"Wargaming uneven battles" Topic

Most of my wargames are generated by my PBEM campaign. Each army commander has five corps and control of all strategic movement. I fight the battles as wargames. So I have no control over the size of battle nor the scenery.

Naturally each commander will strive to achieve superiority of numbers, and aim to fight at odds favourable to himself. This results in a large number of uneven battles, either two corps to one or three corps to two.

The army commander is responsible for writing orders for his corps commanders, but I reserve the right to change these orders once the battle is transferred to the wargames table.

I have fought a number of these uneven battles, and the result is always the same. Either the wargamer with the smaller force retreats as soon as the odds are obvious, or the smaller force suffers heavy casualties.

I have now taken on the role of corps commander in the campaign, and will order a retreat if the odds are too great. The resulting rear guard action is not fought as a wargame. There is a simple chart and dice roll to calculate the casualties to each side.

I would prefer to fight all of the battles as a wargame, but cannot find a suitable method of doing so and still avoid the pointless retreat or inevitable defeat.

Has anyone found a way to tackle this problem?

"The resulting rear guard action is not fought as a wargame."

…perhaps you should do, they can make all the difference to the actions in a campaign – e.g. Hollabrunn-Schoengrabern: a rear-guard worth fighting?

If you want to fight it as a wargame, you could go for some kind of handicap system so that the weaker side can still win a 'game victory' even if losing on the table, a la Phil Sabin's Lost Battles.

Or your could limit the effect of the outnumbering forces. 2 corp v 1 might end up being 1 and 1/3 corps v 1;
3 corp v 2 might end up being 2 and 1/3 corps v 2, or however you want to play it.

The difficulty is that if it is a campaign then each side will be doing their best to engineer a victory by ensuring they have the better odds. We have fought rearguard action scenarios with the "loser" winning if they are able to retreat from the battlefield in good order within a certain amount of moves.

The failure of a rear guard action will also mean that the pursuer has a good chance to catch and create mayhem with the rest of the army. One way to get around such uneven odds is for the umpire to drop in a little "Fog of War"!!

Tally Ho!

If you fight a retreat which is part of a campaign, I do not really see the need to establish a "winner" – in a campaign the winning side is really irrelevant, only who retreats and how many casualties and the amount of disorder in the retreat is relevant.
The best games I have played are asymmetric, where one side has to get away without being thrashed. My experience is that it requires rules capable of simulating rearguards and retreats.

nick & nicolai are right here… you need to set out objectives for the defending side in a rearguard action – usually it`s not the battle result itself that counts, but the time that is bought for the main army to evade/regroup in fighting it.

Thistlebarrow2,

I think it is important to remember that an outnumbered army could not always choose to retreat every time they wanted to. Sometimes it wasn't possible. Two examples off the top of my head are the Russians at Friedland (it only became obvious to Bennigsen that the French troop build up was too great when it was too late to easily extricate his army) and the French at La Rothiere (foul weather prevented Napoleon from realising that he was seriously outnumbered and he was compelled to fight a large pitched battle before he could withdraw).

It's difficult to say without knowing the details of your rules, but I think you are making it too easy for the outnumbered army to;
i) know that they are outnumbered too soon.
ii) make an escape once they do know they are outnumbered.

Remember that the whole point of many of Napoleon's battles was that he pinned his opponent then arrived with other columns that tried to lap around an already committed enemy army (i.e. Castiglione, Eylau, Bautzen). His opponents later tried to emulate this and had some success (i.e. Waterloo).
Basically, I am saying that you could try to introduce even more fog of war to your campaigns and games, then fight Freidland or Bautzen-esque style scenarios where one side has to fight AND try to retreat at the same time. Quite a challenge!

Really interesting OP by the way.

If you follow War Artisan's posts about The Gentlemen Wargamers you will note we do not play balanced scenarios ever. Our objective is an exercise in joint storytelling. So whilst the scenarios are not necessarily 'winable' in a traditional sense we still have fun and may gain satisfaction from how well or badly we perform against the odds. Check out how we conducted a mini-campaign recently. Sorry this is posted from a cell phone and it's harder to post links.

I can't help but wonder if the problem isn't with your campaign rules, or perhaps with the commanders in your campaigns. Historically I can't think of many examples of 2 corps on 1 or 3 corps on 2 actions while the other five or seven corps are not involved. Army commanders strived to keep their corps within supporting distance of each other and since it took HOURS to deploy a corps from march column into battle formations the supporting corps usually had ample time to arrive on the battlefield. Certainly, lopsided actions did happen from time to time (meeting engagements like Gettysburg being prime examples) but it seems like they were the exception rather than the rule.

