Battle of Gefrees AAR: Rank and File Rules

Last weekend, I got to be a gamesmaster for the first time. It was an interesting experience, not all went to plan, but I did enjoy myself though and it was fun. It was also the first outing for  our small group of a new set of rules, Rank and File from Crusader Publishing.

Although myself and Iannick have a considerable number of 28mm Napoleonic figures available to put on the table, I have found that less is better, so I decided to go with a small division aside game. I wanted to field both my newly painted Brunswickers as well as a brigade of Austrians that I had painted a couple of years ago, which had yet to see the light of battle. I usually try to find a historical battle to recreate, this was a little difficult with these two forces, but some googling revealed that there was a two month period in the early summer of 1809 when a combined Brunswick-Austrian force existed in the XI Corps of the Austrian Empire. I had settled on recreating the Battle of Gefrees, fought on July 8, when I came across an article in Wargames Soldiers and Strategy Issue 63 with a wargaming scenario for this battle. A few modifications in the order of battle, I did not want to use cavalry in this first outing with this ruleset.

General Situation early summer 1809

Having a referee for a game really opens up a lot of opportunities especially in respect to increasing the Fog of War. I decided not to let Iannick or Nicolas know anything aside from their own OB. They were blinded to the terrain as well as the other's OB. The following emails were sent to each player, one week before the encounter.

INSTRUCTIONS TO THE DUKE OF BRUNSWICK (Iannick) FROM FML KIENMAYER (XI CORPS)

Take your 2 brigades to the village of Gefrees, there slow the advance of Marshall Junot’s Corps. They will be coming from the east. Prevent them from crossing the river that runs through the village. Secure the bridge crossing over the river. We also have reports that King Jerome of Westphalia is advancing from northwest with a large force. Your specific orders are to Have your Brunswickers defend the northwestern approach to the village and send the Austrians to west to slow the French. It is critical that you secure the bridge as without it the French cannot bring their supply and artillery train over the river. Local reports tell us that the river is fordable by troops on foot. Approach the village from the northeast in march column. Please report back with your dispositions by next Saturday, noon. I require your specific brigade orders as well as their order of march into the village.

Kienmayer, in Command of his Majesty's IX Corps

INSTRUCTIONS TO GENERAL DE DIVISION RIVAUD (Nicolas) FROM MARSHALL JUNOT

Take your 2 brigades east to the village of Gefrees, there secure the bridge crossing over the river. It is essential as it is the only route for our artillery and supply train east. Local reports suggest that the river is fordable by troops on foot. We understand advance elements of the Austrian IX Corps are in the vicinity.Once the bridge is secured advance to the northeast to join with the Army of Westphalia. Approach the village from the southeast in march column. Please report back with your dispositions by next Saturday, noon. I require your specific brigade orders as well as their order of march into the village.

Junot, in command of his Imperial and Royal Majesty's Corps of  Observation of the Elbe

I took the Victory Conditions from the scenario in the magazine. Essentially each player received 1 point for each stand they had on the far side of the river, minus 1 point for each stand lost at the end of the game. Additionally the Brunswick-Austrian force lost 5 points for each Brunswick unit that left their start point in the northeast corner of the terrain (they were forgiven the first 3 units), while the French received 5 points for each intact (in good order) unit that they could march off the board to join King Jerome from the northeast corner of the terrain. Each player placed one brigade in their starting corners before the actual terrain was placed. Their second brigades entered on turn 2. We started our game around 1pm, I expected it to go to around 6-8 turns max, I had played it out twice myself and was concerned that the French had a considerable advantage, even with less troops. Both times I played it they won a considerable victory, both times in 6-7 turns. Well what do they say about the best laid plans! We will follow the battle with some photos.

Village of Gefrees: Northeast corner is lower left and southwest corner is upper right.  We used a 6x4' terrain.

