I have a collection of 20mm Napoleonic figures which I rarely take off the shelf. In mid-week, however, with a game scheduled for the coming Saturday, I dusted off the figures, set out the units, arranged them in a scenario on the table, and then proceeded to write a set of rules. This is my usual order of doing things… once I see a scenario set up, I become heavenly inspired, my creative juices flow, and, for better or worse… POW!… out pops a set of rules. To my understanding, this was the way Isaac Newton worked… he would stand under an apple tree, an apple would fall down and conk him on the head… and POW!… out popped the calculus! The same with Albert Einstein… he stood near a large core of radio-active material, a barrage of uranium atoms hit him, and POW!… out popped E-equals-M-C-squared! Anyway, you get the idea.
With my new set of rules in hand, I ran through 3 bounds of the battle in solo fashion. The map depicts the terrain… the town of Loft in the western half of the field, and the town of Rheet in the eastern half. Both towns were defended by what I termed a ‘division’, composed of 3 brigades.
A single stand represented a regiment, and each brigade consisted of 4 regimental stands. The entire 3-brigade division, therefore, consisted of 12 stands. This type of grand-grand-tactical game enables me to avoid the problems associated with Napoleonic skirmishers… I have never understood what to do with skirmishers… when deployed from their battalion, should the hits scored against them be registered to their parent battalion?… should their fire be as effective as a formed unit?… should cannon balls pass through them and hit the units they’re shielding?… should they be injured at all by roundshot?… if cavalry run them down, should the cavalry take any losses at all? Each rules writer has his own ideas, and I, of course, disagree with all of them. I simply avoid the issue.
The attacking side, of 3 infantry divisions, had one more division than did the 2-division defenders. And I decided to concentrate the 3 attacking divisions (call them a small corps) against the town of Loft… forget about the division defending Rheet for a while, get control of Loft and then turn east and focus on Rheet. In this manner, the 3 attacking divisions (a total of 9 brigades) would be massed against the single defending 3-brigade division in Loft.
And so the attack progressed. After a couple of turns, the division in Rheet, under the command of General Sans Doigts, seeing there were no forces opposing it, began to move out to the west to help its sister division in Loft.
At this time… the door bell rang… wonder of wonders!… there stood Pat Condray, who had recently moved from his winter quarters in Florida to his summer home in Maryland. Pat is a True Historical Wargamer (THW)… he was taken aback by the melange of troops on the table, but he joined in and agreed to run the defending side.
His THW instincts rebelled against several of the units which I showed him… for example, take the brigade identified as ‘Simon’s First Foot’. Pat stated that it appeared I had dipped a unit of Bavarians in green paint, given them a sash and musket and a wee bit of flesh for their faces, and that this just wouldn’t do. I couldn’t argue… I had dipped a unit of 20mm Bavarians in green paint, but they looked perfectly right and proper to me. Of greater importance, they fought just as fiercely as did the other troops.
Pat continued to move Sans Doigt’s troops to the west to help out near Loft, and I was forced to assign one of my divisions to fend off the oncoming units. Not to worry. This still left 2 of my divisions against the single defending division in Loft.
The rules essentially used an alternating you-go/I-go system, and to help eliminate the “gotcha” effect of such sequences, I employed ‘Reaction Points’ (RP). There was a special phase for the active side, enabling a unit to respond in emergency fashion to a critical situation.
The concept of an ‘emergency response’ is used in a couple of sets of rules. Coming immediately to mind is Howard Whitehouse’s SCIENCE VERSUS PLUCK, a British colonial effort. Here, when the Fuzzy Wuzzies suddenly rise up out of the ground and try to close with the British line, the Brits may call for an emergency response, enabling them to get out a round of fire or two against the oncoming horde.
NAPOLEON’S BATTLES also employs a type of emergency response. A cavalry unit may be held back on its normal movement phase and suddenly charge forward when needed later in the sequence.
In our battle, one of Pat’s Dragoon regiments smacked into one of my infantry regiments, catching it in column of march… not good for the infantry. But the phase prior to resolution of combat enabled me to bring my RP into play.
And so, what I did was to, first, allocate 3 RP of my total RP (I think I had 6 total) to send out the order to the infantry unit to form square. Now that the order was sent, i.e., an adjutant racing against time to deliver it... was it successfully received? There is an 80 percent chance that the adjutant arrives in the nick ‘o time. Here, I made the 80 toss, the infantry formed brigade square, and in the ensuing melee, fought off the Dragoons.
Another instance of the use of RP occurred when my cavalry charged one of Pat’s infantry units that was already in square. Here, in the sequence, it was Pat’s turn to employ RP, and the first thing he did was to issue an order for the square to fire by crossing out the appropriate number of RP. Then the question was… did the order arrive?… and his toss of under-80 said that it did.
