The Battle of Domburg

Start of move 3

The first battle of the Gera campaign is not one I would have chosen to wargame, but it is going well despite my reservations.

It is the first wagame with the enlarged corps, now with three divisions and each division the same size as a previous corps.   2^nd Russian corps attacks 4^th French corps as they attempt to cross the river Saale.   The leading French division has cleared the river; the second is crossing by the bridge.  The third is five miles behind and will not arrive until the start of move 5.

We have reached move 3, and the French are holding their own.     The french cavalry have deployed forward, which is delaying the Russian advance and deployment.   It’s a good move, but it puts the cavalry at risk.  However if the French can hold until nightfall (move 8) they will be fully deployed by the next morning.

So the game is going well, but we are not very happy with the rules.

For some time we have been tinkering with command and control.   We have abandoned the Poor Card, which could result in a poor commander missing his turn entirely.   We have also changed command points (CP).

Under the original rules each commander rolled an average dice and added 1 if a Poor commander, 2 if Average and 3 if Gifted.  The result was the number of orders he could issue.  As it takes one CP to move each regiment, or to fire or to skirmish, this meant that there was never enough CP to do move and fight all of the regiments.   That was the intention, but the result was too restrictive.

Worse still, it favoured the defender and punished the attacker.   The defender did not have to move his regiments and always had sufficient CP to fire or skirmish.   The attacker rarely had enough CP to move all of his regiments (and himself), let alone to skirmish or fire as well.

So we changed the rules to allow one CP for each regiment, plus an average dice.  Then minus 1 for a Poor commander, par for Average and plus 1 for a Gifted one.   The result was too many CP, and defeated the whole idea of command control.

So mid game we have changed it once again.   The new rule is 1 CP for each formed regiment, plus one for a Poor commander, two for an Average one and three for a Gifted one.  But nothing for a disorganised, shaken or routed regiment.   The result should be that when all of his regiments are formed the divisional commander can move them as required.   But when he wants to skirmish or melee he will have to prioritise.  And when his regiments start to take casualties and become disordered, shaken or in rout he will lose his CP when he needs them most.

It feels like it should work, but then again so did the previous change until I started using it in practice.