I first tried out these rules in solo-fashion, ironing out the rough spots, attempting to anticipate what problems would occur when 'real players' showed up.
The scale of the game was 'grand tactical', wherein a regiment was composed of anywhere from 2 to 4 stands. A brigade consisted of 4 regiments, plus one single-stand battery. The test set-up employed 3 infantry brigades per side, plus a small cavalry brigade, around 15 units in all.
A REVIEW subscriber, Don Bailey, sometime before, had sent me a copy of his WW II rules, STURM, in which units automatically reacted to the impact and presence of enemy movement and fire. My interest here also focused on unit reaction... but I didn't want the reaction of a unit to be random... I wanted a unit to respond in accordance with the player's desire.
I gave each brigade commander a number of Reaction Points (RP), with which they could try to have their units respond to critical situations. For example, if a French cavalry unit charged an enemy infantry regiment which had not deployed, and was still in line, the reaction sequence would go something like this:
- (a) The infantry brigade commander, seeing that his regiment was in trouble, would expend an RP, denoting his giving emergency orders to his unit to form square.
(b) Now that the orders were sent, did they arrive on time? This was determined by a dice throw... there was an 80 percent chance of the infantry forming square.
(c) Now, we had a counter reaction. Here, the cavalry commander suddenly was faced with his target forming square. Could he avoid contact? He could try to back off by, first, sending orders, just as in Phase (a)... expending an RP.
(d) Then he'd see if the orders arrived... decided by the dice throw. If the dice were 80 or below, he was successful, and his unit pulled up. If not successful, the cavalry plowed into the infantry square.
Note that reaction was not 'free'. First, the brigade commander had to have an RP or two to expend, and second, the 'did-the-orders-arrive' dice toss had to be 80 or less.
I could foresee problems concerning the definition of a "critical situation". For example, if enemy cavalry simply stationed themselves within charge distance of enemy infantry... couldn't the infantry player claim this was critical... that his unit ought to be able to react for its own safety... if not to form square, perhaps to fire?
And yes, these problems did crop up at the first playtest of the rules, when the 'real players' showed up. Cliff Sayr ran the attacking force, while Jim Butters commanded the defenders. Cliff's objective was to capture 2 of 4 small villages placed on the field... he outnumbered Jim by one artillery battery (he had 3, Jim had 2), and one small 2-regiment brigade.
Each brigade commander was initially given 6 Reaction Points (RP). I had no idea if this was too little, or too much. At the end of each half-bound, the force commanders gave out their own reserve RP, apportioning them out to the brigades. It turned out that, for the small encounter we played, 6 RP were sufficient.
Cliff's 1st Brigade was his smallest... 4 regiments, two of 2 stands, two of 3 stands. And these brave men went right up the middle, soaking up musket and cannon balls.
Jim's defenders focused on one of the teeny weeny regiments, a 2-stand unit... the 1st Jaegers. The 1st Jaegers data sheet looked like:
| Efficiency | 0 0 0 0 | 0 0 0 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 0 0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Strength | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 |
| Losses | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
The firing procedure went thusly:
- (a) First, the men (figures) in the firing regiment were counted. Each man that fired generated a Firing Point. Here, Jim's firing unit, Captain Schtorm's Regiment, had 6 men in it, so he had 6 Fire Points.
(b) Second, multiply the Fire Points by the number of Volleys. In the sequence, units were assigned actions... and each action permitted it to fire, i.e., constituted a Volley. The firing unit had 3 actions, hence had 3 Volleys. Multiplying the Fire Points by the Volleys, Jim got 6 x 3, or 18 Impact Points.
(c) Third, toss percentage dice. The total of the Impact Points plus the dice throw had to be 70 or more to score a hit. If the target was hit, it would be given a casualty figure. I have a huge number of 30mm Napoleonic officer figures around, and in this game, I used the officers to denote a casualty figure. Which meant that if you saw a regiment escorted by a lot of officers, you'd know it was in trouble.
