Clash of Arms' La Bataille system is one of the more venerable game systems going, dating back to the boys at Marshal Enterprises publishing La Bataille De Moskowa back in 1978. Since acquiring the series in the 80's, Clash of Arms has been publishing a new game every couple of years or so while resolutely refusing to change the underlying system (until 1997, at least; by the time you read this the 4th edition of the La Bataille rules should be available). That system remained mired in 70's-era Napoleonic tactical dogma-- no command rules to speak of, everybody moving and firing at will, and vast melee tables for a period which saw little actual melee.
Wargaming abhors a vacuum, and into this vacancy stepped the Spanish company SimTac in 1993 with Sagunto, a game about a minor Peninsular War battle that featured a game system remarkably close to La Bataille but with many significant upgrades. Too remarkably close, felt Clash of Arms head Ed Wimble, but as I understand it, any contemplated legal action died stillborn. Los Arapiles, the Battle of Salamanca in July 1812, by Jose Luis Arcon Dominguez, is the second game in SimTac's series, not cheap here in the States ($75 retail, I have seen it in stores for as much as $100) but a must buy for any serious Napoleonic gamer, which is me all sown up. [CHV: A sucker for consumerism this boy!]
Salamanca is one of those battles that I'm surprised has not been covered more often-- SSG's Salamanca from the early 80's is the only other version that comes to mind. It's a battle with a snazzy mix of troops- aside from the usual suspects it includes Spanish, Portuguese, the King's German Legion, and highlanders- and lots of good British horse just itching to charge home.
Tactically, it was arguably Wellington's masterpiece where he managed to catch the French army in the midst of a flanking movement and do it significant damage-- only the lack of an enthusiastic Allied pursuit allowed the French to avoid total disaster.
The "Look" of Los Arapiles is close, indeed very close, to La Bataille (and this, I suspect, is what got Ed Wimble's blood boiling). The map by Carmen Sanchez Vicente is hand-drawn in what looks like crayon, so that the result is not really Rick Barber but more like a talented 14-year old's sketch of the battlefield done with her father's coloured pencils. Not bad, but it feels a little amateur-- better than Sagunto's map, but inferior to the more professional-looking one in the recent Alexandria, so the glass is either half-full or half-empty.
Counters
Some have criticised the unit counters, but I rather like them. They feature very detailed reproductions of the regimental coats, seemingly quite accurate-- the Frogs in blue, white, and green, Portuguese in Brown, the 95th Rifles in Hunter Green, all the way down to the different shako badges for the British infantry regiments. Charles says they remind him of French soldiers' torsos after the Spanish partisans got done with them-- thankfully, my imagination doesn't run in such a ghoulish direction.
The backs, unfortunately, use the same tiny font as La Bataille, so don't give away your magnifying glass quite yet. The markers, too, carry on with the game's artistic slant, so instead of counters shouting DISORDER and ROUT we have pictures of soldiers disordering and routing. Hard to tell the difference between the two pictures, you say ? True, but I give them high marks for creativity.
If you've played any of the La Bataille games, you should be able to absorb Arapiles' rules. Don't think that there aren't some significant differences, there are, which I'll describe a little later, but you should already be familiar with the basic foundation. If not, then this game can be quite daunting. Alexandria offers a set of Basic rules that makes the game closer to a 1979-vintage SPI Quadrigame, which can be retrofitted to Los Arapiles, so help is at hand.
In the tradition of all grand tactical games, Arapiles breaks the elements of Napoleonic tactics down into their traditional components- we fire and we shock, we charge cavalry and bombard artillery, and we command all this with a suitable array of leaders and aides. Each component has its own set of rules, of course, and these truly run the gamut of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.
The Good
It's nice to see that someone actually did some research into the dynamics of the Napoleonic firefight before creating the rules to cover them. This game replaces the traditional miles of fire, shock, terrain effects and range charts with one die-roll. When you fire you work out a rather complex mathematical equation (number of companies firing multiplied by fire value divided by fire defence, double the quotient, and didn't I flunk this course in college?), add it to a die-roll and if you score 10 or higher you hit the bad guys. Yes, I know the math sounds ugly, but it's a good idea in theory.
Shock is handled much better. One hex attacks one hex-- no ganging up on the enemy here, the designers properly realising that the sort of co-ordination necessary for a multi-unit attack just didn't happen- both sides check morale, and if nobody runs for it, nothing happens. This is completely accurate, as the "clash of bayonets" was extremely rare in Napoleon's day (in his new book, With Musket, Cannon, And Sword, Brent Nosworthy finds a TOTAL of three occasions where shock combat actually occurred), most casualties being caused when one force took it on the lam and their opponents shot them down from behind, the bounders.
