Thoughts on a 19th Century Grand Tactical Wargame

Needle guns to the fore - Prussians in action in 1866

Work on the grand tactical 19th century rules has continued but it has taken rather a swerve in one respect. As I am naturally using a hexed grid (with my trusty Hexon terrain being the playing surface of choice) it occurred to me that at the level I want to fight combat is, in effect, almost on an area effect basis - essentially the contents of hex A versus the contents of hex B. This means that with a hex containing a potential mix of unit types - infantry, cavalry and artillery - should ideally have the combat subdivided to allow for any such differences.

So no more lumping the combat dice together then....

The system I am working on uses a mixture of  individual combat dice for infantry and cavalry and progressive dice rolls for artillery. This works well and is in fact what is used in Command and Colours Napoleonics so its pedigree is a known quantity. I thought about what a hex versus hex combat represented and whilst it readily includes elements of local low level tactics, essentially the process could be pared down quite readily into a minimal number of dice rolls.

It would be easy to just lump the total number of combat dice together and roll away but I wanted to add a little tactical flavour to the process. My thinking thus far covers the following:

• Skirmishers, if present, conduct their combat first with any casualties being removed before any other combat and thus unable to take any further part.
• Artillery, if present, conduct their combat next with any casualties being removed before any other combat and thus unable to take any further part
• Infantry and Cavalry then fight with Cavalry fighting first - to allow for the potential of shock.
• Cavalry will have the opportunity to counter an opponents intended action

Taking the above as a set of bare bones I will factor in - matrix-style - what happens to whom and when so that a round of combat between two hexes full of varied troop types will have the ebb and flow of a tactical engagement - almost on a 'rock, paper, scissors' basis.

Does this slow the game down? Possibly, although I want to make this very simple in execution.

Will it add to the all important flavour? I really hope so as one of the problems with games set at a high command level is that the low level action becomes even more abstract. 

It should hopefully serve to address the perennial wargamer's dilemma of wanting to be an army commander that still controls every battalion/regiment/battery in the army!