Grand Battery: A Guide and Rules for Napoleonic Wargaming.
Jon Sutherland Diane Canwell.
Pen and Sword. (March 2011) Hbk 224pgs.£19.99 avail amazon £13.00 GBP
I am a bit disappointed with this book even though it looks great. It is nicely designed and laid out and there are lots of colour photos of tabletop wargames (almost one per page). However the photos are sort of eye candy. They are not referred to anywhere in the text, nor do any carry captions explaining what troops they might be or what they are doing etc. So they are not there to illustrate any particular wargame mechanic of the rules nor as a painting guide to building your own armies.
I was hoping that the book, as a guide to the hobby of Napoleonic Wargaming, might combine an account of the characteristics of the warfare of the time with a description of how a good set of tried and tested rules for tabletop gamming of the period can be designed by a historian and experienced wargamer of the period to replicate the flavour of this combat. In such a guide you might also expect information about the uniforms of the period and a painting guide for the figures that one would need to put an army of little fellas onto the tabletop. Unfortunately Grand Battery is not that book! So what is it? A curate's egg- good in parts…
The first 121 pages of the book give an historical précis of the period organised as follows:
A chronological list of major events of the French revolutionary and Napoleonic wars from 1792-1815 (17 pages).
Brief descriptions of 40 battles that occurred between 1796-1815 (57 pages). Information on each battle is given (the date, numbers present, losses and names of commanders) then the action is described in a page or two of text. These descriptions are interesting but there are no maps to refer to, nor orders of battle; you could not use the information here to create wargame scenarios. They are useful historical overviews though. This is followed by Armies of the major protagonists which gives a brief chapter (21pages) describing interesting bits of historical information about the composition and organisation of the armies of Austria 2pgs, Britain 2pgs , France 8pgs, Prussia 3pgs, Russia 4pgs. The text does not relate this information to the task of forming a wargame army for gaming the period nor does it give any uniform information for any of the armies. (Though I notice the photos on these pages do show figures from the army under discussion, no indication that this is the case is given so the nubie may not realise this).
The last part of the historical section is on weapons and tactics (15 pages) of the age. This gives a very broad brush overview of Napoleonic combat with the occasional really odd general statement such as [because rates of fire were as low as 4 per minute] "Target practice was very important as every shot needed to count". (P107) which is contradicted on the next page by the more acceptable "Infantry were not trained to necessarily aim at their targets…" and on p156 assertion that "rifles gave a better rate of fire than the ordinary infantry" is just plain wrong; muzzle load rifles were more difficult to load than muskets and had slower rates of fire.
The first indication that this is a book for wargamers (apart from the photos) comes in the second half of the book starting on page 122 with a chapter Organising Troops in which 27 pages of organizational charts are given for a typical division in various armies at various times (eg Austrian guard; line and reserve divisions 1805, and 1809). These are generic divisions: no specific commanders are named, and one wonders how the commander abilities and the regimental names, numbers and qualities have been chosen. There is no indication of troop numbers: each division is organised into two or three brigades of regiments. The divisional commander and the brigade commanders are rated by ability (poltroon, cautious, able, gifted) in the lists, though the significance of these is only described in a later chapter. (The rule set, presented later in the book, indicates a further possibility of ‘charismatic', no example of this occurs in the army lists).
The regiment is the smallest unit considered in the lists and each is characterised by one of six training/experience categories (raw, novice, trained, experienced, veteran, elite). Again these are not explained until a later chapter where the rules only define five experience categories, so I assume raw and novice are both collected into ‘green'. In addition to these five categories for regiments there are five morale categories (cautious, confident, steady, arrogant, impetuous) so troops can be categorised by one of 25 combinations of characteristics! Again these terms are not explained until the rules in the next chapter.
Wargame rules. For most readers this will be the heart of the book. They occupy 39 pages and are summarised in the quick reference sheets ( 9 pages) collected as an appendix at the end of the book together with a useful sheet of regimental order markers.
The game is designed to work at corps level (2 or 3 divisions each organised into brigades of regiments) with a CinC, division commanders, and brigade commanders explicitly on the table and issuing orders. But it also functions with one division organised into several brigades of regiments.
The smallest unit is the infantry regiment represented by 5 bases, the cavalry regiment (3 bases) and the artillery battery (1 base). Suggestions are made for the size of base and number of figures per base for the different figure scales 6mm, 15mm, 28mmm. (No scale of men/figure is given and no ground or time scale specified). On the suggested basing for 15mm figs the infantry regiment occupies 200mm x 30mm, cavalry regiment 180mm x 40mm, Artillery battery 40mm x 50mm). All the armies use the same basing and it is stated that rebasing is not necessary to use the rules.
Command and control is a modified version of the card system used in Le Feu Sacre (too fat lardies) but it is made more detailed (read fiddly) by increasing the number of orders which can be issued at each level, (5 at corps, division and brigade and 5 distinct regimental orders) and orders at lower levels depend on those from above while changes in orders require courier figures on the table to shuttle up and down the chain of command to request an order change and then get it. Commanders have a fixed number of initiative points and differing ranges of control each according to the ability rating of the commander (giving 5 distinct types). This is all designed to create battlefield ‘friction' and avoid ‘helicopter' decision making (i.e.seeing all the battlefield instantaneously and acting on the information). But increasing the level of detail in this way does not always mean a more accurate ‘simulation' but it does slow play and make tracking of all the possibilities more complex.
