Concerning Previous Day Losses and Stragglers
I enjoy running multi-day battles, but I have found this to be a problematic logistic when using Fire & Fury. The problem is that units which have taken losses must completely reorganize their strength/morale ratings in order to begin the new day as a fresh, but reduced unit. One way to counter this problem is to use day erase markers on heavy clear tape for each unit's strength/morale rating. That way, the ratings could be changed at will. This might be one solution to the physical problem of changing strength/morale ratings; however, it still takes too much time to accomplish the change.
Another solution for your consideration is very simple. Allow reduced units to enter the new day with reduced strength but consider them fresh until they take a stand reduction. When they take this stand reduction, treat their morale as normal for their current actual strength as per their original strength/morale.
For example, Archer's original strength on the first day of Gettysburg is 6/5/3. Let us say that the brigade loses two stands on the first day. On the second day, Archer has four stands which, according to his original strength, would place him in the "worn" category. Taking the spin of this article, Archer would begin day two with four stands, fresh. When the brigade takes its first casualty on the second day, it would drop to three stands and would now revert to its original strength chart (6/5/3) and would be considered "spent."
The rationale for this procedure is that Civil war units showed a tendency towards resiliency, even with reduced strength. However, if depleted units were committed again to battle too early, they could found to be very brittle and break apart. Since Fire & Fury is a brigade-level game, this rule would provide easily for the use of units in battle for a second day, but cause the commander to carefully weigh the risks of sending a brigade back into battle without sufficient rest and regrouping.
The rule just developed would also be useful for those of you who run campaigns and have units marching into battle with straggling losses. Simply allow the unit to enter battle in a fresh condition and it revert back to its actual strength/morale when it receives its first casualty in battle. This rule would nicely simulate Law's forced march into battle at Little Round Top and explain why it would not keep its efficiency as long as truly fresh troops.
Recovering from Losses and Stragglers
Part of the fun of campaigning or multi-day battles should be dealing with the changing strengths of each brigade, and thus, with the fighting capacity of your army. One must be careful, however, to not get too detailed in these matters for a fast-moving game like Fire & Fury. We must not get bogged down in too much detail and defeat the purpose of brigade-level rules in the first place. For enhancing your campaign experiences, give the following a try. Let us consider how units take losses in Fire & Fury. Units may lose stands in three ways: from fire, from capture, and from skedaddling.
Losses form capture are the most serious since they are seldom returned immediately after a battle. Unless you are replaying the entire Civil War and create some kind of "exchange" rules, we should consider all losses due to capture as permanent for the battle or campaign. It took quite a while to sort out paroles and exchanges.
Losses from fire are semi-permanent. Half of the fire casualties should be considered killed, seriously wounded and moderately wounded. The moderately wounded might return to the unit after some convalescence; however, for battles and campaigns, render them hors de combat. The other half of the losses from fire are wounded and need dome battlefield treatment of have excused themselves along with the wounded for the duration of the battle (not all the losses from fire are actual casualties of battle.) We will let these losses return to their units one full day after the battle. The reason for this is to encourage commanders that attrition battles can really damage an army's fighting efficiency.
Losses form skedaddling are temporary losses produced by the confusion of battle. These stragglers will return to the unit based on damaged the unit is at the end of the day. To calculate the condition of a unit, only consider the killed, wounded, and captured, not the stragglers. Fresh units may recover three stands of stragglers by the next morning. Worn and spent units may recover two and one stands respectively at the beginning of each day. Units which have suffered under intense combat will have a harder time recovering, due to the loss of officers and NCO's than those which have spent less time engaged.
A special word for those units which lose their cadre stands through combat: such rough handling in battle deserves a special penalty. units which have lost their cadre stands may not recover until one full day after the battle. However, as they were spending all that time reorganizing themselves, allow them to return with all the stragglers entitled to them by the battle.
Summary of the above rules
Captured: Permanent.
Fire Casualties: Half of a unit's casualties are permanent and the other half will return one day after the battle (round down.)
Skedaddled: The next morning, a unit will recover three stands if it is fresh, two if it is worn, and one if it is spent.
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© Copyright 1996 The American Civil War Society
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