Wargamer's Block: One-Hour Wargames Marengo

With scale issues and movement rules dealt with, it’s now time to discuss my amendments to those OHW’s rules bits and pieces dealing with actual fighting, i.e. how to best model thousands of muskets, rifles, cannons, howitzers, bayonets and sabres inflicting casualties, spreading terror and generally doing nasty stuff to the enemy.

I find this the weakest part of OHW’s rules-as-written (RAW) from the viewpoint of historical realism, since there’s a distinct lack of modelling wrt many of the peculiar troop interactions which gave Napoleonic battles their specific flavour. My goal with these amendments is to put in the ruleset as many ‘true-to-period’ tactical choices as possible, without using anything else than OHW’s basic framework; that is, a given unit will inflict ‘X’ hits on the opponent in a given situation, and that’s it. Is it a delusional goal? I think it’s not, but I’m biased. Here’s what I’ve come up with:

(1) Slight change to Turn Order: Shoot first, ask later

In OHW’s RAW, shooting occurs after movement – but units cannot both shoot and move. This means that on any single given turn, you cannot ‘soften up’ an enemy position before committing to an assault, since your charging unit/s will most probably obscure LOS to the intended target. This is very frustrating. Since OHW makes things quite difficult for the attacker already, I’ve simply switched the order to allow a modicum of coordination between supporting and assaulting units.

(2) Don’t mess with the Cuirassiers: no amendments to Heavy Cavalry

In the RAW, cavalry units clearly represent squadrons of shock cavalry. They possess the strongest attack in the RAW, and a flank charge by them is as decisive as it should be. All in all I think they’re mostly fine, if perhaps a tad too strong in frontal/unsupported charges for my tastes… but I’ve decided this might be more due to a lack of close range firepower from musketry and artillery rather than anything wrong in the cavalry rules per se. So I still play shock cavalry exactly as in the RAW.

Now - one might be of course eager to model all other kinds of cavalry in Napoleonic engagements (and I confess I already have rules for Hussars and Dragoons in my games), but OHW’s ethos is to just outline the quintessence, so let’s leave all this to future posts.

In OHW terms, this means (I’ve included a quick recap of each unit’s special movement rules, which were discussed in the previous post, for convenience):

Unit name: ‘Cavalry’

Troops represented: around 750 men in several squadrons covering a 250m (6”) frontage; I use an exaggerated base depth of 50m to model the space occupied by straying/second wave squadrons.

Most probable formation: double line at the front; not all effectives are in the front ranks when at full strength.

Movement allowance: 12” (500m) per turn.

Special Movement rules: Can interpenetrate light infantry at any angle, and stationary artillery with the same facing. Cannot enter woods. Damaged (1d6-2) upon moving through mud/marsh.

Attacks:

- Strong (1d6+2) close combat attack. Needs LOS to charge in.

- Inflict double hits on targets charged on flank/rear.

Special Defences:

- Repulsed 6” maintaining facing if target not dispersed.

(3) Making Smoothbore Artillery less Smoothboring

In the RAW, artillery is quite boring. They always inflict the same number of hits regardless of range and/or positioning. Due to this, some of the typical historical behaviors of troops facing artillery batteries just don’t occur. I’ve chosen three key aspects of Napoleonic era batteries I wanted to model in my games:

(1) close range canister fire should be scary,

(2) bombardment should cause more damage to squares and en enfilade than defilade fire, and

(3) cannonball range should be somewhat dependent on the ground’s condition.

Quantitative hard-and-fast assumptions include:

- Effective cannonball range is assumed to be 1000m, increased to 1500m on good terrain due to bounce

- Long range artillery bombardments are unsustainable in the long term but not quickly decisive

- Effective canister range is assumed to be 250m

Unit name: ‘Artillery’

Troops represented: One or two field batteries plus accompanying infantry escort, distributed on a 250m (6”) frontage; the overall depth of a battery including caissons is around 150-200m! My blocks are 150m deep (I mean at scale, just in case anyone is wondering).

Most probable formation: Individual pieces spaced by around 15m laterally; accompanying infantry interspersed in both width and depth.

Movement allowance: 6” (250m) per turn. Can’t fire if moved, implicitly modelling limbering/unlimbering.

Special Movement rules: Cannot use fords, cannot enter muddy ground or marshes, cannot enter woods, cannot shoot out of a BUA. Can interpenetrate light infantry at any angle.

Attacks:

- Bombardment: weak (1d6-2) ranged attack up to 24” (1000m), range increased to 36” (1500m) if the entirety of the firing path above 12" doesn't include rivers, lakes, muddy or marsh areas (inhibiting cannonball bounce).

