"Scope of a game - what size battle?" Topic
59 Posts
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Sho Boki | 02 Sep 2017 5:34 a.m. PST |
It depends on the taste of people. Some loves to play with separate skirmishers, some as Emperor and some in the middle. Also it depends, how many commanding levels to use. In game terms the statement "But when the General is managing a single battalion, he is NOT managing the whole battle." means, that player must act only on one level and therefore have only 2-6 units to command. This is great for multiplayer games. "Skirmish" gamers play with figures and "Emperor" gamers give them couple of orders per game, not touching figures by himself. But when there are very few players who are mentally capable and want to participate in every aspects of battle and time is not a problem, multilevels is answer and Napoleon may organize charges in every part of battleline even on battalion level. I myself prefer games, which allow multi- or monoplayers manage with groups of battalions as lowest level and act as Emperor himself and all his generals at the same time. So from scope Skirmish-Middle-Emperor I remove Skirmish. For quick games I use Division as lowest game Unit instead of groups of battalions. Smaller table and fewer figures. Here are Milhaud cavalry Corps at Waterloo for quick games. Two Divisions = four brigades = eight regiments. May act as one Unit of Corps or two separate Units of Divisions. Figure ratio is 1:200
And here are lowest Unit for big games – two cavalry regiments. With minimal amount of figures. Figure ratio 1:50-60
The same Unit with more trooper figures. Figure ratio 1:20
These Units are designed for my EMPEROR rules. boki.ee/Wargame/EMPEROR/EMPEROR/EMPEROR.htm |
Brownand | 02 Sep 2017 8:20 a.m. PST |
I play the size of battle that fit with my 15mm and 28mm figures. I don't want to go smaller than 15mm so maybe that restricts the battles I can play but I never missed that. |
Glenn Pearce | 02 Sep 2017 8:44 a.m. PST |
Yes indeed battalion commanders could order their battalions to do whatever they want. However, they were generally under orders from above to be in a certain formation and a in certain position within the brigade. Likewise so with the brigade and Division, etc. Most MBU/RPS players understand this but rarely pay attention to it. The most common action I see in MBU/RPS games is what some call "shotgun" games. That's where it's basically every unit for itself and they have a tendency to move in a scatter pattern. Every unit is forced to think for itself and try to evaluate what formation it should be in every turn. Once a game gets going you have absolutely no idea what kind of actual orders could ever have been issued or even what units are in which brigades/Divisions without stopping the game and questioning every player. At times some of them are even baffled. So this perceived basic right or requirement to actually play real Napoleonic games you need to be able to change formation has morphed into an uncontrollable animal that oddly enough has no actual resemblance to real Napoleonic tactics. To further this point let's look at one of the basic drivers for MBU/RPS games. What I call the "square dance". It starts off with the player who has the cavalry spending most of his time trying to track down the infantry player who does not have them in square. The infantry player in turn spends a lot of time trying to avoid being caught by cavalry when they are out of square. I actually have no idea what is really suppose to be behind this as I don't recall ever reading any orders to the effect "you will spend your day trying to catch infantry out of square". The myth perpetrated behind the "square dance" seems to be another abomination of actual Napoleonic tactics. Some call it a "combined arms attack ". The warped logic here is the cavalry pin the infantry in square, the artillery roll up and pound the infantry and then they are finished off with an infantry assault. Yes that's how large scale Napoleonic tactics work and to some degree the odd square. However, there is a major flaw in all of this besides the impossible unrealistic orders. That's squares can move and cavalry can't stop them. Once you realize that most of what is practiced in a lot of MBU/RPS games is false and about as far as you can get from actual Napoleonic tactics the transition to SBU games starts to make a lot of sense. Before we made the transition to SBU games we estimated that players spent roughly 30% of their time just mulling over all the possible formations that they might have to change in a turn. Ending our MBU/RPS games made a huge difference in our turn and game time. Hopefully some this will allow some of you to step back from your MBU/RPS games with fresh eyes and give you time to think about just what is actually going on and is it actually realistic or false. |
John Miller | 02 Sep 2017 3:15 p.m. PST |
1-60 for large Napoleonic games, a corps or more per side. For the ACW we use 1-40, (the units were generally smaller), and fight with a minimum of a corps per side. I personally have not fought any small battles recently but, IMHO, 1-20 would be the desirable ratio for a few brigades per side. John Miller |
forwardmarchstudios | 02 Sep 2017 4:46 p.m. PST |
Glenn Peirce- I'm just starting to get into SBU battalions myself. I'm doing this in part so I can use kriegspiel blocks to play really big battles with some modified Black Powder rules. I'm trying to make them more realistic as regards time/distance and outcome. How much distance would you think proper to give a battalion of say, 500 men in three ranks? Based on my calculations such a unit would physically cover 110m and some change. Would about 130m of scale-model frontage be proper to show that unit not only in line, but in its potential column deployments? A unit of tightly packed battalions, such as a brigade in a reserve formation of some sort, would be shown by a stack of battalions on one battalions frontage. At the scale I'm doing (this is for huge battles played on maps with lots of open table space), I'm thinking that any excess frontage would be eaten up by that extra space. Oddly I was just thinking about this topic today. I was already planing on doing an experiment tonight with my home-made kriegspiel blocks and a Wagram map to see if I can get my 1-base battalions to fit correctly into the correct deployment zones, even though many, if not most of the French battalions at Wagram were deployed as columns (at least according to Bowden's map). I'll try to get some pictures of the final results to put on my blog. Should be interesting! |
Lion in the Stars | 02 Sep 2017 6:52 p.m. PST |
"Isn't it the job of the Battalion Commander (whatever his title is in the appropriate language) to decide what formation his battalion is supposed to be in at any given time?" No – most of the times this was ordered at divisional or higher levels. Example is Katzbach where the prussian army and corps commander is discussing whether to deploy into line or stay in column with the brigades (divisions) that are to assault. Similarly with McDonald at Wagram etc. At some point individual initiative could take over – but usually at brugade level.