All good suggestions. We sometimes play the same uneven battle twice, with the players switching sides in the second game to see if they can better their opponent's result in the previous game. When we don't have a lot of time to play, this is a simple way of playing a pick-up game without having to devise victory conditions or otherwise introduce some kind of balance or fairness into the scenario.

Do you have recon units (not sure what they were called in Napoleanic times).

Any unit that fights a battle should most likely be tied down for a couple of campaign game turns (at least) getting themselves back into shape as well.

Hard to say, without knowing more about the campaign: here are some random thoughts.

Remember that in general, battles were fought when both sides thought they had some sort of a chance. Otherwise the weaker force will fall back until reinforced or when located in a defensive position which balances out the disparity in forces.

If the corps involved are coming in from different directions, then there is going to be a problem of coordination which will affect the larger side more often than the smaller, which could give the smaller force an opportunity to fight each enemy individually. If they are coming along the same line of advance, then the smaller force may be able to catch the larger before it is fully deployed.

In a large scale game, the strategic attacker – generally the stronger force – ought to be dropping off forces to hold strategic points and supply points. So their individual corps may be somewhat weakened

Once committed to a battle, the decision to retreat will take time to carry out – it's not just a case of moving units off the table.

Long ago I realized this problem and one other which is related to it and made steps to control it. The one additional problem is that it is very likely that any campaign round will yield far more contacts than can be gamed in the real world round time available. In one month of running the campaign game seven to twelve campaign "contacts" could be made and there was no hope of resolving all of them by table top actions so we picked and chose which seemed the most important and did that, leaving others to be resolved by a simple abstract resolution method. The battle chosen was not always the largest, but what seemed most interesting. Of course we had an umpire and what he said was the law.

the Abstract results method we had was very simple and one key component of it was we assumed that the commanders of the forces knew what they were about and would make decisions more or less competently so the combat results table looked a lot like the old Avalon Hill combat results tables only with a lot more "d-back 2 and A back two and a lot of "armies sit in place and watch each other"

But that did not serve and I took positive action to ensure better results. The first thing to remember is you are not replicating a campaign, you are creating a vehicle to make interesting and intriguing table top battles, so it really doesn't matter what happened in real life, you are bringing into the mix a principle that is completely irrelevant in real life, which is equity. That is that both sides will have something of a "chance" to win or at least do well rather than just get creamed.

To do this we structured the armies toward the game.

Now remember I game in Imagi-Nations, so I can do this much easier.

Each side has "strategic units" which are called armies and brigades. These strategic units are composed of table top battlefield tactical units. An army further is indivisible. You cannot break it up into one or more brigades nor can brigades be combined into armies. They can be involuntarily degraded, as in inability to supply might force an army to become two brigades, but that is not voluntariy. The Army has 25 battlefield units in it, the brigade 7. In the campaign you are allowed to have only TWO strategic units in a location only ONE of which can be an army so the legal combinations are one brigade, one army, two brigades, one army and one brigade. This means that the maximum range of unit nubmers is from 7 to 32. That's still a huge disparity but the tactical rules allow for victory condition options such that would allowe even at this dispartiy, the minor force to eke out a small loss, draw, or even a minor victory if he is sharp.

"Armies" in this system are common to all powers, and so are brigades. An Army of Saxe Burlap und Schleswig Beerstein is identical in composition to that of one from Bad-Zu-Wurst or Gulgia. Brigades are varied and you can have infantry brigades, cavalry brigades, elite brigades, artillery brigades and so forth, and on to siege artillery brigades, wagon brigades and even some civil and non military functions like "courts" "Administrative foci" etc., which have no battlefield function but do have a strategic function. These brigades are again identical country to country but generally have one wagon, one gun, one regiment of Dragoons and four regiments of name type within it. This allows variety and variation in battle.

The second part is the abstract resolution part above.

I also run my campaigns as "narrative campaigns." Basically what this means is that each side tells me what they are doing or want to do, *under fairly restrictive rules) and I match up the intentions and decide what actions result. This means that only one or two actions result from the campaign and I compose the narrative in accordance with the players wishes to bring it up to the next battle, composing the complete back story etc. In more formal campaigns where the players command multiple groups (of strategic units) wandering around the countryside the same method is used. Again the battle chosen for actual use on the table top is not always the largest. One battle which pitched two brigaes against an army and a brigade (14 to 32 units) was in a hinterland where the larger side was seeking to strategically outflank the whole theater of war and ruled far more decisive and intersting than the others wanderinga round the countryside.

