Review of Wargame Rules

I have just updated our “house” wargame rules.

We have been using them for about six years.   They were written to allow us to fight wargames of battles produced by our 1813 campaign. 

The campaign itself was designed to allow us to use all of our model soldiers and scenery.   Each army has 128 infantry, 16 cavalry and 4 guns.   We had twelve such armies, representing most of the nations which took part in the Napoleonic Wars.   Our 6x6 foot wargame table was designed to comfortably hold that number of 28mm wargame figures per side.   And our wargame rules were designed to allow us to fight multi corps battles using that number of figures to represent four army corps per side.

Our 1813 campaign was designed to be solo.   So it did not matter whether the wargame rules were acceptable to anyone else, as only Jan and I would be using them.  We have played a lot of wargames using these rules, on average about 30 per year for the past six years.

We have adjusted the rules over the years, as a result of this comprehensive play testing.   But we have never done a complete update.

For some time I have been aware that anyone reading the rules, and following the campaign, would find some rules which did not make a lot of sense.   For example when I wrote the rules I referred to casualties as “1 hit”.   But when I wrote the battle report I would translate this as “10% casualties”.   So when I did this update I have amended all of the rules to use the latter.

In addition I have changed a number of particular rules

Rule 1 – Movement on Blinds

A complete rewrite to reflect the new, campaign friendly, procedure

Rule 8 – Combat Quick Results

The addition of rules for troops behind the crest of a hill

Rule 09 – Combat at Edge of Woods or BUA

When more than one brigade attacks, each one is decided by a separate combat

Rule 18 – Morale

I have removed automatic routs.  

I hope that this rewrite, and the individual amendments, have made the rules a little easier to understand and follow.  

You will find the complete rules here

http://napoleonicwargamerules.blogspot.com/