"Snappy Nappy Question and Feedback" Topic

I had this question e-mailed from Steve directly to the publisher, who forwarded it to me, so let me share this…

"Hi I really enjoyed my first game last night, Russians heroically thrashed by the French and Poles. One question that did come up was – when do unattached commanders move and how far?

Hope to have a bigger battle this weekend. Thanks for the rules guys, exactly what I have been looking for."

Unattached commanders move as light cavalry and move with the rest of your forces. (There is no special "staff move" phase).

And thank you for your kind comments. Glad you found the rules easy to understand and play.

One issue that came up the other night was that once you are in melee you cannot voluntarily pull out, I think that is what is in the rules, but I wonder if we are correct?

That is correct. See the bottom of page 28, first column, section 13.0 Melee. If you perform three rounds of melee and the units are still locked together (that's a vicious fight), the melee will continue into the next turn.

Of course, in the next turn, if there are supporting units or units in the right position, they can charge into the melee, which will probably change the "locked" melee.

Russ,

Any chance of a talk through of a game turn to illustrate how Command & Control, movement and combat actually work? Are there different modifiers for the various classes of troops or do guard have more points than lower classes?

I am very keen on these rules but am always reluctant "buying blind".

First, here's a link in TMP about one of the first customers trying the rules…

TMP link

Second, let me do a summary of a turn…assuming you are playing standard brigade sized units (2 stands = a brigade).

Each player commands a corp and is given an order from the C-in-C. Orders are in a 7-layer heirarchy, from most aggressive (Attack) to least (Rally), with each order having a geographical mandate -- i.e. Attack means all units must advance towards enemy or geographical objective or be within 3" of same.

Depending on national characteristics (simulating the effectiveness of the actual C3I of an army AND the consequences of independent action), you as a corp commander can alter your order "Up or down" (more aggressive or less aggressive) depending on how you perceive your corp's situation.

For example, French can go "up or down" 2 levels. If your C-in-C (Napoleon) gives you an Attack order and you think he's nuts, you can drop it "down" by 1 to a Probe order, or "down" 2 to a Screen order. The geographical mandates change. Likewise, if he gives you a Screen order and you think you see an advantage, you can go "up" 1 to Probe or "up" 2 to Attack, or you can go "down" 1 or 2 to either Maneuver or Defend orders. Of course, you can always accept the order as is.

The player can change that order -- or if the C-in-C changes it for you -- at the beginning of the turn.

Key idea: YOU pick the order you want to follow…within reason, the reasonableness being the intent of the C-in-C, who can keep you on a long or short leash. No modifiers, no random die roll on a chart, just putting you in command of your own troops.

An initiative die roll determines which side moves first, but, the quality of the C-in-C (Poltroon to Genius) allows him to modify the die roll. Thus, Genius types have a better chance of accepting or declining the ability to move first than Poltroons.

Movement depends on formations (line, column, etc), which I define as a brigade "stance" -- on a conceptual level, not every bttn in a brigade is in that formation, but as a whole, the brigade's leading bttns are, with the rest prepared to support as needed.

Firing is by stand, with some modifiers depending on target formation and terrain, and firer morale status. Artillery gets multiple dice depending on size and range (12lber cannister etc).

"Hits" result in Morale Checks (MC) -- the KEY CONCEPT (pg. 14, section 6.0 in the rules) is that each unit has a morale type (Militia through Guard) and YOU ROLL UNTIL YOU PASS OR ROUT. The better the unit, the better the chance to pass (with a few modifiers: terrain and commander attached).

When you fail a MC, you drop a Morale Status level (6 levels in total, from Bold all the way down to Routed) -- each one comes with consequences that must be done immediately. No figure removal or casualty caps here -- just a roster of the 6 Morale Status Levels that you cross off as a unit degrades or put back as it is rallied.

As corp commander, you can rally individual units, or your C-in-C can pull the entire corp out to rally all units at once. It will take some time (lots of time for Militia!), so you better have a reserve.

Melee is by unit, rolling a die and adding modifiers based on the type (Guard fight way better than Militia), current morale, terrain, leadership, and some unit vs. unit situations (you really don't want your cavalry to hit a solid square). Melee results are either MCs or automatic Morale Status Level loss and MCs. Drops of Morale Status Levels from melee incur the same results as drops from firing hits.

My description takes longer to read than to do on the table, especially since all the charts fit on one page.