The other point we always make is that if it ain't painted and done you don't get it. That is, if the figures don't appear in the collection it can't be sused. The Army and Brigade system above defines specifically what forces possibly in any cases would be present, and we have painted forces to at least represent that. So for example if the strategic units have four heavy and four light cavalry in an army, and a brigade of cavalry has two heavy and two light in it, that means that the maximum number of heavy cavalry and light cavalary units is six of each, and times two (if the other side picks or has the same line-up) means you need 12 heavy cavalry and 12 light to cover any action. Thus if you collection only has a few of each for a specific army, you can draw thm for any other army you have and simply use them one side or the other.

I know this will cause extreme pain to you nappy games who would have a stroke seing the Old Guard Grenadiers next to the Pavlov Guards, and a unit of Jannisaries together on one side, but-- it works.

Luckily I've been at this thing for over 50 years and I have more than enough of all types and am painting more.

Obviously the main point of this system is to make interesting and satisfying battles as part of a larger effort and forget about the glories of a campaign in every sense, but I submit that it works. The other point is that using a narrative campaign and an umpire simply blasts out of this the best of all possible worlds any gamesmanship of players. It also puts the whole thing in the correct context.

It does not allow the following which actually happened in a wargame once.

Umpire: A hussar rides into your camp and says that the enemy have been seen marching at East Hogslobber ."

Gamer: Were they on the move? or Standing?

Umpire: Moving.

Gamer: Were they moving north or West-east?

Umpire" South.

Gamer: Did they have cavalry in the front or in the rear?

Umpie: Front

Gamer: Was the 443rd Messkit Repair Battalion of the Chanteuse' a Cheval of the Guard in the lead? or was it the 2932nd SSVolksturmgreandadiermiltia with purple plumes in their hats….

The umpire can simply say "The Hussar is a courier, he didn't see them, the message is on a scrawled note, it was written by someone else, the hussar can't write.

Certainly rearguard actions such as fought by the Russian Guard at the end of Austerlitz would be very interesting as described in my new book on the Leib Guard Cossacks.

Another is the battle of Rolica where the French outnumbered and having their position turned successfully extricated themselves.

There are numerous occassions in the 1812 campaign as well.

These turn up interesting outcomes and make the difference from a defeat to a rout.
Stephen

MCH

I have fought two or three rearguard actions as a wargame, but they are very predictable and not very enjoyable.

They also take up a lot of time, which delays the flow of the campaign itself.

There are six command areas and I aim for one campaign day per week. Each battle takes 12 moves to fight, which is about one week real time. There are often two to four battles to be fought each campaign day. It is not unusual for two or three of them to be uneven battles. All four would take four weeks to wargame. A long delay for the two area commanders not involved .

My ideal would be one campaign battle per campaign day. This would give us one wargame per week, which we can easily fit in with the one campaign day per week.

TLA

I like your idea of staggering the arrival of the stronger side. This would work as a wargame. But it might not be very popular with the campaign players.

They all want to achieve local superiority and I would have to be able to justify staggering the arrival of the stronger side.

In my campaign map movement is the same as table movement. Each wargame table a grid of 3x3 map squares. Each corps can move three squares per day, which is one wargames table. So if the corps would take one map square to reach the edge of the battlefield, they would arrive at the start of move 5 in the wargame.

But I do like the idea, and it would allow me to fight uneven battles as a wargame.

Nickinsomerset

There is already quite a lot of fog of war in the campaign. That is part of the reason for the uneven battles.

At the end of each move each commander is notified of any enemy within 10 miles. But only the leading enemy. If there are two corps, one behind the other, he would only be advised of the leading one.

He then has to write his orders for the next day.

If he orders a halt, and the enemy order an attack, there will be a battle.

It is only when the battle is transferred to the wargames table that all is revealed.

When the wargame starts the wargame commander has the option to change the campaign commander orders. And this almost always results in an immediate retreat.

Sparta

It is the same in our campaign. There is no winner in these uneven combats. One side will achieve a strategic victory by gaining ground. But I wanted to penalise the weaker side by inflicting casualties. That is what caused me to raise the subject.

At present I roll a dice. The higher the score the more casualties the weaker side suffers.

It works ok, but the aim of the campaign is to resolve battle by fighting wargames. Because these uneven battles crop up a lot I wanted to see if it was possible to find a better answer than my current dice roll

TelesticWarrior

I take your point about historical battles. But I should stress that my campaign is not a historical one. The aim of the campaign is to provide battles for my wife and I to wargame.

The uneven battles almost always are the result of poor judgement on the part of the campaign commander. Usually the weaker side will order his corps to halt the next day, even though he knows that there is an enemy corps within attack distance. If I allow the uneven battle to take place it will almost certainly result in the prompt loss of the campaign for the weaker side. One of his corps will be destroyed. The remaining three will then have to face four enemy corps. I appreciate that this is the normal historical result. But it does not take into account giving the corps commander of the weaker side the option to retreat.

