Correcting the Math

I had a private email pointing out that my method of assigning initiative would given an even application of skills, contrary to my post, and produce a general with an initiative of 4. Neither was what I intended. So it's time to do the old DM trick: choose different dice.

Average dice have a 2,3,3,4,4,5 and those tend to group in the middle. Low-average dice are similar, but produce numbers weighted for the low end. A typical one would be 1,2,2,3,3,4, but in this case I want a little more extreme, so let's use one that goes 1,1,2,2,3,4. Come to think about it, usually matches my die-rolling in a lot of games. If we only subtract one instead of two, we get a nice range of lower initiative generals.

So, that'll be the measure of the generals. And remember, we're rolling for "divisional" commanders and above. Think wing commanders and "column" commanders in this period as the division hadn't been invented until 1745, and then only in Maurice de Saxe's army in Flanders.

Now when one gets promoted through attrition, you get to roll his initiative all over again! This means the guy with the initiative of zero might turn out to have a three at the next level, and vice versa. There is such a thing as promoting beyond ones level. And there's historical justification for this. There are generals who got promoted simply because there wasn't anyone else available, who turned out to be great at the higher level.

One reader asked a bout "special promotions" where you promote someone due to valor. Not quite. Not in this period. Instead the worthy gets a promotion within the nobility. He might well be the model of a modern Major-General, but now, instead of being a Baron, he is a Duke. That makes for a less-expensive promotion from the monarch's point of view as that worthy has to maintain his social standing at his own expense. Expect peculation to increase. Another promotion might be to give him his own regiment (an already existing one, of course), but one he can rename after himself. At his own expense, of course; new gowns for the mistress and the wife are not cheap, and he has to purchase that regiment, and pay you. See? When you're the monarch, money-making opportunities abound (why do you think the new Elector of Hesse-Kassel, when he came into the title in 1760, doubled the number of regiments in his army by simply splitting all existing foot regiments in two? All of those new Colonel-Proprietors had to pay him the purchase price).

So now we go on to the armies.

Initiative and stuff

It's a sad but accurate comment that during times of peace the generals with initiative are discouraged, while those who know how to play the paperwork game are promoted. Read the poem by Rudyard Kipling, "Stellenbosch" for an example. The early part of any war is spent shaking out the fighting generals from those who can push paper. Both have their places and both are useful. It is a sad state of affairs that many people have to die while this is taking place.

But with that said, there are generals who are more "pushy" than others. Sometimes they can be identified early in the process. Robert E. Lee comes to mind. He was as good as everyone thought he would be. And he had tons of initiative.

What Is It?

What is this initiative? He's the officer who has his men ready to march or fight, and is up getting a jump on his foe while others are still in bed. Or, in better chosen words, he's that "...silly pushing person" that Kipling refers to in "Stellenbosch".

So we'll rate the generals in our armies for their initiative. This will be a number between -1 and +3 to rate how they react to things. A 3 might be Jeb Stuart or Nathan B. Forrest (to go with an ACW reference), while a -1 might be McClellan, who needed a strong reason to move. For those who want to quibble and suggest Burnside, it's clear that you haven't studied the Fredericksburg campaign. If those *&%*%$ pontoons had been in place, he'd be hailed as a Great Captain for stealing a march on Lee.

Determining Initiative

Nominate a general. Throw 1d6. Subtract 2. That number is the general's initiative. It is used when marching or force-marching. Thus Stack A, with a General in command with an initiative of 2 throws for movement. He throws a 2, and adds 2 for his initiative, for a total of 4 hexes he can move.

Look at Stack B. This is commanded by someone with an initiative of 3. He is force-marching for whatever reason. He throws a 5, plus the 3 for initiative gives him 8, though the max he can move is 6. But as his total was 6 or more on his force-march roll, he loses 3 SP through march attrition. Your higher initiative generals can get out of trouble, but they burn troops. And remember, there are no replacements during the campaign season.

Promoting Generals -

Before you roll for initiative we have to assign the seniority of generals. This is important because those with greater seniority cannot be in a stack, or have fewer men, than someone with a lesser seniority. Also, as generals are lost for whatever reason, promotion is strictly by seniority. To do otherwise would be to insult the honor of those generals. And if this means your army is commanded by a general with an initiative of 0 or -1, well, that kind of sucks.

