by Kevin Zucker
Comments by Kevin Zucker-extracts of interview of 22 October 1998. Last Days of the Grande Armée is really the 1806 design, 6 Days of Glory design, and I have simplified it in its basic version even from 1806, although we will provide Vedettes and Hidden movement as options in this game, so if you use all the available options, it will be a game that will be very, very similar to 1806. There are rules on Leaders, Reorganization, Command, Initiative, March Orders, Road March, Repulse, and Pontoon Bridges. There are artillery units in the game and we've devised some new rules for bombardments.
I have taken a new approach to Initiative and Command. I've sort of combined the two ideas
of Movement Commands and Initiative into one short little rule, called 'Initiative.' But
it combines concepts, in order to get away from the all-or-nothing nature of Initiative in
the Napoleon at Bay series. In the battle scenarios in those games-where you don't have
Administrative Points and you don't have to buy Movement Commands-you have an assigned
number of Movement Commands every turn. Well, in Last Days of the Grande Armee you
have an assigned number of Movement Points, which is determined by a chit draw. A chit
will have, for instance, the numbers "4/6" which means your infantry, when you
draw that chit, all of them, are going to move up to four, and your cavalry are going to
move up to six Movement Points. You start out with a couple of chits in your hand, and
each turn you have to draw a chit from the cup, and play that. Then if you want to 'Force
March,' you can play a chit from your hand. But you can Force March only every-other turn. Back to Wargame Design Vol. 2 Nr. 4 Table of Contents Back to Wargame Design List of Issues Back to Master Magazine List © Copyright 1999 by Operational Studies Group. 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 |