The French Light Brigade

The Austrian Brigade

One problem we had with the Austrians is that their pose was low porte thus necessitating them to be in march column with their bases at right angles. Iannick rapidly advances his horse cannon and his jaegers, keeping his line troops moving forward

The Austrian jaegers quickly advance over the bridge, while the French skirmishers rush to prevent their advance.  Nicolas meanwhile reforms the rest of his legere brigade in line to assault the river. His line brigade is advancing in the far ground

Gen de Division Rivaud with his 2 ADC's

The French line brigade appear to be heading for the bridge

Reforming the lines

Austrians advance over the bridge

The Duke of Brunswick surveying the situation, while the Austrian Grenzers as well as the Hungarians advance to the river

Austrian artillery well placed for the French river assault

The 13e legére advance, followed by the 1e légere

The general tactical situation about 1/3 of the way into the game. The Austrians are on the bridge, really unopposed. They are supported by the Hungarians. The Grenzers are in line ready to meet a French assault across the river, as is the Austrian horse artillery. The Brunswick artillery have been advanced leaving 4 battalions of Brunswickers to protect against the advance of the Wesphalians from the northeast. The Brunswick avantgarde and Austrian jaegers have occupied the farm yard to the left of the bridge, this is the only hard cover in the game. Two battalions of French legére are advancing towards the river. The French line brigade are advancing towards the bridge.

Sitting Pretty!

The Austrian Bde General moves in to support his troops

We are now well into the second half of the game, the French are finally ready to assault the bridge

They also start there assault across the river, they have an 70% chance of not getting bogged down for a turn

The French Skirmishers realign themselves to allow the French columns to charge the Austrians

Frightening looking, non?

Meanwhile at the river the 13e and the 1e have advanced but the 13e has lost half it forces to the combined Austrian-Brunswick cannon fire

The Duke decides to bring up the Lieb as an insurance policy, they are his only veteran troops

The French gain the bridge and throw back the Austrians after a successful melee. Less success at the river as the powerful 13e are thrown back

Despite losing the bridge the Austrians are in a great defensive position to  hold there side of the river

The general tactical situation near the end of the game. The French have occupied the bridge, but their line brigade is still on their side of the river, the 13e have been thrown back and although the 1e are advancing to assault the allied cannon they really have no significant presence on the other side of the river. The Austrian-Brunswick force is in an excellent position to defend French crossing the river as well as still having 3 battalions of Brunswickers protecting against the Westpahalian advance

Late game from the Brunswickers POV

Overhead view of the French skirmishers assaulting the farm, they are successful and drive out the  Austro-Brunswick skirmishers

A pensive duke and a laconic appearing referee

Few photos missing here but the French have been able to throw back the Hungarians, but they are facing both the Lieb and the Austrian line. Dark settles on the Village of Gefrees, the Austrian-Brunswick force have won, as they did historically

Routing in ignominy!

Well the game ran 13-14 turns when I called it quits due to time, clearly both Iannick and Nicolas were quite a bit more cautious then myself. The two times I ran the scenario, I had lost more then half the troops on each side in less then 6 turns. In this game I believe both players had at least 80% of their troops left in twice as many turns. It was however a clear victory for Iannick, he had lost few troops, essentially prevented the French from crossing the river in any force and defended the entry into the village from the northeast of King Jerome's Westphalians.

As we are in a process of testing new rulesets to play Napoleonics, I asked each player to send me their impression of the ruleset and the scenario. First from Nicolas.

" After a full week of meditation since we played the battle of Gefrees, I have come to two quite diverging conclusions. One addresses the scenario, the other the ruleset.

First of all, I found the scenario to be one of the best we had so far. The simulation of the fog of war by placing the river in one direction before we deploy our forces, and then replacing it in a perpendicular axis once we had deploy, made a truly great impression of discovering an unknown area while on the move to the point of confrontation. Added the fact that other terrain features where installed after the river  had been reoriented made really a great effect of surprise, that completely minored the initial deployment of our armies. Both of our armies consisted of two brigades, and I felt really comfortable with the fact that a first brigade would deploy before the game start and the second after the first turn. It was really a good looking game and the fact that I took almost 10 pictures each turn on John's camera says it all I think. So generally speaking I really enjoyed the Game Design of this battle, and I am sure it made it a very interesting  encounter.

