ARMY COMPOSITION My advice is to count squadrons and battalions rather than "heads" when putting your units together-the law of averages will take care of the oversized or undersized units that might get rolled up in the totals. This method also sidesteps the difficulty in finding hard unit information on this era; it's one thing to count battalions, it's another to get a reliable reference on unit strengths (especially given the polyglot nature of a force). In practical VnB terms, the "default" infantry stand (half brigade) represents 3 battalions and should be 2 Strength Points (SPs), morale 4, and the "default" cavalry stand (brigade) represents 10 squadrons and should be 3SPs, morale 5 or 4, H-weight. Make an infantry brigade 3SP if you know it is "oversized" in some way, and by the same token, make a cavalry brigade 2SPs if you know it is undersized in some way. This may seem like something of a gamer's approach (and hence a shortcut) to the purist: guilty as charged, m'lud! My experience with the variant, though, is that these sized units do give the game a good feel. As long as the relative unit strengths on the opposing sides are similar, which is what really counts when you're playing, there's nothing magic about how many men each strength point is supposed to represent (to me, anyway). However, there is nothing in the variant that would prevent you from structuring units differently if you are more comfortable with strength points based on headcount. For VnB, I will admit that these make for small units, and small units in VnB are notoriously brittle, so those familiar with the system may be a bit alarmed at this suggestion. However, this variant also includes addendum and variants that make smaller units more durable in VnB: the "last point" rule and the more discrete forced pass through rule, to specifically name them. Additionally, the movement is less fluid in this variant, so small- er units aren't going to be swept off the board in a swoosh, either, as they might be in a more conventional VnB game with more liberal movement rules. For army composition itself, Cavalry made up about 1/3 of the actual field army as a rule, but could go higher. Regarding the actual number of formations, the ratio was about three squadrons to each battalion in an army. Large armies of the day ranged in the 50,000s. The battle of Landen was especially large, seeing 80,000 French against 50,000 (plus) Allies. Here are some examples of representative armies: Luxembourg's Army in Flanders in 1691 was 49 battalions and 160 squadrons. William III, in that same year, commanded 63 battalions and 180 squadrons (56,000 men). Louis XIV commanded an Army in the 1692 campaign composed of 40 battalions and 90 squadrons while Luxembourg's assembled army for the same campaign consisted of 66 battalions and 205 squadrons. MORALE GRADES AND UNIT SIZES In General: Of course, the salient point in the VnB system is that stands represent multiple sub units (battalions and squadrons). The stand's morale rating therefore will often turn on your interpretation of what the collective morale of it might be given component units of varied quality. I suggest that the "average" morale ratings (detailed below) will cover most of your standard units, with the assumption that the sub units will be a mixture of higher and lower quality, but overall balancing out to the average rating. Given the limited documentation for the era, this sidesteps a major issue with trying to rate each and every battalion or squadron, which in more documented eras might not be so much of a problem. This same holds especially true for cavalry, where there are even more squadrons in a stand. For what it's worth, I have tried to account for the era and the peculiarities of the various contenders with my suggestions on morale ratings, so hopefully, it shouldn't feel like a "generic" game on this point. INFANTRY: The average infantry unit should be morale 4. Crack and good infantry units should be morale 5. Guards of minor powers should be morale 6. Guards of major powers and a few others (like the Brandenburg-Prussian Fusilier Leibgarde) should be morale 6 shock units. I rate all English infantry as morale 5. Dutch infantry also had a very good reputation, so I rate half of my Dutch as 5, the others 4. For the French, I rated half brigades ("half brigade" = stand) with Vieux regiments as 5, Irish and Swiss in French service as 5, and a few selected units, like the Regt Du Roi, as 5; the rest are 4. Swiss battalions were almost always brigaded together and did not have grenadiers, so Swiss stands would be without elites. If stands have a mixed proportion of units, then either drop them one grade below the highest quality unit or bump them one grade up from the lowest (your call): example, if you have a half brigade that has a single minor power guard battalion and 2 line battalions, then this would be a morale 5 stand. In order to get the shock modifier, the unit must be pure-no non-shock elements mixed in. Most stands should be 2SP (roughly representing 3 bns at field strength). Infantry stands are also referred to as "half brigades." Units with big battalions (typically guards units, Swiss, and perhaps Imperial battalions), or just plain big half brigades (if you include more than 3 battalions, for instance) could be represented by 3SP units. Keep in mind that in many cases regiments were single battalion units, especially for the English Army of this era. To reflect the smaller organization, I suggest limiting my British Army foot to 2SPs (on the other hand, the British will have more