I developed a negative bias against VOLLEY AND BAYONET (VAB) after playing three games. I never really looked at the rules, the fellas hosting the games were not familiar with the system, and too much time was spent in researching the rules, and discussing the interpretation of what was discovered. But after the third game, I asked myself... surely, this erudite set of rules, authored by such greats as Frank Chadwick and Gregg Novak, surely, these rules must have certain redeeming qualities... surely? And so I borrowed the rule book (I certainly wasn't going to purchase it), and sat down to actually read about the system, and what it was the authors were trying to accomplish. The introduction states that the rules permit you to recreate battles form 1700 to about 1890, quite a bit to chew on. VAB, the first edition, was published by Game Designers Workshop (GDW) in 1994. As far as I know, there never was a second edition. GDW went under a couple of years ago, and so we're forever left with the first edition. In effect, in VAB, Chadwick and Novak rediscovered the boardgame. It's a big boardgame, table-wide, and it's played with huge 3-inch-by-3-inch tokens, but it's a boardgame nontheless. The size and number of figures mounted on the stands is not material... they could be 15mm or 25mm, or 54mm... the sole governing parameter is the stand size. I like huge, klunky stands, and VAB fits the bill...each huge, klunky, 3"x3" stand of infantry represents an entire brigade, around 2,000 strong. A stand of cavalry, also 3"x3", is a brigade of some 1,000 horsemen. When a brigade is hit, states the book, this represents 500 casualties. Consequently, infantry brigade stands take from 4 to 6 hits before they're removed from the field, while cavalry brigade stands take 2 or 3 hits. This type of multi-hits-per-stand game requires each brigade, and the number of hits it has taken, to be tracked. You can do it via a roster system, or use of casualty caps (yuch!). This is a large scale table-top game, in the order of NAPOLEON'S BATTLES, with the scale such that 1 inch represents 100 yards. At this scale, musket range is 2 inches, and artillery range for field guns is 10 inches. To my mind, these fairly small weapon ranges, when coupled with the permitted movement distances, don't lend themselves to 'gameability'. For example, an infantry brigade moves 16 inches, 1600 yards, on its movement phase. Thus I, the Red Commander, can take my 3-brigade division, and zip in on your defending Blue brigade, coming from outside your artillery range of 10 inches to direct contact, in one fell swoop. I've never felt comfortable with the 'swooping ploy', and even less so with that of VAB, for there's no "test to see if you charge" phase... the attacker simply picks up his stands and moves them across the table into contact. Just prior to resolving combat, there's a morale test, but that's completely independent of the charging phase. The sequence for the half-bound consists of 5 phases: a. Side A sees which units are in command. A division commander has a command radius of 6 inches, which is not too large when dealing with big 3"x3" stands. There is, however, a provision for 'command by contact'. Under the 'command by contact' rule, if a stand is in contact with one that is in command, then it, too, is in command. Which means that you can form a multi-brigade division in one long line with all brigades in proper command. b. Side A moves his troops. An infantry brigade stand moves 16 inches, a heavy cavalry brigade moves 20 inches. There seems to be a problem in the rules book... although infantry brigade stands move 16 inches, skirmisher stands move only 12 inches. This is noted on Page 7, and also on the pull out sheet at the back of the rule book... so it can't be a typo. But why itsy-bitsy skirmish stands are included at all in a game of this scale is beyond me. c. Side A rallies his routing stands. d. Morale tests. All stands in contact with the enemy or within enemy weapon range take a morale test. e. Combat is resolved. Page 10 states: "All units of the defender are allowed to counterattack any enemy unit which attacked them." This tells me that in melee, the defending units strike back. But can it also be read to mean that, just before contact, there's a defensive fire phase for a unit being contacted? Not clear at all. There is one provision for defensive fire... a statement (Page 10) which indicates that defending units that aren't attacked may fire on enemy units within close range. Having read through the rules, I set up a quicky solo game to see how things worked out. Two equal forces, with each side having: Unit Composition Strength Morale First Division 3 infantry brigades plus battery 6 6 Second Division 3 infantry brigades plus battery 5 5 Third Division 3 infantry brigades 5 6 Fourth Division 3 cavalry brigades 3 5 This gave me a total of 14 stands per side... excellent for a solo set-up. In the above listings, the 'Strength' parameter is the number of hits a stand can take before it's removed. And the 'Morale' factor is the number (to be modified, of course) below which you must toss a 6-sided die for the brigade to stay in good shape. There's another parameter for a division... the 'Exhaustion' factor. This is about 50 percent of the division's total Strength points. Thus, for the First Division, the Strength total for three stands equaled 18 points, hence I set the Exhaustion factor at 10. Once the Exhaustion factor is met, a division can no longer move into contact with the enemy. Battle In the middle of the field, Red's 112th Division, within 2 turns, moving at 16 inches per turn, made contact with Blue's 111th Division, which had advanced to meet the enemy. The 112th was composed of 3 brigades of infantry, while the 111th Division had 4 stands... 