VEDETTES These critical and often thorny rules have continued to grow into a game unto itself. Complicating things are differences in the vedette rules between the operational 2-mile games and the 1-mile series. Dave's suggestion is to radically simplify and combine both series vedette rules into one. We might try these rules out in 7D09, and if they work well we could consider adapting them to the Campaigns of Napoleon. You know I've never been a fan of the vedette rules in CoN or the 6DoG system (I still love the CoN system). I find them too clunky and I don't like the possibility of vedettes impacting a CRT result. I find it warps the games too much as the focus moves away from corps actions and goes to cavalry regiments. I've been thinking about an alternative vedette rule for some time. The following uses ideas from CoA's ACW campaign game series (it uses a table to determine how many units are revealed) and from the GCACW (the possibility of vedettes being eliminated). Obviously it needs some fleshing out. 1. Vedettes have no combat ability. They have a (0) combat factor to indicate they may not attack (in brackets). If in an ezoc at the end of a movement phase, they must retreat before combat. If retreat before combat is not possible, they are eliminated. 2. Recon: Vedettes perform recon actions in order to reveal the identity of hidden enemy units. A recon action is performed whenever a vedette enters an enemy ZOC or an enemy unit enters a hex adjacent to a vedette. Resolve the Recon action by rolling a d6 and cross indexing the result on the recon table: Recon Table (One d6) 1 reveal all enemy units 2-3 reveal top enemy unit 4-5 no result, retreat vedette out of ezoc 6 roll again- 1-3 vedette eliminated from play* 4-6 retreat vedette out of EZOC Modifiers: -1 if cavalry leader within command range of recon; +1 if enemy force contains cav units. *Eliminated vedettes DO NOT return to play. Note: it would be better to use 2D6 than a d6 table. The bell curve is used as an advantage for results. 2-4 reveal all units 5-7 reveal top unit 8-11 retreat vedette 12 eliminate vedette Modifiers: -1 if cavalry leader within command range of recon action; +1 if enemy force contains cav units Back to OSG News May 2004 Table of Contents Back to OSG News List of Issues Back to Master Magazine List © Copyright 2004 by Operational Studies Group 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