units, relatively speaking, which is a benefit). As far as fusilier vs pike, the Danes, the Saxons, the Bavarians, Imperial (Austrian), and the Huguenots in English service were without the pike. The English Army had at least 2 regiments (battalions) of Fusiliers (the Royal and Scots), and the French had 5. The Brandenburg-Prussian Army had the "Fusilier Leibgarde" regiment (multi-battalion) without the pike. You will run across a few more if you study the era. This roll up, however, covers the major cases. Unless otherwise specified, all other infantry can safely be considered pike. CAVALRY (HORSE): The default French, English, Bavarian, Prussian, and Imperial horse brigade should be morale 5 and "H" weight. Dutch cavalry of the period had a bad reputation and should be morale 4 "H" weight (alternately, one might rate it morale 5 but downgrade it to "M" weight). The other allied cavalry seem to have been bested by the French cavalry fairly regularly as well. Therefore, I also would rate others as 4 and "H" weight too, but bump them to morale 5 and H weight if they had some kind of "stiffening" squadrons mixed in with the line squadrons (as in the case of the infantry unit mentioned above with the guard or elite battalion mixed in with the line units). A guard or elite cavalry brigade, defined as a stand that is composed predominantly of elite horse squadrons, should be morale 6 (use your judgment in the absence of documentation as to whether sufficient squadrons existed and if they would likely be brigaded together to form an elite brigade: my best example is that I did put together a morale 6 Brandenburg-Prussian cavalry brigade composed of the Leib Cuirassiers, Trabant Guard, and Grand Musketeer squadron). After 1692, the French Carabineer brigades were formed: morale 6. Very special elite or guard cavalry should be rated morale 6 and weighted "HH": I have created only 3 like this: the French Gendarmes, Maison du Roi, and the English Lifeguards (which includes the Dutch Guard de Paard). The standard cavalry brigade should be 3SPs. Smaller brigades might be 2SPs. Basically, all horse units of the period are heavy. Cavalry brigades represent massed brigades of roughly 10 squadrons, which comes up to a ballpark figure close enough to 1,500 to warrant the size (add a few squadrons if the number comes up a bit shy). The number of actual regiments being represented varies wildly; most regiments were composed of 2 or 3 squadrons, so a horse brigade stand might represent up to 5 different regiments-the actual operational unit, however, was the squadron, so other than for aesthetic purposes (you have to paint them to look like something and call them by some name), the actual regimental organization is actually irrelevant. The squadrons were the fighting units, and there was no operational echelon, like the regiment, between the squadron and the brigade on the battlefield in this era. ARTILLERY: The standard morale for gunners should be 4 and each gun brigade should be 2SPs (representing a concentration of roughly 10-12 guns; they were called "brigades" by some armies; during this time, the term "brigade" was as much verb as it was noun: guns, battalions, and squadrons were "brigaded" for battle). As far as the mix goes, a good rule of thumb would be one actual gun for each 1,000 men in the army. For a 50,000-man army that works out nicely to 50 cannon, or five gun brigades. According to Lynn, "an ideal train for a French army of 50,000 ... included four 24-pounders, six 12-pounders, twenty 8pounders, twenty 4-pounders." This works out nicely in this variant to five gun brigades: one heavy (the 24 and 12 pounders together), two field (the 8 pounders), and two light category (twenty 4 pounders). For variation, you might drop one of the field brigades to light, and drop one of the light brigades to very light. If that example doesn't work for you, you might follow a more general ratio based on Chandler: 10 percent heavy, 30 percent field, and 40 percent light and very light (I would split Chandler's "light" among light and very light). For gaming purposes, the rule of thumb would be 1 actual gun for each two SPs, which works out to be 1 gun brigade for each 20SPs. To ensure a good mix of "very light" guns, which are in lieu of battalion guns for this time, I would say that there always would have to be at least as many "very light" brigades as "light"-odd numbers would favor the "very light" over the "light" (so 3 light category gun brigades would wind up being 2 "very light" and 1 "light"). SPECIAL RULE FOR SWEDES: Finally, there was a substantial Swedish force in Dutch service; for those who wish to model Swedish differently than others to reflect their Ga Pa tactics-the aggressive advance with only a single volley before closing, perhaps mare used in the Great Northern War than the LOA-I would suggest that they be rated morale 5, have 1 fire dice (both stationary and normal), and roll I extra melee dice when attacking. REFERENCES AND PLAYER REFERENCE SHEETS For a complete list of references, see my article on the LOA in this issue. There are player reference sheets available for download, along with a complete copy of this rules variant with references, in the Yahoo Volley and Bayonet Newsgroup (in the files section): http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vnblist/?yguid=86108135. Nine Years War 1688-1697: Volley and Bayonet Rules variant Back to MWAN # 129 Table of Contents Back to MWAN List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 2004 Hal Thinglum This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com