Making Grande Armee fast... or, at least, faster...

I've tested my Napoleonics SiP rules a few more times... and as it often happens when you really playtest something, I can now see what it does well and what it doesn't.

Pros: it really is a fast ruleset, that mirrors the original SiP system and gives a more Napoleonic feel. You can easily use it for OHW's scenarios, or for other teasers.

Cons: 

- the shooting rules have to be a bit changed, because they provided for too many casualties. A unit could just stay back and shoot the enemy until it breaks, without the need for close combat, because it's safer and usually assures destruction, even if not quickly. Close combat is useful only if you are in a hurry and/or if the enemy is already really weakened or in a bad tactical situation. Unfortunately, this may be not enough historical, as under this scale, skirmishing fire was a good thing to soften the enemy but close combat was what effectively drove the enemy away. A solution for this would be to reduce the likelihood of hitting for each die by 1: normal 5-6, skirmishing advantage 4-6, ancien regime 6. Or even reduce it even more to normal 6, skirmishing advantage 5-6 and no fire for ancien regime armies (which would actually fire more under close combat circumstances anyway). This would make it more likely for players to choose to close attack when near the enemy, while still allowing the skirmishing effect.

- army command and control. It works fairly well for a OHW- or teaser-like scenario of 10 units each or less without reinforcements, but is less useful when battles are more complex or with more units. Somehow the idea is sound but some of the flavor is lost and if reinforcements arrive, you have to recalculate the number of units each side can control.

Conclusions: good rules for fast, small games, but only if you take the modifications above for shooting. And the command rules may prove unsatisfactory to some players or in some battle scenarios.

Grande Armee rules, by Sam Mustafa

I've been looking for alternatives and I've found the Grande Armee rules, by Sam Mustafa. They are the predecessors of Blucher, and they are not supported anymore, but I think they do lots of things better than Blucher - but not everything. The way it deals with skirmishing, in particular, is excellent, better than in Blucher and fits my needs perfectly. Still, some other parts are less good, like the close combat rules, where Blucher definitely shows improvements. Also, the movement rules are a bit cumbersome. The command system is sound and interesting. I guess Sam moved to Blucher to improve the game - and he did in several areas - but also had to sacrifice some historicity (the volley fire part in Blucher is no more a part of close combat, which doesn't really make sense...) for more gamey solutions that would appeal more to wargamers.

In order to get a ruleset for larger battles, that would be less easy to fight with Napoleonic SiP, I'm toying with a fast versione of Grande Armee (no, not the Fast Play Grande Armee system that Sam Mustafa once wrote, because the rule changes don't give the same feel and don't appear "fast" at all...)

Therefore, I think I'll use the Grande Armee framework, starting with the Command and Control system, even if I'm thinking about a more elegant way of recording Cps spent than using the counters.

Blucher rules, by Sam Mustafa

The skirmishing and artillery fire part is good and would be used "as it is". For close combat, I would use the system from Blucher, which is more elegant, and for movement I'd use the SiP/Neil Thomas conventions, which make it much faster and straightforward, speeding things up.

Also, I would give up the training rating for units, keeping only the SP rating, just as Blucher does with the élan.

The biggest plus of playing with Grande Armee or Blucher is the great amount of author- and player-made scenarios available, which are easily adaptable to either!

Going to playtest this soon and see if it really works!