For some time now, I've been searching..for a set of rules with which to play a grand-grand-grand tactical game of Napoleonics. On occassion, we take our 15mm collection off the shelf and test an idea... the last such effort was described in the August 1987 issue of the REVIEW ( that'll show you how often we do these things). wherein we wrote of POINT OF ATTACK (POA). POA's scale was essentially that of a boardgame, and it relied heavily on a number of Command or Efficiency Points given to each force commander as he sent his divisions across the field. In essence, the probability of arriving at a given destination was directly proportional to the Command Points assigned, which were used, in part, to "nullify" the distance to be moved. More able commanders had more points, and the probability of their forces successfully traversing long distances was greater than that of less efficient commanders. POA's time scale was, in a sense, distorted, as the rate of march of the units on the field depended, not so much on the distance moved, but on the ability of the commanders. In POA, the scale is large... 1 inch equals 100 yards, 1 stand equals a battalion, and anywhere from 3 to 6 battalions (3 to 6 stands) equals a full Brigade. From 3 to 5 Brigades, in turn, make up a Division, and 2 to 5 Divisions comprise a Corps. If one multiplies out the maximum force content, the Corps consists of 150 tokens, i.e., battalions, to push across the table. The average Corps with which we game is about half the maximum, and so a Corps of about 70 to 80 tokens is not an unreasonable size force for one or two participants to command. A couple of years ago, I attended a convention at Raleigh. North Carolina, wherein I participated in a grand-scale micro-armor game. The turns were divided into a March Phase and a Combat Phase. Unit deployment was part of the March Phase, and one could get caught short if the March Phase ended before full deployment was reached, and your opponent, during the Combat Phase, attacked forces still in column of march. Building on this 2-phase concept, POA's latest edition uses a 3- phase bound. The sequence is governed by a single deck of cards, which, when drawn, denote the number of Divisions that a side may move. The deck consists of: No of Cards : No of Divisions 2 : 3, side A 2 : 3, side B 1 : 2, side A 1 : 2, side B 1 : 1, side A 1 : 1, side B 2 : Halt; end of phase Total: 10 Cards Cards are drawn until the Halt card indicates the end of a particular phase. The deck is reshuffled and the next phase commences. On any card, a Division is entitled to only one action. However, one may move the same Division on more than one card per phase. The phas a. STRATEGIC PHASE.Here, only units in column may move. Infantry in column move 20 inches; cavalry move 25 inches. No column may approach an enemy unit closer than 6 b. DEPLOY/FIRE PHASE.Units in column may deploy, and then move to within 1 inch of the enemy. Infantry units already deployed, and I inch from an enemy unit. may fire; artillery may fire at the 6 inch range. c. COMBAT PHASE. Units at the 1 inch range may close with the enemy and combat is resolved. Note that each phase proceeds until the HALT appears. One can, during the Strategic Phase, bring up reserves using the fairly large moves employed. When a HALT card shows up. the Deploy/Fire Phase commences. and if the draw is unfavorable, your units, still in column, can get plastered as the opposition deploys and fires. Even more devastating, if another HALT appears, then the Combat Phase begins, and your columns get charged and crunched by the deployed enemy. Test Game In one of our very first test games, this is exactly what happened to General Dewitt's Division. Brian Dewitt took his Division, 2 full Brigades, on a "forced march" during the Strategic Phase, first to the north and then to the west, behind enemy lines as sketched in the map. He was able to do this because of the 20 inch leaps on consecutive cards during the Strategic Phase. He ended up at the position shown, and the opposing commanders were clearly unhappy and quite worried about the presence of Dewitt's "foot cavalry" in their rear lines. Although the defenders had been able to bring up several units of their own, an entire enemy Division at their backs didn't do their peace of mind any good. At the end of the Strategic Phase, therefore, Dewitt's Division and several enemy brigades, all still in column of march, faced each other, at a distance 6 inches apart, on the north tide of the battlefield. The Deploy/Fire Phase commenced... although no Dewitt cards appeared, his opponent's cards appeared aplenty, and the enemy troops deployed in line, approaching, to within 1 inch of Dewitt's columns. A HALT card showed up...the Deploy/Fire Phase ended, and the Combat Phase began. Again, no Dewitt cards appeared, yet enemy cards abounded ... "CHARGE!". and in came the deployed units. making mincemeat of the troops still in column. Dewitt's entire Division was annihilated! What had started out looking like a bold move into the enemy's rear lines ended up as a sheer disaster... Dewitt's troops had nowhere to run and they threw down their arms and surrendered. Note that the episode of Dewitt's Debacle occurred because a common sequence deck is used for the actions of both sides. Thus it is possible for one side to get a number of cards in a row, while the opposition merely stands. flatfooted. One way to prevent this would be to have two separate decks, giving each side its own deck, and draw cards alternately. In this fashion, each side would be guaranteed SM action to counter the opposition. Interestingly enough, a tableside poll (there were 6 gamers present) showed almost unanimous support for the "one-deck" approach. All present liked the surprise factor inherent in the one-deck system, with the occurrence of the unexpected event providing a "fog of war" aspect. In addition to the three phases described, the present version of POA incorporates an unusual BATTLEFIELD ASSESSMENT Phase. I say "unusual" because. even for me... and the out-of-the-ordi nary sequences and ploys I toss into a game... the BATTLEFIELD ASSESSMENT procedure is way, way out. After 2 full cycles of the Strategic, Deploy/Fire, and Combat phases , i.e., a full 2 bounds, the Assessment Phase appears. Here, both commanders look over the successes and defeats of the previous two turns and evaluate the situation. The result will be that one Army Commander will become uneasy, and order ALL his forces to fall back and regroup. There are no ties permitted in the Assessment procedure; one side MUST fall back. On the table, therefore, ALL units under the uncertain commander will be moved back a distance of at least 12 inches. while the opposition gets to advance up to 9 inches. Having retreated once, the next time the Assessment Phase comes up, a force will have its previous fallback count as a negative factor in the evaluation of the current situation. Other factors include the number of melees lost, objectives attained, etc. The intent is to reproduce the across-the-board impressions received by the Army Commander who is constantly getting input from miles of battlefront (the 9-foot-long ping pong table, at I inch to 100 yards, represents over 6 miles of frontage). Despite local successes, if he gets too many negative reports, he may order a general withdrawal to regroup, to rally, and to redeploy his assets. A commander that orders 3 such fallbacks is deemed to have lost the battle. Indeed, under the game mechanics, it is no wonder he wants to go home... his forces will have pulled back a total of 36 inches, i.e., they will have withdrawn approximately 2 miles. And that is the bare-bones outline of POINT OF ATTACK, Version 4 or so, which, when viewed in its entirety, seems to make sense! The individual procedures, i.e., separate phases for strategic movement, tactical movement, etc., are clearly artificial, but when taken as a whole, the system meshes. What I hope to do, as soon as POA seems "solidified" enough ... perhaps around Version 10... is to use the system in a Napoleonic campaign in which one can actually control Corps in the field. Back to PW Review March 1990 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1990 Wally Simon 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