Sometime in 1988, Bob Coggins appeared at my ping pong table and hosted a game of his soon-to-be-published Napoleonic rules, NAPOLEON'S BATTLES (NB). He was slightly miffed... the name of the rules was to have been THE BATTLES OF NAPOLEON, but some board-game manufacturer beat him to it, and he had to settle for the NB designation.
NB was published in 1989 by Avalon Hill, and the firm placed the rules set in its usual AH boxed format. They also wrote the instruction book in typical board-gamese language, worse than the language in which the WRG booklets were written. The inherent nitty-gritty of NB, in its attempt to "re-create history" on the ping pong table, was not for me. And not too many people of the PW group took an interest in NB. But NB, itself, took off and became quite popular in the wargaming world. About a year after it was published, I took it upon myself to set up a solo battle to see exactly what the rules contained. The results of my ardent research were published in the REVIEW of September, 1991.
In a recent gaming session at my house, Bob Liebl stated that he currently played NB, that a group of Virginia gamers used NB in their campaigns, and Bob offered to host an NB game at my house. In truth, I remembered very little of the NB procedures, and this prompted me to dust off my own NB copy, and to re-examine the properties of NB, which are scaled for the use of 15mm figures.
The NB box contains about 10 huge Information Cards which list the attributes of all troops of all countries. You've got French troops and British and Westphalian and Denmark and Holland and Hanover and Russian and Baden and Nassau and Poland and Sweden and on and on and on. And the NB research team, for each type of troop, for each nationality, detailed their combat factors, how far and fast they could march, and how far they could fire.
For example, looking at the French Information Card, and referencing Line Infantry, the attributes are broken down into yearly periods, and the allowed 15mm infantry movement distances for an assault column, in inches, are given as follows:
| Period | Assault Column Movement Distance |
|---|---|
| 1794-1795 | 10 |
| 1796-1804 | 12 |
| 1805-1807 | 12 |
| 1808-1812 | 10 |
| 1813-1814 | 9 |
| 1815 | 10 |
You will note that immediately after the French revolution, the chart says that the little guys started out at a rapid trot of 10 inches (1,000 yards)... which is pretty good, since cavalry moves around 13 or 14 inches per move. Then, in the period 1796 to 1807, the troops picked up speed to 12 inches, dropped back to 10 in 1808, and finally, in 1813, their tongues hanging out, completely exhausted after running alongside the cavalry for over a decade, they dropped back to a mere 9 inch (900 yards) move.
Now this, to me, is what I term horse-puckey of the first order, first magnitude.
Skeptic that I am, I doubt that the NB research team zipped back into history and measured and paced off the relative movement capabilities to the nearest 100 yards, as listed above. This sort of crappola substitutes precision for accuracy in the name of historicity.
What is interesting to me is the relationship between ground scale and 'unit' scale. This is described in one of the three booklets which come with the NB set. A 'brigade stand' is composed of 4 battalion stands, placed in two ranks of two. A battalion stand measures 3/4 of an inch in width, and is 1 inch in depth. With each battalion stand at 3/4 of an inch wide, the brigade frontage (2 stands, side by side) is 1½ inches.
Ground scale is 1 inch to 100 yards. The brigade 2-stand frontage of 1½ inches thus represents 150 yards. One might think, therefore, that at this table-top scale, musket firing range of around 100 yards or so might be, at most, equal to the brigade frontage, i.e., muskets should reach out, at maximum, an inch and a half. Not true.
For most nationalities, the musket range, as listed on the Information Cards, is 4 inches (400 yards). Indeed, some units (French Young Guard) will range out to 5 inches (500 yards). The rationale for this is that the extended firing range represents the accumulation of two different effects... one is the effect of the brigade skirmishers (which are not represented on the table) well out in front of the brigade, and the other is the long range effect of the battalion guns (which are not represented on the table). Hence the fire effect of the brigade reaches out well beyond the usual limitation of musket range.
I love this sorta stuff. This is the same poppy-cock I've been presenting for years, for in my own horse-and-musket games, musket range extends well beyond 'normal'... it goes out over the horizon, but I don't explain it via the 'extended skirmisher' theory. To me, the extended range represents the negative effect on the morale level of the target unit... the targeted men don't have to be physically shot to make 'em leave the firing line... all that's needed is for them to know that someone is pointing muskets at them, and whoosh!... off they go. A casualty is a casualty is a casualty.