Yet, I haven't been so convinced by the Game Play. Although, I found the pace of the game very smooth and easy to follow. I can't help feeling that this ruleset is a little shallow. Of course, as Iannick said once, It is hard to enjoy at first a rule that doesn't give you a victory. None the less, being a player that is more after the historical atmosphere in a game rather than its actual outcome, I felt a little disappointed. To make it short, it sums up in two points. First, I found the rule a little too simplistic to give a good feeling of the period, and a little too generous in several situations, that we, generally speaking, found quite odd: the guns, the bridge, the fortified farm... More over, what, in the end, disturbed me the most, was a strange feeling of a complete lack of a sense of scale, that made some situation quite difficult to evaluate. It is somewhat hard to describe, but I can't seem to find a conclusive adequacy between the scale of movement, the scale of push backs after melee, the rate of casualties, and the number of turns we played. Also, I still perceive a game that doesn't deal with the effect of accumulating disruption on a unit, to be not really fitting the experience of wargaming at the tactical scale. Especially in the age of the black powder.

To conclude, I found the scenario great and I would love to play it again... but with an other ruleset, since some lack of consistency in this one, made it a game probably better fitting the expectation of a player new to the universe of historical wargames."   

Then from Iannick.

"I liked the firing a lot. Both from artillery and muskets. I like to play a Napoleonic game where a good placed volley can cripple an enemy battalion once in a while. I'm really annoyed when battalions can take volleys after volleys and just stand there (one of my biggest beef with BP). This also diminishes the number of melees in a game; I don't enjoy the "Warhammer" effect where everyone is stuck in melee for a couple of turn and the game just grind to a halt.

I did not like the melee as much; the system is simple enough and that's good but almost all melees we played were finished after one "round" with one unit retreating. So the bigger unit often cannot bring it's numbers into play and with a little luck the attacker can win a very easy victory with largely inferior numbers (as we saw on the bridge). I don't hate it though, I'm just saying I find the mechanism ends up being more elegant at firing than melee.

As for the scenario, I quite liked it and thought it was a really nice looking game. Playing the Austro-Brunswick was a nice bonus, and I'm always in my element when I have to defend. The scenario offered a lot of possibilities, as was obviously shown by Nicolas unorthodox strategy. I would like to replay it one of those days because I think you would get a completely different game. It was one of the more balanced scenario we tried. It showed also that you can have a great game on a 6x4 table with less than a division per side."

My take:

So in conclusion it seems both players liked the scenario, but maybe less so the ruleset. Well what do I think? Well I did enjoy the scenario, I did find it a lot of fun when I played it. I think it would have been quite difficult for Nicolas to move the bulk of his troops over the bridge in a time effective way as was his strategy, but he eventually did get over. But by then almost twice the time had passed as I had allotted for the game. I did not set a turn limit for the game beforehand and this was a mistake. Maybe with this, Nicolas would have considered bringing the bulk of his troops across the river (as I had when I played the scenario), unfortunately bridge scenarios are always difficult as I have learned from previous play.

In respect to the ruleset, I have a very positive opinion of them. Really the mechanisms are quite simple and combat can be resolved very quickly without reference to even the QRS. I had a pretty good handle on the rules for the game, aside from missing a rule about the inability of skirmishers to block advance of formed troops. 

I believe they do represent the advantages of different formations that are important in Napoleonic warfare. Maybe some additional nuances in unit quality would have been nice. We did not really get a chance to test the Command and Control aspects of the ruleset as I would have liked, but really with just 2 brigades per side this was going to be unlikely. I think both Iannick's and Nico's opinion of them was coloured by the fact that most combat in the game was of a melee type rather then gunfire. I believe that melee was rarely the case during the Napoleonic era. Most battles were fought initially with preliminary  cannon bombardment (Nico never unlimbered his cannon, and Iannick got his Austrian Horse artillery in action quickly but was a little slow in getting the Brunswick artillery into play), followed by musket fire. In this ruleset both are lethal, which I like. The other thing I like about the rules is that frontage is everything, get your troops in the correct position and the rules will work to your advantage.

Anyway we still seek the Holy Grail of Napoleonic Wargaming. I put together the following list of what is important to me, and I suspect when all is done we will be revisiting these rules. Only time will tell.