If the uneven battle were the result of clever strategic movement which pinned the weaker side I would be happy to allow it. But that has never happened. Its always the result of the weaker side being attacked from the front by a stronger side. There is always the strategic option to retreat, but the army commander has not anticipated the attack and therefore not ordered the retreat.

Incidently the campaign rules can be read here

link

ScottWashburn

It is also my understanding that historical uneven battles were quite unusual . But this is a wargame campaign and they happen quite a lot. So I have to find a method to solve them. They happen because wargame army commanders do not have the experience of real life commanders. It can be difficult to coordinate the map movement of four or five corps to concentrate in the right place at the right time. It can also be very difficult to find out where the enemy are due to the fog of war. All of this produces a lot of very interesting and challenging wargames.

The uneven battles are the exception. And it may well be that the only way to solve them is to use a simple chart and dice as I do now. But I would much prefer to be able to fight them as a wargame, if I could find a suitable way to do so.

Dynaman8789

Army commanders do have the ability to recce.

Any enemy within 10 miles is notified at the end of each campaign day.

Cavalry brigades move further than mixed arm corps, and can extend the range by moving in front, or to the flank, of the corps.

The problem is that they only sight the nearest enemy.

When a battle is declared I allow any corps within supporting distance to "march to the sound of the guns". This can greatly increase the odds.

Advocate

I agree with your post.

I have taken on the role of each corps commander in the campaign to allow the outnumbered corps to retreat as soon as they become aware of the stronger enemy.

The problem is when it comes to the wargame. Although a historical corps could conduct a fighting retreat, or even hold up a stronger attacking force. I have found it is very difficult to do so in a wargame.

Uneven infantry is not too much of a problem. But if one side has twice as many cavalry and artillery I have found it very difficult for the weaker side to fight a prolonged wargame. This may be due to my rules, but I think it is pretty general.

I was hoping that other wargamers might have found a solution, either through the rules they use or some other factor

Ottathome

Thanks for your informative post.

Our campaigns seem to have some similarities. In particular the aim of both is to produce good wargames.

However I am not sure that I could incorporate your ideas.

The army commanders in my campaign have full control of the strategic (map) campaign. I take control when a battle is declared and I fight it as a wargame.

There is a very clear comparison between the campaign map and the wargames table. Indeed each square on the map is exactly the same as one square on the wargames table. This allows the army commanders to select ground and plan their battle. It would be hard for them to accept that I would just change the composition of their corps to provide a better wargame.

However I will study your suggestion and see if there is something I could use to solve my problem.

Hello thistlebarrow2!

Most battles are really one sided so its a common problem that we solved years ago. We use Polemos rules by Baccus for 6mm figures, but you can use any scale.

The rules contain command points, army morale totals and base removal. If one side does not concede then the winner is determined by which side has scored the best in the three categories in a certain amount of time. Normal battles run the full day, but the one sided ones have a limit of two hours. If time permits we do it again.

Oddly enough the one sided games have proven to be the most enjoyable as the natural game dynamics simply take control. The larger side is generally on the offensive, but it takes time to get their numbers into play. Also being on the offensive generally means you take greater losses up front and then get the rewards after. What this does is make it very difficult for the larger force to find his sweet spot before the clock runs out. Naturally the smaller force is constantly looking to exploit every possible defensive position they can. These games have proven to be a blast as the pressure is constantly on both sides to beat the clock.

So all you need to do is establish a reasonable criteria for winning, some sort of numbers loss, etc. and cap the games at two hours. These also make great evening games. So now you will have the best of both worlds, full day big battles and part day or evening battles.

Best regards,

Glenn

Glenn

Your post has given me hope that there might be a solution after all.

My house rules and campaign rules are designed to work with the campaign system, so it would be difficult for me to just change the rules to Polemos.

My wargames have to last 12 moves, because each wargame move is one hour in the campaign and each campaign day is 12 hours. It would be difficult to change this, because the map is a duplicate of the wargames table, and the movement rate confirms when reinforcements arrive on the table.

I take your point about the attacker taking more casualties until he can close with the defender. However I have found that if one side has twice as much artillery and cavalry as the other, they can dominate the battle. The cavalry can pin the enemy infantry. The artillery cause more casualties before the attacking infantry move forward. This seems to be a common problem with all of the wargame rules I have used, not just my current house rules.

Is it different with Polemos?

The winning or losing is not a problem. The number of casualties is. All wargame casualties go back into the campaign. If one side has suffered heavy casualties it will have a knock on effect for the rest of the campaign.

