How to make Grande Armee faster
In a previous post I said I appreciated the Grande Armée (GA) ruleset a lot, but also saw the need to make it play faster – without going the FPGA way, which doesn’t really speed things up. Now I’ll get more specific on the changes I’m making. In general, I will drop everything that makes the game slow without giving a relevant and key historical upgrade at this level (personal opinion only of course!)
In order not to break any copyright, I’ll just mention each rules section as in the original rules and only note what I change and how, so you still need the rules to make full sense of it.
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| Napoleon's Imperial General Staff - on a 3" x 3" base |
A. Setting up for Play
The main changes here relate to units basing and unit size representation. My units (remember I play mostly with 1/72 plastic minis) are already based for OHW and I’ll retain that basing for both aesthetic and practical reasons.
Units are therefore based as:
Infantry 10cm x 5cm (4” x 2”), usually 12 figures in 2 ranks
Cavalry 10cm x 5cm, (4” x 2”), usually 6 figures (5 figures in some cases) in 1 rank
Artillery 5cm x 5cm (2” x 2”), usually 1 gun and 3-4 figures.
Of course you can play with a more standard (for GA) unit base size of 3”x 3” (7,5cm x 7,5cm) or 3”x 2” (7,5cm x 5cm), I just don’t want to rebase and like them as they are now!
For leaders, OHW doesn’t need any, so I mostly use the Grande Armée basing scheme for 25mm figures, as it’s already appropriate for my minis size:
C-in-C 7,5cm x 7,5cm (3” x 3”), with at least 3 figures
Sub-Co 5cm x 5cm (2” x 2”), with 2 figures
Generals/ADCs TBD, with 1 figure (a small difference from the GA scheme)
Also, in order to be able to play even large battles with a reduced table size and number of minis, I generally consider 1 unit = 1 division or equivalent (instead of 1 unit = 1 brigade). Considering the game is from the Army Commander’s perspective, two levels down from it is exactly the division level, so it makes sense from that perspective too. For artillery, only major batteries will be represented, or those who had a distinct impact, which may mean a reduction of artillery units in respect to those indicated by a traditional GA scenario (see also changes to section F later).
Cavalry is differentiated between Heavy Cavalry (HC) and Light Cavalry (LC), this has an effect on movement and combat. It may be difficult to evaluate where Dragoons fit in this… I generally classify them as Light Cavalry because, as explained in the GA rulebook too, they mounted smaller horses than HC, charged more loosely and were not up to Cuirassiers in close combat terms (which is the main distinction at this scale), but feel free to disagree.
For smaller battles, I will retain the 1 unit = 1 brigade or equivalent standard representation, so I can still play all kind of battles.
B. Playing the Game
Will use this as it is, even if for the turn # correspondence with parts of the day I will use the handy FPGA equivalence. Very little will change in actual game terms however: if a game only lasts a few turns, it means the battle has likely started later in the day. And it works for a random choice of starting time and game length for non-historical battles.
C. Weather
Will use this as it is, even if effects on movement will have to be checked in respect to changes to section H.
D. The Command Phase
Will use this as it is.
E. Skirmishing
Will use this as it is. I will evaluate whether Sk2 units should use 10cm range as Sk1, to keep everything more consistent and, therefore, faster to play (unless it breaks balance a lot).
F. Artillery
Will mostly use this as it is, but I will only differentiate between Heavy Artillery (mainly 12pdrs) and Medium Artillery, and generally only related to corps batteries or large concentrations. Light Artillery will be mostly included into units. Distinction between “horse” and “field” artillery will remain for movement.
G. The Control Segment
Will use this as it is.
H. The Movement Segment
This is one of the two sections where I make most of the changes. I’m going with a Neil Thomas’-inspired approach where you can simplify the mechanics and still get most of what is needed to correctly represent what happens, especially given the scale.
First of all, all movement rates will be in cm, not in inches, in order to allow me to use a smaller table. Given that units now are divisions, disruption will be minimal and still give the proper “feel”. I’m still evaluating if cavalry needs to be a bit faster, but I’ll have to playtest it first so for now I won’t change it.
Normal movement is fixed, like in FPGA, and I will retain the distinction between fast and slow foot. Only when crossing difficult terrain or being within 10cm (4”) of the enemy I will use the random roll movement. Therefore, the Terrain Table is discarded.
Units don’t wheel, but pivot on their centers, like in NT’s rulesets. It’s a smart mechanics that gives the same end result but is faster and easier to play.
The 6” rule becomes the 4” rule (4”, or 10cm, is exactly 1BW and I like the correspondence). I keep the requirement for units to only move forward or backwards or pivot, but I drop the friction rule that is too time consuming for very little added realism.
Cavalry can’t evade, and Artillery can’t evade. It’s made to simplify two mechanics that are always slow and troublesome to play (for very little added realism at this scale).
I. Combat
This is the other section where I make most of the changes. I generally go for a more “Blucher-like” (but also NT-like, since I feel that’s where Sam Mustafa may have taken some ideas from) approach, even if I’ll retain a few concepts from GA.
As in GA, square up attacker’s base to the defender. No more than 1 attacker per defender’s base side. No more than 2 attackers for each defender, total. Attacker needs to have at least 2SPs left.
Roll 1 die per number of SPs
Add 1 die if (all that apply): MX brigade not in or attacking towns or entrenchments
(V) officer using its bonus
Subtract 1 die if (all that apply): Attacking uphill
Vulnerable (as defined in GA)
Attacked by combined arms
Roll dice. Each die scores a “hit” on 4+
If defender is flanked: defender re-rolls hits (once)
Infantry vs Cavalry: Infantry doesn’t retreat, no matter the result. Can’t be flanked, but can suffer combined arms attack if attacked by Cav and Inf on same impulse.
Combat results: basically, the attacker wins the combat if it scores more hits than the defender. If it scores less or equal to the defender, the defender wins. However, if the defender is too weak (has 1SP left), it may prove unable to stop the attacker anyway. The attacker, too, will always suffer at least 1 SP. In detail:
First, check the Defender:
If Defender more or equal hits than Attacker: Defender loses 1SP. If broken, remove
If Defender less hits than Attacker: Defender loses #SPs equal to difference in hits. If broken, remove; if not broken, retreat
Second, check the Attacker:
If Defender more or equal hits than Attacker: Attacker loses 2SP. If broken, remove; if not broken, retreat
If Defender less hits than Attacker: Attacker loses 1SP, may advance if no defenders remain in contact.
Retreat distance: 3” + difference in SP loss (in inches). For cms: 7,5 cm + (difference in SP loss * 2,5cm)
(example: difference in SP loss is 1; retreat is 4 inches or 10cm)
J. Things Fall Apart
Will use this mostly as it is, but broken/routed units can’t rally: they are instead directly eliminated the moment they are reduced to 0 SPs.
K. The Rally Segment
I will discard this section entirely: units don’t rally during the battle. While I see what the author was aiming for with this rule, it adds a slowing down mechanics with, again, reduced historical relevance at this scale. Simply said, it’s not worth it (personal opinion of course!). Due to this, any training rating for units is discarded.
L. Victory
Will use this as it is, as it still allows rallying at day’s end if the battle is a multi-day one, which I feel is more appropriate.
M. Special Cases
Will use this as it is, if/when needed. Maybe I could amend something, but I prefer to wait unit I need to use anything from this section and see directly if it’s ok as it is or needs some changes. So far I’m not going to tweak anything here.
N. Optional Rules
Will use this as it is, even if I don’t plan to use these optional rules much. Therefore, like section M, I’ll see if they need changes only on an ad-hoc basis, no need to do it now.
