In this play test, I wanted to try out three things:

• A new artillery rule
• Command and control for the Prussians
• A lot of cavalry in a battle.

Artillery rule:  Napoleonic rules design requires a careful balance between infantry, artillery, and cavalry as well as column, line, and square to get the proper “paper-scissors-rock” feel.  I was feeling that artillery was under powered and didn’t seem to have a large impact on the game.  I couldn’t figure out why the artillery seemed fine in the ACW version of Look, Sarge, No Charts, but that it felt wrong in the Napoleonic version.  In conversations with Sam Fuson and Dave Wood, I finally realized that it was about “formations.”  Neither the WWII version nor the ACW version have explicit representation of formations.  In the ACW version, a hit at long range merely accrues a morale check, not a hit.  I added a rule that says that long-range artillery (only!!) fire against columns or squares results in a hit as well as a morale check.  The math was okay, but I wanted to see how this worked on the tabletop.  I tried to test this two weeks ago at HAWKs night, but the way the scenario developed there was little long-range fire.  Yesterday we had a chance to really try it out.  The consensus was positive, so that’s how the rules will be written.

Those of you familiar with the Napoleonic Wars will know that the structure of the late-war Prussian army was three battalions to a regiment and three regiments to a brigade.  This gives a Prussian brigade nine battalions, closer to a French division.  This means that pitting a French division against a Prussian brigade involves about the same number of battalions, but the French have three order dice and the Prussians only one.  If the number on the Prussian order cube doesn’t come up on a card before the end of the turn, nothing in the whole brigade (division) acts.  That seemed okay, but on the other hand if the card is drawn, the whole brigade (division) acts at the same time.  This had two outcomes in the game: 1) in the attack, it was easier for the Prussians to manage their forces and 2) it took a Prussian player a long time to complete his activation.

In our second game yesterday, we added a regimental commander for the Prussians.  I was afraid this would give them too much tactical flexibility, but it didn’t seem to do so.  In fact, by having four dice for the brigade (division), one for each regiment and one for the brigade commander, it actually seemed to reduce the synchronization of the Prussian attack.   I’m pretty sure that’s how I’ll write the rules; however, while a Prussian brigade commander has a morale rating of 4 (typically), I think that I’ll make commanders of Prussian line and reserve regiments 4’s but landwehr regiments 5’s.

Finally, since I had finished a lot of Prussian cavalry recently, I wanted to put a lot of cavalry on the table and see how that worked.  I think the effect was about right.  When the French launched their brigade of six hussar and dragoon regiments at the French cavalry division of three chasseur regiments, there were a couple of turns of swirling melee before the Prussians broke through.  It seemed about right.  in the second running, the French cavalry was stymied by a line of Prussian squares.  A couple of French artillery batteries caused some damage, but there was no infantry to send forward to break the squares.  The effect was good, I think.

In summation, I’m pretty happy with the rules the way they are shaping up.  The play test games have been fun.  It is most gratifying to hear people who have sworn off Napoleonics games say they really like these rules.

I took a quick break from 10mm Prussians to try my hand at 10mm fantasy figures.  These are from the Games Workshop Battle of Five Armies starter set.  They are mounted for the under-development Look, Sarge, No Charts rules set for fantasy, ancients, and mediaeval warfare.  I always thought the old Ral Partha dragons were underscale compared to their 25mm figures.  I think the dragon looks about right compared to the infantry.

Because these figures are mounted on strips, they paint rather quickly.  GW recommends that you leave the strips on the sprues while painting them.  I have two BOFA sets that I bought second hand.  One set was till on the sprues, while the other was already removed.  I actually think they were easier to paint after being removed.

The standard base size for LSNC rules sets is 3″ wide and 1.5″ deep.  It takes four of the GW strips to fill a base at this size.  A BOFA set includes six strips of these figures (men with spears).  Two sets, then, have enough figures for three bases of spearmen.

Now back to Prussian landwehr cavalry!

I helped Chris run a Look, Sarge, No Charts: WWII game.  One of the HAWKs, Greg Priebe, teaches distance learning history courses at HCC.  He offered extra credit to his students who played in one of the historical games and wrote a short paper about it.  Two of them joined the game.  One of them seemed to have a really good time and may show up at a future HAWKs night.  Two other long-time gamers played in the WWII game as well.

I ran a reprise of my “Tripod Down” game from Cold Wars.  At Cold Wars it was a convincing Earthling victory.  Today, it was a convincing Martian victory.

The scenario focuses on a Martian rescue mission to retrieve the crew of a destroyed Martian tripod.

I had planned to stay a little longer, but I wasn’t feeling well.  I had double hernia surgery last Monday and still wasn’t feeling 100%.  I couldn’t wait to get home and stretch out on the couch for the rest of the evening.

In the end we may have acquired four new HAWKs as a result of supporting the event.  Even if that is not true, I think those of us who supported the even had a good time.

I’m continuing the long slog toward Origins and Historicon.  The last big tranche of figures is this batch of Prussian Landwehr — 600 of them.

It’s a few more battalions than I need.  About one in three battalions should be Landwehr.  I painted about 700 line and reserve infantry, so I really only needed about 350 Landwehr.  The way the figures are bagged, the math worked out to make 20 battalions.

To finish up my Prussian Corps (plus) I just have a few regiments of cavalry and the artillery to go.  Now that the big batches are done, I think doing a couple regiments of cavalry at a time will feel less like work.