WSS Rules - work in progress

 After the recent playtest, it became clear that something has gone out of whack with the draft house WSS rules, so I'm working on some changes. One fairly drastic re-think is taking place in the small matter of combat. I've now reduced the range of muskets to something which is less exciting but more reasonable, and - since infantry didn't normally get to sticking bayonets in each other when fighting in the open - all combat apart from artillery fire has now been subsumed into something called Close Combat, which will include all melees and all musketry (which is only effective at close range anyway).

I've been reading a few sets of rules which I own which use this kind of system - in particular Mustafa's Grande Armée, Doc Monaghan's Big Battalions, and Polemos's Obstinate and Bloody Battle. I used to employ a similar combat system in a house Napoleonic rule set I ran fairly successfully for many years, so I know it works - though there is an implied backing away from Old School turn sequences.

That's OK - the generals can concentrate on running the battle, and trust the invisible sergeants to look after fitting of bayonets, cavalry firing pistols and all that. I think it has something to do with getting the scale of the game right.

I'm now trying to glue some changes into the previous draft. Typing - it's what wargaming is all about, really.

I should have more to say about this before too long!

Commands & Colors: Napoleonics - Observations #1

I have to remind myself, right here at the start, that I have bought GMT's new game primarily because I intend to use it with miniatures. I have made up the troop blocks - all the game's own equipment is ready now, to the house's rather rigorous standards (as discussed). The blocks, supplied hex board and scenery tiles will all be useful for gaining a bit of practice, but I confess that I find board games a bit unsatisfactory visually - even though this is rather an attractive one.

The other thing I have to remind myself about, and I'll write this in bold characters, to increase my chances of remembering, is that I will not start changing the rules. At least not until I have some experience of the game as published.

CCN's pocket-sized Waterloo scenario

The scenarios supplied start off with Rolica, and finish with Waterloo, no less. Rolica has about a dozen units a side. At Waterloo, the Allies have 21 units in total, including 3 batteries. Righto. Observation 1 is that there is an obvious amount of implicit scaling of the game to suit the size of the original action. That is certainly one way to fight a big battle with fewer troops (and it is only a game, after all...), but I have some initial misgivings about the distortion this can introduce to the structure of the armies, and the potential for (for example) musket ranges to get out of proportion to the ground scale. Having recently gone through the process of developing Grand Tactical rules of my own, and having consciously rejected the approach of just pretending big battles were smaller, with smaller armies on a smaller field, I'm pretty focused on the areas of potential discomfort. OK - maybe I'll avoid their Waterloo scenario for the time being.

Observation 2 - I quite fancy trying some rather larger actions - not ridiculous, of course, but involving a few more units, on a larger board. I could do with a little more information on how they design the scenarios - in particular how they fix the number of command cards to be used with the armies as deployed, and how they set the victory conditions (which in CCN is "the number of victory flags"). By inspection, it looks as though the number of command cards for each commander is something like a third of the number of units in his army, rounded up. That's fine - I can use that to create my own battles, but an obvious scalability question looms. The command cards are played singly, and allow a number of units to do something - this number is not large, and it may be that for actions involving more than, say, 25 units a side, I may have to alter the game so command cards are played in twos. This is a first guess - I'm not sure how this will work. Initially I will be trying small actions, and it could be that the proposed La Grande Battle extension set will provide command cards capable of rather more extensive orders.

Observation 3 - The troop classifications will need a bit of generalising - units are described as Grenadiers, Guard, Militia etc, and I have no problems with these descriptions, but there will have to be some conventions so that I can remember that, for example, poorly-trained line troops might be classified as "militia" for the purposes of the game, even when they are evidently nothing of the sort.

Militia in trouble

Observation 4 - there are some very nice bits in the game. Naturally, the bits I am most pleased with are the sections in the movement rules which are almost identical with my own hex-based game - sound judgement, GMT! No - this isn't just self-congratulation, it's simply something less I'll need to re-learn! The combat dice bear various symbols, some of which cause casualties and one (a flag symbol) can cause a one-hex retreat. Retreats may be ignored a bit in certain terrain situations, or for good quality troops, but if the rules say a unit must retreat, then retreat they must. If for some reason they are unable to retreat as required then they will lose blocks (subunits), as extra casualties. The Militia are treated specially - they retreat 3 hexes for each flag, which means, if they cannot retreat, they lose 3 blocks for each flag they are forced to ignore. Since an infantry battalion will normally be 4 blocks, this means that the unit is effectively wrecked - retreats for Militia are bad news, they either lose a lot of ground or a lot of men. I like this. It's simple and it's elegant.

Observation 5 is from the smart-ass department - one of the supplied troop classes for the blocks is Portuguese heavy cavalry. Naturally, my hand shoots up - please, miss, the Portuguese don't have heavy cavalry. That is correct, comes the answer, but they do when they are pretending to be Dutch Belgians, or whatever, so go and stand in the corner, and try to buck your ideas up.

