The Christmas Surprise: Considerations & Modifications for SPI's Wagram

 I was tempted to call this post the "Christmas Offensive" but everyone knows that is misleading as the Christmas Offensive should be a miniatures game.  Instead, here is a nice surprise from the staff at Sound Officers Call - another experiment with taking a well-known boardgame and ruining it adding some twists to give it more of a rounded-out miniatures feel.  

Follow along as I march into the shadows of game design legends and screw everything up.

Some of you will undoubtedly remember my experimentation with modifying GDW's "Team Yankee" Avalon Hill's "Panzerblitz" , as well as the Battle of Golod over the last few years and this could be my most ambitious board-wargaming feat ever.  That's right, we're taking one of the biggest and most irresponsibly large Napoleonic battles and adding some interesting tweaks to the game system to drive play.  

Step into the command tent with me, but be quiet!  The Corps' orders are being read and the Emperor is in one of his moods!

First of all let me start by saying the "Napoleon at War" series from SPI is one of their least complex game series out there (dare I say "dead simple"), designed to have you thinking about moving Corps and Divisions, and making terrain a seriously important aspect of the battle as it should be.  

In my humble opinion, one of the most complex aspects of "Wagram: The Peace of Vienna" are probably the victory conditions.  Not because they are complex, but because there are many of them and tracking them solo will not be for the easily daunted.  But...Nec Asperra Terrent - let's unpack them so we know when and how this titanic clash ends.

• The Game Length is 14 turns.  A turn is when everyone has had a chance to move and conduct combat operations.
• Victory is awarded in points.  The side with the most points is the winner.  Points are awarded for destroying enemy units and securing terrain objectives.
• The "Victory Points Schedule" is as follows:
• Each unit "eliminated" results in 1 VP awarded for each combat strength point eliminated.  Now for the fun part...
• The Austrian Player receives a whopping 25 VPs if they enter Aspern, 30 VPs if they enter Essling, and 35 VPs if they enter Gross Enzerdorf.  
• The Austrian Player receives 1 VP for every Austrian Strength Point that exits the western map edge.  The Austrian Player also receives bonus points for remaining in any of the 3 x towns listed above at game's end.  (you read that right - if he takes Aspern, he gets 25 VPs.  If he is in Aspern at the end of Turn 14, he gets another 25 VPs!  Also I need to re-read that it is, indeed, the western map edge that the Austrian player has to exit from).
• The French, in addition to points awarded for the destruction of units, receives 1 VP per Strength Point atop the Russbach Heights at game's end.
• The French must amass 75 VPs at game's end or it is an automatic Austrian victory!  

There are victory "grades" which we are not going to delve into now.

Modifications?

Some of the aspects of the game have been modified just to see if I break anything.  Combat will still be broken down into a force ratio, but instead of rolling against a CRT, I'm rolling a varied number of D6 depending on the ratio.  I made a handy table to help:

This CRT is slightly more aggressive than SPIs but is also attritional in nature.  Combats are no longer "all or nothing" affairs as I wanted the game to have more a miniatures "feel" to it, rather than a pure boardgame.  The odds-based "results" are still there roughly however so you still have a chance at attacker retreat, or defender retreat based on odds.  I wanted a slick mechanism for "exchanges" but I'm not there yet.  It worked with opposed die rolls but I removed that in favor of  just the attacker rolling.  I "borrowed" the concept of a natural "1" inflicting a hit on the attacker from Norm's excellent series of rules for the simple fact that in the SPI games there is,most of the time, some risk incurred by the attacker and this models the possibility nicely and adds some tension even to big attacks.  I have not considered the "maths" at this time but remember I was a history major in college and so the extent of my counting was page numbers in written term papers :)  

More Modifications  Sequence of Play

If my "breaking" of the original CRT wasn't bad enough, I'm experimenting with the play sequence stolen from "Pub Battles" which sees the drawing of a chit to activate a Corps.  The Corps will go through the Move/Combat sequence from the original rules, but this adds a nice level of tension and uncertainty to the game.  If it works out, I might have the "delay" or "jump the line" feature that is in Pub Battles, also whereby a player can attempt to delay their activation, or activate a particular Corps early.  That might be a feature of the overall Army commander and might only be done once or twice in a game.  THat would equate to a "card" (not literally) you could play under very rare and dire or important circumstances.

Pull a chit....any chit!

In terms of modifications, that is pretty much it.  The terrain values, movement rules, combat inclusions/exclusions, ZOC rules, etc remain in effect until I find I've broken something.  Let's go through a few turns and see how it plays with the varied turn sequence.