My cavalry took casualties, and Pat, having done so well with his first use of RP, ordered yet a second volley against the cavalry. And succeeded. More casualties. I believe that my cavalry, inundated with musket balls, took a morale test, failed, and fell back.
Although he took full advantage of the RP usage, Pat indicated that it really wasn’t very Napoleonic to permit the infantry to fire 2 fast volleys in a row at the cavalry, as if the infantry were equipped with semi-automatic weapons. He stated that in the time required for the cavalry to cross the field and close with the infantry unit, there just wouldn’t be enough time to fire two distinct volleys.
I couldn’t argue because I had no idea of the time span of the bound, nor how fast the units were moving within the scope of the rules. Did a bound encompass 15 minutes? A half hour? In this grand-grand-tactical scenario, perhaps an hour?
In response to Pat’s position, I did limit use of the RP… a unit could be issued an order a maximum of two times in the reaction phase.
In a way, this set of rules was a first for me… I included an “order writing” phase. Over the years, whenever I see a new set of rules, the first item that I reference in the table of contents is the sequence. And if I see an “order writing“ phase… then, immediately, SLAM!, I close the text, back away and refuse to read further.
But here, suddenly, I sold my soul to the devil… and in Phase #1, both sides set out their orders to each of the brigades within their divisions. I had a number of little 20mm pennant bearers, and on each pennant, there was either one or two or three dots. By placing a pennant bearer next to a unit, you could see what the orders were:
- No dots (no pennants) Unit may fire
1 dot: Unit advances at least 5 inches (maximum of 10 inches)
2 dots: Unit may hold position or change formation
3 dots: Unit must charge to contact with an enemy unit within 10 inches.
In each half-bound, following the placement of the pennants, first the active side fired and moved and charged according to his pennants, and then the non-active side followed suit.
Due to the interspersed phases within the sequence, it wasn’t the simplest of all possible systems. But it seemed to flow smoothly.
- a. Both sides distributed orders
b. The active side carried out its required functions
c. The non-active side carried out its orders
d. The active side responded to the non-active side’s actions by using Reaction Points
e. Melee was resolved.
Each unit had its own data sheet. It had 5 ‘Efficiency Levels’ (EL)… 5 boxes. Cross out all 5 and the unit was destroyed. But to cross out an EL, a unit had to take casualties. During the firing and melee phases, casualty points came in groups of 5 or 10 or 20. and when a unit accumulated 30 casualty points, one of the ELs was crossed out.
In this first encounter, each EL possessed by a unit, i.e., not yet crossed out, gave the unit 10 Combat Value (CV) points in melee. This, in essence, was the unit’s inherent strength. I didn’t consider the number of stands… all you needed to know was in the EL information.
But a problem cropped up when a dinky 2-stand cavalry unit charged a much larger 4-stand cavalry unit. In the melee calculations, both units had the same EL boxes, and so both had the same strength.
Looking at the cavalry engagement, it didn’t seem right that, visually at least, the smaller 2-stand cavalry unit, fighting a unit twice its size, shouldn’t in some way be penalized because of the sheer size of its opponent.
Pat and I discussed this, and we agreed to play the rules as written. But I should note that the second edition, written immediately after the battle and Pat had gone off, contained a provision for including unit size in the melee calculation.
There was lots of discussion during the battle. And while the discussions were going on, my brigades were throwing themselves time and time again against the defending force in Loft.
Melee was adjudicated by pairing off the stands in the opposing 4-stand brigades. Each stand received 10 CV from each of its existing EL boxes, added the sum to a percentage dice throw and the higher total continued to fight, while the lower total backed out of combat. The melee ended when there were stands left of only one side, i.e., all the stands of the opponent had backed out of combat.
My attacking units were outclassed… advancing across the field, they took lots of losses, and lost lots of EL boxes. Then, when they finally engaged, they were too weak to overcome the defenders… it was my stands that were doing the backing off during combat. I finally threw in the towel… my brigades just didn’t have enough oomph to continue the fight.
The same battle was re-fought the next day with the rules revised according to the discussions I had had with Pat. Ben Pecson, a PW member, showed up and he essentially took Pat’s place by running the 2-division defending force.
I employed the same tactic that I had the day before… ignore Rheet and focus on Loft. This time it worked… sort of… I finally got a toe-hold in Loft, driving the defenders out, but couldn’t press on due to a lack of EL boxes.
I didn’t help my own cause by forgetting to give my artillery units orders at the beginning of the battle. Without orders, they just stood there, wondering why they were forgotten. And when I finally got the batteries in firing position, their dice tosses were pathetic. Each battery had a 70 percent chance of obtaining a hit on the target. If the dice toss exceeded 70, the target lost 5 loss points… remember it took a loss of 30 to cross out an EL box. A toss below 35 (half of 70) would cause a 20 point loss on the target. I couldn’t seem to toss anywhere below 70… the artillery crews refused to cooperate.
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© Copyright 2000 Wally Simon
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