Napoleonic Wargame Rules - Extra rules

In this final post for my Napoleonic Wargame Rules based on Simplicity in Practice (SiP), here I deal with some extra rules and bits.

Rally

The Rally rule is inspired mostly by Steven Whitesell's Napoleonic Grand Tactical OHW Rules. If a unit has a General attached, is at least 25cm from the closest enemy units (meaning it's in the rear) and has not fought in this turn (fire or close combat), it can try to reorganize/rally. It's a slow process... entire armies usually didn't have the time to properly reorganize within the same battle, unless a lull arrived (which would mean a second game in game terms), but smaller formations could - brigades and regiments could reorganize after being repulsed (either in attack or defense) if the enemy didn't press them too closely, allowing another later effort. Successful troops instead could be spent from the effort and need rest and reorganization.

It can't be thought of as something "automatic": it took time, efforts by charismatic officers and NCOs and could fail if men were too panicked, had scattered too much, were very tired even if successful or if a good part of the lower command structure was missing - making it harder to get soldiers in formation (and at least partially motivated) again. Accordingly, you can only try to rally 1 unit at a time, with a General attached - meaning it's a trade-off, because he can't do anything else that turn too - and it's not sure it will work.

A unit with an attached General that is at least 30cm away from the closest enemy unit and didn’t fire or fight in close combat can rally. 

Roll 1d6: 1-3 = no effect; 4-5 = -1DP; 6 = -2DP.

If rally fails, you can imagine it's taking lots of time because men are scattered and hard to recall and put in formation, or fail to be motivated enough to get back into line/resume attacking. A successful unit could have its men too tired and not willing to go further, or on the brink of collapsing. You can never get back a destroyed unit - it's been routed and/or completely scattered, and reorganizing it would take too much time meaning it won't be possible until after the battle (and if it lost the battle, even that could be next to impossible if they are pursued).

Unit Morale

French Old Guard - Art by Giuseppe Rava

Keeping in line with Neil Thomas' idea that you shouldn't "duplicate" an advantage/disadvantage, I've thought a lot about how to represent Elite/Guard troops and Levy/Poor ones. In the end, so far I'm keeping the SiP rules as written: elite/guard troops considered to have 1 less DP than their real rating, and have levy troops already with 1DP at start of battle.

At first, however, I thought about making elite troops harder to get a DP (like a -1DRM when you roll for DP) and levy troops easier (+1DRM). It would make it harder for elite/guard troops to get DPs and therefore be eliminated, and easier for levy units. Then, for close combat, units would roll dices depending on their current DPs (like 4 die minus number of DPs) instead of a fixed number, which would both reflect current disorder/motivation and be influenced by the fact a guard unit would more likely be in a better shape. In this case I would take away the "less DPs than opponent" advantage, as it would be already covered, while other advantages would remain.

In this way, better troops would stand fire better, and be more effective in close combat, unless already beaten up.

In the end, I'm still evaluating this... as I fear it may break some of the assumptions behind the original SiP rules that made real tactics the best ones to employ, always a good thing. So I think I'll have to playlets the variant version, to see if it works. Otherwise, I'll keep the original SiP system. My idea could look more accurate, but if the end result is roughly the same it may not be worth it.

An intermediate solution would be to keep the original SiP system and just add the -1DRM for elite troops when they roll for taking DPs. Similar result, and would just make them harder to disorder when fired upon. Not sure if this would make them harder. Again, something to work on through playtest!

Small units/Detachments

Not sure if I'll ever use this rule, but if I do, I'm leaving it as in SiP. It works fine and there's no need to fix it, especially given the limited use it will likely have. I have no rules for oversize units either... if big enough to warrant being divided into 2 units, then it will be 2 units. If not big enough for that, it would just stay and act as a single normal unit, the size difference issue with opponents usually being mostly not relevant in front of other elements.