• Has to work with myself and Iannick's  figure collections
• For now has to be a tactically based set
• Rules has to have easily remembered mechanisms, we game Napoleonics every one to 2 months, I am not really keen to re-learn a rule set each time.
• Has to look good on the table
• Gives a good game with a historically plausible result rather then simulate minutiae of battle field drill
• represents the advantages and disadvantages of different formations (added by Iannick)

Up next, I believe is a test of Shako II.

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Four Months of Work on Sale (Germans) SOLD

Update: 4-19-13

I have sold the painted DAK. I still have the following unpainted figures available:

• Battlefront Panzer IV H Platoon GBX 10-5 tanks primed (1 armour skirt set missing) 58$
• Battlefront GE501 3.7cm PaK36-2 gun models with crew (in original pack) 17.50$
• Forged in Battle SS HMG Team-4 guns and crew (in original pack) 8$
• Forged in Battle SS Rifle Platoon-40 figures (in original pack) 15$
• Forged in Battle German Infantry G-INF-1 x 2 80 figures (in original packs) 30$

Make an offer, I want to get rid of them.

Four Months of Work for Sale British: SOLD

As a follow up to our Germans here is my 8th Army Force. Mostly painted with some extra unpainted Forged in Battle infantry figures.

Like I said in my first post, I am willing to accept any reasonable offers, and am confident that I am willing to sell these figures below market.

Rank & File Napoleonics: Musings before Game Day

Well in just a little under a week, I will get to try out the Rank & File ruleset with my friends in Montreal. There will be just three of us and I will be acting as the referee. Although I do not get to play, I find I am quite looking forward to the game.

In the fall we had a Napoleonic game with Curt from Analogue Hobbies acting as a referee and we all had a great time. We recently had a couple of skirmish FIW games using the This Very Ground ruleset with Iannick refereeing between myself and Nicolas, and that also went very well.

Certainly having someone who knows the rules and who can arbitrate any questions (we do not have disputes) that come up makes for an excellent gaming experience. I have spent the last month grinding through the rules and I believe I have a pretty good handle on them.

Rank and File: A Playtest

Well for our playtest, I went with a brigade aside with my new Brunswickers versus the French. I am trying to test all the rules I can, but have not used any cavalry. I have stuck with the rules as written here with no modifications. I have also decided to use a couple of very large units just to see what would happen. In my armies I have generally 4 and 6 stand battalions, I believe this might be a bit small for this set of rules. I also should at this level, being using 1 stand artillery batteries but I just do not like this look. So a reason for doing this play test is to see what happens, so I can make some adjustments.

So you can keep track, the caption refers to the photo above it. All phases are bolded red, while the turns are bolded blue. First up is the French:

As you can see there are 4 units of infantry. One legére unit in skirmish order and one formed. There is also a unit of Guard as well as a large unit of ligne. All are classed as regulars except the Guard which are veterans, the formed units start in March column, both units can move 12" in a turn in these formations. The units are all 4 stand except the ligne who have 8 stands. The rules allow between 4 and 10 stands for infantry and cavalry. I wanted to see what would happen with different sized units. I suspect the 4 stand units might be a little brittle, especially with the 50% rule

The Brunswickers have 4 units all classed as regular. One unit is 8 stand, another 2 infantry units are 4 stands in size and the Foot artillery unit is 2 stand. I suspect the artillery will be quite lethal. They are classified as medium artillery in this scenario so have three ranges of short (8"), medium (16") and long(32"). Each artillery base fire 4D6, 2D6 or 1D6 depending on the range. Point blank firing with double canister at 2" is also allowed, but rather then hitting on a modified 4+, they hit on a modified 3+. I like this as I believe in some games artillery are under powered.  Since they are Foot artillery they move at 8' per turn. Unlimbering costs half there movement allowance

Well here is our first move, I used a 6x4' terrain for this scenario. Units in march column can actually use double march as long as they are outside of 12" of the enemy. In this case I did not double march the troops but you can see they rapidly closed, in just the first turn. The marking stick is in 1" increments. The game has 7 phases. The first is the declaration of a Charge, you have to be within charge range (contact within a normal movement allowance) to declare a charge. All phases aside from movement are simultaneous in Rank and File. There is an optional rule that says they can be blinded   from your opponent.  On the first turn no units are in range for a charge, nor does the second phase of Rally pertain to this rule. 

