Wargame Rules - Introduction

I have been wargaming for almost fifty years, and for most of that time have searched for that Holy Grail of Wargaming – the perfect wargame rules.   Eleven years ago I found them.   Or at least I found my version of them.

For the first thirty years or so I worked my way through a series of wargame rules, all of them the best, or at least most popular, of their time.   “Charge, or how to play wargames” was the first, it was also my introduction to wargaming.   WRG “Wargames Rules 1685-1845” came next and lasted about ten years.   Then came “In The Grand Manner” which lasted another ten or fifteen years, though there were a lot of “house rules” to tide them over.   My last commercial rules were “Le Feu Sacre”.   I have dabbled with others, but they were the main influence.

I have always gone through the same sequence with rules.   First they are hard to master, then they are fun to use, finally they disappoint when the flaws become obvious through a lot of play.   My solution had always been to write “house rules”, but they often produced more unexpected problems than they solved.

So for our new project I would write my own rules.   Jan and I decided that we would restrict our wargaming to just the two of us so the rules did not have to be comprehensive.  In fact they need only be a series of prompt sheets.

I was reasonably happy with our current rules, which were “Le Feu Sacre”.   However they were designed for single corps or division sized games with infantry battalions and cavalry squadrons. They also had 12 figure battalions as the basic formation, which did not fit with the figures I had on my shelves.   And they used a lot more artillery units than I had available.   And, of course, I wanted to fight multi corps battles with brigades.   However I liked a lot of the game systems in “Le Feu Sacre” and would keep them in my new wargames rules which I would write myself.

I wanted a set of rules that would be easy to use and would provide a fast and fun wargame.

I wanted all nationalities to have an equal chance of winning a battle.   No point in using all of my armies if one or more were destined to lose every game.   The Spanish might have a poor field army, but they would have a lot of guerrilla bands who would cause attrition casualties.

I wanted the rules to rely to a large extent on luck.   Casualties would be hard to inflict (need a good dice throw) but would have an immediate, long lasting and critical effect on morale and combat effectiveness.

Most important the rules would have to fit well with the new campaign.   It was important that each game should last 12 moves, so that each move would be one campaign hour.

It was also important that the table movement rates would cover the same distance on the table as the campaign movement rates did on the map.  

The campaign included all of the major participants in the Napoleonic Wars, so it was important that the wargame rules would allow some sort of national strengths and weakeness.   I wanted a French corps to “feel” French, and a Spanish corps to “feel” Spanish.

Finally it was important that wargame casualties would transfer to the campaign.

In short the wargame rules must support campaign rules.   They were not designed to destroy the other side in one battle.   My campaigns were designed to last for three to five battles, consequently the wargame rules must allow the defeated side the abiliy to recover to fight again, even if it might take two or three campaign days to do so.

The rules have now stood the test of time.   We have used them three or four times a week over the past ten years.  I have amended them in the light of game play.  This has proved effective because I fully understand the consequences of each rule change.   Special rules, for example guerrillas, have changed drastically.   But the basic rules have remained the same.  

You could use any commercial rules with this comprehensive wargames system, but I would strongly recommend writing your own wargame rules.  It is the only way that you can get exactly the type of game you enjoy playing.  There are no compromises to make them acceptable to the majority.   Most important because you have written them you can easily change them as necessary.

If interested you will find my wargame rules here

http://napoleonicwargamerules.blogspot.com/

Next time we will have a look at how the rules are designed to meet the requirements of the campaign and also to provide the type of wargames we like to play.

The Wargames Table

Table at the start of wargame

I have found that size is not in fact everything when it comes to wargaming.   We are fortunate to have had a permanent wargames table for the past 30 years or so.   The first table, which we used until we moved to Spain, was 12x6 foot.  This was the maximum we could fit into the available space.   It was mostly used for our regular wargames group of 4-8 people.   When Jan and I used it on our own we found that it was really too large.   It would take 500-600 figures easily, which was too many for two players.  And we had to move around the table a lot, which did not add to the enjoyment of the game.

When we moved to Spain I decided that 6x6 foot would be the ideal size for the two of us.   We could fight battles with our planned armies of 150-200 figures per side with sufficient space to manoeuvre.  

The hardest problem was whether to have a table with 2x2 foot scenic squares, or a wargame mat.   Our first table had squares, because it was inspired by two visits to Peter Guilder’s Wargame Holiday Centre.  His squares were 3x3 foot, but we decided that 2x2 foot would be much more flexible.

We finally decided on using 2x2 foot squares again.  They do not look as pretty as a wargame mat, but they are much more practical for wargames based on a campaign. 

Each square on our strategic map would be a 6x6 foot wargames table.   Each square on our tactical map would be a 2x2 foot wargame square.   This would allow us to make tactical maps which looked exactly like a series of wargames squares.   If both were numbered it would make transferring from the map to the table easy and quick.

I designed the squares to cover as many options as possible.   I could store 12 squares under the wargames table, plus 9 squares on the table itself.  So the maximum number of scenic squares would be 21.   All squares, except for those with hills, would have different terrain on both sides, either roads, rivers or no terrain.   The final combination of squares was as follows:

7 hills – 3 hills alone, 2 road passing through hill, 2 hill one side of road

7 rivers – 3 with road for bridge, 2 straight river, 2 river bends

11 roads – 5 straight roads, 4 T junction, 2 road bends

9 no terrain

No great planning went into this combination of scenic squares, but they have stood the test of time.   I have not added to or changed any of them, and they have given me a surprising variety of wargame tables over the years.

The Model Soldiers – Armies and Orbat

British v French with four corps each side

The organisation of my 20 allied and 16 French corps will obviously depend on my proposed campaign.  I will deal with the campaign in a later post, but will explain it in detail to make my order of battle clear.

In order to be able to use all of my model soldiers on a regular basis, I need a campaign which will involve all of the nations I have collected.   The campaign would be fictional, but I wanted it to be based on an historical campaign.   Given the wide range of nationalities I could choose from 1812, 1813 or 1814.   I decided on 1813 because all of the national armies were reasonably equal in ability and despite the Russian defeat the French still held all of Germany and a lot of Spain.

I will also explain how I choose my wargames table later on, but for now it is important to know that the size is 6x6 foot.   I like to have sufficient space to manoeuvre during my wargames, and I know from experience that I could use 150-200 28mm figures on that size of table.     Each of my allied armies has 176 figures and 4 guns.

I therefore decided to organise each of my armies as 4 corps each containing 32 infantry, 4 cavalry and 1 gun.  

This would give me five allied armies.   Austrian, British/Portuguese, Prussian, Russian and Spanish.   A total of 20 corps.

I only had 16 French corps.   This included one old and one young guard corps and six standard French corps.   In order to create 20 corps I would have to use four of the standard French corps twice.  But they would be in different armies and therefore would not appear on the table at the same time.

The five allied armies, and the five French armies opposed to them, would be deployed throughout Germany and Spain as follows:

First French Army v Prussian Army in Northern Germany

Second French Army v Russian Army in Central Germany

Third French Army v Austrian Army in Southern Germany

Fourth French Army v British/Portuguese Army in Northern Spain

Fifth French Army v Spanish Army in Southern Spain.

These armies have remained the same throughout the ten years that the campaign has been in progress.  You can find detailed orders of battle and photographs of each army in the Campaign Diary Blog here

http://1813pbemcampaigndiary.blogspot.com.es/

Next time I will explain how I designed my wargames table.