"Shuffling the deck: the ability of generals" Topic

In our SYW rules, "A Glorious War", we dice for a general's ability. There are three levels & these have some affect on command & control & fighting performance: nothing too radical here.

The French have a greater probability of gaining poorer leaders than, say, the Prussians.

I don't want to make up something impossibly gamey, but should it be possible to assign commands *after* the dicing for quality? I mean did French C-I-Cs assign their stable of subsidiary generals their brigades according to their known ability or was it random? If the former, I could justify pushing the "poltroon" to a reserve command etc rather than being stuck with him leading my main attack.

Your birth says what you command.
Are you going to tell the Duc d'Enghien that he is too stupid to command the right wing? I thought not. Put reliable reserves behind him.

We always give the senior command on the British side playing The Sword and the Flame to the newbie because his daddy Lord Puffington paid good money for his commission.

I have used similar systems and always allow payers one "swap." So if you roll a lot of poltroons, sorry you're screwed. But if you just get one or two you can send oen somewhere he won't hurt you.

Never works that way in the end. They always screw you

"Your birth says what you command." Never a truer word Winston :) half the fun is having duff generals taking all your cream cavalry and charging a ditch, the laughter is always loud and mocking 8D, I like Extra Crispys ideas for a bit of command and control.
Cheers all happy gaming

… if you roll a lot of poltroons…

Sounds like "On to Richmond".

I don't know much about generalship during this period, but wouldn't social standing and political/court connections come into play?

Dear Duc d'Enghien
You are too stupid to command the right wing.

Turns out yes, yes I am

Also, senior formations deploy on the right. The Royal Bumblers cannot allow the lowly Ipswich Fusiliers to form to their right.

I play WRG 1685-1845; All Ese is Heresy!: and our house rule is that general figures don't roll to find out their quality until necessary. So, when you place your general figure in the path of routing troops and he's not bold; he goes with them!