Napoleonic Wargame Club (NWC)

Gentlemen

This is an extension of the comments that the "Fixed Units" topic has attracted.

Lets see how many Gamey plays we can tease out

I will start with the simplest one :

Use Supply Wagons to block the line of fire (The latest game gives supplies value so perhaps not now such a good idea)

_________________
Jim Hall
Field Marshall
Commander Anglo-Allied Army

Well the best one I ever pulled was to bring all my reinforcements onto the map except for a supply wagon. The French attacked my reinforcements with the Guard. I bought on the wagon. The stack on the hex was eliminated. The rest within 5 hexes was routed. Almost the entire Guard. Howls of complaints about how unrealistic that was. Gamey. They resigned after something that precipitated an international row.

Then there was the 1 man cossack "unit" that overran some 60 Guard artillery plus leaders. That also was met with a howl of complaints. Or the 2 infantrymen in a company level Waterloo who stopped a cavalry charge by putting themselves in a square. Those of course are not so much gamey as limitations on the engine. Really.

And in a playtest game Bill Peters experimented with fixing units during night. Except routed units. We moved our routed units round to the rear of the French during the night. We were shocked to find the French team had the same idea. The dawn came with a 4 layer sandwich. Bill terminated the game.

But of course now I am older and more mature and have more respect for people

There is a reason that the supply wagons are found in the "Master of Europe Tournament Rules":
"2. Leaders and supply wagons will not be used to take enemy objective hexes or to prevent the retreat of enemy units."
http://www.wargame.ch/wc/nwc/MOE4/MOE4.htm

But this situation isn't covered by it, so one must look how it played out before.
If the attacker was purposely using the map edge to crush you it's his fault.
If you fell back on purpose to use the reinforcements to crush his forces it's your fault.

_________________

One thing that drove me nuts (and there was really no way to counter it) was in a couple of games I played against a guy (who I do not think is here anymore, and has not been for years) and we had multiple infantry melees on (that feature had just come out). He would use skirmishers to melee my infantry battalions, and if a battalion even suffers 1 man loss, it disorders. Then he would bring up his battalions.....

And Christian, I think Andy is taking full responsibility for gameyness. I similarly baited the esteemed Counte De Monte Christo in a similar ploy in an Overland battle....well, it was not a total ploy, as he was pursuing my routed cavalry...

_________________

It disordered from 1 men loss?
Sounds rather strange as the casualties are compared to the size of the unit so such low casualties should make a moral check very very unlikely.

_________________

In turn based play, if any unit is meleed and takes 1 loss, it automatically disorders immediately. Unless this has changed recently

_________________

I think I haven't seen this and the manual also sounds different.
"The melee defender is subject to normal Morale Checks based on their losses and must automatically take a Morale Check at the end of the Phase or Turn if they lose the melee."
(p.33 Leipzig Manual)
So you have to make a moral check but the unit still has to fail that check to become disordered.

_________________

That reminds me of the off used " push a skirmisher into cavalry then melee with infantry"

_________________
Jim Hall
Field Marshall
Commander Anglo-Allied Army

They must have changed it because at least in Bautzen it does not work like that anymore. But trust me, in Napoleons Russian Campaign, when the rule first came out, his skirmishers disordered my infantry every single time. And I mean every single time for 3 games. So either they changed the rule or he was cheating by replaying it every time..

_________________

My personal favourite is to use Lines facing a different way to reface a unit in line as it moves forward without expending movement points for the reface , there's one for you Andy

_________________
Marechal Knox

Prince d'Austerlitz et Comte d'Argentan
Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur

"What is history but a fable agreed upon"

Come on Colin, even I know that one....

_________________

I guess that may even be wanted or else I'm sure the movement costs for moving and changing direction would have been used and not only the movement costs.

_________________

Yes. Meleeing a skirmisher into a stack of cavalry so you can melee it all with infantry; or even melee a skirmisher rather than overrun it with cavalry, so you get the extra charge distance.

Lines changing face at no cost when joining another one. Yes. Done that.

Meleeing a formed unit with a skirmisher was a standard technique in the old days. Bill Peters had John T correct that one I think starting with the 1813 games and it's retrospective for all games. So now, formed units are not disrupted if meleed by a skirmisher.

in all Nappy and ACW games..........you take a loss in melee.....you are disrupted immediately. Has nothing to do with morale.

the morale check is to see if they rout.

_________________
C.N.Matthews

That is again very different from what I read out of the manuals in both series.
At first it's explicitly mentioned that cavalry becomes automatically disorder when doing a charge:
"At the end of the player’s turn, Cavalry units which moved using the Cavalry Charge are automatically Disordered."
(p.22 Campaign Leipzig)
As that is extra mentioned I assume that it is not the normal behavior and so attackers do not automatically Disordered unless failing a moral check.


For the defender it's mentioned:
"The melee defender is subject to normal Morale Checks based on their losses and must automatically take a Morale Check at the end of the Phase or Turn if they lose the melee."
(p.33 Campaign Leipzig)
Again no sign of automatic disorder.


I just did a bit testing and meleed and I see that attackers & defenders can get out of a melee without being disorder.

_________________