So, I've been using my time to think about rules. I always intended to use Charles Grant's Napoleonic Wargaming rules as serialised in Military Modelling in the early 1970's and subsequently published in book form, but scaled down to 1 inch = 20 yards, 24 figure battalions, 12 figure cavalry units and 1 gun batteries. Some of the original rules relied on having figures mounted singly and units having supernumerary officers to represent Command and Control. Officers =1 point, Colonel =2 points, for a total of 6, which would be reduced as officers became casualties. Grant himself suggests (at least in the book version) that instead you could assess officer casualties in proportion to overall losses. So this is the way I decided to go. With that in mind I've produced a couple of tables which should (hopefully) be the basis for implementing playable Morale rules. The following link should open a pdf from my Google Drive:-
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QRDYqyAz00rhmwLk7lwEF3lOvtwLsXrt/view?usp=sharing
I've run through a couple of scenarios using these and they seem to work quite well.
I pitted two French battalions in column in an attack on two British units in line.
The right-hand British unit managed to decimate their French opposition, who halted, then broke and ran after getting reduced to 50% strength. The left-hand Brits were less lucky with their dice throws and the French managed to charge home, breaking the line. I repeated the scenario several times, in all cases the columns were repulsed. So, all-in-all, I think the result was reasonably accurate historically, while giving troops in column at least an outside chance of success. The columns would have had a better chance if the lines had been supported by an initial artillery bombardment!
Mmmm column v line is a very British modelling of Napoleonic conflict.mWhat would have happened if you had run three columns versus two lines? That might be a better points equalisation between the rather higher morale, better trained Brits and the massed French? Winnng the skirmisher battle is important too which is why Wellington often had more skirmishers than the French .
ReplyDeleteTotally agree, I was just testing what would happen if unsupported columns attacked steady infantry in line. The obvious better strategy would be to move up cavalry to charge distance, forcing the lines to from square, then hammer them with artillery fire before sending the columns in to administer the coup-de-grace!
DeleteI have played Grant SYW rules and used the following method.
ReplyDeleteFor every figure hit roll a D6. If you get a 6 then an officer is at risk. Any extra 6s are ignored.
The player saves on a 5 or 6 if not loses the officer.
For my games I am planning to use a mixture of Charge and the Wargame rules plus a few of my own ideas thrown in.
Hi Mark,
DeleteThat was one of the options I considered, but as I like to have a command stand of officer,standard bearer and musician on a 3 figure base I can't remove officer figures to keep track of C&C losses without some bookwork. That is why I just adjust the command and control factor in proportion to overall losses. I just realised the URL in my original post was plain text, I've now changed it to a link so it should take you direct to the morale tables on my Google Drive. I had to do that because Blogger doesn't have an easy way of publishing tables without using tedious manual HTML coding. Having a lookup table like this removes the need for a lot of dice throwing and should hopefully speed up play a bit.
Ye Gods, Dave. I wish you the speediest possible recovery.
ReplyDeleteI shall watch and read with very great interest regarding your rules experiments. I'm trying to track down the fabled London Wargames Section Napoleonic rules, c.1968, at the moment, in the faint hope that they'll have the magic ingredients I seek -simplicity, playability and speed and, above all, easy memorability!
In my youth I hand-copied these rules out of Military Modelling into a notebook - no such thing as a PC back then. I do now own the book version of the rules but haven't been tempted to try them so please keep posting your experiments.
ReplyDeleteRob, I used to take a long detour on my walk home from school so I could go past the newsagents and see if the latest Mil Mod was out, couldn't wait for the next instalment of Grant's Napoleonic Wargaming. I also remember getting the WRG ancients rules from the library and copying them out longhand. Must say I prefer Grant-esque to Barkerese!
ReplyDeleteI used to walk home via the toy shop hoping for new Airfix figures to come out. When they finally made some Napoleonic French infantry (previously you had to use the marching figures for the artillery pack) I rushed home to get my pocket money. On returning to the shop they had sold out already. That weekend I discovered one of my friends had bought them up - boy was I miffed! I also remember using British AWI grenadiers painted up as Imperial Guard and British Hussars as Guard Chasseurs a Cheval - happy days.
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