The Grand Tactical Game - Combat Examples

Rather later than I had hoped, here are some examples of Combat under the draft MEP rules, which can be downloaded from here.

Two Units Attack One

In this example, Maucune's French Division of two Units (brigades), coming from the bottom of the pictures, attacks a single British Unit. Maucune is visible, with his right hand Unit. In all that follows, black dice are for the French, red for the British.


The first action is an exchange of skirmish fire - each of the Units has a skirmish (SK) value of 2 (denoted by the bright green counters next to each skirmisher base - yes, in a sensible example I would have skirmishers mounted individually, but I haven't), and the Brits choose to split their skirmish strength so as to take on both sets of French skirmishers. Skirmishers hit with a throw of 1 - in the exchange with the French Unit which has Maucune present, each side scores 1 hit, so they cancel out - no net effect; in the other exchange, both sides miss - no net effect.


The actual Combat is fought as two 1:1 Combats. Because there is no requirement for one Combat to be fought first, Maucune (the attacker), chooses to start with his larger Unit. This Unit has 5 Elements present (don't count the skirmishers) - the max number of Elements which can count towards PV is 4, so PV is 4. The adjusted PV has a bonus for the presence of a friendly Unit in the Combat, and for the presence of the General. Adjusted PV is theoretically 6, but since a throw of 6 is always a miss anyway, 5 is the maximum. The French are going for an all-out attack (in both Combats - must be the same for both), which means they roll 4D6, and they are looking for throws of less than or equal to the adjusted PV of 5 (for clarity, I've set the required throw on a large white dice). The British Unit has 4 Elements, so it may match the full 4D6 allocation set by the French, there are no adjustments applicable, so the throws have to be less than or equal to 4 to hit. In the event, each side scores 3 hits.


Because this is a tie (a "score-draw"), each side loses 1 Element (and therefore 1 from its SK), and the attacker (the French Unit) retreats 1 hex. We have to test to see if Maucune himself is a casualty - the Unit lost 1 point from its PV, so a throw of 1 will put Maucune in trouble. In fact it's a 3, so he's OK. Disgruntled, but OK.


Now the second French Unit attacks. It has 4 Elements, but it gets no bonus for multiple attackers, since the support has disappeared. No adjustment - PV is 4, it throws 4D6, and required throws for hits are less than or equal to 4. The British Unit now has only 3 Elements present, so it is restricted to 3D6, and throws must be less than or equal to 3.


In the event, the French have 1 more hit than the British, so the British Unit loses 1 Element (i.e. 1 from its PV), plus 1 from its SK - so the skirmish capability is now eliminated - and retires 1 hex. The French lose nothing, and since they were the attackers, they may advance into the vacated hex if they choose to do so.

Attack Against a Village


French Unit advances against a small British Unit in a rather unattractive village. First action is skirmishing. SKs are both 2, so each side throws 2D6, looking for 1s to hit. Both score a hit, but the British skirmishers are a Protected target, since they are in hard cover, so a checkroll of less than or equal to 2 is needed to confirm the hit. The checkroll fails (it's 6), so the British have a net skirmish advantage of 1 hit. French lose 1 skirmish point.


Now the Combat - French have 4 Elements (i.e it's a brigade of about 3000 men), and are attempting all-out attack against cover. PV is 4, so full 4D6 attack is allowed, but PV is subject to a deduction of 2 since the defender is in a village, so the dice must come up 2 or less for hits. British defenders have a PV of 2 (2 Elements), so may roll only 2D6, which must come up less than or equal to 2.


The dice roll gives the British a rather lucky win by 2 hits to 1, so French lose 1 Element (and therefore, also, their last SK point) and retreat.

A Flank Attack


In this example (and apologies to any Spanish readers - it's just an example!) we have a Spanish Unit which has 3 Elements and a Quality Bonus of -1 (white counter), and thus a PV of 2, and an SK of 1; it is charged in the flank by a Unit of French dragoons which has 3 Elements, plus a General. Note that the Spanish can't use their skirmishers here - skirmishers can act only to the front of the Unit, and, in any event, cannot act against cavalry. So the first thing to check is whether the infantry can manage to react to the charge, forming squares. For this test, their PV (which is 2) must be reduced by 2 because of the flank attack. The minimum of 1 for adjusted PV comes into play - a throw of 1 will allow them to form squares. In the event, the throw of 4 means they are unable to react in this way.


In this example I used red dice for the French - yes, it was a mistake. The French have a PV of 3, so may throw a max of 3D6, and the adjusted PV is 3, plus 1 for the general, plus 2 for the flank attack. The dice must turn up 5 or less to score hits. A flank attack is unopposed, so the infantry do not get to roll any dice in reply. In this example, the cavalry score 3 hits - the 1st hit is the white counter plus 2 Elements (plus the SK point), the 2nd hit is the last remaining Element, the 3rd hit is not required. The infantry have been eliminated, and the cavalry, if they choose, may occupy the vacated hex.