I played in the Saturday morning Loubino scenario (as commander of the Russian infantry corps on the left), and besides enjoying the game itself I was sufficiently impressed with the rules to pick up a copy.
A few things I particularly liked:
The command system is elegantly constructed. The echelon immediately below army command is called a "Force" and can be a corps or (depending on the army) a column or division. Forces in turn are comprised of "Formations", which in this scenario were divisions. Forces are assigned geographical objectives and to change them is a multi-turn operation; the Formations of a Force have orders which are verbs – Attack, Defend, Support, etc. – and which can be changed somewhat more rapidly depending on the situation, the quality of the commanders involved, and the nature of the change. For example, my corps' objective was the very ground we occupied and the lead division was on "Defend" orders, but my reserve Grenadier division was on "Reserve" orders which meant that they were well in hand and could respond quite rapidly to an order change. This Force + Objective, Formation + Order template neatly and quickly committed players to a plan, and structured the dynamics of the battle with a minimum of paperwork (an "X" on a map for corps, a single word written on a roster card for each division).
The game mechanics give a real reason for commanders to keep batteries in reserve. Batteries once deployed require time and, more importantly, command effort to displace, but batteries in reserve are much more easily committed to cover an unexpected need. As historically commanders almost always kept some artillery in reserve, whereas most wargame rules encourage "all goods in the shop window", I was particularly pleased by this feature.
I plan to try these rules out with my club in a month or so – probably creating a scenario for Sacile 16 April 1809.
As for the Loubino scenario itself, I'm not sure what course of action could have saved the Russians, given that the Westphalians made an ahistorical appearance. We could have attacked, but the only difference that would have made would have been to place us farther forward when we became
outflanked on our left. At the start we made the decision to transfer a light cavalry division from our left to bolster our right flank – had we not done this perhaps the left could have held out longer against the Westphalians, but in that case the Wurttemberg cavalry on our right would have outflanked us. Given the disparity of forces and the false position we began in (too wide a position to cover with our available forces, and one of our front-line divisions without its artillery) I thought we gave as good a showing as was possible under the circumstances.
-Rick Wynn
gets started with Flintloque.
