Général d'Armée: Vitoria

I have been looking forward to obtaining this new set of Napoleonic rules for almost a year. They were written by David Brown, the author of the well regarded General de Brigade ruleset, and they come from TFL's Reisswitz Press. I have never played GdB, so I really had no specific expectation of the ruleset. I have gone through several rulesets, including Le Feu Sacre, Field of Battle, Republic to Empire, Black Powder, Lasalle, Rank & File and none really sat well with me. They were either too complicated or just boring as they really had weak Command and Control. After playing Chain of Command, I have found rulesets with poor or no C&C really just not that interesting. Any one can push figures about and throw dice but I want a game with some high level decision making.

Description:

The rules are written at both the tactical and grand tactical command levels. The smallest game would be a Division aside with 5 brigades at the minimum. A large game would be at the Corps level with 2-4 Divisions per side.

Basing: is agnostic, although it is recommended that both sides be based similarly. Infantry, Cavalry and Artillery units are designated as Large, Standard or Small and are graded as Elite, Veteran, Line or Recruit. Command bases with C&C, Brigadiers are recommended as well as some skirmish bases.

Attrition: is measured using a method of accumulated casualties. A unit accumulates casualties by being fired upon, charged or in melee. Units have a graded loss of effectiveness according to their size and type as well as the number of casualties. There is no stand removal, at a certain point the unit is dispersed and is just removed from the game.

Order of Play: is Command, Charge, Movement, Firing and Melee.

C&C: is really the sterling feature of this ruleset. each side has a number of ADC's equal to the number of Brigades (there is some variation on this if needed). The turn begins with a dice roll to see how many of these ADC's are available for this specific phase. ADC's have multiple uses, they can be used as a Brigade Attachment to insure that a specific brigade will obey orders in a turn, they can be used to coordinate a specific attack, they can increase movement or firepower or to incite a commander into a glorious maneuver to name a few. Once these tasking are applied, each player dices for each brigade to see if they will follow orders or become hesitant. Finally both sides dice for initiative to see who goes first.

Movement: is fixed for specific unit types, in most cases you maneuver or move although standard sized elite units as well as Horse Artillery can do both. You can still fire if you have moved but at a reduced fire power. Movement, maneuver and interpenetration are all dealt with quite simply and after a couple of turns you do not even need to refer to the QRS. Movement is alternative and follows the declaration and resolution of charges.

Charges, Firing and Melee: Are also quite simple. The charge is sequential with each side declaring charges followed by each side carrying out the charge. There is an opportunity for a Charge Reaction. Charge resolution is quite simple, both sides throw 2d6, modified by several easily remembered factors. The pips are tallied up and the difference between each side is applied to the Charge Result Table. Either the charge fails, one side retreats or routs or a melee ensues.

Firing is similar but only one side throws 2d6, followed by the other side. The player with the initiative has the advantage because of this. Again there are modifiers and a Firing Resolution Table is utilized.

Melee is the last step in a turn, here each side throws a fixed number of dice which is again modified by a number of factors and the results are applied to a Melee Resolution Table.

Morale: In each turn a brigade starts out as being Steady or Hesitant, Hesitant brigades can not charge or move forward and have limited fire power. As a result of combat, Brigades can also Falter and as they lose units they become Demoralized.

To test the rules, I put together a small scenario based on one part of the Battle of Vitoria, as laid out above. This was a solo venture which is somewhat difficult as you have no-one to bounce questions off. The author though has been readily available on the TFL forum and has been answering questions quite quickly.

As usual blogger screwed up the order of the photos so they are all jumbled but I think they give you some sense of the game.

British starting position in the foreground with the French just this side of the river.

Near the end of the game, the French are using an Infantry Assault Order to pummel  the British Artillery. 

The British Artillery position covering the French advance with the Portuguese holding their left flank.

The French off table reserves were bought on in the centre once the Portuguese  were weakened , they immediately went on a Assault order allowing them to launch a combined assault with supports.

Near the end of the game, the French right flank that was held by 2 cavalry regiments  against an elite  brigade of British Guards as well as a light dragoon brigade. 

