Where Next with the Seven Years War ? Rules and Regulations part 2

"I didn't have time to write a short letter; so I wrote a long one instead" - Mark Twain *.

Last time I looked at some older sets of rules that might be fun to use for Seven Years War gaming;  this time I will be thinking  about some more recent rules. This is by no means meant to be a comprehensive review/survey   - it's simply a look at the various rules I have picked up in the past few years - and not actually played, I should make clear.  Writing this post has been an exercise in looking at  the rules, and thinking about how they seem to work, which has been useful for me, at least! I hope others may find some interest and benefit, too.

 'Gentlemen and Philosophers' indeed..

First  'Maurice', ( published 2012 )  from  Sam A. Mustafa. Sub-titled 'War in the Age of Gentlemen and Philosophers 1690-1790', a sentiment  I rather like.  The name of course , comes from Maurice de Saxe ( 'An original. A thinking man's general' ). It's a nicely illustated softback book of 112 pages, with lots of good clear diagrams and photos of figures - painted much better than I will ever manage, of course!
 

The main feature of the game is that command is  card-driven.  Oops , I am rather wary of this sort of thing; I really like the 'Commands and Colours' games, but get very frustrated when I end up with a hand full of cards that only allow me to order units on the left wing, when the enemy is overrunning my right. However, 'Maurice' looks a bit more subtle than that.  Cards are used to activate  a 'force',  which is a  group of one or more units close to each other and looks  analagous to, say,  a Brigade or perhaps a 'wing'.  The force can be ordered to 'Charge', 'March', 'Bombard' or 'Rally', and there can be a 'Volley' phase for musketry before the action is played. Interestingly 'Volley'  seems to allow all eligible units on the table ( on either side )   to fire  muskets;   won't that mean an awful lot of firing when forces get close to each other?  Things may get quite bloody!

'Maurice'  action cards look nice

Crucially the Action Cards have a 'span' value which determines the maximum distance  that the activated  force can be from the commander - so you have  to play cards with span values adding up to that distance.  That means that  moving your commander to the right place is going to be important:  I quite like this concept, it gives you agency but makes you think about where you allocate your command effort, which feels 'right'.  The cards also give some bonus effects, as you can see, and some can be played as one-off 'events'. One drawback for me, perhaps, is that I am likely to be playing solo, and there are opportunities to play cards as 'interrupts' to the other player's turn -  which doesn't really work for solo players, so an important piece of the game-play may be difficult for me.

Some basics as follows:   Troops are on 'bases' -  'Units' have 4 bases for Infantry and Cavalry, one base for Artillery.  For 25/28mm figures,   6 Infantry or 2 Cavalry  on a 50mm square base is suggested, so 24 foot or  8 horse to a unit - but  the number of figures on a base is not important, and the base size can vary as long as it's consistent for both sides.  So  I can't see any need to re-base lots of troops.  A Unit 'can represent a single battalion, or two, or a  brigade of several battalions',  so you can vary the unit scale according to your scenario. Distances are measured in Base Widths ( BW ) - infantry  in line moves 4BW.  Fire is 'volley' ( muskets and artillery canister fire ) at up to 4BW range,   or 'Bombardment' ( artillery at long range ) from 4BW to 24BW - what could be simpler?

The combat mechanisms also look  simple: for example, an infantry unit in line firing at a similar unit in the open would roll one 'D6' die per base, needing a basic 4 ,5 or 6 to hit (modifiers for cover, enfilade etc),  then 'roll to disrupt' another D6 for each hit, needing 4, 5 or 6 to score a disruption point on 'Trained' troops.  So our 4-base unit volley might expect to score 2 hits, and inflict 1  disruption point, on average.   The target unit can survive one disruption per base ( i.e.  4 disruptions for infantry ) but will break if any more disruptions are inflicted.

For the army as a whole, there's a  morale system not a million miles from Bob Cordery's 'Exhaustion Point' - the army starts with a morale score of one per unit  and may lose 1, 2 or 3 points per broken unit. When the Army Morale reaches zero, it's all over;  so I guess you'd expect the army to break if it lost about half its units - not so very far from Bob's  'Exhaustion Point' at one-third of total Strength Points.

There are basic and optional advanced rules,  3 historical scenarios ( Kolin, Brandywine and Fontenoy), and an abstract 'campaign' system which just looks like a round-robin series of games.  The back cover suggests 2-3 hours for a game, 10-16 units per side and table size 6 x 4 feet to 8 x 5 feet, which I have not got, - that's getting a bit 'Charles Grant'!

'Maurice' example pages - combat examples

Overall this looks interesting: I was a bit discouraged at first by the card-driven system, but it might be rather effective, forcing the player to think about where to expend command effort, and where Maurice needs to place himself to inspire the troops most effectively. If you have a lot of low-value cards, I guess it means Maurice and/or his aides  are having a bit of an off day - too much pre-battle carousing?  It feels like a sort of 'Volley and Bayonet with clever command system' - quite appealing. I am strongly  tempted to try these out.

HOWEVER right now I would have some problems - at the moment I have a 3 x 3 feet table size,   and not enough figures for 24-man units. Can I 'shrink' this system?  How about smaller base sizes?  If 1 BW = 25mm  and one infantry base is 2 figures, then line infantry have 8 figures  per unit and  move (and fire)  100mm - about the same as I have been using with 'The Portable 7YW'.  It might work..  One final point to be aware of is cost - it looks like in the UK now it would be about £40 for the rulebook and cards - admittedly these are nicely enough produced, but that's not cheap. I note that you can buy a cheaper 'e-document' version from Sam Mustafa's website. 

