"What is the "Variable Length Bound"?" Topic

Sir Trajanus,

Hummmm! Gets pretty cold in Minnesota, was that good or bad news?

I can't speak for all, but my experience generally met with a right-hand to the face. I guess that would be a bad, or a negative.

Dear All,

I too recall the buzz at the convention when George Jeffreys introduced his VLB concept. By the end of the weekend, the word was that it only worked if George was present. None the less, the brilliant concept inspired me to try to make VLB work. Forty some years later, still a work in progress.

Yet, with my tolerant friends we VLB in all periods. The result is that we make our battle plan, and then watch our subordinates, all rated with a leadership number, try to execute it. As the CiC, we watch the battle unfold. Much as a Lee or Grant or Napoleon and Bennigsen, we intervene only when a major "change of situation" occurs, with the information moving up the chain of command with appropriate passage of time on the battle clock. We further limit CiC interventions according to our assessment of the capacity of the CiC, e.g. Napoleon receives three chances to issue new orders, Bennigsen two.

Liberated from the notion of turns and movement in inches, my Napoleonic brigades make what I call an "approach march" that yields combat, they fight until one or the other side loses, the clock is advanced. In real time, five minutes might pass, on the battle clock two hours. In WWII, our tanks roll across the table unit a change of situation, usually a shot from an opposing AT gun or tank, and that triggers a firefight, which is fought to conclusion and the clock advanced. As one participant (a former tank officer) observed with delight, "My God! Real mechanized mobility."

One downside of this is that having played or VLB games for multiple decades, we find traditional games, with gamers trying to make optimal tactical moves while occupying their commanding perches aboard their see-all helicopters, tedious and boring. Likewise, gamers who only enjoy trying to make perfect moves dislike our system, often arguing "I see that flank attack coming and I want to turn and face it!" (curse words removed).

And then, as Bob Coggins rightfully noted, this fun, realistic flexibility has thwarted most efforts, including mine, to explain via the written word. This summer, with the help of an accountant trained friend, I tried again. He reviewed one relatively minor rule and noted that it needed to be explained for the newcomer to the system. Two pages of writing later, I realized it was beyond me.

In sum, George J and his VLB continue to provide me with great delight. I hope to share my "rules" openly again (I once did this in the Courier many moons ago) on my Napoleon Books website. Then, maybe a better man can find the holy grail that George suggested was there, somewhere, if only we could open our minds.

James Arnold
Napoleon Books

Thats exciting news.

James,
You put into words what I have been thinking as regards the actual play of the VLB concept. It is about how one thinks. Like minded players, Like minded players, Like minded players, and some good guidelines and some codification of basics like order writing and command capability are all that is needed to represent the fluid action of a large scale battle. It seems the paradigm of tactical manipulation as interpreted by players from the writings of Grant, Quarrie, Featherstone etc. which have evolved over time are not really survivable on the VLB branch of the evolutionary rules tree.
I look forward to your shared 'rules' experience, and thank you for "Crisis on the Danube" which I have just put down again- I needed some information on GM Radetzky- I wanted to rate him as one of the more energetic Austrian officers- and your book provides several descriptions of his conduct which I think justifies this.
Best,
R

Dear James:

Thank you for your input. Do you remember which issue of the Courier? I'll need to re-read that article.

Sincerely,
DaleWill

Dear Dale. Vol. VIII, No. 2 has "Generalship Napoleonics" complete with the Courier's wonderful copy editing (I really do know how to spell!). Also, No. 83 has "The Battle of Hohenlinden" which is a VLB battle report.

Regarding GM Radetzky that "R" speaks of in the above message, yes, I too rate him highly. Recall that after the Napoleonic Wars Radetzky is one of the Austrian army's major reformers.

James
Napoleon Books

Dear James:

Thank you. I had a great evening last night on my back deck with a beer and a box of old 'Courier' magazines. Opening each zip-lock bag and scanning through the pages brought back a lot of memories. I re-read most of Jeffrey's articles plus your article in 8.2.

DaleWill

@James Arnold

Excerpt from a posting on the VLB site:

"When David posted here about the TMP post, I had been preparing coincidentally another "New Visitor's Guide" post in which I was going to mention Jim's "Generalship Napoleonics" from the old days and how he was ahead of his time using brigades to try to achieve, well… Napoleonic Generalship! Other games were at the battalion level, I had ventured into the regiment as a basic unit for playability, but "Generalship" had taken the conceptional leap to go right to brigades and generals. At a convention back east I saw a demo of his game (and he used large figures, I think 30mm). Seeing these "tall" figures in brigade masses was very interesting, though I couldn't figure out how he handled artillery batteries etc (because in all of the other games of the time battalion and battery fire was important to calculate).
Here we are now where many wargamers have embraced the brigade "stand" and paint up the stands as dioramas or as tokens to represent brigades, so in that sense Jim was ahead of his time. On the other hand, the irony is that they have gone to brigades as game tokens, but are not using a command and control system like "Generalship" did, where the number of times generals intervened in the action was limited to represent their historic roles.
EMPIRE was the game of choice for most back then, my own Vive l'Empereur! never came anywhere near matching that interest (of course I stopped promoting it almost as soon as it was released because I abandoned it to work on the VLB with George). "Generalship" was also used by a limited audience, but I always admired it as a unique approach to the problem.
I am not trying to criticize other sets or other people's enjoyment of whatever set they are using by saying this, I am only giving due praise to Mr. Arnold; and feel free to tell him if you see him!
– Ned"

James

I had not realised you had a gaming interest until fairly recently when you published your scenario booklet. I would be very interested to read through your ideas on a ruleset, so please keep the community informed if you decide to make them available.

Allan

Dear Allan,

Will do. As soon as I get done "flogging my Civil War novel" on Amazon I will post a "Fall Update" on my website with a section on updated Generalship Napoleonics.

Thanks for your interest.

James

Unlike Allan Mountford, I am a bit slow, and so am always a little suprised when I find a Napoleonic scholar who isn't interested in les guerres petite. I mean, gee, why not? I do second Allan's interest and look forward to your ideas as well.
Best,
Robert

Hi all !! I'm desperately looking for a good copy of: "Napoleonic Rules for Large-Scale Wargames with Small-Scale Miniatures" by Peter Dennis and Cliff knight published by Hard Cover Design at any (reasonable) price. If someone (Margard ???) is interested to sell a copy can contact me at:
avvfranchini@libero.it
good gaming,
Francesco

I was able to scan the rules for Francesco. If anyone else would like a copy, let me know. The only issue is that it is a 15MB zip file.

Yes please ! steveoc64@gmail.com

I am happy to host them on a high bandwidth server for further downloads if required. Its important to keep classic material like this alive.

Thanks

Direct download link available :

link

Click on the link, and Save-As.

Its a pretty big scan, rulebook is a couple of dozen pages + charts and pics. Looks very workable to me :)

Very suitable to automation as well, but thats another story.

When I get time, I will re-type the whole thing up in an easier to manage format for download.

Happy Gaming !

Hi

'Frankxyz' – did the rules live up to your expectations?