The initial British Guard Brigade advance

The 3rd Guards being ridden down by a single Chasseur regiment

The French off table reserve

The French left flank early in the game, they are advancing against a KGL Brigade.

More left flank action

French coordinated assault

Some Portuguese

British Guard Brigade attempting to flank the French Infantry Assault, they bottled it on  their command roll and hesitated allowing the Chasseur unit to charge into their flank.

The British Guards skulking in square.

The starting French position

It is too bad that the photos are all out of order but this was really not meant to be an Action report. By the end of 12 turns the French had clearly won, both side had lost their artillery and half their cavalry but the British were down to 5 battalions while the French still had 10.

Summary:

This is a great ruleset, I found it a lot of fun but also challenging. The rulebook is well written and well laid out. I had no problems figuring where things were. Most importantly the gaming mechanisms are quite simple and easily learned. Mr Brown has scored a winner here. I look forward to many more games.

Général d'Armée

Something to look forward to, as announced on TFL, especially after the disappointment of GBCoC. It looks like my AB Napoleonic army will see the table soon. Will it be the grail, we shall have to see.

Token set:

Thoughts about GB-CoC Ruleset and Questions after the First Game

I wanted to reflect on my recent play-test of the General Bonaparte Meets Chain of Command rule set for a day or two. Overall I am very encouraged by the rule set. The Command and Control mechanism as well as the Combat/Firing mechanism are very easily understood and applied. Movement mechanisms are always a little more difficult for me, but these seemed quite simple. Finally is it Napoleonic, well I am no expert but it seemed just as Napoleonic as any other ruleset I have played. I really like the Passage of Lines and Regulating Battalions rules which make me feel like a Napoleonic General in control of his troops. It would also seem that the special army and period Tactical Bonuses offered by rolling 5 and 6's on the Command Dice will really add some chrome. The play-test includes only the Bonuses for the French, Russian and Austrian armies during the revolutionary period, I am already think about some Tactical Bonuses for the Napoleonic Wars like Pas de Charge (add 1d6 movement/+1shock for a French Attack Column closing to combat) or Reverse Slope (increasing the to hit dice by artillery by 1).

Anyway on to the concerns that were voiced by the play-testers and myself:

Playtesters

• No Opportunity Fire (personally I think that the opportunity fire is built into the ZOC support mechanism)
• No Reaction to Combat (personally I think that this is best kept simple and calculated in the subsequent combat, I think though that maybe a withdrawal from combat by a backwards movement of 3" could be added to the Tactical Bonuses like localized Counter Attack)
• No Advantage to being in Attack Column (I disagree this is a problem, as I do not really see any significant advantage to 1 AC hitting 1 unit in line. The advantage lies in the ability to move at an increased rate, to hit a line with multiple AC's and there are already 3 Tactical Bonuses that the French player can use in combat all that can be applied to an AC

Myself

• Terrain size: Maybe it was the terrain I put down, but I think base size is going to be limiting if one wants to play on a 6x4' terrain, a lot of people's preferred standard
• Gap between Units: I find it hard to manage movement when units are pushed up against each other. Aside from AC's under a Regulating Battalion order, I believe that their should be a personal space rule of 1"
• Cascading Command: This really allows many units to be activated per turn, but one really needs to keep very close watch on the positioning. At times it was a little difficult to keep track. I wonder if there needs to be a specific order of activation ie. Majors first and then up. This however could affect strategy, so I will have to play a few more games to see if this is necessary
• Range of Command: There has been some suggestion with increasing base size the 6" range should be expanded, I am not so sure now as there are lots of activations available with the cascading structure as it now exists. We forgot in our first game to allow the un-commanded units to have actions
• Rallying Shock: Still not sure if it should be just 3", shock is critical in this game, a unit can break morale without losing a base (no kills)
• Support in ZOC: I believe the rules say all the bases in an unit that has it's ZOC invaded offer support. I am not sure if this is correct, look at this situation. It would seem that only 4 of the bases should offer support to me.
  