But this is the only tactical series that I know of that gets it right, and the folks at SimTac are to be applauded for their insight. Cavalry charges were another matter, of course, but I filed those rules under "Ugly.".
The Bad
I've played various games in the series five times, and I'm still not sure if I'm using the Command rules correctly. Like La Bataille, leaders have individual combat bonuses; unlike La Bataille, there are also very detailed command restrictions. Units must remain within range of their division headquarters and require an order from that headquarters before they can launch a cavalry charge or, for the French, form a Grand Battery.
Sounds OK so far, but then we read that a division HQ Is frozen without an order to move from its Corps HQ, which in turn is frozen without an order from the Army HQ. And an HQ may only issue one order per turn (I think), so an army attempting any sort of manoeuvre moves with glacial speed as the orders trickle down the chain of command. The intent here is obviously to put some rational, historical restrictions on an army's ability to move and fight as it wants, but the rules are unclear, poorly written, and quite cumbersome.
The Ugly
The high point of every Napoleonic tactical game is, of course, the cavalry charge, the thunder of hooves accompanied by a rumble of dice checking morale, reaction charges, square formation, and so forth. What gave me the heebee-jeebee's was when I turned to page 24 in the rulebook and saw the full-page CAVALRY CHARGE FLOW CHART, outlining each of the 23 possible steps involved in charging cavalry and their accompanying die-rolls.
It's like playing a car-racing game where you have to roll to see if the engine starts, roll again to see how much gas you have, roll every lap to see if you hit somebody, roll again and again to check for blow-outs, engine failure, and driver fatigue, so that you're happy not to win but just to get through it. Not even Richard Berg is capable of coming up with a system this tedious, and that's saying something. Los Arapiles also labours under the additional disadvantage of a very unbalanced situation, if you're playing the historical battle scenario, where the game starts with the French caught strung-out in the midst of a turning movement, with Marmont, their Army Commander, having just been smacked by a cannonball. The French player, therefore, must start scrambling immediately to replace Marmont and kick his slumbering divisions- the bulk of both armies start the scenario in Reserve, a mis-leading term for divisions really being Without Orders- into movement using the awkward command rules mentioned above.
Historically it only took Wellington about two hours to thoroughly rout the French army, and the French player in the game has little better to look forward to. I try to give the French a fighting chance by keeping Marmont healthy, and other scenarios are provided that allow the armies to manoeuvre on a smaller operational map before entering the tactical map to slug it out-- I have not tried them, but I imagine they would make the contest a much more even affair.
I do give it high marks for historical accuracy. The combat mechanisms fall right into line with my reading. Firepower rules the field, but without the Somme-like casualty rates of Battlground Waterloo or Wellington's Victory, while bayonet charges tend to fizzle into close-range musket duels unless you can manage an enfilading assault. Units suffer from battle fatigue if they remain in combat for more than 2 « hours, itself an idea novel to Napoleonic games although two hours+ is probably too long. And the French Grand Battery, if they can ever get it going, can be quite devastating, laying waste to wide swathes of the field.
Uneven
As you can guess by now, this is a very uneven game. The visual appeal is quite strong and the designers have obviously done their historical homework. Some rules make sense and fall into place rapidly- I quickly grasped the fire and shock rules and found myself feeling quite unburdened by not having to constantly refer to voluminous charts- while with others I was continually looking back into the rulebook to puzzle them out. This can be quite frustrating when seven turns in you find that You've Been Playing The F*ck*ng Command Rules Wrong ! and throw your dice at the cat. I think this is one of those games that improves when not being played solitaire, because you have an extra brain handy to try to make sense out of the more opaque rules.
I often view wargames that I purchase as projects to be worked on, and Los Arapiles is one of them. After reading Nosworthy I feel confident about working out the rough spots and, with my modifications, putting a fine game together. Which says something about the game's underlying qualities that I'm willing to make the effort-- with games as bad as Balkan Hell I let them rot through well-deserved neglect.
But if you don't have the leisure (or the patience) to buy a $75 starter kit, you should look elsewhere for your Napoleon fix, like Vae Victis, for example. I'm not saying that Los Arapiles is an undeveloped, nearly unplayable 3W-esque pile of junk, far from it; just know before you spend the money that it isn't an enterprise to be undertaken lightly. I am doing my own tactical Napoleon game on Lutzen, 1813 and have already stolen, er, borrowed SimTac's chart-less combat systems, high praise indeed.
And if you can afford to buy Alexandria, too, you've got yourself a nice, simple, Igo/Hugo rules set to use when time and tolerance run short. Next battle in line is Vittoria, promised to appear late this year, quickly to be snapped up if my wallet can afford it. [CHV: We know it will Dave, and we'll be there kibbitzing}.
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© Copyright 1997 by Charles and Teresa Vasey.
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