Bob Hurst commanded the French, I commanded the Prussians. Our brigades were of 10 stands each, and every three brigades was termed a regiment. This was a 'quickie' game, and the object was to see how 'Franco-Prussianish' the rules were. In accordance with accepted Franco-Prussian doctrine, the French rifles should shoot better than those of the Prussians, and the Prussian artillery should shoot better than those of the French. This was instituted by the following rules, which employed a deterministic firing routine. Here, you simply pointed at a target unit, and placed a number of casualty markers on it. Rule I Type 1 to 10 inches 10 to 20 inches French rifles Target receives 2 markers Target receives 1 marker Prussian rifles Target receives 1 marker Target receives 1 marker Type to 30 inches 30 to 60 inches French artillery Target receives 1 marker Target receives 1 marker Prussian artillery Target receives 2 markers Target receives 2 markers Rule II Each time a French infantry unit fired, or a Prussian gun fired, then in addition to the above, there was a 50 percent chance that the target received yet an another marker. Rule III Cavalry units, when targeted by any firing unit, received additional markers. I wanted to 'devalue' the cavalry and putting additional markers on them was one way of doing this. These markers remained on the target units during the close assault phase (and gave a 'plus' to the opposition), and at the end of the bound, casualties were assessed in accordance with the number of markers on each unit, and the markers removed. Thus each bound, casualties were determined, markers were removed, and stands were removed. In the next bound, therefore, stands started anew, without casualty markers, but with fewer men. Sometime ago, Pat Condray reviewed three sets of Franco-Prussian rules for THE COURIER, and gave the authors what-for for not including in their procedures, a routine for having the infantry 'go to ground' when fired on. And so, I had a 'go to ground' procedureĽ I have no desire to have the wrath of Condray descend upon me. After being fired upon, an infantry unit took reaction test, and one of the possible results was that the men would hold position, refuse to advance, fall to the ground, and trade fire with the enemy. The only Franco-Prussian rules I played, prior to this time, was Dave Waxtel's THEY DIED FOR GLORY, and I wasn't too impressed with it. I read Partizan Press' LES GENS BRAVE, and even in the reading, the rules looked pretty bad. Back to PW Review December 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