Napoleonic Wargame Club (NWC)

As discussed before I am working on a future title for John Tiller dealing with one of the Napoleonic campaigns.

My new look campaign file will allow for less small cavalry skirmishes and more medium sized or large engagements.

The players will have much more control over how the forces are deployed on the field of battle for those troops that are already on the board. The arriving troops will of course be reinforcements and will be for the player to determine how he wants them to be deployed. No, I will not allow the player to decide in what order the reinforcements arrive (infantry, cavalry, infantry, etc) as that would allow for too much micro managing. The players will have some control over WHO arrives when and where.

Thus you and your opponent will go through several Situations before you get to an actual battle.

More detail will go into maneuvering rather than a quick fight.

This new look answers some of the views of folks that wanted more control over deployment. There has to be some sacrifice of something and that something is the small engagements.

The small engagements are being removed for several reasons:

1. I personally didnt enjoy alot of the small engagements in one of the games that has been released through our company. I felt that they were nice but there were too many of them. I would have preferred corps vs. corps or larger engagements. Instead we got alot of small actions and also the same units too. Thus by the time you got to the main battle you had a skeleton force in part of your army. While this did happen it lead me to think that if my opponent and I didnt enjoy the multitude of small actions that there were others as well that felt the same way.

2. Small engagements do not define even a portion of a campaign. One engagement does not make an impact. Thus rather than allow for several cavalry regiments to fight it out instead I am moving to do fights that have some substance to the end game.

3. The Scenario Designer only has so much time to work with. Rather than spend my time on small engagements and how they will impact the main show instead I am going to allow the players to do things like guard their depots, react to flank march attempts, fall back from any action if they so desire, give them more options on deployment than in the past (Wagram).

The progression of the maturing of my games goes something like this:

1. Eckmuhl: Lots of engagements but little choice of deployment. The players like the wide open feel of the large maps.

2. Wagram: I keep the large map concept though the actions are mainly set piece for the most part. The players have a choice of deployment or choice of crossing points (Danube for example).

3. New game: I continue the tradition of large maps and the deployment of forces but expand most actions to encompass SEVERAL Situations which will allow for alot of countering prior to a battle. Battles will still be "accidental" in nature to some degree but will have much more maneuvering prior to them occuring. Your choices will HEAVILY impact who is at the big dance (its March so I have to toss that expression in somewhere!).

Along with that I plan on having some personality conflicts flare up occaisionally between subordinate corps commanders, commanders that take the wrong road, etc. Things that are out of the players hands and no matter how good El Supremo is things dont go as planned.

I think that this was lacking in Eckmuhl to some degree and will be rectified in my next series of games.

Oberst Wilhelm Peters
Reserves, Austrian Army

Hi Bill,

I still vote for some small (up to 10-15000 a side, up to 20-25 turns), ballanced engagements, since:
- they are excellent for training of new enlisted commanders, letting them to get grisp of game (and army) principals in time short enough not to get them bored
- they are easy to set-up and play (and finish), especially for inexperienced commanders (or when you haven't time enough for larger game)


GM. Pavel Stafa
Kommanduyuschiy Korpusom Rezerva
2-oy Zapadnoy armii EIV

I like the idea about people not following the orders...
Thank you Bill te tell us [:)]

<font color="green"> <b>Général de Division David Guégan Comte de Toulon, Duc de Nimes</b>
Co 11eme division
III Corps, AdN
Co Division d'Infanterie de la Jeune Garde, Garde Impériale


http://home.earthlink.net/~davidguegan/</font id="green">

Pavel - there will be plenty of small engagements for the guys to play that are stand alone battles.

I wont go into specifics but at least ten scenarios that will be based on small amounts of troops.

I mainly want to stay away from scenarios that have 2,000-8,000 men per side. In other words, screening engagements.

Oberst Wilhelm Peters
Reserves, Austrian Army