On a humorous note, the publisher demanded a two-page pull-out chart for what he termed his "grognard eyes." I insisted that my "grognard eyes" handled one page of charts just fine. So, a compromise -- my one-page is the last page in the rules and his 2-page is in the middle in a pull-out. Actually, he put in *two* 2-page color pull-outs.

After 15 years of playing, Snappy Nappy mechanics are solid and anyone from teenagers to grognards learn the game in three turns. The MC rolls generate incredible tension at times, the game ebbs and flows, and you spend your time commanding troops and battling for objectives, not battling rules minutae. 4-player games in under 2 hours is usual.

Snappy Nappy is available in the US from On Military Matters onmilitarymatters.com and in Europe from Caliver Books caliverbooks.com

Buying Snappy Nappy from the above also gets you a FREE copy of Napoleon #17 (lots of articles and illustrations) and a FREE copy of the Battlemusic CD Emperor Triumphant (background music for painting and gaming).

OMM will be at Historicon at their usual booth at the foot of the stairs, and so will I at the MagWeb booth in its usual spot for demos and Q&A..

Hope this helps.

why have melee in a brigade level game?

Not too keen on the idea of entire infantry brigades charging into each other, hacking and slashing ..

As an aside for those that don't like the idea of a roster, the second game we played, we used 4 different colored straws to mark the units morale status (e.g. no straw=bold, blue=firm, green=nervous,etc.)The only thing you have to write down is unit quality (e.g. militia, conscript, etc.) and we marked that on a chalk board for easy reference. If you want to keep things more secret, then by all means use a roster, but its not necessary.

Melee is a term of convienience, think of it as close range combat, short range volleys, etc. I think that is how it is actually described in the rules.

I've ordered my copy, so haven't played it yet. But from reading this I know already that the roster thing has to go.

It's seems easy enough to note the brigade quality with the miniatures. Loss of grade could be represented with colored beads placed on the unit.

I'll have to play around with it when we try it out. We've got some rules designers in our club and they will get it working.

Beads? Pipe Cleaners? Bits of string? Why not use animal bones or bits of torn up papaper and be done with it?

Only rosters or casualty figures will preserve the look of the thing.

You're right….I must face the 'roster monster' again….

Russ, many thanks for the detailed info: I will placing an order with those nice people at Caliver Books.

In anticipation of the rules arriving, had you any more thoughts about setting up a SN Yahoo Group so we can share ideas, scenarios, house rules, etc?

The idea of a Corps Commander being able to modify his orders is a good one: is there any provision for the extent of divergance being linked to the Corps Commander's ability? For example, Ney could go up 2 but only down 1 (aggressive) while Bernadotte could go up only 1 but down 2 (hesitant)?

Actually the rosters in the game are not a bother. Each unit needs a line with it's Troop Type and current morale level.

Troop Type equates to a number like 7+ that is used for all game dice rolls so just putting the number is enough.

Morale state changes as the unit wears down. Leaving this blank and just writing in a one letter abbreviation for its current state works fine.

So a unit might be represeneted on a roster by:

GUARD HVY ART: 4+ B

One could print this out on a label for the base and just pencil in morale changes if rosters really are a problem for a group.

It's seems easy enough to note the brigade quality with the miniatures. Loss of grade could be represented with colored beads placed on the unit.

You don't want to go there, Clay, it's a slippery slope. First it's battlefield clutter, the next thing you know you're gaming FoW with unpainted tanks without turrets, and its the Death Of The Hobby As We Know It.

I like Alan Lockhart's idea of 'personalising' the degree to which corps commanders can modify orders – for use when they are not portrayed by real players. Perhaps this could be linked to a die roll to determine in which direction the corps commander modifies the order – otherwise, the player taking the role of army commander will always use it in the manner he perceives to suit his plan or be advantageous given the circumstances.
When real players are commanding corps, I'd rather leave it up to them. Casting players to suit roles before the game is good; mechanical rules cannot really make a player behave out of character or like an historical general with whom he has very little in common.
I'd second the request for a Yahoo group devoted to Snappy Nappy!

To answer some questions:

>why have melee in a brigade level game?

LtJBSz has it right. From page 28, section 13 Melee:

"Melee at this level represents a concerted effort to take a piece of ground and drive the enemy troops away. It emcompasses both the crossing of sabres or charging at the point of bayonet, as well as close-range exchanges of musketry until one side or the other gave way. It was very much a morale and training struggle rather than a physical one."

