I first played GRANDE ARMEE (GA) in a game hosted by Sam himself, and was greatly impressed. He ran a good, taut presentation, which flowed rapidly.
GA is sort of a bigger and better NAPOLEON’S BATTLES (NB). GA doesn’t have all the quasi-historical, nitty-gritty crappola that NB does, and all the better for it. Both games are essentially to the same scale, wherein an inch on the gaming table represents about 100 yards. Both focus on the brigade as the basic combat element.
GA uses brigade stands measuring 3-inches by 3-inches, regardless of how big the brigade actually is. Each brigade stand has a Strength Point (SP) value derived as follows: assume a brigade has around 6 battalions in it, totaling 3,500 men. Take the total number of men in the brigade, 3,500, and divided by 500. This factor (3500/500) becomes the SP of the brigade stand. In essence, all you’re doing is finding out how many 500-man battalions comprise the brigade. In GA’s army listings, the SP values range from a measly 3, up to a French Imperial Guard brigade SP of 12.
Having actually purchased the rules book, I set out a British-versus-French battle, which stretched across my ping pong table. The Brits had 5 divisions, and the number of brigades within the divisions ranged from 3 to 5. GA explains that while the British army is a “traditional” one and groups its forces into divisions, the French army is, obviously, a “Napoleonic” one, and is configured, not in divisions, but in corps. On my table, the French army was composed of 5 corps, ranging in size from 3 brigades to 5.
Whether British or French, divisions or corps, therefore, the makeup of the forces is essentially the same. Looking at the table top panorama, there’s virtually no difference between the French and British armies… they both look the same.
Now, in our battle, here’s where I diverged a wee bit from GA… and I hope Sam will forgive me. I’m a fan of the local OUTBACK steakhouse restaurant, and each time I visit the OUTBACK, I ask the waiter to give me around a dozen coasters, the kind you put under a glass to prevent it from dripping. Each of the OUTBACK coasters measures 4-inches by 4-inches, and I decided to paint ‘em up, and use them as brigade movement stands for my GA game. Remember that GA states that a brigade stand should measure 3-inches by 3-inches, but I didn’t think the impact of the additional inch on the gaming stand would be measurable… and to my mind, it wasn’t.
On these 4-by-4 stands, I placed my 15mm Napoleonic figures. GA ordinarily uses data sheets to record the initial SP and resultant losses in SP of its brigade stands. But here, I was able to fit around 6 or 7 15mm stands on a 4-by-4 stand, with each 15mm stand representing one SP. And, as the brigade took losses, I’d simply remove the 15mm stands, so that you’d have no reason to continually refer to data sheets, but you’d be able to visually see how many remaining SP were on the stand.
A the outset of the turn, each side dices for its Command Points (CP). These are assigned to the various corps (or divisions) to keep ‘em going. The number of CP required depends upon (a) the capability of the corps commander, and (b) his distance form the army commander.
For example, the French army had one corps way out on its right flank, and the general in charge required a basic 4 CP to keep him going. But because he was some 30 inches away from the army commander, he needed another 3 CP added to his basic 4, for a total of 7.
GA’s charts tell us that a British army will normally have a lesser number of CP than a French army. On the very first turn, when the British commander diced for his CP, he came out with a total of 20. The way the control system works is this:
- (a) First, the army commander assigns required CP to his generals. We’re now on the First Turn, first impulse.
(b) Generals not assigned their proper CP are “on their own”, and must dice to see what they’ll do.
(c) After both sides go through their routines of move and combat, we come to a decision point… will we have a second impulse for this turn? Toss a 6-sided die, and see if it equals, or is less than, the just-completed impulse number, in this case, 1. In our game, we tossed a 3, and so we went into the second impulse, and the sides went through the move and combat routines. Note that for this second impulse, neither side was refreshed in terms of CP, but had to use whatever was in its kitty.
(d) Another decision point… will we have a third impulse? A toss of anything but a 1, or 2 and we’ll go through a third impulse. In our game, we did have a third impulse.
(e) After the third impulse, again the decision point arrived, and we discovered that the impulses ended (a toss of 1, 2, or 3 would do that) with the third impulse. We were now on the Second Turn
(f) This time, for this Second Turn, the commanders discarded whatever CP they still had in their kitties, and diced for a new supply of CP… and we started the impulses again.
What the above shows is that, after awhile, if the impulses continue, the sides may run out of CP, and the individual corps commanders will have to dice for their reactions, as noted in (b) above.
Remember the French corps commander who needed 7 CP each impulse to keep him going? Needless to say, he wasn’t assigned too many CP during the battle… the French commander chose to give his CP to those corps nearer the center of the table… those easier to control. The French commander only had around 25 CP to begin with, and an allocation of 7 CP for his right flank corps would soon use up all his CP.
