Frequently the secret to success is leaving well enough alone. The eighteenth century rules that I included in my last article work just fine. I think that a little refinement about conduct of brigades if brigadiers are lost in is order, but on the whole, the rules have always given an interesting and enjoyable game. Alas, I have always hated modifiers and came up with what seemed a brilliant idea. Since the rules already use a two tier die roll (first toss a modified die to see if there is a hit, then [if there is a hit] toss a [usually unmodified] second die to find the result), I came up with the notion of moving all the modifiers to the second roll. This would mean that if no hit were scored then there would be no need to bother figuring modifiers. This makes excellent sense. Unfortunately we are talking about human beings here and (to make matters worse) wargamers who (to make matters worse) were accustomed to these rules and the second toss normally not having modifiers. Each side began with three batteries of artillery, five brigades of cavalry and seven brigades of infantry. The French held about a third of the table from a garrison in Anthoing and a battery on the Scheidt River at the western edge of the table and more infantry in a line reaching out to another battery and a garrison in Fontenoy then more infantry in a line to another battery beside the Woods which were garrisoned by more infantry. There was even more infantry in reserve and they were backed up by cavalry reserves. The French were crushed. Besides lousy dice, what happened'? What happened in the game was that (sometime after it was over) we realized that one of the reasons that the British and Dutch had kicked the French around so contemptuously (besides their obviously Franco-phobic tendencies) was that we had neglected to give the French the modifiers for defending from cover. What was even worse was that I was the French! Back to MWAN #108 Table of Contents Back to MWAN List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 2000 Hal Thinglum 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