Questions from the Game

1. ADC Movement, this is a great addition to the game, move at 3d6 +3" per die carrying one activation to another officer but do they just automatically rejoin their Divisional General once the message is delivered without diced movement?
2. Regulating Battalions formations, I think the battalions all have to be in the same formation, ie. line or AC in order to issue this. But in a 4 battalion regiment can the colonel just order 2-3 of the battalions to move in formation?
3. Deployed Skirmishers ZOC. I am presuming that ZOC of 3" is from the front edge of the SK bases.
4. Deployed Skirmishers and Columns of March. Can you have deployed skirmishers when the parent unit is in March Column, does not seem right but I thought I would check?
5. Movement of columns, I am presuming that March Columns can snake about the terrain at 3d6? The rules specifically point out the limitations and penalties for formations in Line but nothing is mentioned about Attack Columns, do they act like March Columns.
6. Overlap in Combat. I thought I saw that there was a one base overlap in the rules but now can not find it. How many bases are in combat on each side in the following illustration. Is it 7 for red and 8 for blue or is there are overlap rule of 1 base so 6 for blue and 6 for red.
   

I suppose you can say what are the pros of these rules. Well I think they are an excellent ruleset as written, they need some clarification as discussed above and maybe some added or polished chrome. But it was impressive that two wargamers, albeit experienced, were able to take this ruleset and have a game with very little knowledge of the specific rules. One play-tester had not played Napoleonics before and the other play-tester's Napoleonic experience was with Column, Line and Square, a ruleset I believe in it's own category! It certainly helped that we were all CoC players. But there was really very little referral to the rulebook and we were able to play from the QRS only.

I am really quite excited about these rules, but I suppose the real test will be with experienced Napoleonic gamers. That group is a tough sell.

Field of Battle Napoleonic: Plancenoit

All the posts (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) on TMP in reference to FoG-N have been quite interesting. I get a sense that people are looking for a grand tactical ruleset.

My last blogpost was in reference to the look of the game, did it look like a corps level game on the table? I had shoved some figures on the table, laid out some terrain and asked a simple question. Generally the response was NO! A lot of advice about using smaller scale figures or a larger terrain. I appreciate so many people responding, but I am unsure what to do with it.

Field of Glory Napoleonic:How does it look?

A big thing for me is how does a game look, this is going to be specially difficult with Grand Tactical games, where each collection of figures represents a regiment or higher rather then a battalion.

FoG-N advertises itself as a Grand Tactical game aimed at a least a Corps aside. The rules also say that in 28mm scale that it can be played on a 8'x5' table (of course I can not find this reference now). The foot print of small unit (1200-2000 men) for 28 mm infantry figures is referenced as 120mm wide x 90mm deep in tactical formation. A large unit (2000-3000 men) would be 120mm wide x 135mm deep. A cavalry unit, similarly sized represents 500-800 men for a small unit and 800-1200 men for a large unit. The base size for both is recommended to be 60mmx45mm. For completeness I should also say that a small unit of artillery, comprised 2 bases sized 60x60 each represents 12-19 guns and a large unit of 3 bases represents 20-30 guns.

Field of Glory-Napoleonic Review (2) & Playtest

To continue my review of these rules, I took the quick start scenario from the Slitherine website and said why not have a go. In part 1 of my review of FOG-N, I discussed some of the basing issues as well as introduced the brief scenario on which I plan to play test the rules. The quick start rules are an abridged version of the ruleset, I really just wanted to see how the game worked from a mechanical sense, rather than with all the bells and whistles.

Field of Glory-Napoleonic Review Part 1

No one should say that I will not try anything once. Being a relatively new war gamer, I have none of the biases and deep seated resentments that seem to pervade the minds of les grognards. I will happily try Warhammer as I have nothing against Games Workshop. I looked at Napoleon ( a real stinker, I do not believe they even sell it anymore), as I have never perceived that Foundry has been out to get me.

Warhammer Waterloo

I got the Warhammer Waterloo book yesterday. It has been recently half price and all I can really say is wow...........and buy it! The book is beautiful, production values are first class and tons of information. There are 288 pages of full colour beauty. The actual rules take up less then a 60 pages, depending on what you consider as rules. The rules themselves are very well laid out and illustrated with multiple diagrammes (as good as Lasalle). Organization is quite clear.