I recently got a copy of these rules in the mail from OMM. At $10 USD they are very inexpensive. What you get for this is a small, slim booklet with a stiff paper cover. The cover has two fine color reproductions of paintings – one of the battle of Denain on the front cover and a portrait of Eugene of Savoy on the back. The title page has a less successfully reproduced black and white copy of a battle painting. Then come 6 pages of rules, printed in the wrong sequence. Sounds like a bust, right? But wait – there's more.
It was fairly easy for me to figure out the correct sequence of pages. The rules are breathtakingly simple. The basic units are brigades of 3-4 battalions or 10 squadrons, of two stands each. Figures mounted for DBR need no changes, though it seems clear to me that figures mounted in other ways will also work with these rules as long as both sides are similar. We used four 1-inch wide stands per brigade with no problems. The brigade frontage in single line should be 800 paces, if you need to know. The quoted ground scale is 1 centimeter = 100 paces. We upped that to 1 inch = 200 paces, based on our slightly larger unit frontages.
Units that start the turn under fire or in melee take morale checks, done with a pair of average dice. Infantry units rout after failing three times, all others after failing twice. Units may move straight forward at any time, though closing with the enemy or doing pretty much anything else requires passing a single die roll. Measurements are in centimeters, with musket range 200 paces and artillery range 1000 paces. There are no other rules for firing or melee – it's all a function of morale.
At this scale 10 inches or so equals a mile on the table. Last night we played a scenario loosely based on Marlborough and Tallard's fight at Blenheim, leaving out the Eugene vs. Marsin tussle. Tom played Marlborough, with 9 infantry brigades (one elite), 6 cavalry brigades (one elite) and 4 batteries, about 24,000 troops with 32 guns. I played Tallard with 6 infantry brigades, 4 cavalry brigades (one elite) and 3 batteries, for 16,000 troops and 24 guns.
Tom came on and opened fire on Blenheim village with all four batteries. Three brigades of infantry marched up and fired muskets at the village. The garrison passed their morale check. On the next bound, all three of Tom's brigades had to check and one failed. We noted that his concentration of troops mostly gained him extra chances to fail morale. It also gave me -2 on my morale. Added to the +1 for being in a fortified town, I had a net -1 on my morale checks. I failed about a morale check every other turn, while Tom failed one a turn. so my town garrison was handing out morale losses at about a 2-1 ratio. West of the town an Allied cavalry brigade got into range of my artillery and failed a check. One more failed check would see the brigade scatter, so Tom charged across the stream at my left hand battery. The battery failed a check. I threw a brigade of cavalry into the fray and Tom's cavalry routed. Two more Allied cavalry brigades crossed the stream. Tom now managed to go several turns in a row without failing a single morale check, while my troops in the town failed each one. The garrison routed. I put another brigade in from the block behind. In retrospect, I would have done better to just keep the rear block garrisoned.
The fight at the town ate up the second brigade and then a third. Two Allied brigades scattered before the fight was over, but I lost three brigades to two in this fight.
The cavalry fight went on, with two Allied brigades giving way after time, while a French brigade also ran away. The elite British brigade charged across the stream and overran the French battery in my center. They then wheeled and hit the flank of one of my infantry brigades. The French infantry ignored the flank attack. They passed their morale check with a high roll and also refused to face the threat. Another brigade advanced on their front but was then engaged by my last infantry brigade in the center.
My elite cavalry fell back from the stream and regrouped into a double line. They then wheeled and fell on the rear of the elite British infantry, who failed a morale check. Another brigade crossed the stream and fired on the rear line of my elite cavalry. This was their second failure and they dispersed. Around this time half of my brigades had routed so I had to check for my army morale. I passed several army checks. I took more than I should have, due to unfamiliarity with the rules. Had I been playing a campaign I would have cut and run. Instead I stayed in and got more lumps for my efforts. Finally I failed an army morale test and the game was over. We figured a loose approximation was each routed unit suffered 50% losses. This is not in the rules. You can come up with any number that suits you or just not bother. Using our formula, the French lost 4,000 infantry, 1,500 cavalry and 8 guns. Allied losses were 2,000 infantry and 1,500 cavalry.
We played 14 turns in an hour and forty minutes, averaging 7 or 8 minutes per turn. Each turn represents 15 minutes, so we played at faster than real time. We were not sure about some things, like having greater numbers in a fight mainly exposing you to more morale checks. We considered having one morale check per fight instead. Another possibility would be to have un-engaged elements of brigades in a fight try to wheel on the flanks of the enemy. That way the greater numbers would come to bear if the fight lasts. The rules are short enough that players will have to come up with some decisions on interpreting certain rules. The rules also seem not to reward massing artillery. This might lead to using the period tactic of spreading batteries along the front.
The game played quickly. Dice matter, as they do in most games. We didn't have game hangover, since calculations were minimal. Firefights and melees tend to go on for a while, often with the outcome in doubt. At such times there is not much to do but wait and see who gives way first. The game also looks good, since massed linear formations several lines deep dominate until the very end of the game.
In essence, once the game is going you start your turn in fear of failing your morale checks. If you pass that without too much fuss, you then go about happily arranging reasons for the other side to take tests.
We'll have to try these again once we've decided how to interpret some rules. Certain things are abstracted out of existence. For instance, a routed unit just goes away and causes no trouble for friends behind it or others who see it. The rules are simple in the extreme and yet appear to have validity. I'd say those who like good simple rules (like you, Martin Rapier) should give these a look. For those who like more complex rules, stay far, far away.
The action tests to do anything but go straight forward are similar to the ones we arrived at for our home-brew 18th century rules, though our rules are not nearly as simple as these. Average and poor leaders in these rules don't have much to do. Perhaps I'll lift our home-brew leader rules and drop them into place. In our rules, even poor generals can do something besides pose with their staff.
The designer's notes say these fellows are looking into a Napoleonic version of these rules. I'm certainly interested in what they produce.
snapped some photos of games he didn't get a chance to play in at Council of Five Nations.