With Captain Schtorm's total of 18 Fire Points, and needing 70 to score a hit, the dice throw had be 52 or more... another way of saying this is that Captain Schtorm had a probability of hit of 48 percent.
(d) Fourth, there's a phase in the sequence in which the casualty figures, which were temporary, were translated into permanent losses on the unit's data sheet, i.e., crossing out the Efficiency boxes shown on the data sheet above. Translating the temporary casualty figures into permanent losses used percentage dice and employed the following chart:
- 01 to 33 Each casualty figure crosses off 1 Efficiency box
34 to 66 Each casualty figure crosses off 2 Efficiency boxes
67 to 100 Each casualty figure crosses off 3 Efficiency boxes.
By the second bound, Cliff's 1st Jaegers already had around 5 of their Efficiency boxes crossed off, and they were sporting 5 officers, denoting additional casualties, when the time came to evaluate their permanent losses. Cliff tossed very high on the above chart... each of the officers resulted in 3 boxes crossed out... definitely overkill, since there are only 14 Efficiency boxes to begin with... and the 1st Jaegers were destroyed and taken from the field.
On Cliff's left flank, his cavalry brigade advanced and eventually came within charge distance of one of Jim's infantry regiments... the dreaded Blue Guards. The Blue Guards were still deployed in line, and when the cavalry tried to close, this was an opportunity for the reaction rules to be employed. This was the situation I referred to at the beginning of this article. The Blue Guards' brigade commander expended 2 Reaction Points to give his orders to form square, and tossed his dice to see if the orders arrived... they did.
About to close with a square, the cavalry commander now reacted... he, too, expended 2 Reaction Points to issue orders, tossed his dice, the orders arrived, and the cavalry regiment drew back from contact.
In one instance during the battle, Cliff had one of his units charge a defending regiment, the Regiment du Jour. The du Jours had been severely beaten upon in the preceding bounds... they had undergone a number of massed volleys and already had quite a few of their recorded Efficiency boxes crossed off.
Jim decided it was not to his advantage to have the du Jours stand, but that they should fall back. He expended 2 Reaction Points to give his orders to fall back, tossed his dice and the orders arrived in timely fashion. The du Jours fell back, out of contact, to live to fight another day.
In this battle, you'll note that an expenditure of 2 Reaction Points was necessary to give orders. In a subsequent battle, each bound, I diced for the number of Reaction Points necessary to respond to an emergency... depending upon the dice throw at the beginning of the bound, it required either 2 or 3 Reaction Points.
In this second battle, Fred Haub commanded the defending forces. Sometime during the encounter, my dragoons broke through Fred's lines and charged one of his infantry units, which was deployed in line. It cost Fred 3 Reaction Points, but his infantry came through, and formed square to fend off the dragoons.
In turn, now that my dragoons were charging into a square, I, too, expended 3 Reaction Points to have the cavalry come to a halt to avoid contact.
The orders were therefore issued, but, unfortunately, they didn't arrive... I failed my 80 percent dice throw... the cavalry failed to halt.
I had outlined the procedures for 3 types of melee:
- (a) Infantry on infantry; Cavalry on
cavalry
(b) Cavalry versus infantry-in-square
(c) Cavalry versus infantry-not-in-square
The first listed type of melee, essentially pitting like-troops versus like-troops, resolved the combat via series of calculations using the number of men per unit, their Strength and Loss factors from their data chart... the usual method of melee resolution.
The second and third listed types of melees used a very brusque, very quick method of determining who won. First, if cavalry smashed into infantry in line, i.e., not in square, the cavalry had an 85 percent chance of sending the infantry flying. Second, if cavalry charged into infantry in square, the square had an 85 percent chance of beating off the cavalry. I couldn't see wasting time calculating odds when such uneven encounters took place.
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© Copyright 1999 Wally Simon
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