"Chef de Battalion Rewrite?" Topic

Back in 2007, Scott Bowden wrote that he was looking forward to re-writing Chef de Battalion.

Towards the middle of the first page:
TMP link

As Mr. Bowden does not appear to visit TMP very often, does anyone have additional information about a possible rewrite of CdB?

Wow, he really threw Jim Getz under the bus on that thread.

"…eliminate many of what I have ALWAYS believed are some of the negative aspects created by the co-designer…"

Ouch, that was a bit unfair.

That might not have been leveled at Getz as more were involved than him.

"That might not have been leveled at Getz as more were involved than him."

There's only one other guy's name on the cover. And he's pretty clearly speaking of "the" co-designer, singular, "he", "him", etc.

Anyway.

I suspect that a Chef reprint would be a tough sell nowadays, given the very large number of figures required.

Funny thing, I was re-reading parts of LaSalle when I remembered the message from Mr. Bowden. Other than the little guy from Corsica, I can't think of any connection between LaSalle and Chef de Battalion.

I believe Mr. Getz has a tough chin and can take a punch or two. At least he has in the past.

So Mr. Mustafa, I take it you haven't heard anything about a CdB rewrite?

" I take it you haven't heard anything about a CdB rewrite?"

No, I haven't heard anything about any new games from him in years.

I hope there is a rewrite as I would love to try to game the scale…..cheap plastics makes it more doable!

Is that 'get a yearly subscription for the privilege of buying a photocopy of Empire' site still up? IIRC one of the benefits of membership was access to SB himself.

Rich

I just purchased a set of CdB rules recently – nice shiny new rule book with slick presentation and the smell of new ink.

Purchased for a reasonable cost (incl shipping) from Cavalier books in the UK.

I have no idea however whether this current freshly printed rulebook is a streamlined version of the old one ?

It is complex in the level of detail for sure, but the actual game mechanics sound quite straightforward, and the bookkeeping is minimal. (Yet to play .. so that it an impression only). There is nothing dry about this voluminous tome though .. it is sprinkled with humour, and the emphasis is on a fun game.

In the preface, SB makes mention that the rules have undergone several iterations of refinement, since the 'earlier' rules were cumbersome to the point of being unplayable. A lot of the mechanics are very modern, using a range of different die types, arbitrary figure scales (element based), and consistent use of 2d10 rolls for the bell curve.

There are no version numbers on the book though, so I really have no idea if this is a re-write, or what.

I do plan on encoding these rules into the ever growing computer moderated system at some later stage, so any bookkeeping or other complexity will be a problem of old by the time I'm done. No time schedule on that project.

You will still need to get the rulebook to understand the game if using a computer moderated version … but the playing of the game wont require a degree in brain surgery to do any calculations or bookkeeping.

On the subject of Empire too – (and without risking a massive thread derailment here) :

I wish I knew what the story was with the PDF release that suddenly vanished. In the meantime, Revolution and Empire is available as new from Cavalier books as well. Just got my copy of that, and it is essentially a much streamlined version of Empire, with a whole lot of new rule mechanics to cover updated research since Empire was released … as well as a lot of brand new ideas as well.

R&E shifts the player's focus and decision making towards the ME commander's saddle, and takes away some of the ease of performing intricate moves on a per-battalion basis. Divisions and their formations and deployment become the prime focus of the game.

Since the joint authors of R&E come from Empire on the one hand, and Legacy of Glory on the other … it does feel like a streamlined cross between both.

So I am thinking to myself … use R&E for the Corps and Grand Tactical level details / command and control / morale / ME level behavior… and then add in all the detail from Chef de Battaillon to resolve action at the tactical level … and those 2 combined = 1 killer ruleset.

Pulling that off though on a single tabletop battle is an exersize in pure insanity of the worst sort. Not so insane though if you can magically automate all the hard bits on a networked computer moderated system.

Premptive answers to questions for the technically inclined, regarding computer moderated CdB :

… I currently have EmpireV working on the computer, and that plays OK with around a Corps per side, and 3-4 computers. PHP / MySQL based for this with a web interface for each commander to interact with the game.

Technically, that architecture is sub-optimal for this sort of problem. It is very stable, but the computer gets fairly hammered as the action hots up. The need to reconstruct the entire game state for each async browser request becomes a bottleneck. The ideal architecture involves something more along the lines of node.js with a document-oriented database instead.

So transitioning everything to node.js / mongo / HTML5 canvas + websockets as we speak. Much more promising architecture for this sort of app. Tis easier to do than it sounds.

Last time I did this 'properly' it was in C, was difficult, and took a long time to get it right. Node.js makes the same job much easier.

This has nothing to do with other popular CM systems such as C&G or Eaglebearer either .. it is better described as a Napoleonic version of Janus / JSIMS, built from scratch.

I think I recall that Mr Getz may have had one or two retrospectively negative things to say about Empire along the line somewhere.

So the old Rock Band standby of "creative differences" probably applies!

Steve64 – I'd heard aboput these rules, but never played them so far. From your comments they sound rather interesting. Can't seem to find Cavalier Books though. Was it perhaps CALIVER Books you purchased them from?

:)

Thats bizarre – I have gone to that site so many times, and in my head say 'Cavalier' whenever I see that word. Just looked again, and you right – its Caliver, which is a completely different word !!