If this happens once it does not matter. If it happens too often it would ruin the campaign.

Would Polemos be able to solve this problem?

Hello thistlebarrow2!

Sounds like Polemos might not work for you.

I do suspect, however, that your artillery might be a tad too powerful. So you might want to have a closer look at that. Also it takes time to deploy lots of artillery which might be another thing to look at. These are two common faults with a lot of Napoleonic rules. Artillery was not as powerful as many rule systems have them and they rarely moved once they were deployed.

Cavalry should not be able to pin infantry. They simply form square and move off.

Polemos has a better balance with all arms and their effects. They also don't track casualties, you just remove units. So although they probably won't work with your system it wouldn't hurt to obtain them to get some ideas on how to get a better balance.

The real key your after, however, is something to track that shows that one side is doing more damage to the other. It could just be casualties if that's all that you track. The other critical feature is a time limit. You need to establish a reasonable time that will allow both forces to do some damage but not long enough for the other side to bring to bear overwhelming numbers. What your actually trying to do is abstract a rear guard action without forcing the smaller side to just skedaddle. The larger side should not be able to effectively deploy all of their superior numbers too quickly.

In our simple games the smaller side is deployed and the larger side is coming on to the table. By the time the larger side has most of their forces deployed and committed to action, which always seems to include a couple of attacks the time is up. We often have four or more players and the two hours just flies by.

What were doing should work for you or anybody else. You just need to tinker with it to fit your system.

Best regards,

Glenn

Another thought: Given that you are committed to 12 hour battles, the key lies in both what time contact was made, and how many corps are engaged. Many battles were fought in the afternoon (Waterloo being one). You might consider the hour your are engaged with a simple die roll, or make it as complicated as you like. but the real meat of the idea lies in how many corps are engaged.

Say, for example, 3 corps meet 3 corps. That would be a 12 hour battle, as both sides are equal. But if 4 corps met 3, every aggressing corps would subtract an hour off the clock. So, if 5 corps met 1, 4 hours would be taken off the battle, and the defender might just have a chance to hold for 8 hours against a deploying enemy. Certainly would screw up neatly laid plans of deployment. The attacker would be somewhat hard pressed under a time crunch to deploy his troops and crush such a puny enemy. You might also equate the time crunch to the time of day ( 5 corps against 1 might be a noon fight, ending at 8 in the evening). A portion of that time would find the attacker marching onto the field for the first 4 turns, leaving only 4 turns to rush at the enemy. It's all about the difference in the superiority.

Hope this makes some sense…

I think telestic warrior has analyzed the problems correctly.

You have to see that Corps would usually be 10km long in march column. It would need about half a day that its end could reach a battlefield.

So usually a weaker side would not know, that the enemy is stronger. It would learn that in the course of the battle.

And it makes sense for a weaker side to battle, because for most of the battle, the stronger side would not be able to have its superiority count. So a Corps could block a stronger force easily for half a day. The problem for the weaker force was usually that it could end the battle only with nightfall. So it had to hold on until then.

So the interesting part in playing an uneven wargame battle is one of those cases:
- Can the weaker force block the stronger force long enough that its reserves change the outcome (The british at Waterloo.)
- Can the weaker force block the stronger force long enough that the rest of its army can get an advantage. (The french at Quatre Bras [if you agree, that it was a sideshow to Ligny])
- Can the stronger force , that will become weaker later, win before this happens. (Napoleon at Waterloo)
- Can the weaker force, that noticed too late the superiority of the enemy, hold out until darkness.

You need campaign rules that makes this happen.

Yes, they key to many battles are deployment times, so either start in the morning with one corps vs one corps and the others trailing on one-by one OR you hang around at wait for more to deploy, which gives the weaker side a chance to bug out or at least fight at even odds for a while.

Hi Glen

My rules are designed to be fast play and fun. I don't think the artillery are too powerful, but when they achieve a hit they have a decisive effect. They require a total of at least 8 with 2D6 for a hit. So they often fail to hit. But when they do it immediately affects morale and combat effectiveness of the target. In effect an elite brigade becomes a trained one.
In addition there is only one gun figure for each corps, so any when odds are two to one the artillery effect doubles.

It would not be possible to change this balance, and indeed I would not wish to do so.

The whole aim of the rules is to give a decisive outcome within 12 game moves.

It is becoming clear that fighting uneven battles as a wargame will not be an option. I will have to work on abstracting such combats. The important thing is the number of casualties per side, so this should not be too difficult.

Thanks for your comments, they have been very useful to help me decide how to tackle the problem.

