Several Greater Dayton Wargamers Club members met recently to try Warfare in the Age of Reason rules (hereafter referred to as AOR). We played a Seven Years War battle, using two brigades of Austrian infantry and one each of Russian and French against three Prussian and one British brigade, plus three cavalry brigades per side. Although we played only eight turns, the game was very enjoyable and everyone seemed to like the rules. However, like most wargamers, we could not resist the temptation to develop some house rules. I am presenting these as suggestions for others to try. Alternate Mounting: All of our 15mm figures were organized and based according to Koenig Krieg (hereafter referred to as KK). Rather than rebase them, we feel that troops based for KK can still be used, with some modifications. Infantry: Although the frontage per figure is the same for the two rule sets, the fact that KK mounting is two figures deep effectively halves the frontage of infantry battalions. This makes infantry a bit more maneuverable than it should be, since it is easier to wheel with the shorter frontage. Since all the troops on both sides were mounted this way, neither side gained any advantage from this, so it did not sean to have a serious inpact on the gane. However, if players don't like this, one idea might be to permit infantry to wheel at half-speed only. In combat, we allowed both ranks to fire, instead of just the front rank per AOR. Similarly, when counting the number of castings for calculating the base number of dice plus the frontage modifiers in melee, we counted all figures in both ranks. Artillery: We used two KK artillery bases (with two crew castings each) to represent one 4-gun AOR battery. In retrospect, this seaned to put artillery at a disadvantage in melee with enany infantry, since this doubles the artillery'S frontage while the infantry's frontage is halved. I would suggest using KK base to represent one NJR battery; just remember that each crew casting can take two hits. Cavalry: Units mounted for KK occupy two-thirds of the frontage that they should for AOR. As with the infantry, this did not really cause a problan. We used the cavalry with the AOR rules as written, allowing either one- or two-rank lines. We played the melee rules as written, counting only figures in the first rank for purposes of determining frontage. However, I would suggest that in cavalry vs infantry melees, both ranks of cavalry should be counted for frontaqe, since we allowed the infantry to count both ranks. Note on the 15mm charts: We used the 15mm charts provided on page 40 of AOR. However, there is no chart provided for 15mm artillery movement. I offer the following: Gun Foot Field Horse Field Foot Road Horse Road Prolong Light Gun 10" 12" 13" 21" 1.5" Medium Gun 9" 10" 12" 18" 1" Heavy Gun 7" 9" 11" 17" 0.5" Seige Gun 4" - 7" - - Capture of Enemy Standards This rule (step 4 of the melee procedure, page 33) permits the winner of a melee to try to capture the loser's standard. Although the rule does add some "color" to the melee procedure, the results seaned to have far too much effect on the battlle. In our game, a Prussian Hussar regiment defeated an Austrian hussar regiment and captured its standard, raising the Prussian's morale to 4 while Icwering the Austrian's morale to 2. These Hussars became virtually unstoppable, defeating a French dragoon regiment, two Austrian cuirassier regiments, and a Hungarian fusilier battalion. They probably would have done more damage if we had played any more turns. Personally, we feel that the effects of capturing or losing a standard as represented by the rules are magnified far beyond what the effect would have been historically. The implications of raising or lowering a unit's nurale rating by one are tremendous in these rules. Based on this, we feel that the capture of a standard should not result in changing the units' morale. However, the Army Withdrawal procedures takes into account the number of captured or lost standards; we think this should ranain unchanged. Thus, we favor keeping the rule for capturing standards, but feel that it should not result in any changes to unit morale. Multiple Disorders In AOR whenever cavalry charges, they become disordered, thereby incurring a -1 modifier for morale and combat purposes. However, disordered cavalry may continue to charge turn after turn, with no additional adverse effects beyond the -1 for disorder (this is what happened with the Prussian hussars described above). Some members of our group suggested that cavalry should accumulate disorder markers if they continue to charge, thus better reflecting fatigue. This would rapidly make most cavalry useless after just 2 or 3 consecutive charges, forcing than to rest. If this is done, however, I would suggest allowing resting cavalry to remove 2 disorder markers each turn. Command Control We feel that AOR needs some type of command control rule to restrict far-ranging flanking moves behind enany lines. Although we agree that units did historically conduct flanking maneuvers, AOR, like KK, permits brigades to operate at unlimited distances fran the anny commander, with the player having the advantage of being able to see the entire battlefield and thus having Perfect knowledge of conditions everywhere. No historical commander would have Such a luxury. We would recommend establishing a command radius for army and brigade commanders, similar to Napoleon's Battles, which would require sane type of initiative die roll for brigades which are beyond a certain distance from the army commanders. We still need to experiment with this idea; we will report on this in a future article. Army Lists and Unit Ratings The designer of AOR, Tod Kershner, states that the army lists are not intended to be the last word, but rather encourages players to do their own research and make modifications as they see fit. The nust recent issue of the Midwest Wargamers Association Newsletter contains designer's notes by Mr. Kershner, wherein he addresses this issue further, and has sane suggestions for revisions. In the game we played, we rated the Hungarian fusiliers as class 2 rather than class 1. We now feel that the cuirassiers are underrated as class 2, and should be class 3. Some of us also felt that the Prussian and Austrian hussars are overrated as class 3, but there was no consensus on this. I agree with Mr. Kershner that the number of class 4 units should be kept to an absolute minimum, as these units gain tremendous morale and combat advantages in this game systen. With regard to unit strengths, the standard unit size in AOR of 12 figures is fairly consistent with KK, where nust infantry units are also 12 figures strong. The cavalry units are not as similar, however. NJR rates most cavalry as 12 figures, whereas KK rates many units as much larger. We used our units as organized for KK, and this seemed to work fine. However, sane of the particularly large Prussian regiments in KK seem to have powerful morale and combat advantages in AOR. The point here is that the AOR army lists are not written in stone, and figures mounted for other rules sets, including KK, will work for AOR. Conclusions Overall, we were pleased with Warfare in the Age of Reason. They are quite playable, the combat systems work well, and the melee systan in particular is a lot of fun. We would recommend these rules to anyone who is interested in this period. They provide a refreshing alternative to Koenig Krieg. Back to MWAN #63 Table of Contents Back to MWAN List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 1993 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