The third phase is Initiative for First Movement and this is diced for each turn and is the only phase that is not simultaneous. Essentially each player throws a single D6 (I use two different colour die, the black die is the Brunswickers). Another optional rule is the die may be modified by the Bde Commanders rating. In Turn 1 the French won the toss. The French move first and then the Brunswickers, as you can see there was a general advance. The photo was taken at the end of the turn

Turn 2, no Charge or Rally yet. The Brunswickers won the initiative this time , so their Movement phase was first. The units on each side have now assumed their combat formations. The Brunswick Artillery unlimber after moving 4" (to change formation costs half the movement allowance), The Leib form in to line, the large Brunswick Light battalion forms into attack column while the smaller unit remains in reserve in column of march. The French battalions of skirmishers advance to screen the formed légere. The Guard and the the large Ligne battalions form into attack columns.   As you can see from the measuring sticks some of the units are in firing range of each other. 

The next phase Firing can now take place. Firing is simultaneous, meaning that no casualties are taken until both sides have fired. So let us go through each unit in sequence. The Brunswick artillery are within 16" so they fire at medium range, meaning 2D6 for each stand. Units can split fire so each stand can be thrown for separately. But in this case since there is one target, we will say the battery (2 stands) throws 4D6. They fire at the the large line battalion in attack column. All successful hits in firing or combat are on 4+, but is modified. A very simple table is utilized to modify the score required to hit. So lets apply the modifiers, well the artillery has moved in the turn so that is a -1, but the target unit is not in line so that is a +1. So a 4 on the D6 will result in a hit. 4D6 thrown and 3 hits! In this ruleset each stand has a hit capability of 3, so in this case 1 stand has been lost. I love it! No further die to throw, but since the firing is simultaneous, the stand is not removed yet. Let's move to the next unit the large Brunswick light battalion. They are within 12" a long range shot (close range for muskets is 6"). They have 3 stands in the front rank, so they get to throw 3D6. Again hit on a result of a modified 4+. The modifiers are -1 moved, -1 target is skirmishers, -1 at long range. This is of course a modified score of 7, but the rules say you always hit on a 6 and miss on a 1, so this overrides the modified score. The Brunswickers throw 3D6 and get 1 hit. The last unit to fire is the French skirmishers, they have a muskets but if they had rifles, their close range would be 8" and their long range would be 16". Again they hit on a modified 4+ and have 4D6 to fire. They have moved but an optional rule for skirmishers is that if they have only moved half their movement allowance they can fire without penalty. They are at long range so -1, but are firing at a unit not in line so a +1. They will hit on 4+. They have 2 hits, not enough to cause a stand removal but marked with a die and carried over to the next turn. The stand from the French ligne is now removed, as they are not in range to fire back. 

Next phase is Morale, and a morale test is taken whenever a stand is lost. The ligne are a regular unit so they start with a morale of 4. This is modified by using the morale table, they have lost 1 stand so -1. That's it, they throw a 1D6 get a 5 so pass the morale test and remain in good order. 

The last phase is End Turn, but no army morale test required yet and the Bde commanders stay where they are. End of turn 2, as represented by the above photo.

Turn 3. The large Brunswick unit Charges (the first phase of the turn) the the French Skirmishers and they flee. Units being charged have 3 options: Flee, counter charge or stand. The skirmishers withdraw facing enemy 2D6, they interpenetrate the formed Légere unit behind them without penalty as they are skirmishers. The Brunswick unit in this phase advances to within 2" of the skirmishers before they flee. A fleeing unit can not fire in the firing phase but a standing unit can before melee happens. No Rally needed. 

So Initiative next, and the French win. They move first, they advance the Légere and Guard towards the large Brunswick unit. The Ligne advance towards the Leib. In their movement phase the large Brunswick unit forms into line, while the smaller unit advance 1/2 and then forms into line, the Leib advance and wheel to face the advancing Ligne. A lot of units are in firing range.

