Campaign Eylau-Friedland LIVES!

[BigDuke66]

Long there were just rumors about this title and it looked like the 1807 campaign would stay forever uncovered, but now the release can be seen as secured because the main designer of the Napoleonic Battles series Bill Peters has taken over the job to release this title:
http://wargame.ch/board/nwc/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=15912

[Xaver]

Around may.... thats a pretty fast development... i really want see Peter taking the control of the 2nd title covering Peninsular war and see title finished.

[Sgt_Rock]

I was just to post about the game on this forum but I see that Big Duke beat me to it! :)

Yes, I am now working on Campaign Eylau-Friedland (CEF) and its been a lot of sorting through files from past designers and map makers to get a set that I think is the best for us to work with. I went and created my own OB files based on my own research and so far we have:

23-24 Dec 1806 - River Crossing at Czarnowo - Davout's III Corps breaks out of its bridgehead and drives Tolstoi's 2nd Division back after a lively night assault. This one is into playtesting now. One of our guys finished the solo scenario taking  the last of the objectives on the last turn of the scenario. Nice challenge for solo play. Head to Head version up for testing now.

26 Dec 1806 - Battle of Golymin - just finished up this afternoon and ready for playtesting - Murat, Davout and Augereau try a pincers move on the Russians in the mud of Poland. The Russians held them off and were able to retreat at nightfall.

26 Dec 1806 - Battle of Pultusk - Lannes arrives at Pultusk to find most of Bennigsen's army waiting for him. In vain he tries to drive on the bridge. Davout's 3rd Division arrives late to take the pressure off of Lannes' V Corps.

8 February 1807 - Battle of Eylau - I dont have to say anything about this battle. Well known and we all have been enjoying the various "mods" that are out there on the battle. Here are the scenarios I have built so far that are being tested:

The Full battle - two teams are testing it. My game is at turn 9 of 80 turns.

Eylau: Seruzier's Advance! (Segment #1) - small action where an artillery commander and some Legere advanced on Baggovut's position and retained a good firing position despite a strong counter attack by the Russians. I playtested it using the "Hot Seat" play and its fun.

Eylau: Augereau's Assault (Segment #2) - the ill-fated attack by VII Corps into the blizzards of Poland. Variants will make it more balanced. The playtesters tried it out anyway with expected results. Not much you can do when you have two infantry divisions with no cavalry support advancing into the teeth of the center of the Russian line. Variants include Murat attacking with Augereau as well as a variant where the two divisions attack in the right direction in assisting St. Hilaire with his assault on the Russian left flank.

Eylau: Murat's Charge (Segment #3) - the big charge of the battle. After two games I am going to have to lower the Russian command values to allow for the French cavalry to catch some of the Russians still Disordered from Augereau's attack. They recover too quickly in the current version. (note: its not always easy to model history with the JTS Nap series games but we do our best ... A little tweak of the wrench and some fiddling with a screwdriver and we can get things to work as close as possible) The French Garde cavalry arrives during the scenario to help Murat.

Eylau: Davout's Attack - Part 1 (Segment #4) - Davout's initial attack fell on Baggovut. Russian cavalry was moved over to slow the French advance. Precursor for the big push by III Corps.

Eylau: Davout's Attack - Part 2 (Segment #5) - Davout has taken Serpallen from Baggovut and the hills near it and is now ready to make his big push north into the Russian rear and center. With Gudin up and in reserve the III Corps will roll. Variants will include Napoleon sending an additional cavalry division from Murat's cavalry to assist in the assault.

Eylau: L'Estocq's Attack (Segment #6) - L'Estocq arrives to save the day! Its the counterattack by the Prussians. Davout's men are exhausted when the Prussians (and some Russians) hit them. Only the arrival of Ney (which distracts Bennigsen into calling off the rest of the attack) saves III Corps from destruction.

In many of the above scenarios losses from the previous fighting has been deducted from the units. Fatigue has been added as well.

I will probably add in a short scenario for Ney's attack but frankly it was limited and with the darkness and no idea what he was facing he was loathe to continue very far. Funny enough Ney's arrival probably did more to decide Bennigsen's hand. With the road to Konigsberg open to being cut by the VI Corps on the morrow the Russians retreated from the battlefield.

There are still a lot of room for variant scenarios AND while I have already built six variants for the full battle scenario I want to find out how the historical battle games play out before I "crank out" any more scenarios.