To avoid the Igo –Ugo gameplay each commander on the table (Corps, Division, Brigade level) has a card. They are collected from both sides and shuffled, orders are issued and then as each card is turned the commander on the card gets to move his command and engage in combat etc. This is also used for the initial deployment of units for both sides. After all the cards have been ‘played' then morale is checked and compulsory moves made the cards reshuffled and the next turn begins.
I guess the unique approach of the rules is the combat resolution mechanism, and I'm afraid I'm not a fan of it. Reading this book I'm reminded of the ‘old school' of wargame rules where every detail is modelled by all sorts of factors which must be included leading to long tedious calculations of each individual combat for a result that can be arrived at with a more snappy game mechanism. Grand Battery rules attempt to include a lot of detail of combat and at the same time make a fast resolution mechanism. They use "a series of tables, which may seem daunting to begin with" (they do!) which claim to "take the hard work out of calculating cause and effect of situations and actions". I am not convinced of the need to include all of the fine detail that these tables incorporate. I don't think it makes the results more ‘accurate' and does lead to some odd results. Consider a single infantry regiment attacking another single infantry regiment. The attacking infantry is identified by one of 25 possible combinations of training and morale categories. We determine the attackers resolve by shaking a ten sided die (D10) and consulting a 25 x 10 table of resolve outcomes of which there are 14 possible, ranging from ‘attacker charges home' through ‘attacker fires' at various ranges to ‘retires' or finally ‘attacker routs'. Low scores on the D10 favour the better outcome. We use the same D10 score (don't shake the die again) for the defender to consult a defenders resolve table to see how the defender will act. This table is more complex than the attacker table as it depends on the 25 morale/training categories of the defender infantry regiment and the D10 result and the current orders the defender is under (one of 5 possible). Again there are 14 distinct possible results. This procedure has defined the actions of the attacker and defender but not the outcomes of those actions. For example, a melee may have resulted. This will be resolved using two melee tables (one for attacker one for defender) and the best result from a number of D10 dice (more for greater troop experience). or a firefight (firefight table) and procedure or a moral test leading to 4 possible outcomes. This whole procedure might give sensible results on average (I haven't played with it enough to say either way) but it does somewhat place everything into the black box of consulting the tables and there are some odd outcomes I can already see looking at the Attacker and Defender resolve tables which define the combat situation. For example, in a charge of impetuous troops against impetuous troops with a hold order, green troops are more effective at charging home than elite troops which is not expected. Also the fire discipline of green troops with a hold order is better than elite troops with a hold order as indicated by the green troops fireing at short range on the attacker while the elite troops fire at long range again not expected. Another oddity is the different number of possible situations resulting from the use of the resolution tables depending on who is attacking and who defending:
Attacker charges…. Defender on hold number of distinct situations resulting from resolve tables
Green impetuous Green impetuous 6
Green impetuous Elite impetuous 16
Elite impetuous Green impetuous 20
Elite impetuous Elite impetuous 20 (some different from the last set)
Some of the oddities of the results of the resolve table will be smoothed out by the resolution of combat, using melee tables and firefight tables eg the elite troops shake more dice in the firefight than green troops so will get better results on average and make up a bit for the use of long range vs short range musketry, but why put all the detail in if it has to be averaged out again in this way?
The apparent complexity of the rule system is highlighted by the quick reference sheets needing 9 pages.
Noteable absences in the rules are mechanisms for resolving combat in built up areas and any rules which may favour the use of brigade level formations of attack, or mixed order formations or column attacks for anyone but the French or multiple combats in which units explicitly support one another which are not mentioned beyond a modifying factor in the moral test taken at the end of the turn ( a different morale table from that associated with charging). Skirmish troop fire rules are not clearly distinguished from formed troop fire rules…
There are three Scenarios (10pgs) Neerwinden, Raab and Ligny. Each has a very brief description, a schematic map with rectangular grid cells 6 x 8 divisions, but there is no indication of table dimensions or scale (should the grid cells be square and the table 8' x 6'?).
The command structures in the orders of battle are such that only two levels of command are used rather than the four explained in the rules. This makes it much more like the command structure of LFS rules and probably greatly improves playability.
There is a very good up to date 14 page buyers guide listing contact addresses of all the major manufacturers of Napoleonic wargaming figures both plastic and metal and of all the common scales used. The guide also has brief descriptions of the figure ranges and fair comments on their qualities.
It is difficult to see that Grand Battery will be the rule set of choice for both "beginner and hardened campaigner" in the face of stiff competition from the likes of Lassalle, General de brigade de lux, Le Feu sacre III, or Black Powder which have appeared in the last couple of years and offer good Napoleonic gaming experiences. Grand battery is half the price of these other rule sets (excepting LFSIII which is about the same price for the print version). Unlike those rule sets, which offer only a brief overview of the historical background this book is ¾ historical material and ¼ rules so even if , like me, you are not convinced by the rule system there is a lot else of interest in the book for people new to the fascination of the Napoleonic wars.
paints brigs for the British fleet.