Replacements

Not during the campaign season. After the campaign season ends troops enter winter quarters by going into a friendly unbesieged fortress and declaring they are in winter quarters. That means they are not subject to attrition due to bad weather. They also can't move. If the enemy is so crass as to then besiege that city, those troops will take part in the resulting open field fight before the siege starts.

During the winter season, while the officers and generals are off attending balls, the sergeants are busy rounding up fresh cannon-fodder. Basically all regiments that have at least one hit left on them are automatically filled out to full strength. Those regiments that were reduced to zero are "sent to the rear" and take no further part in the game. Moral - sometimes you want to give battle, but don't want to afford the losses that will happen. This also means that armies will get smaller the longer the war continues.

There are no new units created during the war. You have what you start with. This is because the administrative mess that would result is not worth the effort.

So, that SHOULD take care of the last of the details, now a look at the armies and the land they're going to campaign over. Then we'll have a shakedown cruise with a border incident.

The Turn Sequence and Disorder

Years ago I likened the role of a turn sequence to the steps of a computer program. You follow the sequence in order, completing all steps one at a time. When you do, you get the result the game designer wanted. The hard part was designing that process by the game designer. And unlike what happened to me with a program I wrote for a billing system, I don't have people criticizing the "style" of the turn sequence (if you must know, it was written in COBOL and I used tricks learned in FORTRAN classes. I can't believe how many "so-called" sophisticated and "experienced" programmers have never heard of "computed GO-TOs" and "Fall-Through" coding; my sin was that I used hard "GO-TOs" not PERFORMS.)

For the turn sequence in these rules we'll use what was from Frederick the Great. Why? Well, it works, and it captures one of the most important things about 18th Century battle: that battle was a seduction, not a rape.

Okay, harsh analogy, but the deployment methods for an army were such that you really needed to march up the day before and offer battle. In the time it took you to perform your processional deployments, the other side could count noses, take the auguries, and decide they didn't like things, and march away. But SPI built a kicker into the whole thing. When you marched away, you used a "force march", and if you exceeded a 6, you burned troops. You added the general's initiative with the roll of a 1d6 to get the final total, and poor old Fritz, with an initiative of a 3, had a 50-50 chance of burning troops. But battle almost had to be by mutual agreement, hence the analogy.

So both sides get a chance to move, though they don't have to take it. And you have to put in some of the other things that happen. So let's jump in and take a stab at it.

1. Depot Creation
2. Roll to Remove Disorders*
3. Side A rolls for movement
4. Side A moves
5. Side B announces any forced marches
6. Side B rolls for those forced marches
7. Side B executes those forced marches
8. Combat
9. Repeat 2-7 for Side B
10. Supply checking and attrition
11. Roll for sieges

That's enough for a start.

Disorder

This is the collective funk that an army goes through after a defeat. An army that fights a battle and loses, is "disordered". This means all morale values are reduced by one. These values are calculated after losses have been calculated and adjudicated. Also, a stack subtracts one from their forced march roll when they are "disordered".

To get the troops back in "order" there are two methods. First, a general (the senior-most general on the stack) rolls against his initiative. If he throws his initiative number or less, the troops are put back in order. The other method is for the stack to move to a friendly fortress, and stay inside for a complete turn. Thus: army enters on Turn 4. They stay there for all of Turn 5. On Turn 6 they are no longer "disordered" and can leave with their post combat losses morale and no longer suffering the -1 on the forced march roll.

We'll talk about the initiative values of our generals later.

Some Odds and Ends

More on Generals

Okay, I'll confess it, Generals are "chrome" to the system. I prefer to know that it was General Hund-Hund who was killed or wounded, ont General #7. And with the way the rules are written, taken literally, a hard-fought campaign can do you out of generals. We know this doesn't happen, though command talent can get mighty thin in a prolonged war.

So players should name their generals. Put them in the nobility, and invent colorful biographies for them. Thus we can have General Sir Hugh Hackwell-Slashem, the famed cvalry leader, Sir Pickaninny Pouncetrifel, the Auditor General, and most beloved of all, Citizen Field Marshal Lord Stanley of Umbrage (he successfully took Umbrage, a town in Imaginary Germany). The more joking, the better. For example, the Colonel of the Marine Regiment is Lagostin (which I believe is lobster in French). The regiment has yellow facings because lobster with butter...yum!