There are maps for battles such as Heilsburg, Guttstadt and Mohrungen. A map for Danzig exists but I am not sure how many people enjoy the sortie scenarios. I have not seen much play of the Danzig sortie scenario for Leipzig. I probably will add in one scenario but siege situations do not work well in a "Battle" type of game.

Next up: two small actions that were "preludes" to Eylau:

Rearguard Action at Hof - Barclay slows up the French advance days before the Battle of Eylau

Clash at Eylau Village (or the Battle of Bonaparte's Baggage!) - on the night of the 7th of February on the eve of the Battle of Eylau the Emperor's baggage was sent on ahead to Eylau with no idea that the majority of Bennigsen's army was very close to the village. The Russian captured the baggage and would have looted all of it had the French not shown up in some force to contest it. Messy fight but nonetheless I will include it anyway.

The good news about this game is that a lot of the map work is done. I will have to build a few maps but the maps look fine and with only some minor updating will work great.

The weather in December through February does not bode well for large scale maneuvering so don't look for large map scenarios. I may put in a couple that use a 15 min. turn but the movement is SO slow (MUD) that it would be boring to play. Instead I will have a couple of campaigns that will deal with the situations of Pultusk-Golymin and Eylau. The players will make their march route choices and then play a battle based on both choices.

There will be THREE major campaign files dealing with the December to January campaign, the Russian Winter Offensive in late January to mid February and then the Spring campaign of May to June. I am hoping to be done with all of the battles by the end of January and then work on the campaign files from February to April. Add in my usual "plethora" of bonus documents at the end and finish up in May. Because I am never sure when the artwork will be finished I cannot comment on when the exact release time would be. Certainly before the end of Summer I am sure unless something causes a delay.

I am waiting on the artwork for the French Rev Wars game I worked on for the last year. Almost done with that one. With 28 battles I am sure that you will be plenty busy until CEF is released. :)

[Xaver]

Thanks for the info, are you working with old nap art (icons, terrain...) or we can expect see in Eylau the improvements from Petersburg??? specially the extra zoom level with the icons adapted to it.

I am curious to know whats not covered yet in Nap serie... and if is viable for a release... maybe in future we can see a title focused only in battles and not in campaigns, even what ifs, Austerlitz comes with the invasion of England that started as a mod, or even use the EAW engine to cover small actions, i like the company level scens released with last nap titles but the nap engine is not as good as EAW to cover that kind of small actions... one option could be create a sub-serie of nap battles around company level combats, only focused in battle actions.

Anyway first is see the next title out... expect be out before end of the year... is possible know whats the title???

Thanks.

[BigDuke66]

I think I don't go too far if I note that improvements from Petersburg would only come to the Napi series if WDS takes it over, and that has not happened so I don't see that anything from Petersburg appears here.

So far a bigger part of the Peninsular war hasn't been covered and obviously the Revolutionary wars aren't fully covered as Marengo is currently the only title for that era.

I doubt that the series will come to focus only on single battles, all the work(OOBs, maps, artwork, etc.) is just not worth for a game depicting only a single battle even when doing a lot variants for it.

Small actions can already be covered, there is a set of company levels scenario for Waterloo as example and they seem to work fine. That we see a separate series to depict company actions is doubtful.

[Sgt_Rock]

Wow - I wish I could put out a game on just ONE battle LOL. I hope you guys understand just how much it takes to tuck 28 battles in one game - which is what the next title coming out this month will have. This next title will complete the Rev Wars era. Anyone here remember the days of NIR, BGW and PTW? PTW had two battles! WOW (snickers)

No, the Nap series wont be getting that kind of enhancement but there are plenty of mods out there that do that kind of thing so .... In the end the artwork his highly personal. No matter what angle you do a portrait someone will want it done differently. I would love to see the Info area enlarged so that the images can be made larger OR have an option that if you click on the image a larger version of the same image shows up.

Lots of things out there that I would love see added to the Nap series like the Arty crews and capture rules, proportional ammo, etc. Maybe someday but not while I am working on the series .... this will be my last game I am thinking unless I can get John to let me do a game on the Turkish Wars. ;) And really that is not my specialty.

Once this next game is finished I will have mapped most of the Danube Valley .. PLEASE tell me any other game company that has ever done THAT? ;) I mapped most of Saxony, Sachen-Anhalt, area near Berlin and now we will offer up Poland.

If Talonsoft had been doing the 1807 campaign you would get Battleground Eylau and probably Friedland but none of the other battles. Handpainted map, yes, but at a cost.