Bob and Cleo Liebl laid out an NB battle at one of our PW meetings. Three British corps attacked by three French corps. I commanded one of the French corps, which consisted of three divisions, two infantry and one cavalry.
Each of my infantry divisions had three brigades, with each brigade ranging from 4 to 6 stands. My cavalry division had 2 brigades, each of 3 stands. This gave me a total of some 36 stands to move each turn.
The sequence for the half-bound has 4 basic phases to it, quite similar to FIRE AND FURY.
- (a) It starts with the Active Side moving
(b) The Non-Active Side then fires
(c) Active Side units fire
(d) Melee is resolved
Note that both sides (AS and NAS) get to fire during the half-bound. This is done by comparative die throws, the firing unit tossing its 10-sided die, the target unit tossing its own 'defensive' 10-sided die. If the firing unit's die exceeds the defensive die, a hit is scored. If the firing unit's die is double that of the defensive die, 2 hits are scored. Regardless of their formation, regardless of the era, NB always gives British line units a +1 to add to their fire die. This gives each firing unit a 60 percent chance of a hit. French line units get a +1 only in the period 1805 to 1807.
At the start of each turn, when the French were the Active Side, the first function I performed was to see if all of my divisions were in proper command range. Massena was my corps commander... he had a magical, mystical command aura that extended out to 8 inches (800 yards). My division commanders had to be within his aura to act properly.
In similar fashion, my division commanders each had a 3 inch aura (300 yards). Their brigades had to be within 3 inches of the division commander to function at all. If any brigade was found to be outside of the 3 inch command region, it was not permitted to move.
Digression
I have always disliked this magical, mystical aura business. NB's time scale is 30 minutes per turn, and let's say, in Turn #2, the 4th Brigade commander is given his orders to advance (he's within the 3 inch aura of his division commander) and off he goes. Along comes Turn #3, 30 minutes later, and for some reason, the division commander is now 6 inches away from the brigade.
Panic ensues. The brigade commander is stricken with Parkinson's Disease, with multiple sclerosis, with some sort of nervous disorder making him incapable of thinking or acting properly. Some 30 minutes ago, he had his orders, he understood the commands given to him, he had his objectives, but now he's confused, doesn't know what he's doing and is semi-comatose. What to do?
In NB, there's nothing to do. The 4th Brigade will sit until its division commander rides up to hold the hand and wipe the brow of the brigade commander.
Let me take you back to the REVIEW of September, 1991, in which I discussed this problem. I had set up the first scenario, French versus Prussians, in the NB scenario booklet for a solo-play examination of the rules. One of the Prussian division commanders was a fellow named General Kris. In my article, I wrote:
- "Kris commanded the largest force on the board... his division contained six units: three infantry brigades, two batteries and a cavalry reserve. But Kris was, in effect, a command cripple. The poor fellow was militarily disadvantaged; he had a disability in that his command aura was only 3 inches in radius.
There was only one way Kris could maintain control of his entire division, keeping them all within his magical 3 inch radius, and that was to continually scrunch all six units together in one solid mass, cavalry, infantry and artillery.
If Bob Coggins will forgive me, this looked pretty historically unrealistic to me. In fact, one might even go so far as to say "historically silly".
There are many gaming ploys that deal with command response functions, systems that supposedly reproduce the difficulties of commanders keeping their forces under their control, and, in my considered opinion, the "mysterious aura" ploy is probably the worst of them all."
End of digression.
Engagement
And now we return to the engagement. In accord with the Simon concept of battle, which is to 'test the melee rules', I immediately launched a cavalry charge against a British unit in line, some 12 inches away. The British unit took an out-of-sequence 'emergency response' test to see if it formed square... I think it had 60 percent chance to do so, and was successful.
After French movement comes British fire, and the square fired, its +1 for being British being annulled by its -1 for being in square. In any event, my unit was hit. There are no morale tests as such in NB, and a charging unit will always make contact regardless of the hits put upon it during the defensive firing phase. If the Brits had inflicted 2 hits on my cavalry, they would have been disordered going into the melee.