So as generals fall by the wayside, new ones step forward to risk life and limb. The sprigs of the nobility have to be pruned from time to time.

Guards

Both armies have guards. They number, at most, a company. They snap to attention and thump their halberds on the groun when nobility passes. The palaces are guarded in turn by regulars who take turns doing it.

Grenadiers? More later. A pernicious habit, by the way.

Now to describe the armies -- next post.

Ah, Generals

Everyone who has played rules I've written know that I like dead generals. The air around a battlefield has a high metallic content, and generals are not bulletproof (as Marshal Vauban reminded Louis XIV). Even Emperor Charles V (known to those who took more than one year of Spanish as Carlos Quinto) tried to laugh off the danger ("Who ever heard of a cannoball killing an Emperor?"), but the danger was real. Marshal Turenne was killed by a cannon shot, and bullets and cannons cut a swath through the ranks of Napoleon's marshals (Oudinot was wounded 23 times), while the American Civil War was replete with the loss of general officers. The men tended to fire just a little high, and mounted officers were right in the middle of the danger zone.

Usually I have a little fun with general officer casualties. For example, in King's War a player who loses a general throws a 1d10 and reads the results from a table. There the results go from the general KIA right away to "general mortally wounded. Faithful aides lower him from his horse. He gasps out some final words for a grateful posterity. Players must compose those last words." This adds some fun as those "last words" go from "who ordered this stupid charge?" to some uplifting and heroic statements. The game actually stops while people labor at their "last words".

Sad to say, in Volley & Bayonet, Road to Glory, there isn't really room for that, at least at the highest level. This makes sense as the turns are one hour, and that is enough time to sort out the command changes caused by a bullet. This is a pity as it adds an element that I think is kind of fun. At the lower level this can be worked into the game.

What is the effect of a general being removed from the battle? Loss of command and control. Units lose coordination, orders are not obeyed, and so on. But in a one hour turn? The loss of a general, while personally bad, doesn't have a big effect in game turns. However...

