"Soliciting Advice" Topic

I have been tinkering with home-brewed Horse and Musket rules for a while now (primarily WSS), and played a scenario with my daughter yesterday. Several things came up that have given me more fodder for thought.

A larger than normal battalion of foot was charged by a smaller than normal regiment of horse which impacted at one end of the infantry line. The foot held and several turns of melee were required for the horse to be destroyed. I didn't allow the foot to swarm over the horse by collapsing its linear formation, yet I also didn't allow the unengaged stands to fire at other units either. Then after the horse was gone the foot unit was "Disorganized" from being in the melee and had to spend one turn reforming. Historical??

I managed to chase off my daughters left flank horse with mine and then looped behind her foot units. The rules require infantry charged by horse to check morale, but lack modifiers for flank and rear attacks, so they held. The melee was not catastrophic for the foot, but there is a nasty negative modifier for being meleed in flank or rear and two units broke and routed off the board which allowed my horse to go after more flanks. So the result was historical (I think) but I'm unhappy with the mechanism. Would (should?) a unit charged in flank fall to pieces? But if they're oriented forward, in the smoke and confusion of battle, who is looking to the rear? Or does the horse physically sweep the foot off the field (ie. melee). Or does the unit panic and disintegrate after it's contacted??

Shooting. One of her battalions fired at short range and had a high percentage chance to "hit", but "missed" and caused no casualties. At another location, a unit of dismounted dragoons in a town fired at a battalion of attacking Prussians, and "killed" four of them (one third of the unit), as I was very lucky on the die roll. Fire combat can give wide swings of casualties, it is very unpredictable. Historical??

My rules stress morale effects rather than combat effects. I want to represent an ebb and flow in combat where units take casualties, fail morale and hesitate, or fall back "to regroup", then try again. Horse units are smaller tan foot units so that one or two figure losses are large percentages and so morale failures are likely, causing fall-backs and so on, which would reward players who use wave attacks with back-up units, which seems historical to me based on my reading.

Any thoughts???

I am not sure about the WSS but you horse seemed to have almost god like control

I take it that infantry squares were not used in this period?
Would a unit of horse have fought till it was destroyed?

FOAL,

I believe you have solved the problem. Rather that adjust the rules to redress unusual situation, bring the burden on the commander to resolve the issue; how do my infantry deal with cavalry possibly falling on my flank?

Do I use infantry, whose task it is to deal with flanking situations, or do I use a cavalry unit or two to deal with this?

For what its worth, do let your daughter win occasionally, or she will invite her biker boy friend over for Thanksgiving.

Cheers,
Robert
18thcenturysojourn.blogspot.com

Sounds like a good game

For the first encounter, an infantry unit is hit by cavalry, pushes them back after a prolonged melee and is disorganized – seems fair

Linear infantry charged in the flank by cavalry was a fragile thing – seems like a fair result – I had a similar occasion this weekend when my Celtic noble cavalry chased off the Roman cavalry, by some miracle rallied and managed to return and hit the Roman battle line in the rear – being Romans, they didn't break right away, but did after a few rounds of combat

Shooting with muskets – lots gets left to chance

When I game with my son, he almost always cleans my clock

Good gaming!

On shooting: The first example seems reasonable – volleys could be just as ineffective as they could be devastating, otherwise we wouldn't need to involve dice.
The second example appears more far-fetched though: dismounted dragoons, especially firing from buildings, would only produce sporadic fire, so even their best effect should be less than that of an infantry battalion's full volley.
Perhaps the difficulty lies in the unit size – with twelve-figure battalions, gradual attrition may be difficult to model?
In any case, your description sound like an enjoyable game – and you're luucky to have a daughter who will play along!