Turn 1 - Approaches

It's not the French but the Austrians who draw the first few chits, but the Austrians, especially on the left, are content to stay put and await the French onslaught.  II (FR) Corps and the Army of Italy make the farthest inroads and are hammering towards Wagram and the Russbach Heights.  Meanwhile, Davout's III (FR) Corps is headed towards Markgrafneusiedl.  My plan is for IV (FR) Corps to support the Army of Italy and crash into Wagram from the west, but the Austrians had other plans and their reinforcing III (AUS) Corps will launch an attack directly into the shoulder of the French advance.

So far, I am REALLY liking the chit draws for the Corps.  When the III (AUS) turn comes up, I will add their chit to the pool since they are reinforcements.  So far, so good.  Nothing has broken.

Turn 2 - First Blood

The French II Corps smashes into the Austrian units of their II Corps at Baumersdorf.  The combat works extremely well and the French, attacking at 1:1 odds (due to the Russbach stream and terrain - it should be almost 3:1) roll 3 dice causing 2 "6" hits and thus reduce the Austrian 1st and 2nd Division of Austrian II Corps by 2 steps.  The miracle is repeated again in an attack a bit further south and forces numerous quality checks which the Austrians fail, causing more casualties. (attacker rolled a "5".  To recap, Single "5s" force quality checks, as do rolling "4"s.  Rolling 2 x "5s" cause an immediate SP loss as does rolling a "6")

combat at Baumersdorf as the French of II Corps attempt to force the Russbach by storm.  The "2" represents 2 strength point losses on that division.

The Austrian counterattack goes badly when II Austrian Corps is activated!  They roll 2 x "1"s which force a quality check on them for each "1" rolled.  They fail both!  Ouch!  That will be 2 more strength points, please!

Meanwhile to the west, Austrian VI Corps attack runs headlong into Bernadotte's IX Corps!  A massive cavalry clash sees the destruction of an Austrian Cavalry Division, and casualties on the French!
  

One aspect of the game I'm liking is the variable retreat rules.  Here, an Austrian attack goes badly.  So badly, in fact that they fail to score any hits/successes/QCs on the French.  With such low odds, and no successes scored, that means they must roll to check and see if they retreat.  They fail their QC (first time this has happened in the game) and fall back.

Austrians falling back from Baumersdorf.  This couldn't happen again, could it?

It does!  Three more times to be exact!  And the Austrian II Corps abandons its positions along the Russbach and from Baumersdorf, opening the way for a French advance into the town on Turn 5!!

Also remember the Austrian III reinforcing Corps?  They've made enough of a fuss to divert Massena's IV Corps from the Wagram assault.  He sets up a textbook Corps defense to protect the units assaulting the Russbach heights.

IV Corps setting up blocking positions west of Wagram - note the guns behind the units they will support.

the straight line of Austrian units up the road -they are from III Corps and are launching their assault.

To the west, French cavalry is harassing the Austrian VI Corps' advance towards Aspern.  VI Corps loses a Cavalry Division...  Having enough of this, the Austrians get serious.

During their turn, VI Austrian Corps smashes into Bernadotte's force of Cavalry, destroying a Cavalry division and sending another one retreating.  Not the dice along the top.  A "6" is an immediate strength point loss.  2 x "5s" are another immediate SP loss.  The "1" means the Austrians must check to see if they lose a single SP.  They must roll a 4+ to not suffer a casualty themselves.

note the wooden activation chits.  I used these for the various Corps.  VI AK was VI ArmeeKorps.  I tried to scribble the Corps Commanders' names under the Corps numbers but they're hard to read with my chicken scratch.

French assault into Wagram is repulsed with the French retreating

The situation at the beginning of Turn 5 (nighttime) We see a half-hearted Austrian attack from the west (top of the map) and the French engaged all along the Russbach to break onto the heights. 

This has been a very fun experiment.  So far, it is coming together how I'd hoped.  The combat is exciting and "feels" like a miniatures game to some extent.  I am liking my new "combat results table" and the retreat potential, as well as the potential for hits against the attackers.  So what did we learn and what is all of this for?

