Napoleonic Wargame Club (NWC)

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Le Tondu</i>
except you simply forgot it by being so focused elsewhere on not breaking the embedded melee rule?<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Rick

If you use the next unit button from the start of the phase, you will scroll through all eligible units in turn, whether for fire phase or melee. Once I started using this button I rarely failed to conduct a melee or take a shot that I wanted to.

Mark
VII Corps

Lt. Motko,

Gen. Walter and I are using a somewhat modded embedded rule that I think is rather better. It's not a real formal rule, but basically we have agreed to embed all melees within a certain area of the battlefield.

In other words, I may do my turn, set up my melees in one area, and then do them, and then move on to another part of the battlefield and do my melees there. That retains the "spirit" of the embedded rule, because the main purpose of that rule is to disallow moves that are predicated on taking advantage of one melee to set up further attacks. However, it's more flexible and allows us to focus on one spot or the other, rather than range across half of Belgium to remember what all attacks we wanted to make.

FML Gary McClellan
Generalissimus
Imperial Austrian Army

Gary,

Great idea. Thanks for the advice, I will want to add that to the embedded melee rule if my opponents agree.

<font color="orange">Many thanks to Mark as well.</font id="orange">

Cheers,
Rick

Lieutenant Rick Motko
1er Bataillon, 33° Régiment d'Infanterie de Ligne
2eme Brigade, 11eme division
IIIe corps, Armée du Nord

I think a lot of us play it this way. Bill P. called it "fronts" I think.

Afterall, the idea of the rule is to prevent abuse, not to make life more difficult.

I shall want to try HPS in phases once.

<center>Général de Division D.S. "Green Horse" Walter
Baron d'Empire, Duc des Pyramides
Commandant de la [url="http://home.arcor.de/dierk_Walter/NWC/3_VI_AdR_Home.htm"]3ème Division[/url], VIème Corps Bavarois, L'Armée du Rhin
Commandant l'Ecole de Mars, L'Armée du Rhin
Commandant de la Brigade de Tirailleurs de la Jeune Garde
</center>

I have been reading this thread and was curious was that there hasn't been talk about playing the game in phases (like the BG games). I just started playing the Napolonic version of these games (I mainly play the Civil War side), playing is phases is very common there but seems less so here. I am not sure why this is as playing in phases would seen to reduce the problems with when/how to do melees.

rorris,

Please don't forget to post your rank and your army affiliation. It is <font color="orange"><b>much, much easier</b></font id="orange"> to get your questions asnwered. Some guys here will not answer you <u>at all</u> if don't.

If you aren't a member, please consider this as a cordial invitation. It doesn't take much. Just go to the following link and choose an armee and you will have the ball rolling. http://www.wargame.ch/wc/nwc/Napann1.htm

So, to answer your question.... My opinion is that turning off <font color="orange"><b>Manual Defensive Fire</b></font id="orange"> and hence playing by turns, PBEM is easier. Consider playing a big 400 turn game by PBEM with it on. It doesn't make much sense to play a scenario that might last <font color="orange"><b>2 years</b></font id="orange"> before it is ever finished.

Lastly, I liken the automatic defensive fire in a turn-based style as that element in a battle that a commander could never control. Every commander was faced with it. It just seems right to me.

Cheers,
Rick

<center>Lieutenant Rick Motko
1er Bataillon, 33° Régiment d'Infanterie de Ligne
2eme Brigade, 11eme division
IIIe corps, Armée du Nord</center>

Good grief - 323 views on this one! I guess that House Rules are of interest![:D]

When I return from Tiller Con 1 I plan on putting up a page that shows the various ways of playing the HPS Napoleonic series. Here are the three versions:

1. Single phase - foot loose and fancy free - no rules - blitzkrieg to your heart's content.

2. Single phase/Embedded Melee House Rule - basically what we talked about before. Three distinct divisions to the single phase for each player turn. The players have to remember to play that game with this style - the game engine will not remind them if they melee illegally according to the Embedded Melee rule.

3. Multi phase - will go into detail on what can the engine allows and what it doesnt allow. I was surprised to find something out using this option that goes back to the Battleground engine.

Folks get confused about all of this - we have our own spiel here I note - thus the website will be a static page where folks can wander over to look at the various ways of playing the HPS games.

Oberst Wilhelm Peters
2nd Kuirassiers, Reserve Korps, Austrian Army