Regards

Paul

Gunnysgt

The map movement and table movement is coordinated. Each map square is replicated by a scenic square on the wargames table. There are 12 hours in a campaign day, and 12 moves in the wargame. So arrival times are set by the campaign players, not by me as umpire.

No battle is allowed to start after midday. There would not be sufficient time for the attackers to reach the defenders and have time for combat.

So it is quite likely that the first corps would arrive at 9am (move one), and the second at 1pm (move five). The problem is that the initial combat between stops the weaker side from retreating.

When the combat is transferred from the map to the table there is always one map square (5 miles) between the attacker and defender. On the wargames table this is one scenic square (24"x24"). If the defender is to avoid being pinned, he needs to retreat as soon as the game starts. This is what they usually do, resulting in a pretty boring wargame as both sides move across the table avoiding combat.

Decebalus

My campaign is not designed to be a historical campaign. Its declared aim is to produce interesting and challenging wargames.

Whilst I understand the points you make, they are relevant to a historical campaign.

My problem is whether it is better to wargame uneven battles, or just abstract either a rear guard action or an entire battle.

Having fought two or three uneven battles as wargames it is clear, at least using my rules, that they are a pointless exercise. The weaker side either retreats and avoids battle, or fights and loses heavy casualties.

It is becoming clear that my better option would be to abstract such combats

Hello Paul!

Ah, okay, I see your underlying problem is really the scale of your units, 1 figure equals 500 men, 1 gun per corps, etc. At such an extreme scale any difference in the number of units present would be very difficult to overcome. It does seem to me as well that as long as your using this kind of scale your best option is indeed just to use a chart and a dice roll.

Best regards,

Glenn

Hi Glen

I had already introduced the dice and chart to the campaign, but it proved unpopular.

The aim of the campaign is to resolve all battles as wargames. I then write a battle report, with move by move photos, of the wargame. This provides the campaign player with full details of why he won or lost.

The chart and dice throw is a poor substitute, even when a fictional battle report, without photographs, is published.

So I hoped to find some mechanism which I could incorporate into my rules to allow uneven battles to be fought as a reasonable wargame.

It is now pretty clear that is not an option.

I will look at providing better intelligence to each commander to allow them to avoid such battles. If they still opt to fight them I will abstract the battle to provide appropriate battle casualties, but not fight the wargame.

Discussing it on the forum has helped me to reach this conclusion. Thanks to all who offered advice or suggestions.

regards

Paul

Couple of ideas. First everyone has mentioned the weaker force knowing and then retreating and the stronger force piling on. But how does the stronger force really know its that much stronger. In some cases enough recon would reveal where all the other enemy forces are, but generally you wouldn't know you had 3 corp to the other guys 2.
Second, any action by a corp is going to disrupt it. Ammo expend, weapon broke or lost, troops slinking away. You need a sort of fatigue penalty. For each hour a corps is in action it must spend one hour reorganizing (in addition to the regular overnight rest. So if you committed all three corps, you won't have anyone to exploit. Or worse, it the enemy gets late day/or next day reinforcements, you'll be fighting at a disadvantage.

The corps was an independent marching unit. Thus the first battle is always between two opposing corps. The scouting cavalry ensure that commanders have intelligence in the areas around them. If they try and stand when outnumbered they know what battlefield circumstances to expect.

Casualties are determined not by tactical operations but by end of battlefield situations. A unit in close contact to the enemy when the retreat is sounded will take more casualties than those unengaged.

I get the sense that the OP wishes to add a dynamic to his campaign that his rules will not support, without seeing the need for changing anything of substance. That does not seem possible. He rather ignores the points that might necessitate more complexity or deeper design thought. To incorporate what Telestic Warrior and Decebalus post both the campaign rules AND the tactical rules need far more complexity, unless perhaps you use probability in the form of cards or dice to determine the timing of arriving or departing forces on the table. This is simplistic, but the only option without using different strategic and tactical rules. I get the sense that is not and never was a consideration, but not do so makes the search for any decent solution futile, as it proved to be from the OP's standpoint. Each to their own-nothing wrong with simplistic, if you like that. Unfortunatly one can't have it both ways. You either make an attempt at what the OP calls 'historical' (or what I would call a far better representation in a game of the way troops moved and deployed)or you go with a far greater abstraction (simple campaign rules, 1:500 house rules). As the OP has stated many times, the campaign is simply meant to provide a gaming method for he and his wife to fight (my inference is 'fair') battles on the table, NOT to provide a more complex campaign experience for the PBEM commanders. It appears from the OP's posts that thats what it will remain, and what you get when you sign up for the campaign.

