More Thoughts on a 19th Century Grand Tactical Wargame

A Peninsula diversion. The action was fought on a 9 x 8 hexed playing area with the sides equating to roughly a division apiece. The units represented brigades and you can clearly see the skirmishers deployed to the fore of each formation. The Allies have a battery of artillery in support of the two British brigades whilst the French have massed their artillery into a grand battery on the hill. The brown troops are the Portuguese and the two green blocks in the the small farm are the men of the 95th rifles. 

I planned to have a test today of the various ideas I have been messing around with for a set of Grand Tactical 19th Century rules. Messing around with turned out to be an apt description of the game I tried for a number of reasons that I had not considered. I will not describe the action in detail but will summarise it after I have listed the points arising from the test.

• Skirmishers - These fight first - either each other or against any other enemy. I have assumed that equal numbers of these would largely cancel each other out. The problem though, was considering what they should do as their part of the action. My thinking was a little fuzzy on this but I have allowed them to only be destroyed on an infantry hit (I am referring to Command and Colours type combat dice). If hit by an enemy skirmisher with a flag result they are assumed to have fallen back on their supports (if present) and take no further part in the combat. If they survive (and the enemy skirmishers do as well) then they cancel each other out and take no further part in the action for that turn. In a nutshell, skirmishers can only be destroyed by enemy skirmishers or cavalry. If only one side has skirmishers then these can be added to the defending infantry strength.
• Formations - Halving the number of combat dice for an attacking column in conjunction with the defending unit 'firing' first means that the columns are invariably shot to pieces before having a chance to fight back and when they do it is at a greatly reduced effect. I have no real problem with this per se but it does mean that attacking in column can be an expensive business unless well supported - again, this makes sense from a historical perspective. For the psychological effect I am tempted to allow the attacking column to double the number of combat dice it eventually rolls.
• Artillery - No real problems with this - at close range it was suitably effective.
• Facing - This is something I need to think about as attacking an enemy in the flank or rear should be more effective - perhaps some bonus combat dice may be the answer.

The only cavalry combat was fairly straightforward - the British charged in with their usual gusto and were duly chased off. The French columns, no doubt with much 'Vive L'Empereuring' and other such Gallic joie de vivre rolled up to the thin red line and were driven off in the same old style - although not without some hairy moments - in fact one British brigade (the one with the cavalry next to it) was pushed back over the other side of the hill but managed to regain its position, aided in part by the neighbouring Portuguese. If I am honest the game felt like it should do for an action in the Peninsula so must be rated as a success although the combat sequencing needs a little more clarity. I will take away the results from today and see how the next version shapes up but I am thinking that I am on the right track.

One thing that this test did serve to prove though was that a couple of ideas I wanted to incorporate will not now be needed - at least not in their original form.

The size of playing area worked surprisingly well and will certainly feature as a regular fixture from here on in.

All in all then, it was not a bad way to spend a couple of hours on a Sunday afternoon