3 brigades of infantry, plus one battery of guns. The rules are silent about how opposing units are matched in melee... i.e., should the stands be properly paired off, one on one, or do you try and get as many contacts as possible, given the frontages of the units. With no guidance, I placed the 3 brigade stands of the Red 112th in contact with 3 stands of the Blue 111th... 2 were infantry, and the third stand was that of Captain Zitz's artillery. This meant there was an overlap by one 111th brigade stand of infantry not in contact with any of the 112th's stands. But the melee rules say nothing about overlaps, and give no credit for these. After contact, there's a morale phase, in which all stands in contact take a morale test. If a stand fails the test, it remains in place, and becomes disordered, but it still holds position and engages in combat. In this particular encounter, the Morale grade of the 112th was "6", while that of the 111th brigades was a "5". A toss with a 6-sided die over the grade and the unit becomes disordered. The only stand whose Morale grade was modified was the stand in the Red 112th directly facing off with the 111th's artillery... in this instance, a modifier of -1 was applied to the 112th's stand, reducing its grade to a "5". All the stands passed, none became disordered. In combat, each infantry brigade stand tosses 4 6-sided dice, while an artillery battery tosses only one die. I think the artillery is somewhat shortchanged. First, as the enemy zips into contact, there's no defensive fire despite the fact that the opposition passes through the entire fire zone of the guns, and second, the battery gets to toss only one lousy die in combat. The Red 112th tossed its dice, and the Blue 111th tossed its dice. Hits are always scored with a toss of a "6". This number is never modified. Of greater interest is the fact that regardless of status, an infantry brigade stand will always toss its 4 dice. It can be hit on the flank, or it can be disordered, or it can be smashed by a combined arms attack... no matter... it tosses its 4 dice, looking for "6's". Each stand rolls against the stand with which it is in contact. The result was that the Red 112th scored a total of 5 hits on the 111th division, while the Blue 111th scored a total of 3 hits on the 112th. Of the 5 hits on the Blue division, 2 were scored on Captain Zitz's artillery. Two hits are sufficient to kill an artillery battery, and off went Captain Zitz. The poor man had never had a chance to fire a shot. The Reds had appeared as a dot on the horizon, and with a WHOOSH!, had closed to contact before Captain Zitz's men could load their guns. Page 12 of the booklet states: "... the side which took the least casualties wins the melee." And so, here, the Red division, the 112th, sent the Blue 111th flying. The 3 brigade stands of the 111th were disordered and retreated back half their move... 8 inches. Bad news for the 111th, for they had just lost their artillery. On the eastern side of the field, the news was much better for the Blues. Here, 2 cavalry brigades (2 stands) of Blue heavy horse had bashed into the Red Kriborg Division, which consisted of 4 infantry brigades and one artillery battery. The Blue cavalry defeated its 2 opposing Red infantry brigades, and these 2 Red brigade stands of the Kriborg division retreated... they were defined to be in disorder. This left 3 Kriborg stands still in line... 2 infantry brigades and one artillery battery. An item of interest in this cavalry-versus-infantry combat. I stated that the Blue 'heavy horse' had charged in... but there's no provision for 'heavy horse' or 'light horse' or 'lancers' or 'dragoons'... under the combat procedures, cavalry is cavalry, and each stand, regardless of type, tosses its 4 dice. The only impact produced by a cavalry-versus-infantry combat is that, in the pre-melee morale checks, the infantry stand facing the cavalry will suffer a "-1" to its morale die toss. I assume that if the infantry unit passes its test, this means that it has formed square. But in the melee itself, both opposing stands still toss their 4 dice... neither has an advantage. Back to the battle. At the end of this turn, therefore, we had half the Red Kriborg Division retreating on the eastern half of the field, while in the center, the Blue 111th Division was in retreat before the onslaught of the Red 112th. We begin the new bound, it's the Red