I use the white dice to record hits on a unit while the simultaneous firing is taking place.  I plan to apply casualty markers at the end of the turn, but the die are great to keep track of the process before stands are removed. The Fire phase is simultaneous. So lets look at the Brunswick first. I should also note that I have used the optional rule of a 22.5  decree firing arc, you can see the gauge in front of one of the Brunswick stands. This is enormously useful as in this ruleset as you can split fire and in this fire fight you can see that both the Légere and the Guard are within in range of the Brunswickers. So this go from right to left, the Brunswick artillery fire at the advancing Ligne as do the Leib battalion. The artillery have 8D6 as they are  at close range and get a +1 modifier for firing at a unit not in line.....7hits! The Leib fire 4D6, as usual you hit on a modified 4, but although they have the same +1 modifier as the artillery they have a -1 modifier for having moved......3 hits. The Ligne are getting mauled and will lose 3 stands but not yet. The large Brunswick unit then fires (little problem here as they have charged this turn and a charging unit can not fire but we will carry on), they split their stands with 3D6 on the Guard and 5D6 on the Légere.......2 hits on the Guard, but all 5D6 miss on the Légere. The French fire back. The Ligne have 3 stands in the front rank so 3D6......1 hit on the Leib. The Guard fire 2D6....miss, the Légere fire 4D6.......miss. The Brunswick have won this fire fight. The 3 stands are removed from the Ligne.

Up next is the Morale Phase. The only unit taking a stand loss is the Ligne,  so they test. They are Regulars so start at a 4, but they are modified -1 for each stand lost so test on -8, but remember a 6 always passes and they throw a 6, they remain in good order. 

The End Turn see the Bde Commander joining the Ligne in their advance (I should have the stands 2x2 here in the photo, but forgot to before I too the photo) End of Turn 3

Turn 4. The three forward French units Charge, 2 on the large Brunswick unit and 1 on the Leib. They all advance within 2" of their targets. The 2 Brunswick units decide to stand. They are really going to lay into the French in the Fire phase

The side dice for Initiative the Brunswick win and move first, as you can see the reserve Brunswick lights wheel into position to fire into the flanks of the Ligne as do the artillery. 

The three Brunswick units Fire on the Ligne cause 11 hits in their volley, they already have 1 casualty left from Turn 3, so they lose all their stands, since the Fire phase is simultaneous they get to fire back but again with just 2D6, and miss. They Ligne is gone. But they have an attached leader, so he has to take a casualty test. Four stand lost so 4D6, hit on a 6........hit once, go to the leader wound table, throw a D6.......1, only a scratch gallops off in safety. The large Brunswick unit in line fires, 1 hit on the Guard and 1 hit on the Légere

Charging units have to take a Morale test if they lose a stand in their  Charge. The Guard have lost a stand, they are Veterans so they have to pass a modified 3. They have -1 for losing a stand but are +1 for having support, they throw and get a 3 so they pass. 

As above you can see the 2 units advance into the Melee. As this is a multiple unit melee, all die are added for each side. So lets go through it. I find Melee usually complicated in rulesets, but this is really a breeze. The Brunswick have 8 stands, in the first round only the stands in contact as well as a stand with an overlap has die. If we look above you can see that there are 5 Brunswick stands in contact with the Légere and 3 in contact with the Guard. The Guard have just 2 stands in the front rank and the Légere have 4. To hit on Melee it is again a modified 4+. Lets look at the Brunswick on Guard first. So the Brunswick have 3D6 and hit on 4, no modifiers, the Guard have 2D6 but hit on 2 (+1 for being in attack column, +1 for being veterans). The Brunswick get 1 hit and the Guard 2. Now lets go to the Brunswick on the Légere. 5D6 on 4D6, both hitting on 4.........2 hits each. So the Brunswick have a total of 3 hits and the French have 4. It would seem that the French have won, but they have not,  as the Brunswick have an attached commander who is worth one hit (does not actually cause a casualty), this causes a draw in the Melee. As Melee has to be resolved each turn in this ruleset, we immediately go to a second round in the same turn

As you can see stands have been removed for the second round of Melee, the Brunswick are down to 6 and the Légere have lost 1. In the second round the Brunswick have 4D6 against the Légere 3D6 and 2D6 against 3D6 Guard. The reason for the additional D6 for the Guard as that in a second round of Melee all stands in a battalion have become involved. Again all units hit on 4 aside from the Guard who hit on 2. The Brunswick have 3 hits and the French have 6, a decisive French victory. As the Brunswick commander is attached to a unit that has lost 3 stands in Melee, 3D6 are thrown to see if he is hit, all misses.