Thistlebarrow,
the suggestions that myself and Decebalus have pointed out are not intended to fight historical battles, but rather to try and help solve your interesting conundrum. I know you do not wish to re-fight historical battles. We were only using the historical battles as examples to show what Napoleonic warfare was like.

To repeat what we said with the examples taken out;

I think it is important to remember that an outnumbered army could not always choose to retreat every time they wanted to. Sometimes it wasn't possible.
It's difficult to say without knowing the details of your rules, but I think you are making it too easy for the outnumbered army to;
i) know that they are outnumbered too soon.
ii) make an escape once they do know they are outnumbered.

You have to see that Corps would usually be 10km long in march column. It would need about half a day that its end could reach a battlefield.
So usually a weaker side would not know, that the enemy is stronger. It would learn that in the course of the battle.

And it makes sense for a weaker side to battle, because for most of the battle, the stronger side would not be able to have its superiority count.

So the interesting part in playing an uneven wargame battle is one of those cases:
- Can the weaker force block the stronger force long enough that its reserves change the outcome.
- Can the weaker force block the stronger force long enough that the rest of its army can get an advantage.
- Can the stronger force , that will become weaker later, win before this happens.
- Can the weaker force, that noticed too late the superiority of the enemy, hold out until darkness.

You need campaign rules that makes this happen.

So we are not saying that you have to engineer a campaign so that it follows an exact historical example, we are saying that you could change or improve your fog of war rules to prevent the players having a Gods eye view of Corps movements and knowing exactly how large an army they are facing.
This means that the smaller force will not keep retreating every time they get outnumbered, because they won't know that they are outnumbered (until the battle has started, by which time it should be a real challenge to retreat in the face of the enemy).
This will mean that you get to fight battles where the outcome is extremely variable, and also have some incredibly varied and tense scenarios. The players will be as nervous as hell not knowing whether they should commit their reserves to destroy a "weaker" enemy, or instead hold back or even retreat before a potentially bigger reinforced army.

Just my two-cents.

Le Grand Guartier general.

Perhaps. However I still can't see how he's going to handle this when he gets to the transmission linkage from game time to real time. If 12 hour battles are the norm the self-imposed necessity of resolving all contacts by table top battles means that he has to fight a battle a day for five to eight days in a month. One assumes that eating and sleeping is part of the experience of he and his wife. Would that I had time to devote five to eight days a month. I am of course assuming it's a monthly turn if it's a weekly turn then… where is there time for anything, or the same if when one turns contacts are all resolved the next campaign segmant can begin.

This in my experience has always been the critical design flaw in any of these efforts, and where the gears are quickly stripped on the vehicle. It turns into a job.

I of course reject complexity simply because I view the game as a game not a job,

Having a table top battle with long odds shouldn't be a concern in Napoleonics. It was a common tactic to load up on one flank to punch through the enemy's lines. An outnumbered opponent faced three choices: fight a battle of attrition he was likely to lose on the best ground he could find and hope for reinforcements (quickly), retreat (which will likely cost you two battle's worth of casualties), or gather his forces and attempt to smash through the opponent's line (basic battle of maneuver).

What you need is a mechanism that accounts for morale loss if an opponent breaks through your lines and attacks your line of communications (shock). The bigger the force, the more supply it needs. You can't fight without shot and powder, so even a large force must retreat if their communications are threatened. If your force is turned, your line of supply is cut, and your backs are to the sea, you're in a world of hurt. Good examples of this are Leipzig where Napoleon attacks a larger Allied force with his Young Guard division and heavy cavalry attempting to break through to the southwest and Austerlitz where his smaller force smashes through the lines and annihilates the Russians who have their backs to the lake. At Jena, Napoleon cuts the Prussian line of communications to the west, the Prussian army is destroyed as it is forced to retreat northeast away from it's line of communications and capital.

This generates the need for reserves on the part of the attacker which will even out the odds.

Maxim XXIII. "When you are occupying a position which the enemy threatens to surround, collect all your force immediately, and menace him with an offensive movement. By this maneuver you will prevent him from detaching and annoying your flanks, in case you should judge it necessary to retire."

Dear Joe

OK, you have historical precedent on your side, but what about the guy who's got to command the very understrength flank or force. Not much fun for him. But that's where the problem comes in doesn't it. He's not there! Thistlebarrow2 and wife are so who gets the short dull end of the pointed stick and who gets the points.

Again, there is the set-up-time involved with a battle which is fairly constant and must be done for each contact.

Yah, it's nice to quote the brilliant success' but all too often it turns into a slog when wargamers are in charge, and you wind up at Petersburg not Austerlitz.

I am a fan of taking some of the choice away from the table commander "in charge" once forces are committed, in the form of command and control rules that make changing orders to subordinates that are in contact with the enemy as problematic as they really were.