Well, sure, because a unit of cavalry would force the entire brigade into square(s), as the cavalry would be a terrible threat to a unit that broke and ran. But even in those cases where a battalion is marching in column, isn't there still enough space between columns to deploy into line? So regardless of actual formation, it's frontage would still be fairly constant (OK, I'm ignoring orders to have a unit in 3 ranks spread out into 2 ranks or whatever). I should note that I really like the look for FMS' 3mm forces played at 1/600 groundscale, with everyone in their assigned slot on small bases, so you can put them into whatever formation. I just want to put those smaller bases onto a larger sabot to move them quickly, and so that large sabot needs to be wide enough to cover your in-line frontage and deep enough to cover your depth in column (or Square, whichever is bigger). My problem is that the rest of the gaming group wants to play with larger minis. I think I can get them down to ABs (which lets us recycle rural terrain from Flames of War). So, probably 1:20 or so if I can convince them to paint that many troops. |
forwardmarchstudios | 02 Sep 2017 11:03 p.m. PST |
Ok- I cut up and organized my kriegspiel blocks and…… Yes, SBUs can accurately depict a large historic unit deployed in columns. I made up Oudinot's corps at Wagram and set it out on my desk. His frontage was exactly one mile (according to Bowden) with 13 battalions at the widest point. Each of my battalion pieces represents 120m, which is a bath tubbing of different unit sized, and actually these are a bit bigger, on average, than the battalions in II Corps. This is almost exactly 1600 scale meters with these units.
Not the best photo. This is how II Corps would have looked to the Austrians east of Baumersdorf (based on Bowden's map). I've reversed the battalions so that you can see the OOB information on the back of them. I'm doing a 2mm kriegspiel/Forward March Miniatures hybrid army for the world biggest/smallest Black Powder game. This is one entire corps- I'm not sure if every battalion is in the exact right place, but this is kind of how it looked. You can zoom in to see the OOB info- each battalion in this set-up is going to be represented, with differentiations in size based on troop strength. Here's what they'll look like from the front.
I'm "painting" these by spray painting them white, then coloring three sides with a light blue sharpie, then putting the OOB information on the remaining "blank" side. Then I glue a flag on. Some of these look a bit different as I've been experimenting. The higher ones in the back are what most of the blocks will look like. I like the idea that the other guy won't know until its too late that he's about to get charged by the 57th . . . which is in there, somewhere. Anyway, regarding SBUs, it's quite interesting that even though these battalions were deployed in columns (per Bowden) they covered a frontage EXACTLY large enough for all of them to deploy into line. Win for SBUs. I gave up on doing my own rules; Blucher does everything I wanted in a brigade-scale game, and BP works well enough for games at the battalion level, with a few tweaks. I'll be dropping a blog post on this battalion level Wagram game soon as I get a chance. It shouldn't take too long to get done; I think I need to order some more bicorne artillery, but that's about it. Should only cost me about $30 USD, give or take…. |
Sparta | 03 Sep 2017 3:03 a.m. PST |
"Square dance" Is base on the misunderstood concept that infantry with defended flanks could not defend it´s own front and therefore always had to form square with cavalry around. It stems from a basic design flaw in many rules that gives property to the cavalry attack that it did not have. Read Ardent du Picq |
Glenn Pearce | 03 Sep 2017 8:42 a.m. PST |
Hello FMS! The Waterloo Companion by Mark Adkin shows a French battalion of roughly 500 men in line, three deep with a frontage of roughly 125 meters and a depth of 5 meters. A column of attack deployed at half distance is shown as a frontage of 45 meters and a depth of 45 meters. The standard basing used in Polemos for 6mm is 60mm x 30mm which is deemed appropriate to cover both formations and squares. So I would say that your calculations are within reason. Yes indeed SBU games do make it very easy to obtain reasonably accurate brigade frontages and deployment areas. It also gives a better reflection of movement difficulties by not allowing players to change their formations to cram units into unhistorical spaces. The typical cramming problems caused by allowing players to change formation on a whim is huge, but is generally ignored by MBU/RPS players. I'm making a shameless plug here. Please purchase a copy of my recently released rules "Ruse de Guerre" from Baccus6mm. Although designed for the French & Indian War, American War of Independence and the War of 1812, they can also be used for most Horse and Musket periods as is or with a few of your own house rules, if you feel the need. The design was open ended to not only allow me to cover three different periods, but also for clubs like mine to adopt them as "club rules", as well. The benefit to you is you should be able to play both levels of gaming that your aiming for using a single rule set rather than two. I think that it's a bit of a breakthrough in SBU gaming as your base can represent anything from a section to a brigade. You simply change what you call your base as you move the level of your game up or down. Grow the size of your game as your collection grows. It's also MBU friendly as long as they use consistent basing. They can even change formation if they want, but the game itself is formation neutral. It also has no actual ground scale, time scale or ranges. If you feel you need them just add them in. However, there is generally no need to actually have them and pretty much every player is oblivious to their absence. The game is designed around the base size which you can also change. It is designed for 6mm, but pretty much any scale can be used. Best regards, Glenn |
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