The Brunswick battalion now is unsteady and withdraws 2D6. Both French units advance to the position formerly held by the Brunswickers. 

End Turn, well the Brunswick commander stays with the withdrawing while the French commander moves up and joins his Guard unit. Also in the End Turn phase we assess for Army Morale and to see if either side has reached it's Break Point. To calculate the Army Points. Essentially each multistand infantry or cavalry unit is worth 2 points and Artillery stands are worth 1 point. So our Brunswickers had 3 infantry battalions and 2 artillery stands=8 points and the French had 4 infantry battalions=8 points. The Army Break Point is half the Army Points, so both sides have an Army Break Point of 4. At the end of Turn 4, the only lost unit is the French Ligne worth 2 points so the French Army Break point of 4 has not been met. 

Turn 5. The two French units and the one Brunswick unit all decide to Charge each other. The Brunswickers wheel about 60 degrees forward (up to 90 degree wheel allowed) and charge the French Guard while at the same time the French Légere advance to take the Brunswickers in the flank. All units are moved towards each other until they are 2" apart.


Rally, the Brunswick commander had hoped to rally the unsteady light battalion to the far left lower part of the above photo, but realized that the battalion had lost 50% of it's stands thus making it impossible to rally. A unit at 50% stand loss can not rally from unsteady or rout condition, and automatically fails any morale test it has to take

Initiative, the French win and move their skirmishers with in range of the Brunswick Cannon. The Brunswick battalion to the left move sideways in line 4" to have a better firing position.
Fire, and essentially the Brunswickers are highly successful causing 5 hits on the French, including enough hits on the charging Guard, while the one French unit that can fire the skirmishers miss.
Morale, The French Guard being Veterans and having a Commander attached pass the morale test (this is an error as they had dropped to 50%, so unable to pass a morale test, but I decided to carry on to illustrate the multiple melee)

Melee, so here we have a 4 stand Brunswick unit being assaulted by a 2 stand French Guard unit in attack column and a 2 stand French Légere unit in the flanks. It take 3D6 to melee the Guard and 1D6 to melee the Légere, all hitting on 4+. While the Guard has 1D6, hitting on 2+ and the Légere have 2D6, hitting on 4+, but it is doubled because of a flank or rear melee so get to throw 4D6. Alas for the French they are again unlucky in the die throw and lose 3v1, the 1+ from the attached commander is not enough and the two French units withdraw in unsteady condition 2D6.

Turn End, well the French have still not reached their Break Point, but essentially the Guard and the Légere unit have both reached their 50% mark so can not rally or pass or morale test, so I have given victory to the Brunswickers. End of Game

Summary:

• This game has the simplest and most effective combat mechanisms I have seen
• The movement rules are also quite uncomplicated
• By turn 3, I was essentially playing the game from memory with minimal reference to the 2 page QRS or to the book
• I could not really assess command and control as there was just one command group per side. I liked the ability of the Commander to attach and effect melee, morale and rally. I found it odd though that there was no command radius
• The artillery were overpowered, and I believe that when using two stands to represent a battery, I will treat it as one stand for the rules. Using 2 stands is purely a visual thing for me.
• I had some discussion on TMP re using 4 stand units and there was recommendation to use a D10 or D8 for morale rather then a D6, I will think about this

In my next post I will discuss the Command and Control rules from the ACW supplement and how I can use them for the Napoleonic era as well as looking at some amendments to the rules for company sized skirmishing units

I apologise for the length of the post, but I learn from writing out the detail, and hope it will also be helpful to new players.

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