If a general is within 3" of a unit that takes any kind of fire (artillery or small arms), throw 1d6. On a 6 the general is down and a replacement takes over. This is only applicable on the map where the general's counter is removed. He is either dead, or is back in the capital, reclining in bed, eating sweetmeats, intriguing against his fellow-generals, and being seduced by all of the right women. Players can make up whatever stories they wish about the general. He is available for the next season.

~~~~~~~~~~~

What's next? The effects of defeat on an army. And the odds and ends in the rules that need to be covered. We also have to discuss the countries (where they are on the map, etc.) and the armies (including the official Order of Battle).

And then we get into putting the pieces together courtesy of Prince Tedron of Methylonia (who once arranged a border clash between two countries with no common border) in a mini-campaign done as a solo map exercise.

Then...on to the campaign!

Operational Level Gaming

I was first introduced to this by an old SPI boardgame whose name escapes me at the moment. What struck me at the time was how I would do the "proper" boardgame tactic and mass enough forces to wipe out the enemy, only to have that blasted counter fall back instead. I was used to the D-Elim combat results, and it took a little reading to remember that units were not normally wiped out in the course of a fight. Oh, granted, in WW2 there were armored units that ended up with no tanks functioning at the end of a fight, but there were other assets in the division/brigade/combat command/kampfgruppe.

A few months later I saw one of the best microarmor games ever. There was a crossroad with only one or two buildings, not enough to be much of a strongpoint. But right nearby was a large wooded hill. The enemy had an observation post up there, and no tank was going to go wandering through the trees. This was a job for the infantry (much despised by a lot of treadheads). In they went. Artillery fired in support, but two turns after it was requested. And that meant that it wasn't always accurate, had to be adjusted, and so on. Both sides got stuck in, reinforcements were sent in, and quite a lively battle developed. I don't recall who won. I do know that everyone appeared to have a good time, and all of the fearsome armor on both sides sat around doing very little.

I watched that, and wondered why nobody tried to outflank the position. A week later (we were gaming every weekend at a local hobby shop) I saw someone stare at a position, and decide to turn it. We ended up with a map game for a bit, and then got stuck in as a small force (mine) fought a delaying action while reinforcements marched to the scene. This was very much what nobody had expected. And it was a lot of fun.

This wasn't always likely in the 18th Century, especially the earlier part. Armies (and generals) were still in the unitary mode. This meant that you concentrated everything on the field of battle, being as strong as you could at the point of contact. The Duke of Marlbofough tried something different on the battlefield that 100 years later became Waterloo, having his brother with 20 battalions hidden behind the enemy position, but the Dutch Deputy on Mission, Slangenburg, couldn't see it and managed to hold things up enough that the battle was not fought. Marlbofough didn't try that again. Well, okay, Overkirk at Oudenaarde, but not after that.

Part of the problem was communications. Part of it was administrative, and part was social. After a bit you didn't say no to the CiC, even if you didn't agree with him. Marlborough managed to overawe his subordinates enough. Frederick tried managing separate forces at Torgau, and showed how all of the problems you had when someone didn't keep to the timetable. The Austrians in the Seven Years War were pretty good at the different columns concept, but Maria Theresa would remove the generals who caused problems. And de Saxe, in the War of the Austrian Succession managed to make it work, but by then he was a Marshal-General, and only the King and Dauphin outranked him. Even the most pig-headed member of the French nobility had to take orders from that "Lutheran bastard".

Now part of it was also doctrine. As I said, these were unitary armies. The detached columns were the province of only the top generals. It wasn't "normal", and it took both the invention of the division (pioneered in 1745 by de Saxe) and a few books on mountain warfare before the idea began to work its way through the officer corps. But you needed a common doctrine, staff as well as otherwise, and that didn't happen very often. The Austrian staff advances in the Seven Years War deteriorated afterwards because it wasn't encoded and become part of the regulations. The French finally achieved it in the 1790s, and others copied it. It brought a flexibility to warfare that made things a lot more fluid.

So how do we imitate this on the tabletop? Well, we don't, not directly. I know of one attempt right now, sort of a "narrative" campaign. You issue orders ("Brigade A to move from Point A to Point B"), and the GM carries them out. Will it work? Perhaps. I hope so, but it depends upon the GM.

For our miniatures campaign, there is nothing to stop players from using detached forces to achieve campaign objectives. But be warned, small forces can suddenly confront the enemy main army and get crushed. I've fought tabletop battles where I was outnumbered 3:1, and it is no fun. I escaped, but that was more due to the enemy not talking with each other.

So look for fights where one side is outnumbered, and not by a little bit. Expect some huge disparities. But also realize that while one side can be outnumbered at Point A, that means they probably outnumber the other side at Point B. Tit for tat. That is one of the reasons we fight miniatures campaigns. It sure isn't to generate "even" fights. (insert rant about "even" fights here).

In Praise of Different Scales

Campaign Rules blogging will cease for a moment to respond to reader Jeff's comments, and one possible solution.

Jeff points out that if you have a deployment area that goes to the edge of the board, you will have players that will rest their flank there. This is true. I have seen players anchor one flank on the edge, and another on the back edge of the table, deploying obliquely so they do not have a flank that can be turned.

Now while we can't use the German solution to make a single breakthrough, create two flanks, and then turn both (you have to admit it's more efficient that way), there are two competing things, perhaps three going on.

First, gamers will be gamers, and if you give them the opportunity, there are some who will get every advantage they can out of the rules. I do and don't have a problem with this. Rules can be interpreted. However the interpretation should be backed up by historical evidence (even though this is a game), and should be consistent. The ones I don't like are those who will argue vehemently for Option A when it favors them, and then, just as vehemently, argue against Option A when it is turned against them. So when you write rules you have to take into account these people. One way is to do what Phil Barker did with DBA/DBMM and prescribe deployment areas to get a straight-ahead battle. This works in the Ancient and Medieval periods, but not so well in later eras where the whole point was to create an uneven battle.

Second, "Let the Bazaine's be Bazaine". Each gamer comes with some inherent military ability. It may be well-hidden, or strictly limited. But let them exercise it. Do NOT dictate anything to them that forces them to behave in an ahistoric manner. Do not get in the way of a gamer making a blunder. DO get in the way of one wanting to act in a way that is outside of the period. So the 18th Century gamer who wanted to move his men forward in loose swarms and skirmish lines was disappointed. That wasn't contemporary military thought.

Okay, let's look at scales; 28mm, 15mm, 6mm, and the like. Using V&B, RtG scale of 3" for 1500 men, my 8' wide table can hold 32 units in a single frontage. If foot, that's 48,000 men. That, by the way, is regardless of whether you use large figures, or small. If we go to the 2/3rds scale, that is 48 units, which is 72,000 men. That's just the first line. Double the numbers for the size of the army.

If, say, we went with the scale in Little Big Battles, a battalion taking up 1.5", a division of 10 battalions comes to 15" in a single line; 8" when deployed properly. There is nothing so beautiful as to see someone deploying a corps of three divisions of infantry, a division of cavalry, and guns, and realizing that he has two exposed flanks. Anchoring everything on hills/villages becomes sensible. And all of that beautiful cavalry gets sucked to the flanks for scouting and protecting, not available for thundering charges.

But as beautiful as the smaller figures are (I have a friend who painted glasses on his Marshal Davout figure in 6mm!), and they do get the spectacle you want of a large battle (I did a refight of the only major Austrian/Russian battle in the Invasion of Russia in 1812 and people were taken with the spectacle because the attack looked like two divisions going forward), the overall spectacle of miniatures was lost on the casual observer.

The guys in Oregon did Blenheim, Ramillies, and Oudenarde in 28mm. A 28mm figure, ostensibly 25mm, but my belief is that the figure designers longed for the old 30mm Surens, and so "scale creep" took place, which might explain why 15mm figures are now large 18mm, closer to the old 20s, is nearly five times the size of a 6mm figure. That's 25 times the volume with the requisite surface area. It looks big and impressive. This is what the casual observer expects to see when he wanders into a Con. And they look suitably impressed when you tell them that each figure was painted by hand.

Now, in my opinion, those larger figures look better when you have a large number of figures in a unit. In the smaller scales we can somehow get away with 6-8 castings equal a battalion, and people will "believe" it. I think that in the larger scales you need to go to 24-30 castings per battalion. Bill Protz fielded his Protzdam Grenadiers with 60 castings in the unit, and it was breathtaking. Mike Lonie did the Coldstream Guards in 25mm, a 60 casting unit, and it was like a red wall stretching across the battlefield. Gesturing at something that could be covered by a single sheet of paper, and telling people that that was the entire French Imperial Guard circa 1808 didn't seem as breathtaking.

And face it, the spectacle is important.

And this is the beauty of gaming. Every person finds what is "right" for them. If they want three corps on the tabletop with both flanks open, or they want enough metal figures that they have to get special shocks for their car (Isandlwhana in 30mm with all troops present on both sides!), there is room for them.

