Rule 8.42A from Last Days of the Grande Armee (an excellent game by the way) states that units in road march that are attacked do not suffer any adverse effect. Someone asked Kevin why this was, as the units would be strung out over many miles. His answer was "It is because the lead formation falls back on troops marching up from behind and therefore can concentrate quickly." I therefore question the DRM for Forage in Bonaparte in Italy. Applying the same logic and bearing in mind that a unit that was undertaking ORGANISED foraging (as opposed to retreat from Moscow every man for himself foraging) which, this rule shows, would only have 10-25% of its men away from their units the rest would be formed. I would therefore argue that the defenders could reform reasonably well and quickly (consider Ney's Corps at Lutzen). I would suggest that the shift should be only one in the attacker's favour and that no one in forage order should attack. [Editor's Reply: The difference between foraging and marching down a road has to be borne in mind. Men who are foraging are often scattered far and wide in small groups, and their return is unpredictable. Units marching down a road, in contrast, are in motion toward the very point of contact, with the road as a directional vector. I did visualise a foraging unit as individual regiments scattered in adjacent hexes. That is not the only possible model of foraging, as you make clear. I also have to question the whole concept of linking forage and force march. This has never appeared in this series before and it will have a major impact on the game. I feel that no one will force march 1 or 3 MPs unless into a battle because they will then have to spend 3 MPs concentrating; not only that but historical march rates go out the window as well. Thus we know from many examples the French often marched 20 miles a day (10 hexes). To do this in game terms is a full move and force march. You can't do this as next turn you may want to concentrate. In most games of this series (including the first version of this one) it is viable and indeed necessary to force march 1-3 MPs to get anywhere. In view of the fact that in Last Days you can leave road march at a 20% cost in movement points I think the cost to concentrate is way too high. I think that this rule may imbalance the game and make the scenarios totally different from the campaign game. Also there is no difference between a French unit foraging and an Austrian. The French in Italy were used to foraging. The Austrians relied on supply. Also the game gives the French a shift in effect for attrition using APs but nothing for forage. I would like to suggest the following changes. Anyone doing a non-movement command move must use forage and the cost to leave forage is one. The Austrians forage 2 to the right unless in quarters. Anyone can use forage rather than the AP column if they wish. One other change I would suggest: I would allow march regiments to be created at the COO as well as the supply source. In some games the distance from a source to units is a difference of 40 - 100 miles and the COO is in the middle. I need answers to the following for my example of play: No cavalry differential can apply to an attack into a mountain. A) True. If Attacker attacks from 2 mountain hexes is it 9 SPs total or 9 per hexside attacked through? A) 9 SPs per hexside. I assume the Austrian garrision unit with Wurmser can move. A) Yes. Do you count MPs spent concentrating for attrition? A) Good point. Vedettes and combat. I think you need to say that the attacker takes no loss in beating a vedette otherwise you can line the mountain road with them and the Austrians lose a point on each combat which is a bit much! A) There's something wrong here. First, the Austrians can use repulse if they are sure what they are facing. Second, the Austrians can use their own superiority in Vedettes to attack the French Vedettes. Back to OSG News August 2000 Table of Contents Back to OSG News List of Issues Back to Master Magazine List © Copyright 2000 by Operational Studies Group. 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