Dear O Schmidt

It's the gamer's call. If he doesn't have the skill, the will, or the rules mechanics to win a battle of maneuver, then he has to retreat. Problem solved. But I'd recommend challenging players to fight battles where they have to find a way to beat a bigger or better army through maneuver. Cut their line of communications, defeat them in detail, etc. Think of it this way, you're playing with house money. No one expects you to win, but occasionally you will.

If you want a purely mathematical equation to determine victory then you might want to use the quantified judgement model (QJR). A forces power is calculated as force strength (number of men) x operational environment factors (defending good ground) x force quality (higher average troop rating). You compare the ratio of blue force strength to red force strength and you get a probability of victory.

Dear Joe

Agreed-- but!

I'm more concerned with the result of reconciling the problems of game time to real time, the latter of which I think pretty much mandates what you can do regardless of the rules.

I myself can't be assured of completing the tabletop battles with the variables in simulation I require, without being able to leave a game set up and go back to it. For me, needing to finish in a specific time frame is something life will always intrude upon, so I don't attemt any deadlines, just do the best I can in the most eficent manner possible. This of course means that real time management becomes less of a driving factor in what can be attempted or accomplished.

Dear Le Grande Quartier General

Agreed. I have lavish space for one in my house but again I don't like to leave a table set up, and when I have, when everyone gets back to the game they're all brain dead and don't remember. So for neatness sake I always take it down. What I meant in my statement was not making room in real life for the game, but sawing off parts of the game to fit it into the real time available. Most people have far less lavish space than I (I get the whole of the finished basement for gaming and can have games in my 18 by 31 foot living room too). Therefore rules have to be designed to move the game along.

I also agree with you on not giving players complete control or too much control. They'll only screw it up.

For me, sawing off parts of the game makes it less fun… The players? Well, they can try anything a commander of the time could have tried, even if it becomes a horrific mistake. The need is to have the odds of success in changing or extracting one from an order and plan get lower as the rigidity of force increases with it's level of committment. The penalties in casualties, morale and fatigue will reflect their 'real word' risk. The Players who attempt manuevers on a sliding scale from 'could usually pull it off' to 'foolish risk of failure' often see things come apart, and look like fools, but on occasion they emerge heroes- just as it was :)

Thomalley

I am looking at this problem from a wargame point of view.

By the time the battle is transferred to the wargames table both sides are in full view of each other, so the relative strengths would be obvious.

I think each corps would be able to fight (wargame) for at least 24 hours before any sort of fatigue penalty should be taken into account

When the wargame is completed, the results are transferred back to the campaign. And at that point the after effects of the battle would affect both armies.

TelesticWarrior

Thank you for your additional comments on the point made by yourself and Decebalus

I understand your point that an outnumbered army would not always be aware of the fact until it was too late to withdraw. On the other hand I would not expect the general of the weaker side to stand and fight once he was aware. Surely he would retreat if he did not have firm orders to hold, and had his line of communication open to do so? That being so I feel it would be better to abstract the resulting rear guard action rather than fight it as a wargame. As I explained earlier I am running a complicated campaign where there are six campaign areas each with one French and one allied army. I have to reconcile the twelve conflicting sets of orders for each day, and then fight the resulting battles. It is not unusual to have three or four contacts each campaign day. Each wargame takes us one week to complete, so if we game every contact there will be long delays between each campaign move. I don't mind doing so, but only if I can find a way to make the resulting wargames enjoyable.

I think the long march column point is addressed in the campaign. The whole campaign map is similar to a board game, with the difference that every square can be represented by a scenic square on the wargames table. Each square is 5 miles. A corps can march three squares, 15 miles, per day.

In the campaign there is always a one square "no man's land" between the two armies. When the battle is transferred to the wargames table this "no man's land" is represented by a 24" scenic square. It takes a corps four moves (out of twelve) to cross that square, and another two moves to deploy. Hence six moves, or half a day, are spent before they can start to engage the enemy. Would you agree that is sufficient time to represent the deployment delay?

I can see that it would be interesting, and even enjoyable, to wargame the occasional uneven wargame. But if you have to game a series of them, all of which are predictable in their outcome, they cease to be very enjoyable. Plus there is the delay in the campaign mentioned earlier.

My real problem is that I have found the outcome to be so predictable. I don't think my wargame rules are particularly at fault. True they are house rules, and strongly reflect my style of play. But I believe this is a problem which applies to most, if not all, commercial rules. I may be wrong in this belief, which is why I posted my question on here. If there is a commercial set of rules which would allow variable outcomes I would very much like to know how they do it.

Regards

Paul