The combat system is fairly solid and fun.  Solid as in - it did not garner any whacky results.  So far, combat against the Russbach and the SPI ZOC rules have guaranteed that combat has been very inconclusive especially since attacks across the stream are halved.  Even 3:1 attacks, garnering an impressive 4D6 on my CRT have been reduced (halved).  This is why I took a picture of when Austrian II Corps fell back from Baumersdorf.  It all happened in sequence, one after the other!  Basically they attacked (ZOC rules - they had to attack being in a ZOC) did not get a result and failed their QC, falling back.  This was very exciting and helps to build a wonderful narrative about the battle so far.

Having had time to think about the battle, I realized some of the problems that the new CRT introduced:

Game Progress is much slower.  The turns play quickly enough, but the combat is much more drawn out. This should have been obvious.  The SPI CRT is "all or nothing" with units retreating or being eliminated and I imagine that makes for a much more quickly flowing game.  Additionally the turns are "1 to 2 hours" of time.  In my case, an attrition-based CRT probably chops all of this down with units slowly being ground down.  I'll have to think on that more as a 14 turn game is probably not going to work.  The French, after 4 turns, are just starting to make progress in their assault.

As the maneuver warfare to the west unfolds (Austrian VI Corps' attack towards Aspern, and the III Corps attack towards Massena's IV Corps) I think we'll see much bigger combats and more decisive results but those forces haven't made contact completely yet. 

Skewed Victory Conditions.  The original CRT has units destroyed left and right.  Currently it is beginning of Turn 5 and the French have a whopping 3 VPs and the Austrians have a whopping 5 VPs.  While I expect that number to climb (especially when Austrian III Corps crashes into Massena's Corps, or when Austrian VI Corps crashes into Bernadotte's IX Corps infantry along the Stadtlau-Aspern road) but the French will not come close to 75 VPs by turn 14 and that is due to the attritional nature of my CRT.  Unit destruction, especially from an initial attack, is very rare unless it is a smaller unit (4 SPs or less). Another thing to think about.  

Rethinking Retreating.  The SPI designers of this series made retreats an important part of breaking contact.  It's the one of the only ways you can leave an enemy ZOC (the other being advance after combat).  Since the combats are more drawn out now, I'll need to think about how units break contact or even if they should be able to break contact.  Under my current CRT, retreats still happen, but are much less likely in a given combat.  The defender being attacked at 2:1 odds or better must check for retreat if the attacker rolls a natural "6" on one of his attack dice.  If he does, the defender rolls a quality check and must get a 4+ to remain in position.  If he fails, he retreats 1 hex.  As you saw from the II Corps' retreat from Baumersdorf, this does happen, but not often.  If the attacker is attacking at 1:1 odds or lower and fails to roll a 4+, he must check to see if he retreats by passing a QC (4+).  This makes for some nice tension and attacking at reduced odds brings with it risk.

A role for the Cavalry.  I love the mobility of the cavalry (6 movement points).  You can really screen a flank with them or capture a vital crossroads ahead of your main body of infantry.  the problem is, they feel like highly mobile infantry with half of the combat power.  Perhaps I haven't gotten to it in the rules yet, but the Cavalry don't seem to have a "shock" role and they should have that.  I'll think about that a bit more as well.  VI Corps brushed aside Bernadotte's cavalry screen easily with infantry divisions which I could justify through any number of abstractions, especially at this "Grand Tactical" scale but they should have a limited shock role on the battlefield which I dont feel is captured here.

What's all this about?

I recently started back down the path of using my miniatures for board games and the Napoleonic series from SPI made perfect sense considering I could play just about any Peninsula, 100 Days, or 1809 battle and very soon, any battle from the Russian campaigns as well using a hex map, simple terrain and single stand units representing whatever the scale of the game requires.  

But playing with a simple CRT would not give it a miniatures feel to the battle and I want to retain both the simplicity and portability of a board game, with the excitement and spectacle of a miniatures game (design objectives).  If you look at the picture of the beginning of Turn 5 above, just imagine that image with 30mm square stands packed with troops atop a game mat with simple terrain and not cardboard counters!  My inner megalomaniac would be instantly fulfilled.

So watch this space in 2024 as I put huge battles into smaller (much smaller) spaces.  I have already put plans into motion for another go at updating Panzerblitz and Team Yankee and hope to have some WWII and Cold War battles with microarmor on the table using newly modified engagement tables.  I am almost there in terms of being ready to showcase those modifications next, hopefully sometime next week.

In terms of battles to fight, Aspern-Essling, Wagram, and Eylau are all coming up over the new year and perhaps some Peninsula games or 100 Days battles as well.

So that's it!  I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and a very happy New Year!  I'll be tied up all day with family, but will still find time to sneak away and read Norm's "12 Days of Christmas" post.