In my search for good and simple wargame rules, I think I’ve found an answer for Risorgimento (Neil Thomas’ Wargaming Nineteenth Century Europe – W19CE) and Colonial (Osprey’s The Men Who Would Be King – TMWWBK). Regarding Napoleonics, I’m mostly interested in Grand Tactical scale, where a player leads an entire army (which could also be as small as a Corps): the choice among commercial rulesets is mostly disappointing, mainly because it relies on assumptions that I don’t share about Napoleonic Warfare. Even Neil Thomas (NT) rules, which I’m generally a fan of, are not suitable as they look more like 18th Century rules with some additions (mainly squares). But Napoleonic Warfare was truly different (more on this later) and it's not just "Seven Years War with some additions".
Still, NT is right in looking for simple and yet not-simplistic rules. Blucher by Sam Mustafa is a good improvement, but his treatment of firepower is still marred by what I feel are wrong assumptions on Napoleonic firepower during battles, even if he has some really good ideas (his treatment of skirmishers is maybe one of the most elegant and effective around). As such, it would need some serious trimming that would make it revert more to a NT-like system (I actually believe that Sam Mustafa took several design ideas from NT…)
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| Battlegames issue n.23 |
I’ve therefore reverted at creating a personal set of rules, based on existing ones. I first thought about adapting W19CE, which I love, but in the end preferred using the even simpler Simplicity in Practice (SiP, available inside Battlegames issue n.23 from Wargame Vault) as a starting point. To give the proper Napoleonic feel I took ideas from other rulesets, including W19CE, Blucher and others.
In this and other future posts I will explain my rationale behind my choices (my “design notes”) always giving full credit where it’s due – you’ll see there will be little originality by myself, and lots of borrowing from others. In the end, I will attach a downloadable pdf file with the rules free for anyone to use.
Starting from the existing: Simplicity in Practice as a chassis
SiP will be my starting point and anyone who wants to understand the rationale behind it (and in general behind NT’s rules) should read the attached design notes. It’s a quick, simple ruleset that has lots of subtleties and manages to get the right feel without burdening players with minutiae. The rules aim for showing the effects of actions, not the complex calculations behind them and actually force players to use historical tactics to win, always a good thing. However, they are mainly aimed at 18th Century warfare, not Napoleonics, so I will have to use them only as a chassis and transform them in truly Napoleonic ones. The key will be maintaining the same simple-but-not-simplistic nature. Let’s see how:
Units
Generally, units should exist as different units if they performed different roles and such roles were distinguishable on the battlefield.
The main unit therefore is Infantry, which represents brigades (or divisions for large scale battles in order to keep number of units reasonable) composed both of close order infantry and the skirmisher screen ahead of them. The two things are not separated because they acted together. It’s their respective role and interaction that truly marks the Napoleonic period, which is much less about the line-vs-column dynamic (the one that is wrongly often cited as the main one) than about having formed infantry preceded by large clouds of skirmishers (which was the true novelty and source of effectiveness). As such, there are no independent light infantry units, because even light infantry regiments always acted in front of the formed units (in this, it is also similar to Blucher, which I feel is correct in this and takes the right approach IMO) with more and/or better skirmishers enjoy a bonus during fire, which represent their increased effectiveness.
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| French Voltiguers - Art by Giuseppe Rava |
As units represent brigades, there’s no need to show if they are in line, or column or whatever: lower officers know how to move their troops, players represent the army and/or corps generals who give orders and just see units as coherent entities. In addition this avoids the need to represent in detail different doctrines of the various countries: their effects being relevant only in a few cases, which are represented by the firing and combat rules.
Cavalry is divided into Light and Heavy, like in Napoleon’s Battles. Dragoons don’t get a different grading, they are assumed to be included in Light Cavalry (LC). Heavy Cavalry (HC) has shock bonuses and less mobility than LC, but other differentiations are effectively irrelevant at this level.
Artillery is not differentiated by caliber. This is by design. Lower-caliber guns are often attached to brigades and assumed to be part of their firepower and higher caliber guns were anyway really effective at the level only when grouped in big/grand batteries. Artillery units represent such concentrations of guns. Again, this is similar to Blucher.
Next: Command & Control
Next: Command & Control
