In my last post, I described a set of rules for battles with 54mm figures that appeared to be both comprehensive and fast.Written by Dirk Donvil and available from Caliver Books (Partizan Press), they are called About Bonaparte. In this installment and the following, I will report on a battle fought using these rules (with a couple of tweaks for the War of 1812). The scenario is drawn from One-Hour Wargames by Neil Thomas and is #5 Bridgehead. I copied the map although I enlarged it somewhat to an area of 4 feet by 3 feet (my dining area table is 5' by 3'). The map is shown below:
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| The American Army will be entering from the South, the British from primarily the North and East |
Red Force (British) rolled a 5 on a D6 giving them a force of 4 infantry, 1 artillery, and 1 skirmisher.
Blue Force (Americans) rolled a 1, giving them a force of 3 infantry, 2 artillery, and 1 cavalry.
Further dice rolls determined when and where the troops would enter and initially deploy. This gave the American force 1infantry unit, north of the bridge and within 6 inches of it at the very start of the game. On Turn One, the British would roll to determine who comes on and where. Their result was two units (1 artillery, 1skirmisher) entering at point B. On turn Two, one blue unit would arrive at point D.
So, here we have it. But before finishing up for today, let me give you some of the tweaks I mentioned earlier. Under the rules, all of the British (after 1809) are considered Veteran troops and additionally have an officer attached (this is critical when your opponent rolls a "flag" on one of his/her dice). Americans are Regulars/Trained, and have an officer with every two units, leaving one dangling if a flag is rolled against it. Otherwise, each unit of non-skirmishers may deploy 1 figure as a skirmisher. I hold to this for the British whose organization (historically) included a Light Company. The Americans at the time followed along to a certain extent except the "elite" companies in American Regiments included 2 flank companies, both often lights, whereas the British had one light, and one grenadier company for its "flanks". Thus, I allow an American unit to deploy 2 figures in a skirmisher role.
Next time: The Battle!
So far so good. It annoys me that the OHW chart prohibits all arms forces so for 6 units I sometimes roll twice on the 3 unit chart.
ReplyDeleteI have felt the same way,however, since this is a test of the rules, I thought the more random the OB, the better it would be. Usually, I do the same as you by rolling on the Three Unit table twice (although that too has led to some unbalanced forces).
DeleteThis looks outstanding. I am looking forward to the game.
ReplyDeleteCertainly the rules seem intriguing and the illustrations in the rule book are will help with the rules' intentions. We shall see.
DeleteDo you allow the British a figure to represent the grenadier company? For OHW I use the ACW zouave profile to represent grenadiers.
ReplyDeleteThe rules don't really go into that level, unless you are dealing with a full unit (e.g. a combined grenadier battalion, as used in the AWI). That being said, the French army is allowed two skirmishers, everyone else pretty much just one. I allowed the Americans that benefit as light infantry is quite traditional to the American military experience. Grenadiers, as an elite, never much factored. Two excellent works on this are Weigly's The American Way of War (1973) and Quimby's The U.S. Army in the War of 1812, 2 vols.,(1997).
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