Next,  'Honours of War' by Keith Flint,  from Osprey publishing. I like Keith's blog, so I was interested to see his rules, and happy to buy them and give him a bit of money - and in contrast to Maurice, the cost of these is £11.99 for a standard 'Osprey-size' book.

This is a more conventional wargame, I suppose - not a card-driven game.  Keith specifies ground, time and figure scales -  1mm to 1 pace,  1 move is 10 minutes ( which allows for plenty of 'dressing lines, awaiting clear orders'  etc),  and a 600 man battalion is represented by 20 figures.   That battalion is made up of 5 bases, each of 4 figures at 25/28mm scale, with the base 40mm square.  A Cavalry regiment has 4 bases  each of 2 figures on a 50mm square - so in both cases the frontage is 200mm.  

Keith is happy to say that base an unit sizes can be different if that suits you - his 'rule of thumb' advice being that an infantry battalion in line should have about the same frontage as a cavalry regiment in line, and that frontage should also equal the maximum firing range of 'musket-only' infantry - and from that, I take it that other distances could be modified if necessary. I am so glad that rule writers recognise what a pain it can be to re-base figures!

The units are considered to be organised into Brigades, of 2 to 8 units , each with a commander figure, and must remain close to each other and to the commander,  or suffer penalties to their performance.  A few units may be deemed  'independent' of the brigade organisation. The brigades are important in the game -  during a game turn, the  players take  turns to move , fire or melee with a single brigade ( or an independent unit ).  Before moving a brigade, a die roll (modified by their commander's capabilities - rather charmingly 'dithering', 'dependable' or 'dashing' )  decides their 'command performance' and may result in extra movement, no movement or even retreats!  As with 'Maurice', moving your commander-in-chief  to the optimum position is important   - in this case because he  can direct and improve the performance of a nearby brigade. 

Movement and combat again looks  pretty straightforward. An infantry battalion in line moves 20cm; cavalry in line 30cm.   In our example of an infantry battalion in line firing at a similar unit, musket range is 20cm ( extended to 30cm if battalion guns are in use ) , short range being  up to 10cm.   Each firing unit rolls just one average die, with modifiers applied, and a 'hit table' gives the results.  Our typical battalion, assuming no modifiers , at short range on a roll of 3 would score 2 hits,  and at long range just 1 hit.  Hits are cumulative on a unit - on reaching 3 hits they incur a -1 modifier for firing and melee,  on 4 hits they must retreat at least one move, and on 5 hits they are 'Done For'  ( I do like Keith's terminology ) and will rout.  From the look of that, I'd guess that with decent dice rolls it will  take 2 or 3 good volleys to damage an enemy unit or force it to retreat, so I think combat may be quite fast and furious!   However there is some  hope for battered units, as there is a 'Rally' phase where units can 'rally off' hits, as long as they are at least 30cm from the enemy.

Victory is decided by 'Army Breaking Points' - a pattern seems to be emerging - essentally a number based on the number of units divided by 2, and 1 point is lost for every normal unit 'Done For'.   The army is broken when the number of points lost reaches the breaking point; so again a loss of about half the units means the game is lost.

'HoW' Example page: that's Botta Regiment on the left,
which I need to get on with painting..

Following the basic rules, there is  quite a large section on 'National Differences'  covering all the major powers ( Prussia, Austria, Britain, Russia, France )  and several minor ones ( Saxony, Sweden, the Reichsarmee ) and including advice on 'imagi-nations'.  There is a suggested 'points system' if you really must have a 'balanced' game, and a section on using smaller figure scales.  Move and fire distances etc in the body of the rules assume 25/28mm figures, but this section advises on other scales right down to 6mm, with suggested base sizes and distance reductions - and useful tables of them all.

Finally four scenarios, of which three are fictional and the last is for Lobositz , which has about 20 units per side ( using 'bathtubbing' such that one unit on the table reperesents about three actual units )  - so quite a large enterprise.   The introductory scenario 'The Combat of St. Ulrich'  uses 5 units vs. 4 , each side having a single infantry brigade with attached gun battery, and one independent cavalry regiment. I reckon I could probably do that, with my current forces.

I like the look of these rules, and I like their value for money too - they  are 'old school' in that respect at least! Everything is covered by a standard 64-page Osprey softback with the production quality you would expect from them,  using illustrations from other  Osprey titles on the period and nice photos of figures ( from Crusader Miniartures and James Roach, aka Olicanalad), with a decent amount  of background information on troop types and the quite extensive 'national differences' section , though of course the latter is optional.   The rules seem sensible and relatively simple - Keith admitted on his blog that Stuart Asquith said these rules 'made his brain hurt'  , but of course Stuart liked very simple rules , so I don't think we should take that as a criticism!  

Finally I note that Keith,  ( perhaps stung by Stuart's comments ?! )  has produced a free set of more basic rules for the period, called 'Post of Honour' which you can download from his blog.  I will be taking a look at those too, I think.

Just for fun, I tried temporarily basing an infantry battalion and a cavalry regiment for 'Honours of War'. Here are some Jagers in regular line formation, and von Kleist's Uhlans.  I think they look like 'proper' units. 

'Honours of War' : example units

Well, that all went on a bit long, sorry about that but I hope it's been worthwhile.  Poor Henry Hyde, I was going to look at his 'Shot, Steel and Stone' rules too..  another time, perhaps.

Meanwhile I hope you're all keeping well.

* With apologies,  I thought this would be a short snappy  effort, but once I got going.. so much for the 'teach yourself Hemingway style'  lessons, then..