Hooptedoodle #9 - Commands & Colors: Napoleonics

A good friend has suggested that there is a certain irony in my posting a rant about over-communication, when my blog itself may offer a shining example of exactly that kind of superfluous blether. Further, he suggested that it might be a good strategy to reduce the output a little, in the interests of boosting the average quality of said output.

I value his feedback, as they used to say on management training courses. Undoubtedly he has a point, and I did think seriously about it for several seconds. On balance, however, I will stick with the old market-stall line, “Never mind the quality, feel the width!”.

Firstly, I am touched but faintly surprised to think that anyone would approach this blog with any expectation of quality. There is a lot of real knowledge out there on the Internet, and a lot of expertise which I have never felt qualified to add to in any serious way.

Secondly, there is a monstrous non sequitur in the assumption that a reduction of volume would in any way influence the value of the content. Let’s face it, it behoves the terminally verbose to see ourselves as we really are, and I freely admit that my need to press the PUBLISH button from time to time has nothing to do with strategy – it just feels appropriate at the time (though, as in other areas of my life, I sometimes wonder about it after the event).

I’ll persist with the same old approach – if someone finds at least some of this stuff worthwhile, then I am very pleased. If not? – well I guess I’ll just keep churning it out anyway – at least for a while!


So – today’s pointless ramble will be about GMT’s game Commands & Colors: Napoleonics, which has finally been released. This comes under the general heading of old news, probably, but there are a good many people very excited about this, and I include myself. I have previously identified the application of this new boardgame to miniatures battles as potentially a very important step in breaking down the traditional Napoleonic boardgamers vs toy soldiers divide (which is both sad and obstructive), and towards establishing a middle ground which embraces the best features of both worlds.

I already have a passing familiarity with the Commands & Colors: Ancients game and its expansion sets, and have read a fair amount about Battle Cry and other games authored by Richard Borg. My interest in the new game is not so that it may replace any of my existing games (although, of course, it might). At present I am aware of the lack in the GMT game of a few things I like to see on the tabletop – skirmishing being one – and I would like to know more about the implied scalability (to grand strategy level) which is hinted at in the rules.

However, having read what has been published to date, I realised that I had to give this a trial. I went through all sorts of stupid fantasies about contacting GMT to see if they would sell me just the Command cards and the bits for making up the battle dice, but realised that they would probably just tell me to go and play with my soldiers. After some fairly alarming ideas about producing a mock-up of the game – some of which would entail more cost and inconvenience than simply ordering the complete product from GMT – I eventually saw sense and placed my order like a good chap. I don’t know when it will actually arrive, and I promise not to say too much about it until I have something to say, but I am – how shall I put it? – cautiously expectant.

New Unit - Dragons à Pied

With a considerable amount of help from my friends, here's a new unit - an unexpected bonus for the army.


Majority of the figures are Les Higgins, one of the foot officers is a 20mm Garrison casting, and the mounted officer is PMD, though I put him on a rather passive Falcata horse to give suitably non-reg campaign appearance and to avoid having the rather silly Higgins horse galloping alongside marching troops. The drummer is a 1/72 Strelets plastic, and I'm not awfully happy with him, but there isn't much else available.

Anyway, I'm very pleased with the unit - thanks very much to Iain for most of the Higginses, and to Clive for help with the command figures. I fear these chaps have a fairly humble career coming up - they seem like ideal garrison troops for a fortress or maybe a hostile village. Higgins put epaulettes on the advancing dragoon figure, though not on the "at the ready" one, and thus I have a very high proportion of guys here in elite company uniform. Accordingly, they are a provisional bataillon de marche, from the 19e and 23e regiments, who seem to have sent all their best men!

Pommerania - The Army of 1808 (1)

Continuing the (disputed) history of the Duchy of Stralsund-Rügen. [I got a fright when I looked up Rügen in Google, and found my own blog posting. In case any of this accidentally becomes true, please bear in mind that it isn't really.]


Napoleon's new head of state for the Duchy - the Duke, no less - was Friedrich Wilhelm, Graf von Grimmen (1738-1825), Herr von Podebusk (or Putbus, in its Germanic form), a descendant of the hereditary Princes of Rügen. With some difficulty, Herzog Friedrich was encouraged to move from his summer residence at Quitzin to metropolitan Stralsund, the seat of the new government.

