Al's wargames

[Al Amos]

I've wargamed Napoleonics for years, mostly in miniatures. I played the Empire series rules by Scott Bowden for a couple of decades and then a few years before migrating from miniature to computer gaming, I switched to From Valmy to Waterloo (VFTW) by William Keyser. This system is excellent and I thought I was in gaming heaven, until a friend showed my Talsoft Waterloo, and so I gave up the figures and here we are.

One very nice feature of computer gaming, especially with Tiller's Talonsoft/HPS Campaign series titles is the modding: making your own scenairos. No longer was I tied back by not being able to get all those figures painted, buying them was never the problem over the years I've own about 7 different collections with a total of upwards 75,000 figs total. Maybe about 25% ever got painted, however. hehehe....

Lately, I've missed some of those table-top games, so I'm making a few scenarios with generic forces that I once had in miniature. Empire and VFTW both use a 60:1 troop scale, so I've taken these basic units from the rules and put them into an OOB file I can use in the various Tiller Nap titles. In miniature I had a column of Austrians for 1805, and Essen's III Russian Division of 1807, and Augereau's 7e Corps d'Armee from 1807, also a generic British division and a generis Prussian 1806 division, and of course Davuot's 3e Corps d'Armee, plus Beker's 5e Dragon Division, to name a few.

In these games you will find some of the above formations on various small maps, remember I played on 5'x2.5' tables. ;-) I'll have Austrians fighting Prussians or Russians, or Prussians and Brits square off, or Russians fighting French in England (I love the Eagle maps found in HPS Campaign Austerlitz!) Of course there will be some more typical Essen vs Augereau, or a combined Austro-Russian force fighting the two French corps listed above.

The pdt file will be the 1805 pdt file Bill created for the Austerlitz title, and units will be in multiple of 60. In Empire/FVTW most allied cavalry squadrons were given two figures apiece, so in the OOB file I gave them 120 men. Since most of these encounters will be "Glory Years" time period battles, I'll be using 960 men for the French. Most allied bns will be 480 or 720 men. Artillery will be in sections.

Unit quality will not be typical, for Empire/FVTW or the HPS system, but most units will be rated a C (4). I'm using the (-) more as well. Instead of giving artillery an A or B rating for morale which gives them a bonus in firing with the Optional Rules, I've decided to rate all line artillery a C- which gives them a morale bonus, but not a firing bonus. I've done this with some infantry units as well to enhance the staying power of said units without increasing the combat value (above what I think they should be.) All leaders are genericly rated as well, on the low side.

In the OOB file I based the lowest formation level to the regiment or battery level. This gives more leaders on the chain of command to pass on a bonus to the units they command. So if you keep your leaders, and keep the units in command the army will function quite well. As you lose leaders or try to spread units of your rgts, bdes, or divs too far apart your army will lose its ability to fight well. I'm hoping this will put more stress on command control for positive results than just using A+++ units all the time.

So I hope some of you will be interested and will try them out. I'll make them available as soon as I create them, and won't guarantee play-balance, but some of them may prove to be fun. Most will be 24 turns (4 hours) or less, so they may lend themselves to on-line play. Which is a blast!

... and although the maps won't port from one title to another the pdt/oob file can, so I can place my army collection on any map HPS has in its titles.

At some point I'll make a document file outlining my OOB file.

al