~~~~~~~

So how does this "fix" the problem with people resting both flanks on the edge of the world? Even "deployment areas" have their problem. At a DBA game in California Phil Barker found himself so hemmed in by an enemy built Up Area and impassable terrain that he could only send his troops forward in a single column one element wide, where he was promptly smashed by his clever opponent. An extreme example, mind you (and the rules for Built Up Areas changed right after that - go figure), but an example of what can happen. The other problem with a designated "deployment area" is there might be more troops present than the ground can handle. This invites what we call "rout in echelon" where Unit A runs backwards into Unit B; both then run into Unit C, and so on. Don't laugh. In the rules Shock of Impact I had that happen more than once, enough that I don't play those rules at all. Ever.

So what is to be done? Recall that the intended miniatures rules are Volley & Bayonet, Road to Glory with 3" linear bases for the foot, and 3" square bases for the horse. See the above point about the maximum amount that can be put on an 8' table. With that in mind, a deployment area of sorts becomes necessary. So, after all of this (hopefully not tedious) wandering, we come to the following:

Deployment

Players cannot deploy within 12" of either side edge of the table, and cannot deploy closer to the enemy than 24".

This gives a "deployment box" six feet wide on an eight foot wide table, and two feet deep on both sides, assuming a six-foot deep table.

Now why V&B? Well, I like it, it's simple yet subtle, and it doesn't matter if you use 2mm figures, hair-curlers, or 40mm castings, as long as you use the same base size.

That said, I sill like the idea of players suddenly realizing that they have two open flanks on the tabletop. In a lot of gamers that induces a "fear of defeat" and they get cautious. In a few others, it makes them a lot more reckless and aggressive. Just one of those things.