the disconcerting effect this had on the French troops.

CONCLUSION

The layered rules in NAL are important in the attractiveness of the game. They allow the players to select the degree of complexity and realism that they prefer. Furthermore, there is no reason why the players could not mix the rules together - perhaps playing the Campaign Game with the special cavalry charge rules.

In my opinion, most wargames suffer from one of two complimentary problems. Some games are overly simple; they lack the detail which makes the game feel like a simulation, which distinguishes a panzer battle from a Napoleonic campaign. Other games have too much detail; they may be an excellent simulation, but they are too complicated for many gamers to learn and play.

Napoleon at Leipzig is one of the rare games which strikes a balance between these two extremes, combining elements of both to form a game which should please almost anyone.

Napoleon at Leipzig Counterpoint (Game Review)