Napoleonic Play Test: French Revolution

I had a game on Monday evening. This one was set in the French Revolutionary
period: Italy 1796.

A French force was tasked with assaulting and capturing a small town occupied by
an Austrian army. The latter proved a very stubborn opponent displaying real
determination in thwarting the French plan of steam-rolling over them.

Their superior cavalry had a decisive impact on proceedings in eliminating the
much poorer French cavalry and rolling up their infantry which were too slow to
push through the assault on the town.

All in all a very creditable performance from the Austrians with their army
playing to it's strengths: good cavalry, quality infantry when deployed in a
defensive position. I played this solo and must admit I was a little biased to
the French so I'm pleased the Austrians overcame this.

There were a couple of modifications I used to assist solo play:
1. Unit Activation: when within engagement range (30cm) and not in contact, each
unit rolls a D6 prior to movement. On 2-5 they act as normal, on a 1 a Control
Test is invoked. A further dice roll result, based on some variables, determines
whether the unit obeys orders, halts, retires or advances towards to enemy.
2. Charge Test / Charge Response Test: again to avoid the "sure thing" charge
and "stand firm" defender, I've devised a simple method of rolling vs Morale
with a few modifiers to determine charge initiation, response and defensive fire
resolution.

The next couple of battles planned are outwith the current envelope of covered
periods:
1. I want to do a late 16th century Japanese clan dispute. I'll use the
Renaissance Rules with a bespoke Army List. Infantry units will be four bases
not six. This will make the Samurai cavalry more potent.
2. An Early World War I encounter between a BEF advance guard and a German
equivalent. I've the rule modications and army lists drafted. All that remains
is finding a time to play it out.

One thing I really like about these rules is their speed. I got the Monday game
setup, played and cleared away in under two hours and still felt I'd had a
satisfying wargame with credible outcomes and historical gameplay.

Dale

Thanks for the comments. I appreciate the spirit they were given in.

To answer some of your points. Firstly the context. This was a solo game where I
wanted to "mix it up" a bit and introduce some unpredictability. I actually
quite like Neil's rule on Close Order Infantry and would normally use this in
games.

On specifics: CO Infantry will roll 2D6 and take the better result if they have
more bases than their opponent, otherwise it's a straight D6 Morale Test. This
does overide the rule as you say.

Hasty Square: I'm not fully wed to this rule, however, my intention was again to
introduce a bit of chaos in the infantry response. If the receiver passes the
test they may stand and perform defensive fire on the charging cavalry so I
didn't specify a need to form square in this instance. On reflection maybe there
is scope to give this option. If the receiver fails but stands in place, this
invokes the Hasty Square deployment with the downside that the unit loses a base
if it fails the Test. With a retire the unit must give ground with no capacity
to fire on the attacker.

I quite enjoyed the impact the amendments had on the game as it certainly took a
fair degree of certainty out of the unit interactions. The great advantage of
the solo game is that you can tinker and modify without aggravating a live
opponent.