I should note, at this point, that the Liebls used casualty caps (Uch! Pfeh! Yuch! Pfooey!) to mark casualties. And not only for casualties, which were in glossy black... but to mark disordered units (blue caps) and routed units (red caps) and cavalry placed in a reaction or overwatch mode (yellow caps). I have to admit that the plethora of these ugly, ugly things on the field completely spoiled the game for me.
But now we're in melee resolution. Here, too, as in firing, combat is adjudicated by comparative die rolls. I forget what my cavalry die roll melee modifier was (probably a +4), but it was far outweighed by the infantry's +8 modifier for being in square.
But NB has a savings factor built in for the cavalry... if they fail to break the infantry, they receive a maximum of 1 hit, and 'bounce back' their move distance. And so I hadn't completely thrown my horse-troopers away... they were saved by the rules.
A turn or so later, the British brigade that had formed square was still in square... poor staff work, as my opponent had forgotten to form it into line. Once again I charged it, this time with a French infantry brigade in column. Next to the British infantry unit was an artillery piece, and the umpire, Bob Liebl, indicated that the gun would fire at my incoming column.
"But let me make a suggestion," he said. "You have another brigade. Move up this second brigade, also in column, in front of the gun and it will block its fire."
I took Bob's suggestion to heart, and up moved my second unit. Why couldn't the gun fire? I'm still not sure. There was some talk about the artillery being in melee and could thus only fire at the incoming brigade, but it wasn't clear at all. In fact, so disconcerted were the gunners that they couldn't even fire at the blocking unit. Napoleon, the great artillerist, was probably twirling in his tomb.
This time, facing infantry in square, and having been saved from close range cannon fire, my own infantry assault column got a -1 modifier on its die, while the British square got a -3... enough of a difference to give me a victory, to disorder the Brits (those horrid blue markers) and to send the British brigade back.
Note that my column of assault received a -1 in combat. NB doesn't like columns. Depending upon the era, the Information Cards give the French infantry brigade assault columns a bunch of minuses... sometimes -1, or a -2, or a zero, but never a "plus". That's enough to make Napoleon stop twirling and try to sit up in his tomb.
I noted that in addition to the mysterious "block the fire of the gun" ploy, there's another combat ploy which seems rather "gamey".
This concerns a cavalry attack on an infantry brigade. On your move phase, first, you move one of your own infantry units to within an inch of the cavalry's target, and then make contact with the cavalry.
The presence of your infantry will "pin" and prevent the attacked enemy brigade from attempting to perform its emergency response function to form square. Thus is it stated in the rule book and thus it shall be done. No explanation is given. But let me take you to the March, 1991 issue of the REVIEW. Bruce McFarlane of the Canadian Wargamers had written on this issue. Bruce looked at the "pinning" problem in terms of the combined attack of two cavalry units... the first cavalry unit "pins" and the second one attacks:
- Rule 8.4.4 states that an infantry unit must attempt to form emergency square when cavalry come into combat contact. What if the cavalry wants to come within 1 inch but not in contact? Can a cavalry unit move to within 1/100th of an inch from infantry and declare it is NOT coming into contact? In such case, the infantry will be pinned, unable to form square as the second cavalry unit comes crashing into its flank. There is nothing in the rules to prohibit such creative and bold cavalry tactics. Historically, this situation does not make sense. The infantry would form square once the cavalry entered within a critical distance, no matter what the cavalry's intentions.
Bruce's solution was to prevent cavalry from coming within 1 inch of an infantry unit, unless it made contact. In our battle, the pinning unit was infantry, not cavalry. By preventing the change of formation, the rules deprive the defending brigade commander of selecting which, in his opinion, is the greatest threat... the approaching enemy infantry or the enemy cavalry.
And in conclusion. Stripped of its charts, of its quasi-precision, of its pseudo-accuracy, NB prevents a basically simple and enjoyable game. Under Bob Liebl's hosting prowess, the battle flowed quickly, and the firing and combat phases were quickly adjudicated. Is it a "better" or "more realistic" Napoleonic set of rules than the others on the market? I can only tell you that it has cavalry and infantry and artillery and 10-sided dice. Did Napoleon have 10-sided dice?
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© Copyright 1999 Wally Simon
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