- Canister: medium (1d6) ranged attack up to 6” (250m).

- Enfilade fire: inflict double hits if firing into the flanks of line infantry and cavalry (only).

Special Defences: none.

Design Notes: the enfilade fire bonus makes obtaining/avoiding flanking important, and brings new life to a few of OHW’s scenarios in which being flanked should be an issue – but it isn’t much. Improved canister effectiveness makes frontal engagement somewhat more risky (especially by cavalry, which will be still in range after a repulsed charge).

(4) Poor Bloody Infantry

Line infantry is very appropriately the most common unit in OHW’s random H&M‑era army list generator, but it feels a bit ‘flat’ when played by the book. Their 12” shooting range represent my biggest gripe with the RAW: if 12” represents musketry range, then 6”-wide infantry units can only be individual battalions at most. This makes standard six-units games très petite, and the abstraction of tactical formations highly questionable. Instead, I think OHW’s very abstract mechanics are best suited to higher scales, so I decided that standard infantry units should represent regiments, demi-brigades or understrength (that is, most) brigades, with other units scaled accordingly. But this meant that all attack ranges had to completely be re-thought. By doing this, I took the opportunity to introduce a few more tactical choices for infantry, in particular about battle tempo/intensity of effort… More choices mean more possible errors and more interesting games, at least I hope.

Hard-and-fast assumptions include:

- Effective massed musketry range is 125m

- Massed musketry is scary at close range

- Sharpshooting/sniping has a slightly longer effective range due to better equipment/training

- All line infantry units have an ‘implicit’ screen of skirmishers around 250m forward of their front

- Due to their forward positioning and their longer range, skirmishers can start low-intensity engagements 500m forward of the parent infantry unit.

- All line infantry units have a few integral battalion guns whose effective range is 500m

- Initiating a determined bayonet charge can dislodge shaky enemy infantry regardless of whether actual hth fighting occurs

- Given enough space and time, infantry could form square to protect themselves quite effectively from isolated cavalry charges

- Massed infantry was very susceptible to artillery when in squares or when receiving enfilade fire

All of which can be translated surprisingly easily into OHW’s jargon:

Unit name: ‘Infantry’

Troops represented: Around 2000 close order muskets on a 250m (6”) frontage. Again, I use a depth of 50m to represent the space occupied by supporting battalions and/or column depth.

Most probable formation: Continuous front line of 2-3 ranks, often with supporting battalions at the back; or ordre mixte; or attack columns, in all cases with interspersed space to maneuver effectively.

Movement allowance: 6” (250m) per turn. Can’t fire if moved, implicitly representing the adoption of formations optimized for movement or combat. The only type of formation explicitly represented under my amendments is the column of route (see previous post).

Special Movement rules: Can interpenetrate light infantry at any angle, and stationary artillery with the same facing. Cannot enter woods.

Attacks:

- Massed Musketry: strong (1d6+2) attack with a range of 3” (125m)

- Long-range, low-intensity engagement via skirmishers and battalion guns: weak (1d6-2) attack at a range of 12” (500m).

- Bayonet charge: when an enemy unit is destroyed via massed musketry, optionally move the firing unit up to 3” to the previous position of their (now defunct) target, simulating the last decisive assault.

Special Defences:

- Form Square: when charged by one or more cavalry units, optionally change facing immediately before contact.

Design Notes: Shooting ranges are now more realistic. Having two types of attack makes it possible to differentiate between low- and high-intensity engagements, enabling the commander to choose local battle tempo. Moreover, in infantry vs infantry engagements there is now an option to shoot at long range then retreating before an opponent who wants to close in to musketry range, thus making fighting withdrawals a possibility. Bayonet charges are only implied but allow to capture terrain more quickly than in the RAW. The free turn toward a charging cavalry unit abstractly represents the adoption square formations: it will considerably protect the musketeers but also make them more vulnerable to artillery previously shooting on its front due to the new enfilade bonus.

(5) The unbearable lightness of light infantry

I find ‘skirmishers’ are the most problematic unit type playing them by the book. First of all, what do they represent exactly in the RAW? It’s not clear, but – given that infantry units are probably battalions - probably sub-battalion-sized, ad-hoc formations of voltigeurs, chasseurs and the like. In the RAW, they move faster than line infantry and can enter dense terrain (i.e. woods). The rules say they represent half the manpower of a line infantry, but can soak the same number of hits- thus modeling the protection afforded by their dispersed formation in a very Kriegsspiel-like fashion. However, I’ve found that unit-for-unit, RAW-skirmishers are the weakest troops, and often a liability rather than an asset. Their niche seems to be to enter woods and just stay there without accomplishing much… More often than not, the best plan when facing skirmishers is just ignoring them; they won’t be much of a factor in the end.