Here are the links to the books :

link

link

Chef de Battaillon is Empire with a stack of detail at the lower level. I have spent a lot more time reading them since the last post, and they are starting to make sense now. There is a good deal of humour in the ruleset too that adds to the fun.

There are some very interesting concepts in CdB that make them stand apart from many of the larger scale rulesets. Here is an overview of the unit damage mechanics as one example :

When a unit gets involved in combat for a period, and starts getting shot up … it absorbs damage across the unit as a whole, creating both material losses and disorder, as well as waivering morale.

From the player's point of view, you dont know exactly how many losses that material damage represents whilst the unit is engaged. The best you will know is that the unit has taken between 10-20% losses for example. The unit starts performing worse and worse as the damage piles up .. whilst increasing the risk of breaking. There are no figure removals to account for material loss at this stage either.

When the unit is pulled back out of danger, the officers can pull the unit back into shape, at which point the material losses are converted into actual figure removal. After the damage has been accounted for, the system determines (with some random factors thrown in), what fighting state the unit can best attain. It may be able to redress it's ranks and get back into the fray … or it may be so badly shot up that it can no longer maintain parade ground precision, which affects movements and formation for the remainder of the game.

It could also be that the nature of the material damage relegates the hapless unit to a 'positional' unit for the rest of the game … presumably it has lost enough good NCOs that it is only useful for clumping together and forming a static defense. They might still be in good morale, but they dont have the right people in the right place to form a proper line anymore.

Another result is that it may break down to a Tirraleur swarm manned by the stubborn hard core remnants of the original unit.

A better quality unit is more likely to pull itself together back into fighting form than a lesser unit with the same amount of material losses.

Thats an interesting concept – Morale, ability to fight and the ability to maintain formation are all independent aspects of the unit that can be modelled separately. Thats pretty cool detail there to capture the feel of different scenarios.

For dishing out damage – a musket volley will do the same amount of damage regardless of whether the firing unit is Old Guard or Landwehr. The more elite units however are more likely to get more 'action points' if you like .. and better fire discipline probabilities, so they are more likely to get more decent volleys in compared to lesser formations.

The detail on the drill evolutions is equally interesting, and is one of the longest chapters in the book. It finally explains what the famed attack column is all about, to the point where you can really see the difference on the tabletop, and why it worked so well in the timeframe where it was used.

R&E is Empire with streamlined play mechanics .. plus taking some details directly from CdB at the lower level .. and also taking some mechanics from Legacy of Glory. It also adds in some 'gamey' ideas and a touch of humour.

The 2 rulesets above work together very well to cover everything from multi-Corps campaigns, down to company level drill and musketry .. with a consistent set of mechanics and concepts used in both.

Not a cheap solution getting both, but there is nearly 400 pages of detail in that bundle that should satisfy the most inquisitive gamer for a very long time.

Re: CdB, ive been fascinated by the concept of these rules for years but have never picked them up. Can anyone tell me what the scale ratio is, what scale minis are used and how nasing is done in the game?

Nevermind. Found it on Boardgame Geek!

Steve64 – thank you for the detailed example, which has me even more tempted. Before I shell out GBP 37.50 plus postage however, somebody above mentioned the "very large number of figures required" – how many are we talking about here?

Number of figures … friggen HUGE !

.. if you want it to be that is. The recommended scale is to have formations set up at 1:5 troops ratio, but that is purely for aesthetics. Using the recommended system will give 6 figures per 'base' – arranged in either 2 or 3 ranks depending on the formation.

But you can use 2-3 figure bases as well with no change to the rules.

I was quite surprised though that CdB mentions a number of other basing systems by name – including Napoleons Battles, which I thought came out after CdB was printed. Obviously not.

Chef de Battaillon does away with exact figure counts for units actually – as it works on elements, or bases of troops. This is because the rules expect that you already have a collection of figures, and that you use them mostly for larger scale battles. You then just use the same bases and arrange them in lower formations for the occasional tabletop bash at this scale.

Each battalion is made up of a number of companies, based on historical deployment (the book details lots of historical organizations for you to work with as well).

Each company is made up of anything from 3,4,5 or 6 bases of troops – from Tiny companies (3 bases) through to Large (6 bases). So around 18,24 or more bases of troops is enough to setup and play a Battalion. That is not too bad at all.

Casualties are recorded as 'Hits – with each Hit representing something between 1-2% losses to a base. When the number of Hits = the number of Elements in a Battalion, the Hits convert over to a casualty level. A casualty level is 1-2% loss for the whole formation.

Once you start racking up casualty levels, then the formation as a whole starts to feel the effects. From about 10 casualty levels onwards, the Battalion as a whole starts to get in serious bother. At this stage, there is no figure removal .. just cracks appearing the in Battalion as a whole.

If you allow it to get to around 20 casualty levels, the damage may be irreversable, crippling the formation for the rest of the game.

This translates to a game feel of that the Battalion absorbs losses internally and carries them across the table.

When the battered battalion is pulled back out of contact and re-organised, you can trade in the casualties for figure removal.

So in answer to your question – you can use whatever basing you already have, and the need for a zillion figures is totally optional.

Many thanks for the explanation – I think you've convinced me!