Trying out the concepts put forward in my last blog post, I put my Napoleonic 10mm Austrian and French troops on the table to try out Fields of Honor with my Napoleonic mods. In honor of such an auspicious occasion, only the finest scenario fodder would do - so I turned to an old classic - Mr Charles Grant's "Scenarios for Wargames". Action-packed with wargames scenario fodder for every theater and conflict!
Naturally Scenario #1, Positional Defense, was appropriate! The situation features 3 Divisions attempting to seize 2 of 3 fortified positions. Also some of you may remember this gem posted over 10 years ago featuring the same scenario and scenario book.
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| The action on about turn 4 when contact is about to be joined. The Austrians are advancing on the French-held town sectors. There is a redoubt with Artillery in the upper right, protected by a battery of medium guns and a unit of lights in the woods. |
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| Austrian heavies |
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| Austrian divisions advancing! |
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| French are at the top of the picture - Austrians advancing from the bottom. Note the French Cavalry upper right charging in the Austrians. The Austrian Hussars are pushed back. (Battle Cavalry Melee is +1, Facing a lighter Cavalry unit +1) |
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| French Dragoons charging into Austrian Cuirassier! |
The Cavalry battle goes the French way (for now) and the Dragoons beat the Cuirassier in their first round of combat.
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| Battery of medium guns has 1 hit on it, caused by counter-battery fire. There is already a modifier in FoH where targeting an enemy artillery battery gets you a negative modifier. |
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| 4 hit Austrians advancing on the town. The unit behind them in battalion mass? assault column? |
Worth mentioning here that the French unit in the town with an attached officer in "hard cover" was very difficult to winkle out. Luckily the medium guns ignore one level of cover but even then, the morale save of the defending french were +2 for cover, +1 for attached officer so all but a 1 or 2 would save the hit. That unit was hard work to get out of the town!
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| More cavalry fighting on the flank. Both Austrian cuirassier are still in the fight! |
Wasnt sure if I could fire into melees - so I allowed it if the firing unit had a base-width sized lane.
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| Setting up for the assault on the first town. Multiple austrian units preparing to go into the fight, with artillery support! |
The columnar assault wasn't bad. The dense target was bad for those in column, however the +1 to melee was a nice benefit. Same for the morale, the +1 to morale in assault column was a nice addition.
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| And a swirling melee results as both sides hold on and pass all their MCs. The next turn, Austrian Cuirassier charge into the Dragoons' rear! This is a mess! |
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| The town assault is starting! |
The Austrians would seize the town, and the other redoubt by way of a reckless cavalry charge by heavy cavalry into the French guns. The experiment is over!
Thoughts
So the game worked well. In the "heat of battle" it's easy to miss a step when playing solo and rolling for to hits, then for morale, potentially for both sides when meleeing, so I had to redo some things as I lost track of hits or what step I was on a few times.
In terms of the mods, I liked the idea to keep the Austrians firing at 3D10 but enjoy 4 hits with their larger size. Also the -1 to morale was a good call. I think the assault column rules worked well and I do not think they imparted any kind of unfair advantage that wasn't easy to overcome.
The Cavalry mods were a bit much and the Cuirassier in some cases had +4 going into melee which was cool, but possible too powerful. Need to ponder on that a bit more.
The mods worked well, though, and I'd play more of FoH with Napoleonics. Also I'd love to try this same scenario with General D'Armee next, or "Grand Battles Napoleon" (which is coming in the mail - I told you I have a problem!) or perhaps a Napoleonic variant of Norm's "Two Flags - One Nation". The shopping for the Eylau Convention rules....continues!
Coming up next? Board game modifications for "Panzerblitz" and possibly even the old SPI "Napoleon at War" folio games. Some of you are really going to love these next upcoming posts!
Nice to see a Grant scenario going down and a nice space for the 10mm to sit in. Interesting to see rule differences, the difficulty of attacking towns similarly exists with Black Powder, but rule mods can get you nearer to your own ‘vision’ of how these things should turn out. Overall the rules seem to be doing a good job with the period.
ReplyDeleteAre your cavalry allowed repeat charges or are they limited while blown horses recover?
Looking forward to a dip into the ‘classic’ boardgames having some life breathed into them.
Steve, at the moment, I have the Wars of the Roses rules, Never Mind the Billhooks, on the table. They have a simple rule that cavalry can only charge twice in a game. They can always ‘move’ to contact, but the kinetic energy of a charge (which must be made from at least half a move away - to gain momentum) and the benefits from that can only happen twice.
DeleteIn my own rules, I have cavalry and infantry movement rates pegged the same. The horse only get additional movement once per game as a bonus fast move and when charging - and there must be an interval of al things that have lungs of one turn between charges.
We take ourselves right back to Featherstone and Grant days to the concept that horse have a speed advantage over foot every turn in the game and I can’t see the justification for something so unsustainable.
I also like that many modern rules have both sides disordered after a charge - regardless of who wins / loses the melee, which builds in a sense of a recovery period post charge being needed.
And thank you for your oft mentioned reference to TFON / Eagles.
Norm - I remember the TFON rule against charging 2 turns in a row (if it has lungs) and I always appreciated the restriction. Shako called it "blown" for cavalry (although I think you can charge as much as you like with the bi-pedal creatures )
DeleteSteve, you give glimpses of potentially a lot of interesting topics to discuss on the rules. I know I have my thoughts and you (and Norm) have yours. In all of these, one must decide upon the command level and the level of abstraction for the combat model.
ReplyDeleteLet's start with cavalry and blown status. Do you need to represent blown on the table? Good question. If the cavalry unit has taken any hits in melee, one could realistically assert that the reduction in strength (well, I call it Combat Effectiveness) already accounts for any effects of being blown since its combat effectiveness is reduced already.
I will stop here...
If you have more to say, by all means please do so. I have played many (very many) Napoleonic rules and yet have never found a rules set that scratches the itch to my satisfaction. I'm not quite sure why that is. My beef with this last game was that it would have been better enjoyed with other people.
DeleteIf you had thoughts on the rule proposals you were silent about them yesterday? Everything seemed to work fine in my game.
In reality, this whole affair is an exercise in abstraction, at any level of command be it tactical, operational, or strategic.
Well, I didn’t jump in earlier since I did not want to bias or influence your own discovery and development process. Only you know the direction in which you wish to steer the game. Who am I to say how you should play?
ReplyDeleteFriendly and well intentioned advice is always welcomed here. Same with feedback.
DeleteI keep being told my wiki will be binned, but it’s still there! I had rules for blown cavalry in Frog & Toad (my amended Neil Thomas rules) http://jefslittlewinki.pbworks.com/w/page/67177361/Nappy
ReplyDeleteOHW handles Cavalry so simply and elegantly I didn’t need to tinker. With FoH you could say stay put for a turn, or a temporary base loss/-1 morale etc which would easily stay within existing mechanisms and avoid ‘ripple effect’ of more rules to deal with the new rules.