Recently, I presented a 15mm Napoleonics game to a group of 6 at table-side. This was a first effort (not surprising, since all my rules sets, even after years of development, are first efforts) and the scale was 'grand-tactical' in that a single stand of 15mm figures represented a battalion, around 5 such stands a brigade, and 4 brigades a division. This was, therefore, somewhat in the scale of NAPOLEON'S BATTLES... 100 yards to the inch. I had carefully prepared the scenario (a French attack on a British-held position), I had carefully prepared a rules booklet for each participant, I had carefully prepared data sheets for each of the units in a division, I had carefully prepared several wall charts showing the parameters and tables of importance... and I blew it! I didn't read my own rules! And the scenario went up in flames! Where I truly flubbed-de-dub was in the casualty assessment phase. I had evolved what I thought was a unique method of translating the temporary hits on a unit (resulting from melee and from fire, and from failed morale tests) into permanent losses, but instead of following my own guidelines, I recorded twice as many losses on the units as they were supposed to take. Each unit was given around 8 boxes to be crossed out. When all the boxes disappeared, so did the unit. Each time a unit took a hit, I placed a casualty figure next to it. Only at the end of the bound were these casualty figures supposed to be translated into actual losses, i.e., into boxes crossed out, but what I did was to mandate that immediately the hit occurred during the sequence, a box on the unit's data sheet was crossed out. And then, when the bound ended, and the casualty figures were assessed, more boxes were crossed out. In effect, I had doubled the casualty rate incurred by the units on the field. The way I had ginned up the firing and melee procedures, it wasn't hard to accumulate a quantity of casualty figures on a unit. But these tokens were to have remained with the unit until the end of the bound. Then dice were thrown, and the following table was referred to, and the figures were translated into the actual boxes crossed out: Table 1 01 to 33 Each 3 casualty figures results in 1 box crossed out 34 to 66 Each 2 casualty figures results in 1 box crossed out 67 to 100 Each casualty figure results in 1 box crossed out Note that the above table is a filter... it keeps the total of casualty figures from instantly swamping the unit. And also note a low toss is a good one... if a unit had accumulated, say, 6 casualty figures, and tossed low, that would result in only 2 boxes being crossed out. But if it tossed high, then every casualty figure translated into a crossed-out box. The upshot, due to my flub, was that the attacking French took so many losses, so soon, as to blunt the power of their attack. They never got underway, since their casualties piled up so rapidly that their units were taken out of the combat too soon. When we finally corrected what I had done, and got back to the 'normal', the required, method of casualty assessment, things went better, but the scenario itself was a shambles. As far as the rest of the rules, I was quite satisfied with the results. In essence, the sequence employed the usual A-move/B-fire/B-move/A-fire routine, with a couple of Simonian ploys tossed in. When an alternate sequence is used, as in the above, and one side, the active side, dishes it out, I've always tried to permit the non-active side to reply, to react. And so, here, whenever a unit found itself in difficulty, it could attempt to react to the situation. For example, in the battle, a British cavalry unit charged and contacted a French infantry brigade still in column formation. Bad vibes for the French. But all was not lost. Each division had a certain number of Reaction Points (RP) it could use to attempt to reply to this emergency situation... in this case, the French brigade allocated 2 of its RP, and attempted to form square. The chance of doing so was 80 percent, and the French were successful. And now, therefore, we had a British cavalry brigade about to smack into a square. This time, bad vibes for the British. But here, too, RP were allocated by the British as the cavalry brigade commander attempted to put the brakes on and pull back... he had no desire to plow into a square. And so, he allotted his own RP points, was given an 80 percent chance of withdrawing, and he was successful. End of affair. Note that two conditions had to exist for the unit under stress to succeed... first, it had to have RP in inventory, and second, it had to pass a test... tossing 80 or less on percentage dice. RP were limited. They were assigned on a divisional basis (divisions started out with an initial allocation of around 10 RP), and within a couple of bounds or so, with all the units in the division crying for RP (around 4 brigades plus a couple of guns), the supply became critical. At the end of the bound, the Corps headquarters diced for supplementary RP... the most it could get was 8 RP, and this was immediately distributed to the divisions on the field. As umpire, I diced, each bound, for the number of RP required to react that turn. The 'cost' varied between 2 and 3 RP... not too much of difference, but when you're down to your last RP, every little bit helps. Another instance of using RP was when a unit was contacted by the enemy. Here, both leading units hoped to bring in a supporting unit to assist. More RP used up, more dice throws. Incidentally, it was in this latter category that the French proved rather inept. Despite the rather large percentage chance (80 percent) of reacting properly and bringing a support in, the French seemed to fail quite often. The French brigades refused to support each other. Another use of RP occurred during the fire phase. When a unit was fired upon, it could use RP to return fire. That is, it could use RP to attempt to return fire... if it didn't make its 80 percent throw, the RP were lost. In one set of rules for Bowden's EMPIRE series (EMPIRE 5?), Bowden employed a reactive system... he permitted a unit, when fired upon, to return fire every time an enemy unit fired on it. I thought this was a little much, given Bowden's insistence on historical verisimilitude. And so, I limited the return-fire ploy to a single reaction... regardless of the number of times a unit was fired upon, it could return fire only once. Back to PW Review August 1999 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1999 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