However! Historically, light infantry was much more than this: it was the prime choice for urban/BUA fighting, it was decidedly annoying to formed infantry at range (forcing them to either withdraw or close the range), it was a good counter for artillery, etc etc. Moreover, skirmishers should be much more vulnerable to cavalry than to massed musketry and artillery (while in the RAW, they can absorb a cavalry charge just as well as a massed infantry unit). It’s time to change all this!

To begin with, I’ll rename ‘skirmishers’ to ‘light infantry’, which is a bit more generic. These units might (rarely) represent ad-hoc light brigades, but a lot more often these will be infantry formations which, for a variety of reasons, have an unusually high proportion of skirmishers and/or a higher propensity than usual to approach the enemy in open order. Accordingly, this includes Voltigeurs, Legeres, Jagers, Chasseurs, Grenzers, Rifles, etc… but also standard line infantry formations ordered to massively reinforce a skirmishing line locally. Open order is not assumed for ALL troopers in the unit, but rather just by those actually engaging the enemy.

Here are the hard-and-fast assumptions I wanted to model in the rules:

- As discussed for line infantry above, skirmishers can engage enemy formations at around 500m (12”) forward of the unit’s “centre of mass”.

- Open order limits casualties from massed musketry and artillery bombardments, but is very vulnerable to cavalry charges, and does not particularly protect against sharpshooting.

- Open order troops should naturally avoid proximity with massed enemies.

- Sharphooters are very annoying to enemy artillery.

- Sharpshooters are individually more effective than massed musketry to enemy in cover.

- Except for a glorious cavalry charge in good terrain, the best counter to enemy skirmishers is having more skirmishers.

- The battle tempo of skirmishing is a lot slower than that of massed infantry/cavalry engagements (Clausewitz would say it “burns slowly as wet powder”).

- When faced with skirmishers, massed infantry can either accept slow attrition at long range, or close in to decisively disperse them.

An here is the same in OHW terms:

Unit name: ‘Light Infantry’

Troops represented: Around 1000 open order sharphooters on a 250m (6”) frontage. I use a depth of 50m (mostly representing empty space).

Most probable formation: Dispersed swarms of sharphooters, with individuals or teams of 2 men spaced by approximately 5-8m, each making most use of cover and shooting after careful aiming. If present, parent line infantry battalions are assumed to be at the back.

Movement allowance: 9” (250m) per turn.

Special Movement rules: Can enter woods. Can interpenetrate any unit at any angle.

Attacks:

- Sharpshooting: weak (1d6-2) attack with a 12” range.

- Accurate: sharpshooting hits are never halved due to cover (woods/BUAs/river banks).

Special Defences:

- Open formation: light infantry only take half hits from attacks by line infantry and artillery; however, they take double hits when attacked by cavalry.

- Disordered: light infantry units have no flanks; as such, cavalry cannot claim flank/rear charge bonuses (but hey, they still have the intrinsic x2 hits mentioned in the previous point).

Optional rule:

- Reinforcing skirmishers/Closing ranks: “Skirmishing” was more often than not a task assigned to units rather than a designation for ad-hoc units. According to this, you can always transform a line infantry unit into a light infantry unit, and vice versa. This can be done at deployment, or during a normal turn (counting as the unit’s movement). In either case, the freshly transformed unit immediately takes 1d6-2 hits due to confusion and reorganization, so use this sparingly. Elite light units like ‘l’incomparable’ 9^th light or 95^th rifles can switch between light and massed behaviour without taking hits.

Design Notes: I felt skirmishers were the most useless unit as per the RAW. Sure, they could occupy woods, but once there they couldn’t achieve much. I’ve boosted their performance considerably to bring them in line with other units. I feel they better represent ‘elite’ formations now, especially if you use the optional light/line morphing rule (I do, it’s fun).

Light infantry units can engage massed infantry at long range at an advantage (although not decisively so), but are disadvantaged if they get too close. In both cases, they slow the battle tempo with respect to massed infantry engagements, buying you time to decide when and where to commit your heavies. Massed infantry can force skirmishers to relocate by closing the gap to them. A clever trick by the skirmishers would be to retire through (interpenetrating) a formed line in the rear when threatened, leaving the advancing enemy infantry exposed to friendly musketry. The fact that their attack is never halved by cover makes light infantry units prime choices for urban assaults, as they were historically. They also are a good response to enemy skirmishers!