side's turn to move, and we do the following. a. In the east, the 2 stands of the Red Kriborg Division which had been defeated by the opposing Blue cavalry, automatically 'un-disorder' themselves. Units may recover from disorder and then move half their movement allowance. b. In mid-field, however, the victorious Red 112th Division now advanced on the retreating Blue 111th, the division they had just defeated. Remember that when retreating, a unit moves half its distance (8 inches), hence the active Red division, with its 16 inch move, easily caught up with the retreating Blues. Before melee is resolved, all stands in contact take a morale test... and here, all passed. Once again, the Blue 111th and Red 112th crossed swords, tossed their 6-sided dice, and once again, the Blues retreated. But now the Blues had an additional problem. They were already in disorder from losing their previous melee, and now, having lost again, they were 'double disordered'. And 'double disordered' brigades are routed... they take another casualty and move again to the rear, this time a full move. While disordered units can immediately recover on their movement phase, double disordered units can recover only 'half-way'... they can get back to the disordered status, but they will always be permanently disordered. And they can do their recovering only if a 'superior officer' is in contact with the stand. I took the definition of 'superior officer' to be one step above the division commander... hence the army commander must ride over to help out. But now we come to Blue's active half of the turn, and there's a wee bit of an anomaly. In the prior turn, as I described above, 2 brigades of the Blue cavalry had charged forward and attacked and defeated 2 brigades of the Red Kriborg infantry. The 2 Blue cavalry brigades, in charging forward, had outdistanced their division commander... he was some 12 inches from them, shepherding the reserve, another Blue brigade of cavalry. The victorious Blue cavalry was right next to the remaining Kriborg brigades, and I wanted them to charge in. But the Blue cavalry were not 'in command'... were not within 6 inches of their division commander. And the rules state: "Only units in command may move toward visible enemy units." So here the Blue cavalry sat, staring at the Red Kriborg infantry right next to them, unable to move toward them. I had intended to keep the 'unused' Blue cavalry brigade as a reserve, and send in the Blue heavy horse again, but the rules, in precluding this, forced me to commit the fresh cavalry immediately. This did not sit well with me. Command and control rules are fine, and the division and army commander should certainly play a role in issuing orders, but there comes a point when there's got to be a certain amount of 'local initiative' on the part of the lesser commanders. Here, one would think that the victorious Blue cavalry brigade commanders, having just bashed and sent retreating the Red Kriborg units, would surely not have to wait until the division commander caught up to them, and gave them his blessing: "Yes, charging the remnants of the Kriborgs looks like a great idea. I'm glad you told me about it. Go ahead, boys!" Page 88 of the rules states: "... the rules should enable the players to make strategic decisions which determine the outcome of the battle, rather than requiring them to make detailed mechanical and tactical decisions which were not the province of the army and corps commander in any event." The problem presented by the above situation is the very reason that in all of Simon's rules, there are no specific, measured zones within which an officer completely controls his troops, and outside of which, they are semi-paralytic. I always use the distance to the officer from the involved unit, and use that distance as a negative modifier to the probability that the unit obeys orders. The further away from the officer, the less the chance the unit does what the officer commands. Now we return to the battle for a last look. At this point in time, the Red army looked like it had the field. Two out of four Blue infantry divisions were in retreat, and in addition, one division (the 111th) had lost its guns. One of its cavalry divisions had taken lots of hits, enough so that it had exceeded its 'exhaustion level' and could no longer participate in combat. Battle over. Tries Hard I can only say that VAB tries hard. But it seems to be a very simplistic approach to the grand-grand tactical game. In a sense, the VAB system almost parallels the DBM system. In DBM, each stand is an 'element'... an entity (not really defined in the rules) that engages in combat by itself and has no ties to its neighboring stands. In VAB, we are given "brigades", and these stands, are linked via two aspects of the system: (a) the stands must cluster around the division commander, and (b) when their division reaches its exhaustion level, the stands are effectively out of the fight. Back to PW Review August 1998 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1998 Wally Simon This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com