Regarding rosters:

For many years, we played using markers on the table to designate morale status levels -- we used "puff balls" from a craft shop: cheap, different colors being different levels, and didn't mar anyone's paint job. Beads, et al will work just fine.

However, players wanted to have more fog of war, and after a tabletop hurrican caused by a monster sneeze (and a dropped clipboard -- but we blame the sneeze) blew the puff balls aside, I created a roster and players liked that they didn't exactly know a unit's status. Since then, it has been rosters all the way.

But feel free, especially in the first few games, to use markers.

About corp commanders and orders:

"The idea of a Corps Commander being able to modify his orders is a good one: is there any provision for the extent of divergence being linked to the Corps Commander's ability? For example, Ney could go up 2 but only down 1 (aggressive) while Bernadotte could go up only 1 but down 2 (hesitant)?"

Yes. Scenario specific rules are certainly allowed and you can certainly assign such a value to a particular commander to reflect the particular battle. Although the "up or down" aspect is based on general national characteristics, there is no reason why you can't explore what would happen if a particular leader or leaders had better staffs, more efficient order dispersion abilities, and so on.

Although not specifically in the rules, with six different types of leadership (poltroon to genius: see page 19, section 9.1), at least once the players rolled a d6 to see how they good they were!

And in a more egalitarian mode, initiative was once done where ALL players rolled the dice and totaled the amount to determine initiative.

About Unit Markings:

"Each unit needs a line with it's Troop Type and current morale level."
"GUARD HVY ART: 4+ B"
"One could print this out on a label for the base and just pencil in morale changes if rosters really are a problem for a group."

We generally just have the unit name on the base for fog of war and to allow scenario-specific rules, but a simplified system like that will work admirably, too. Part of the scenario-specific advantage is that you can represent a decimated brigade with a lower morale level to indicate the "brittleness" of the unit.

And yes, I did specifically try to make the names start with a different letter.

Thank you all for your kind words and encouragements.

Russ, Any chance of getting out any of your old scenarios, I remember reading them with great interest in the old MWAN on Magweb. As I recall your group did many of the major campaigns. The OoB's alone would save alot of time and effort.

>old scenarios

I'll have to go back and look, but as I recall, all of them were predicated on "campaign in a day" across multiple tables -- usually six or seven. Much of it was rather crude…

I have a fairly large basement with minimal encroachments except the cat boxes, an old couch, and a couple chest of drawers. The couch comes in handy for gamer seating, the drawers for miniature storing, and the cat boxes are for…the cat (not the gamers). :)

These campaigns allowed us (up to 22 gamers) to see how events unfold -- given hindsight -- on a massive scale, just like you read in operational histories. I suppose this Historicon, with the 1809 theme, would be the ideal time to re-run the 1809 campaign (we did one covering Bavaria and another one covering Italy), but I was booked getting Snappy Nappy and Hyperspace Hack out (and putting MagWeb on hiatus).

But I do like the sound of a big multi-player multi-table campaign style game in the future.

Russ,

I propose to set up a SN Yahoo Group and to place a posting on TMP and some other Yahoo Groups inviting membership. Perhaps you might like to confirm this has your "blessing" and, of course, you would be cordially invited to join to answer any queries which may arise?

Thank you for the vote of confidence. By all means, go ahead and set up a Snappy Nappy group on Yahoo.

I will certainly drop by.

So I take it that there are no scenarios included in the rules and that the author does not plan on publishing any? Are there any other rules/scenario books by other publishers which I could use with the rules? I am not a Napoleonics scholar and have neither the time or inclination to create my own scenarios or research historical OOB. Thanks.

The author has included one sample scenario, Austerlitz, in the rule book. I have played 2 of my own to test out the rules, and they have been simple to set up. I am sure that some will be posted on the Yahoo Group, heck I'll even post mine if I can figure out how to upload the files.

Hi
After reading the topic title my wife thought this belonged on a "Mother's Forum"

Thought we were done with the diaper references.

Yes. There is one scenario, Austerlitz, included in the rules.

I have been asked by the publisher to create a scenario booklet, and I'm working on it, but I want to make it different to take advantage of the Snappy Nappy system for large scale games, so I want to revisit my "campaign in a day" (multiplayer and multitable efforts) research and notes first and refine it. It'll take some time.

And, of course, the trick is to get another cool cover. I know all of you would be disappointed if a scenario book had just another 19th C. image of Napoleon/Napoleonic troops. :)