Solo Campaign Rules - resolving off-table combat

Another requirement for my solo campaign rules is some means of settling battles which are too small, or otherwise unsuitable, for a tabletop game. One of the attractions of a campaign is the scope for variety – fighting skirmishes between scouting parties, for example (in fact, such instances form my entire experience of skirmish wargaming), but there will frequently be situations where pragmatism must win over self-indulgence! This is, once again, something of a sad cop-out – absolute zero-spectacle wargaming, but these things will crop up, and it is necessary to have some available means of resolving them – much less awkward than having to improvise something to order.

My requirement – as for the sieges – is that it should be simple, reasonable and broadly consistent with what would have happened if a “proper” miniatures game had taken place.

Mr Duckenfield’s system, published in Practical Wargaming for March/April 1992 (I think), is well established as a way of doing this. What follows is primarily a re-hash of his method, with a few small tweaks to suit myself, and some smoothing of the numbers. If you don’t agree with my numbers, feel free to substitute your own.

For each army, identify the relevant modifiers in Table 1, and add 1D6. Subtract the Allied total from the French total, ignoring fractions, and get the result from Table 2.

Situation	French	British & Portuguese	Spanish Regulars	Militia & Irregulars
General present (most senior only)	+ General’s rating (1,2 or 3)
Troops mostly elite/veterans	+1		0
Troops mostly inexperienced or despondent	0	-1	-2
Troops tired	-1			-2
Forced march into battle	-1		-2
Encounter battle in rough terrain (brown)	0			+1
Defender in rough terrain (brown)	+1	+2	+1	+2
Defender in open terrain (green)	+1		0	-1
For each 25% numerical advantage	+1		+½
Out of supply	-1	-2	-1	0

Table 1 – dice modifiers

French score minus Allied score	French vs British/Portuguese			French vs Spanish or irregular
	Result	French loss %	Br/Port loss %	Result	French loss %	Sp/irreg loss %
6 or more	Br/Port routed	5	30	Sp/Irreg routed	1	60
5		7	25		1	55
4	Br/Port defeated	8	20		2.5	50
3		10	17.5		5	40
2	Drawn – Br/Port withdraw	12.5	15		6	30
1	Drawn – attackers withdraw	15	12.5	Sp/Irreg defeated	7	25
0	Drawn – French withdraw	17.5	10		8	20
-1	French defeated	20	8		9	17.5
-2		22.5	7		10	15
-3		25	6	Drawn – attackers withdraw	12.5	12.5
-4		30	5	French defeated	15	10
-5	French routed	35	5		20	7.5
-6 or less		40	4	French routed	25	5

Table 2 – outcomes