I wasn’t too impressed with the “you’re on your own” chart… the one used to determine what a corps commander would do if not assigned CP. Some 70 percent of the time, the general would simply halt, and his force sit there. Not exciting at all.
I was expecting a type of “Whoopee Chart”, like the one used by Paul Koch in his American Civil War rules ON TO RICHMOND. The Koch chart, which is applied at the brigade level of battle, calls for a dozen or so unexpected events… the brigade will advance, it will attack, it will dash off to its right, to its left, it will retreat, etc., etc. But here for GA, the outcome was pretty bland. I imagine that, historically speaking, a corps commander wouldn’t take his entire corps and randomly run amok… but it would have made the battle more exciting.
In he sequence, the impulse begins with two simultaneous phases engaged in by both sides… one is skirmisher fire, the other is artillery fire. At the scale of the game, musketry is subsumed into the combat phase, so there’s no direct musket fire phase. But GA allows both sides to “send out” skirmishers to a maximum range of 6 inches. You can’t see the little guys, but out they run to harass the opposition. This is the same sort of ploy used in NB, which also permits the teeny-weeny, invisible skirmishers to dash out and fire at enemy formations.
Artillery fire is next, and guns range out to 16 inches. Both skirmisher fire and artillery fire are deadly, since a hit reduces the SP of a brigade by a point… in our case, we took off one stand in the brigade, essentially representing a battalion of 500 men.
The active side then assigns his CP, moves his troops, and resolves combat. this is a boardgame “gotcha” sequence… the defense has no opportunity for defensive fire, except in one instance… if you charge a battery, it will get a final blast at you. Note there’s no final morale check, no final test to see if a charging brigade goes in or not… as long as the charging brigade exists and is not blown away, it’ll make contact.
Then the opposing side assigns his CP, moves and resolves combat.
And that’s the basic sequence. We’re back to determining if we have another impulse, or if the turn ends, and CP are replenished.
Sorting It Out
I mentioned that the French commander in our battle, had a corps way out on his right flank that required 7 CP each impulse to keep moving. It turned out that on the same flank, the British commander had the same problem… since neither commander wanted to “waste” CP on his units out there, that particular flank wasn’t too active throughout the battle.
On my flank, the British right, I commanded 3 divisions which did poorly. I had CP to control them, but in combat, they proved miserable. And I discovered that a 3-point, i.e., a 3 SP brigade, was too weak to have any impact on the enemy.
One of my divisions consisted of 3 cavalry brigades. The largest had 6 SP (6 stands), while the smallest had 3 SP (3 stands). When the 3 SP brigade went into combat, it took only one brief round before it was knocked out of the fight… all 3 stands were lost.
In setting out the orders of battle, I had distributed brigades with 4 SP, 5 SP and 6 SP and even 7 SP to both armies. And I also had a sprinkling of the 3 SP brigades, which were the worthless ones.
The reason that the 3 SP units proved worthless was the method used to resolve combat. In fact, combat resolution in GA is a procedure with which I wasn’t happy. There are three separate types of combat in GA, and each uses a different method, all employing 6-sided dice.
- a The first is skirmisher fire. This type of combat uses opposing dice throws. Here, each firing stand that sends out those teeny-weeny skirmishers had an SK value of either SK=1 or SK=2. If I had an SK=2 unit, and you had an SK=1 unit, then I’d add +2 to a die roll and you’d add +1. If one of us totaled higher, this knocked off an SP value from the target brigade (in my set up, we removed a stand).
b The second type of combat concerned artillery fire. Here, the firing battery refers to a range chart and tosses an unopposed die. For example, a medium gun at long range (up to 12 inches) required a toss of 5 or 6 to take out one enemy SP.
c The third type of combat had to do with close assault. Each SP on the striking brigade stand allows it to toss a die. Ordinarily, a toss of 4, 5, or 6 takes out an enemy SP (in my game, removes a stand). Other die modifiers come in, and occasionally, there’s even a savings throw, but in the main, it’s 4, 5, or 6. Note that a 6 SP brigade with its 6 dice can easily overwhelm, and wipe out, a crummy 3 SP brigade with no problem.
If I had my druthers, I’d have made the combat resolution routines for the above all the same. If you’re familiar with one, you’re familiar with all. Some rules authors do his… most don’t. Why institute opposing die rolls in one procedure and unopposed dice throws in another? But that’s just my druthers.
In all, I like GA. The procedures made sense, and were quite enjoyable. Sam has authored a very handy rule book… the procession of chapters follows the sequence, and so, to play, all you do is turn the pages and follow directions.
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© Copyright 2002 Wally Simon
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