Preparing for some larger Napoleonic games

Over the past week, I opted to step away from gaming with my samurai armies and instead brought out the classic 30mm Spencer Smith Napoleonic plastic miniatures for some tabletop action. Back in November last year, I shared a couple of posts (here and here) about my attempts to adapt SPI's free board game, Napoleon at Waterloo, to a tabletop setting with free movement rather than hexes.  The reason for wanting to move to this style of rules is so I can game some of the bigger battles of the period.

A game setup with old Spencer-Smith 30mm miniatures

Since last playing the games back in November I have made some rule changes, most of the changes are to the combat resolution table (CRT) which uses the difference in the attacker and defender scores, rather than the combat ratio.

The sequence of play is IGO-UGO with each player taking a turn to move and conduct combat with their units in the following sequence:

1. Move units
2. Move HQ (General)
3. Resolve Combat
4. Remove units with more than 4 hits.

During the movement phase a player can attempt to move some or all of their units. A unit may move up to the distances listed below in a straight line provided the unit is not within 3 inches of an enemy unit. In which case a unit must remain in contact and cannot move.

• Line Infantry and Artillery - 6"
• Light Infantry - 9”
• Cavalry and HQ - 12"

Units may pass through other friendly units providing they are not within 3 inches of an enemy unit, and all Units must cease movement immediately once they are within 3” of an enemy unit.

Smoke is used to show units in contact with the enemy (with 3 inches)

Note - A unit’s facing does not matter in the game currently. This is something I may add, but was not in the original SPI rule set.

Units may only move into contact with the enemy if they are within 24 inches of an HQ. This is reduced to 12 inches after 50 percent of the army’s units are eliminated.

Combat - Any enemy unit within a 3-inch of a player’s unit must be subjected to an attack, even if it results in one unit confronting two enemy units. All units, excluding artillery, have a range of 3 inches for combat, while artillery have up to a range of 12 inches and can shoot over other units at targets. Artillery when making a ranged attack over 3 inches will ignore any attacking hits.

An example of how using artillery to attack one enemy unit, allows both line infantry to make a +1 attack (2 units - 1 unit with no modifiers)

A combat results table (CRT) is used to determine combat outcomes. Add up the total of attacking units, ignoring any light infantry units, and add the total number of defending units, modifying the scores in the following situations:

• Add one for any line or light infantry unit in buildings.
• Add one to the defenders if all the attackers are fighting uphill or across a fordable river.
• Add one if veteran unit is involved.
• Add one if the attacking units are a mix of line infantry and cavalry.

Note - Light Infantry are only counted when defending.

Finally, subtract the defending score from the attacking score to determine the CRT column to use. Then roll the die to determine the combat outcome.

Combat results table

CRT Notes:

• A1, A2, A3, A4 - all attacking units take 1, 2, 3 or 4 hits.
• D1, D2, D3, D4 - all defending units take 1, 2, 3 or 4 hits.
• (R) all defending units must retire 6 inches, pushing other friendly units back in the process if necessary.
• A1/D1 - all defending units and all attacking take 1 hit.
• Light infantry can opt to retire 6 inches and reduce their hits by 1 unless being already forced to retire.
• Artillery making a ranged attack over 3 inches ignore any attacking hits.
• When a unit retires or is eliminated, one of the attacking units can move into the previous enemy position.

Some combat examples below…

A joint attack by cavalry and infantry allows them to make a +2 attack (2 units +1 for a combined attack = 3 - 1 unit with no modifiers)

A joint attack by light infantry and infantry. They only make a 0 attack (+1 -1) as light infantry do not count in attacks.

2 line infantry make a +1 attack. Unfortunately for them they roll a 1 (black die) on the CRT. The result is an A1 so they both take 1 hit.

The next post will be a game report of an engagement battle using deployment ideas from the free 2x2 Napoleonic rules.

A final close up photo.