Following membership of the Confederation of the Rhine in March 1808, General Molitor worked with the town councils to recruit and organise the new Duke's army.

By October, the following units existed, at least on paper:

Grenadierbataillon "Zum Alten Greif" - most of the grenadiers were German veterans of the Swedish Army

1. Infanteriebataillon "Putbus"

2. Infanteriebataillon "Graf von Grimmen"

Jägerbataillon "Franzburg"

1. Chevauxlegers "Herzogin Katerin"

2. Chevauxlegers "Herr Friedrich"

Fussbatterie "Stadt Stralsund"


The uniforms of the infantry and artillery units were very strictly based on the French regulations of the day - the use of a blue-grey shade known as eisengrau was in respect for the traditional livery of the Putbus family. The surprising choice of yellow for the elite grenadier corps is thought to reflect the fact that yellow had always been the uniform colour of the Stralsund Burger Guard (even when they served in the Swedish Army) - yellow was in any case one of the national colours (cockade was red on yellow).

The fusilier companies of the line infantry wore white epaulettes, which departs from usual French practice. Grenadiers wore a bearskin cap, other infantry wore standard French shakos.

The Jäger unit had a sharpshooter company, but appears to have been otherwise identical to the Line units.

On a future occasion, when I have done more research, I'll describe the cavalry uniforms, the regimental flags, and a little of their campaign history.

Mystery Figures

I've had these for a year or so. I bought them as part of a mixed lot of Royal Horse Artillery figures, but they are obviously Waterloo-period British Horse Guards, and the style of figure is like nothing I've ever seen before.



They were shown on the Old Metal Detector blog a while ago, and they generated some interest and a few photos of further examples, but no positive ID.

I'm now selling them on eBay, just because they aren't going to serve any particular purpose in my armies. They are attractive 20mm figures, proper little, shiny toy soldiers - factory painted, hand-animated, soldered on to sheet-metal bases and fitted with soldered wire harness. Entirely because they fit the description in the narrative in VINTAGE20MIL, I have a suspicion they might be very early Greenwood & Ball figures, from the days when Mr Greenwood hand-cast them and Miss Ball painted them, but I admit this is a wild guess.

Of course, they might be out of a Christmas cracker, and they're going now, anyway, but I thought I'd have one last go to see if someone can identify the maker. Any ideas?

The Grand Tactical Game - Complete Rules

I'm supposed to be working today, but it's snowing heavily, so I've taken the opportunity to get the various pieces of the MEP rules stitched together. Result is the first proper version of the game, downloadable from here.

I've taken a little time to check it hangs together, but there will certainly be some typos and inconsistencies remaining. If anyone spots anything daft, please let me know - I am reconciled to an open-ended period of tweaking and fixing!

I'll do some serious playtesting over the next few weeks, and then transfer the rules onto the computer - the game, however, should work perfectly well with dice and lots of red wine...

I'll have to get on with organising the Salamanca session. Watch this space.

The Grand Tactical Game - The Butcher's Bill

Bits and pieces, today.

First off, sadly, un petit dommage - after the photo session for the Combat examples, I managed to drop General Maucune, and had to superglue his horse's ankles. Seems OK - better than I feared it might - but it does occur to me that a Hinton Hunt horse would have withstood the fall without problem. The NapoleoN horses are a bit on the elegant side, though less fragile than the current Minifigs horses, especially the rearing ones, on which the old fetlocks cannot support the weight of the figure if you remove the reinforcing struts.

After going over the Combat examples, I am now thinking that a Unit attacking a village or other built-up area should be limited to a Pinning Attack (2D6) - there must be a limit to how many men they can actually bring to bear against a wall?

Finally, since I am not going to include a rule for Weather, here is the last of my proposed Optional Rules for the MEP draft. This gives a method of determining the actual casualties in a battle (or a day of a battle), which is really of more relevance in the context of a campaign. I hope to have a new draft of the Rules downloadable in a few days. At that stage, it should be the first attempt at a full set - I may even write a Contents page and all that!


As ever, all comments most welcome. Apologies for the amount of dice-rolling required for the casualty calculations - another advantage of using a computer.

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.