Campaign Rules

So far as I know there are no popular campaign rules available commercially.  This may well be because every player has different ideas about how a campaign should be fought, even more than every wargamer has strong ideas about how battles should be fought.  

The campaign is vital to my concept of Comprehensive Wargame System.   Each of you will have a different idea of what you want to achieve.   Whether it is a series of skirmish games or an attempt to model a major campaign you will need some rules to control the campaign.

The purpose of my campaign is to provide interesting wargames.   It has been designed to produce a series of phases, which are mini campaigns.   Each will last about three months and will provide 4-6 battles to wargame.  

I will explain what I cover in my campaign rules.   This is not a template for everyone to use, because some aspects will be more important than others.   You may want a lot more detail in your supply system or prefer to wargame a siege of a walled town.

Like the wargame rules, the campaign rules are designed to provide the type of campaign that I want to play.   They are a little more user friendly than the wargame rules, because they include how the campaign works and the army organisation.

The remainder of the 12 rules deal with different aspects of the campaign, such as movement, supplies and combat.   There ae also specialist rules for milita and guerrillas, garrisons and siege of walled towns.

Great care has been taken to keep these rules as simple as possible.  Like the wargame rules, they have been written to provide the type of campaign I want to model.  I do not have to explain or justify any rule, if I like them that is sufficient.

However I have tried to model the general characteristics of a Napoleonic campaign, at least as I understand it.   I have kept logistics and supply simple, because I don’t want to have to spend hours updating charts.  However if you run out of supply you immediately suffer attrition casualties.  These will affect the combat and morale of the corps and brigades affected.

The campaign has been designed to produce battles which will make interesting wargames.  But there are many battles which I would not want to wargame.   A number of combat rules have been written to decide the outcome of these minor battles and casualties resulting from them.   They cover such things as uneven battles, corps v corps skirmish and cavalry brigade skirmish.

There are three aspects of the campaign rules which require a little more explanation.   First is how I control the length of each campaign phase.    Second how battle casualties and campaign replacements work.  Finally how the supply system controls the flow of the campaign

In the next blog I will explain campaign phases and how they work.

You will find my campaign rules here

http://napoleoniccampaignrules.blogspot.com/