My idea of a "campaign game" is to have an operational level map like in the games that Kevin Zucker produces and then have the battles fought out as you come into contact. Probably never will happen but that is the dream game for me.

[Xaver]

Art is very personal, for example i like use NATO symbols and in all the titles i have i port Volcanoman nap NATO mod (in MAW and REN for example) but for me in the moment they introduce 3D units ala Lee Scot nap serie increase value a lot, maybe my biggest IF for nap serie is add a horse to cavalry portraits... or adding the horse like in certain nap mods (i think in one for Waterloo that has the best portraits in all mods i see, with good unit images+unit flag and cavalry units have a horse) or a horse icon like in PzC.

If now i need suggest a title to enter in nap serie i recomend Marengo because has a good amount of scens, with diferent types AND with a good scale, apart you fight battles that in general are far from other series with predefined deployments, i dont say this is bad but have room to take decisions is good.

I cant wait your brother title to complete Marengo, the size of battles is similar and that kind of battles are allways wellcome.

Company level scens are fun but EAW engine is much better when you want a 5000 VS 5000 action... i dont refer cover a big battle at company level, i refer cover specific actions of certain battles but this is more based in my taste for tactical over operational-strategic games even when your brigade project sounds interesting (strange because my first nap was a brigade level title... Fields of Glory).

I think is possible a nap company level serie using EAW engine (1812 is basically a nap title but in a diferent continent) but is true that nap engine can cover other interesting periods pre and post napoleonic.

I miss to in Tiller titles a diferent aproximation to arty... with crew+guns to made shot over arty show results... killing crew members to affect arty power... and better dont talk about remove fatigue, introduce unit morale with a breakpoint to know better when an unit is going to break (quality set the break point, better the unit lower the break point).

PD: Turkish wars??? do you refer only to the fights between Rusian Empire and Turkish empire or you move outside them???

[Sgt_Rock]

EAW Series does not have the cavalry charge. The cavalry are worth more in melee but otherwise there is no way to run over the militia. They are best used as scouts or to raid in the rear or capture a loose leader.

I agree - I dont care for the large battles at company level. In the EAW series about the largest you have is Brandywine, Germantown, Quebec and a few others. Some of the battles from the Mexican-American War title are large.

[-72-]

Thanks for the info, are you working with old nap art (icons, terrain...) or we can expect see in Eylau the improvements from Petersburg??? specially the extra zoom level with the icons adapted to it.

For what it's worth, the next Musket and Pike title will have different art; it won't be from Petersburg... no extra set of zoom graphics at this point, but it can happen at some future point -as creating a larger set isn't a huge issue.

Also ... never say never ... but then again, I don't do mods.

Anyway - it is great to see excitement about the title - it will be a great addition.

[Xaver]

For me the problem is that many usefull features are split in diferent series.

For example Nap serie for me needs introduce block formation from REN to be the real assault column while the actual column formation works like in EAW, simple movement formation with 0 defensive value, 0 assault value and no ability to fire, with this if you force units that arrive battlefield or to a new area change formation from column to assault column (REN block formation) this reduce a lot the blitzkrieg factor in nap serie because you need a formation change to have assault in infantry units, if you need more points to move from column to block than from column to line if you want launch an assault you need wait next turn instead in your turn assault (other history is made you need X points to enter enemy ZOC if you want assault, now is possible use your last action points to enter enemy ZOC and assault).

Is true that in EAW cavalry is not very usefull in combat but i dont see why not port charge from nap engine.... is curious but in EAW cavalry works more in the line of mounted infantry ala XIX century colonial wars (as raiders are usefull because distract a lot troops to protect rear areas and garrison supply and commanders) but the victory points in cavalry made the use hard because EAW is not Nap titles and fire from infantry is a real killer even when is not supported by arty... you can lose cavalry before enter in contact with enemy.

Next Musket and pike title??? is the serie alive??? nice, REN was interesting and not bad at all, maybe the only thing i dislike was the shot units because engine unlike other games lacks autoretreat feature... for example in FOG II light troops can evade when are assaulted, in REN no, this means you usually cant use fire units (arquebus, bow units...) because range is short and in next turn enemy can destroy them by assault in the moment fire means use all action points... maybe here if that kind units only use 50% of action points when shot... you can made them retreat after shot enemy.

I dont know why but i feel 2nd M&P title is going to cover english civil wars... but something pre napoleonic in XVIII century sounds interesting to.