Wargame Rules Review - Combat

 

This week I have play tested normal combat, which should be the easiest of the three situations.

Each side has one corps commander, four infantry brigades, one cavalry brigade and corps artillery.   Each side also has the commander in chief.   Normally he would have to supervise three corps, but I wanted to see just how useful he would be.   Each CinC has taken command of half of a corps.

I still use poker chips to identify each commander.   I also use them to decide the sequence of play.   A duplicate chip for each commander is placed in a bag.   One if drawn and that commander is activated.   So in this test game there were four chips, one for each CinC and one for each corps commander.

The sequence of play for each commander is

Command – rally disordered brigades and issue orders

Movement

Firing – artillery, skirmish, musket

Melee – cavalry and infantry combat

Morale – test for any brigade which received casualties or is shaken

The French were attacking.   They were deployed just outside of artillery long range.   This ensured that the fighting would commence with the first move.  

Remember that all dice throws were assumed to be a 3.

Long range artillery fire was ineffective against enemy guns, but very effective against infantry.   Each time they fired they achieved a hit.

Morale tests would result in a pass for one casualty, but fail for two.  However by ensuring that there was a formed brigade within 4”, and also a general within 4” meant that a brigade with two casualties would also pass their morale test.

The C class Cossacks charged the B class dragoons.   The first round of melee was a draw, but the second was won by the dragoons.   The Cossacks routed with 20% casualties, the dragoons were shaken with 20% casualties.

Infantry combat is more complicated.   A column of attack can move 6”.   Or it can move 3” and deploy into line.   Or 3” and volley fire.   Or it can skirmish without any movement penalty.   Skirmish range is 4”, musket range 2”.   Depending on the class, skirmish ability and musket ability the method of attack can be chosen.   If the combat is one brigade on one, a line is much more effective than a column.  However two brigade columns against one brigade in line is far more effective.   The choices are easy to understand, and add a new decision making requirement to infantry combat.  The play test proved that a brigade with better combat ability always won in melee or firing. 

I would say that this play test achieved the first requirement.   The balance was right; the difference would be the 1D6.   This is what I wanted to achieve.

So far, so good