The rules have gone through a lot of changes to get this far, which for those who have had a go at rule writing will be all to familiar with. They started life as a set of solo based rules, were i wanted to have a Napoleonic game, mainly based around command and control. I wanted to simulate the command and control of troops on the battle field. From the deployment stage, to the early engagements through to victory of defeat. The first few ideas were played with but were soon discarded. I then hit upon an idea about ladders or more precisely the steps on a ladder.
This ladder idea slowly took shape, and became the back bone of the rules. It enabled the game mechanism to control the movement, combat as well as the withdraw movement, and would represent the lower ranked officers commanding their battalions and regiments, as they advanced and fought on the battle field. The player would represent the divisional commander who would be in control of the main battle formations trying to carry out the orders from his corps commander. More on this later.
The advance orders ladder
A quick look at the basics of the ladder idea. This is the advancing ladder which is used in the command phase of the main rules. Our example is going to be a brigade of French infantry under the command of General Margaron, we have given him an average command rating, and his brigade is made up of 4 battalions of average line infantry. He has been ordered by the divisional commander the Player to advance on the British infantry that are in a small village north of his position.
General Margaron's brigade ready for orders
For our example Margaron's brigade receives his orders at 6:00am. All units that are ordered to advance will automatically advance from step 5 on the advance orders ladder, see the exsamples of the advance orders ladder below. The dice roll is used to see what step on the advance ladder it can move to before it has to test to continue to advance.
The advance ladder has 4 steps numbering from 5 being the lowest step to 2 being the highest step.
All advancing units will start on step 5 and will continue to step 2, dicing to test for each step per turn.
The player rolls a D6 dice and will re roll a 6 or 1 score, to obtain a score of ether 5,4,3 or 2 The result is the steps number that his command will reach before he has to retest.
Our example brigade player rolls a 4 so the brigade will continue to advance from step 5 onto step 4 without having to test.
General Margaron's brigade having rolled a 4 will advance to step 5 on the advance ladder in turn ones orders phase.
When a unit passes its advance test it will follow the action described for that step. The movement shown on the right of the advance ladder is the distance between your units and the enemy units/position. Movement in the rules is given as distances between units and positions, a little different i know. as each step is taken the players units will move closer to each other until step 2 is reached and combat is diced for. More on that in a later post.
Generals Margaron's brigade on step 5 they are know 50cm from the British position
What the advance ladder looks like in the rules the action/description gives a run down of the action. The outcome is what the player must do for the next turn/step, and the movement is given as the distance between your units and the enemy.
STEP 5 ON THE ADVANCE LADDER
ACTION DESCRIPTION OUTCOME MOVEMENT
unit/units will advance to long test to go to step 4 if required 50cm
artillery range or same distance
from ordered position
In the next turn our example brigade will move to step 4 on the advance orders ladder as he dose not have to test to go onto step 4 with his original dice roll of 4.
from ordered position
In the next turn our example brigade will move to step 4 on the advance orders ladder as he dose not have to test to go onto step 4 with his original dice roll of 4.
General Margaron's brigade know on step 4, are moved up to 30cm from the British position.
STEP 4 ON THE ADVANCE LADDER
ACTION DESCRIPTION OUTCOME MOVEMENT
unit/units will advance to test to go to step 3 if required 30cm
effective artillery range or
same distance from ordered
position
From the next turn our example brigade will have to test to see if his brigade will advance towards the enemy. The test is the same D6 test from the first turn. I will cover this in more detail in a latter post. If this test is passed then our brigade will advance onto step 3. if he fails then it will not move for that turn, and will have to wait for the next turn to try and test again. For our example we will say that the dice were kind, and the test was passed.
General Margaron's brigade is know on step 3 and is moved up to 20cm from the British
STEP 3 ON THE ADVANCE LADDER
ACTION DESCRIPTION OUTCOME MOVEMENT
unit/units will advance to test to go to step 2 if required 20cm
long musket range or short
artillery range, or same
distance from ordered
position
Again in the next turn our example brigade passes their next test, and move onto step 2 this is the last step on the advance ladder and once reached, the brigade will go onto the combat ladder which i will cover in another post.
General Margaron,s brigade is know on step 2 of the ladder and is moved up to 10cm from the British position.
STEP 2 ON THE ADVANCE LADDER
ACTION DESCRIPTION OUTCOME MOVEMENT
unit/units will advance to go to combat ladder next turn 10cm
effective musket range or
same distance from ordered
position
Well that's the advance ladder in its basic form, but what if the enemy don't just sit there and wait for you to advance on their position, they may fire on you as you advance, or even advance on you. All this is covered in the rules, and i will be giving examples for each in due course.
I hope this has been of some interest, and will go some way to explaining the main rules. feel free to ask any questions or give some feed back on any points you may think of, as these rules are a work in progress and it is all ways go to get some feed back from fellow wargames. Till next time my friends
Good post Stephen and thought provoking. A question. On turn one Margaron's Brigade threw a four and advanced to step four, if he had thrown three would he have skipped four and moved directly to three? With that in mind if he had thrown a two, would he have skipped four and three and made a large advance forward?
ReplyDeleteIf Margaron had thrown a 3 he would still have to start on step 5 but would move through to step 3 without having to re test. There are no large movements in the rules each turn has its movement phase so to speak but an interesting idea cheers S
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