A revolutionary concept hides within the rules folders of OSG's Campaigns of Napoleon series: the Vedettes. These flashy characters, the famous Hussars, Chasseurs, Uhlans, and Cossacks of yore, for the first time in gaming, are able to display their true talents. Before OSG, light horsemen were relegated to playing the part of weak but fast infantry. Their primary role as scouts,.and as a moving shield for the army, was ignored. Consequently, using your vedettes properly takes some thought. It also requires a significant adjustment to your standard wargaming methods. The following is a primer for all of you would-be Hussars.

Vedettes first appeared in The Emperor Returns as traditional dummy markers. Their role was to confuse the enemy about where your real force was. In later games, beginning with 1807: The Eagles Turn East, the vedettes (touted as "smart dummies") began to come into their own. In the four games released since 1807, these small, 50-man units, fanning out across the countryside, have become the true eyes and ears of your army. Using them properly will help you pin down the composition and whereabouts of the enemy, while foiling his attempts to discover the same information about you.

There are two fundamentals for using vedettes effectively: 1) Use your vedettes, and 2) Use deception.

Make your vedettes earn their pay. In our obsession with big battles, we players tend to disregard any unit that doesn't have a big combat factor. Vedettes are a crucial part of your order of battle, and should be used at every opportunity, both to confuse your opponent, and keep tabs on him. Except for the first turn of the game (when you know where your enemy is from the set-up), there is really no way to attack an opponent intelligently until you've scouted him out first. There's nothing more humbling than setting up a game winning attack only to find that you've targeted a Major General.

VEDETTE TACTICS

There are four missions you can give to your versatile light horsemen: Scouting, Probing, Screening and Impersonating an Army. The last of these is the traditional role of dummies in wargaming. The first three are what make the vedettes in the Campaigns of Napoleon such great history.

1.SCOUTING

Armies in this game series are effectively blind. Without scouts, it's impossible for a field army to know what it's up against until it's too late to do anything about it. Once you've moved your army into an enemy ZOC, or allowed an enemy to enter yours, you are committed to at least one round of battle, and perhaps headlong retreat. You can pick up clues from your opponent's actions when he's moving, rolling attrition, etc. (these can be put down to spying by your agents), but you're still effectively at the enemy's mercy. A good general, like a good poker player, will mix his signals. Your vedettes have the right tool for the job. It's called the repulse.

Vedettes get information by attempting to repulse enemy targets. If a target is a vedette, it's revealed, and subject to being steam-rolled by your main army when it moves. If the target is a real body of troops, your army now knows that, too, and can either attack it or go around it. When the combat phase arrives, your vedettes simply retreat before combat, having performed their function.

2. PROBING

Scouting (as defined for this article) occurs during the movement phase. It's intended to reveal obstacles and targets when closing in for a battle, clearing the way for the big guns. Probing operates similarly, but has a longer-range goal. The mission of a probe is to gather information on a target hex. Like scouting, it begins with a repulse attempt during the movement phase. Now, assuming your target was a body of troops, you will attack them with your vedette rather than retreat. Nine times out of ten, your vedette will be blown up, but in step 6 of the combat resolution sequence, you will find out exactly what's in the enemy's hey, including commanders.

This mission has longer- range goals than scouting because you get the information during the combat phase, but you can't act on it until your next movement phase (two days later). Also, your vedette will be out of action until it re-assembles with a nearby force the following turn. Still, this is the only dependable tool you have for keeping tabs on the enemy. Without it there's no way to take the initiative intelligently. Plenty of Napoleonic generals gave up the initiative voluntarily, and paid for their sins with defeat.

3. SCREENING

Defending against all of the above is also the job of your hard- riding Hussars. A cavalry screen is created by forming a barrier of vedette ZOC's at some distance from your main force, meant to fend off enemy vedettes on the prowl for information. At a minimum, your vedettes should stand two to three hexes ahead of your army on all primary roads and bridges, to keep enemy horsemen from riding in and probing your big stacks at leisure. In situations where enemy vedette activity is heavy, a solid line of vedette ZOC's will help to keep the horsemen at bay. Enemy vedettes; can't actually repulse your vedettes, and sticking around for a 1:1 attack is as likely to slay the attacker as the defender (probably both), so a cavalry screen can't easily be penetrated by enemy vedettes alone.

A large force of formed troops (4 SP's) is required to achieve the 7:1 needed to push back a screening vedette, and those SP's could otherwise be bolstering the enemy's main force. It's also often wise to put a vedette in dose to the main army, along the axis of most likely enemy attack. A lazy or overconfident attacker may push one of his big armies up next to what he thinks is your main force, only to discover that it's a vedette, wrecking his big maneuver.

4. IMPERSONATING AN ARMY

Vedettes can act the part of vast hosts, helping to divert enemy strength away from the area of main effort. Conversely, big armies can act like vedettes, striking where the enemy least expects it. When your vedette is impersonating a larger force, do plenty of checking back and forth between the map and the organization display. Before moving, peek at the vedette, scratch your head, roll the attrition dice, groan and fiddle about with the display as if recording SP's lost.

Of course it's also important to sometimes move your large armies casually, as if they were nothing more than puny vedettes. The key is to focus on two of Napoleon's historical obsessions: security and deception. Keep the enemy guessing, and enhance the likelihood you will surprise him. In general, unless a vedette is going to scout or probe this turn, it is best to activate it with an initiative roll, and keep it's movement down to 5 or 7 movement points so as not to give away its identity. Light cavalrymen were notorious liars and gamblers. Keep this in mind when using them!

There's often an imbalance in the number of vedettes available to each army. In Bonaparte in Italy, for example, the Austrians outnumber the French in vedettes by something like 2: 1. In this case, the French have to use their vedettes as efficiently as possible, with less luxury for longrange missions and wholesale deception.

The French in this case should probe only when possible, reserving their vedettes for the cavalry screen until the moment of attack. The Austrian player must put heavy pressure on the French vedettes, denying them any opportunity to scout their big units.

Examining the history of the period shows the accuracy of OSG's vedette model, particularly in the 1813 campaigns in which the French were hampered by a lack of good light cavalry. They operated almost entirely in the dark and were exposed to the enemy (the Luetzen campaign is a good example of what happens when you face superior enemy cavalry). In the Napoleonic era, cavalry superiority helped determine control of the battlefield.

Their role was hiding friendly forces prior to the big moment and allowing the dominant army to maneuver with decision. Before now, players haven't been given this tremendous tool. If you doubt their influence, strip one player of his vedettes for a battle scenario and see who wins!