We’ve been using this down at the club in Toronto for about a year or so now. I originally came up with it because of a few peeves with the rules – it was difficult to get a decisive victory if your opponent had cavalry and you didn’t, which really made the Austrian Avant-Garde a hard army to bear. Also, it made victories for Guard armies almost impossible – if you are subject to Send in the Guards, you need to win by a decisive victory or your opponent claims a minor victory. If a Guard army doesn’t take lots of light cavalry, then it’s unlikely he’s going to be able to get enough pursuit points to enable him to claim a major victory, and against the Avant-Garde, that’s going to be really difficult if the player takes Hussars and especially if they attack – a large Uhlans and large Hussars on top of 4 Hussars is pretty much unbeatable. A really cheesy tactic for anyone facing Guard armies would be to use your light cavalry units to whip around the back of the table far from your opponent, while your infantry block any enemy cavalry from getting to them – just wait for the game to time out and you’ve won a minor victory. That was not what I would call fun, so I came up with these rules instead. After quite a bit of playtesting, I’ve modified them slightly so that in order to get a decisive victory, you need to either take objectives, inflict more casualties, or have a higher pursuit sscore, and two or more of these would be better. Guard armies are still penalised, and need to make sure they really steamroller their opponents, but they can get by with a minor victory now.
Objectives
There are now three objectives on the board. The first, the defender’s camp, is placed as per normal rules. The other two are placed according to one of two ways:
Option A: Each player places one objective each, which must be at least 1′ from each table edge.
Option B: Each table layout from the book has set places for the two objectives. I suggest the following:
EVEN 1: Bridge; 1/3 of the way along the river from the top left.
EVEN 2: Village; Top tip of L-shaped woods on the left.
EVEN 3: Left-most Town base; Pass between ridge at top left and the small hill on the left.
EVEN 4: Chateau; Bottom right town square.
EVEN 5: Farmhouse; Bridge.
EVEN 6: Point 2′ in from the left, 2′ from top and bottom of table in centre; Point 2′ in from the right, 2′ from top and bottom, in centre.
ODD 1: As Even 6.
ODD 2: Top farm; Road between top and bottom farm openings on right.
ODD 3: Point where stream meets woods on left; Point where top stream meets rightmost woods.
ODD 4: Rightmost Rocky Ground (pale ‘hill’); Point where dark top right hill meets touching rocky ground on left.
ODD 5: Building at the crossroads on left; Central town square.
ODD 6: Bottom left town square; top right town square.
These objectives are contested like the defender’s camp. There is one noticeable difference: If both players have a unit within 4 base widths of the defender’s camp, then it counts as a defender hold; if both players have a unit within 4 base widths of one of the 2 other objectives, it counts as contested and no-one scores. You must have a unit within 4 base widths of an objective to be able to contest it, except for the defender’s camp – the defender does not need to have a unit within 4 base widths to count as holding it as long as there are no enemy units within 4 base widths..
The game plays out as usual, ending either with a morale roll failure or after all turns are played out (including bonus turns). When this happens, each side counts their victory points as follows:
Game Ending:
If enemy morale has broken (failed morale roll): 3 pts to the winner.
If game has timed out after all turns played: 2 pts to defender.
Objectives:
If defender’s camp is held by attacker: 3 pts to attacker
If defender’s camp is contested or held by the defender: 1 pt to defender.
If other objectives are held by a player: 1 pt for each to holder.
Commander Casualties: (Only score once per officer)
If enemy C in C is killed: 2 pts
If an enemy sub commander is killed: 1 pt
Unit Casualties: (These are cumulative, and based on the table on p.66)
Enemy has lost 1/4 of unit points: 1 pt
Enemy has lost 1/3 of unit points: 1 pt
Enemy has lost 1/2 of unit points: 1 pt
Enemy has lost 2/3 of unit points: 1 pt
Enemy has lost 3/4 of unit points: 1 pt
Enemy has lost all units: 1 pt (and automatic victory (3 points, above) to the winner.
Misc:
Higher Pursuit Score: 2 pts
If enemy is subject to “Send in the Guards”: 4 pts
When these VPs are totaled, if one side has 1-4 pts higher than his opponent, then he has a marginal victory; if he has 5+ pts higher than his opponent, then he has a decisive victory. If both points scores are equal, then we have a draw.
For tournament scoring: We could either use the raw scores as above, or portion the points as follows for each round:
Decisive victory / decisive loss: 4 / 0
Marginal victory / marginal loss: 3 / 1
Draw: 2 / 2
Notes:
I wanted to make sure that a morale failure would be a massive failure, one that you’re unlikely to be able to win with if you fail a morale roll. I also wanted to encourage the attacker to attack, hence the defender points if the game times out (and to make up for those extra units the attacker gets – he needs to use them!). Ditto for the defender’s camp. The other 2 objectives ensure that the battle won’t only be fought around the defender’s camp, and the need to possibly leave a unit behind to hold an objective while the rest of your army moves forward / defends other objectives. Kills for officers add a little bonus – if it’s otherwise a draw, but Wellington has been knocked out of action, that should count for something. I also wanted to increase the penalty for losing units – so if your opponent is over the break limit, there’s added incentive to keep at him, not pull back and hope he fails a morale check before he does enough damage to you for you to need to roll one too. Finally, I wanted to keep some form of current bonus for having cavalry superiority in place, and some form of penalty for having Guards, but ones that aren’t insurmountable. An attacking French Guard army that seizes one of the objectives, contests the other, and seizes the defender’s camp while inflicting quite bit of damage on the enemy can still end up with a marginal victory over his opponent, despite not having light cavalry, and despite being subject to the Send in the Guards rule, which is currently impossible.
