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 Kosyanenko</i>
<br />Reading this thread I came to the rule I'd be happy to see one day:

So a unit or stack of units loses a melee:

2. If it is ZOC'ed but still there is at least one hex free of enemy units and in enemy ZOC it will have to pass a test. With a small probability, say 10% it will just surrender. Quality, fatigue, state (routed/disordered/isolated) modifiers should be applied to this value. And with probability of 90% it will retreat. But while retreating it will suffer additional casualties because it will have to get off the pocket. Or enemy units in adjacent hexes will fire with 100% effectiveness at them or anything else.

<center><b>Eyo Imperatorskogo Velichestva Leib-Kirassirskogo polku
General-Mayor Anton Valeryevich Kosyanenko
commander of Little Russian grenadiers regiment</b></center>

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There have been board games where units retreating through a ZOC were fired at with full FP and flank mods, so the odds were it would take significant casualties when doing so. There was at least one game (maybe one of Berg's regimental games?) where a unit could retreat *through* an enemy occupied hex if it had to, but took (I think) tripled fire (FP x3) plus flank mods.

I was quite partial to this system, but then (as in most things) I'm biased...

Sounds hard to code in to the existing game engine, but I wonder if one possibility might be that any unit unable to retreat does not die but takes 2x/3x/Xx the casualties it would've taken?




Lt Sean Turner
1er Dragons
2ème Division de Dragons
Ier Corps de Réserve de Cavalerie
l'Armee du Nord

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Richard</i>
<br />In the WW2 engine, isolated defenders can lose a melee but not necessarily get completely wiped out - ie. the attacker wins the melee but doesn't occupy the defender's hex. So perhaps it might be worthwhile carrying over into this engine?
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I could live with that. It would mean allowing for multiple attacks perhaps. You get that 1/2 loss, then 1/2 loss again thing which I have never liked about the panzer engine.

So a 600 man bn. would go lose 300 in the first attack, then 150, then 75, etc.

I prefer 75, then 150, then 300. I think that the Panzer engine has it backwards. As a unit loses its cohesion it loses MORE not less.

Bill Peters
Former NWC President, Club Founder, Prussian and Austrian Army Founder, Stefan Reuter's hunting buddy. HPS Napoleonic Scenario Designer (Eckmuhl, Wagram)

[url="http://www.fireandmelee.net"]Fire and Melee Wargame site[/url]

Gentlemen,
I apologise as my post is slightly off the topic.
I am interested what are the strategic plans or possibilities for the games we play in NWC and what we are trying to achieve in this discussion.

Although I have been in the club only for 6 month I am concerned about my and number of other NWC members future in the club.

Is it an attempt to lobby HPS to modify the engine?
Can you Bill modify the engine?
Are there any plans to create a new engine?

I personally frustrated with 5 things in HPS:

<b>1.</b> Powerless and defenceless artillery – it is a suicide to place batteries within 2-3 hexes of the enemy and they do not do much on bigger range. Horse and light artillery become actually obsolete in this environment.

<b>2.</b> Blitzkrieg tactics- no comments here.

<b>3.</b> Complicated Melee calculations and melee reports:

- It is almost impossible to calculate your chances for successful melee as oppose to BG series where the algorithms are pretty clear.

- Furthermore, this impossibility to analyse chances actually encourages some (or many, or majority??) Players to use “save and try againâ€

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by August Dean</i>
<b>3.</b> Complicated Melee calculations and melee reports:

- It is almost impossible to calculate your chances for successful melee as oppose to BG series where the algorithms are pretty clear.
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I think it is pretty clear, once you turn off the "on-map results" you get the full calculation in the classic window. What confuses us BG players is probably that you really need decend *odds*, i.e. ca. a 3 to 1 superiority, which is often hard to achieve. Numerical superiority is more important in the HPS games than the modifiers which primarily affected the outcome in the BG games.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">
- Furthermore, this impossibility to analyse chances actually encourages some (or many, or majority??) Players to use “save and try againâ€

Congratulations with your 2000 posts marshal Walter [;)].

“I think this is a suspicion that has not been proven and what's more, is impossible to prove. Personally I refuse to believe it's true. I don't have any reason to suspect that any of my opponents, in fact anyone I know in this club or in others, would do that. â€

Bill,

I agree - higher losses as a unit loses its cohesion makes sense. Various levels of disruption with gradually decreasing combat ability would also be a useful means of representing cohesion loss.

Several other things I like about the WW2 engine are:

1./ The more flexible Action Point system linking movement, firing & melee in a single system - if a unit's marching it can't spend so much time firing, etc. I'd like to see the Nappy, ACW and EAW engines adopt this system.

2./ The ability to assign victory point values on a unit by unit basis in the oob - this would be a great way of distinguishing militia from grenadiers, etc. For instance, a 500 strong C quality line unit could be worth 10pts, whereas a 500 man militia unit might be only worth 8pts and an A quality grenadier unit 12pts. This would give Boney greater incentive for keeping the Old Guard in reserve for the decisive moment.

3./ Perhaps also the movement, fire and melee capabilities of individual units could also be modified slightly, as required, in the oob. (I'm pretty certain the WW2 engine permits this, and it could also be potentially useful for the Nappy engine to distinguish different march rates - eg. French columns marching 6 hexes a turn, but Austrians & Prussians just 5 hexes)

Capt Rich White
4th Cavalry Brigade
Cavalry Corps
Anglo-Allied Army

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by August Dean</i>
-unfortunately this does not include modifiers affect apart from column modifier.
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It does. They are just cumulated, so you're left guessing where they come from, but they're there. That way for instance you can prove that a skirmisher facing the flank negates the nasty flank attack modifier. I agree though that they could be given individually, but the designers probably thought that nobody would care for that much information. (I would, occasionally.)

<center>
D.S. "Green Horse" Walter, Maréchal d'Empire
Duc des Pyramides, Comte de Normandie
Commandant la [url="http://home.arcor.de/dierk_Walter/NWC/3_VI_AdR_Home.htm"]3e Division Bavaroise[/url], L'Armée du Rhin
Commandant [url="http://home.arcor.de/dierk_Walter/NWC/EdM_start.htm"]L'Ecole de Mars[/url], L'Armée du Rhin
Commandant la Brigade de Grenadiers de la Moyenne Garde
</center>

I did a test using the Partial Retreats rule. Contrary to the manual I highly suggest the use of this rule. It allowed the retreat of units to a friendly adjacent stack in my test whether Weak ZOC was ON or OFF.

All of our playtest games will use this rule in part to eradicate the problem of ZOC kills.

The rule is OFF by default. That is because in part it was thought to be a rule that allowed for unhistorical results.

Until we can remedy this issue I suggest the use of this rule. If anything it will prevent the unhistorical high losses we are seeing.

Bill Peters
Former NWC President, Club Founder, Prussian and Austrian Army Founder, Stefan Reuter's hunting buddy. HPS Napoleonic Scenario Designer (Eckmuhl, Wagram)

[url="http://www.fireandmelee.net"]Fire and Melee Wargame site[/url]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Bill Peters</i>
<br />I did a test using the Partial Retreats rule. Contrary to the manual I highly suggest the use of this rule. It allowed the retreat of units to a friendly adjacent stack in my test whether Weak ZOC was ON or OFF.

All of our playtest games will use this rule in part to eradicate the problem of ZOC kills.

Bill Peters
Former NWC President, Club Founder, Prussian and Austrian Army Founder, Stefan Reuter's hunting buddy. HPS Napoleonic Scenario Designer (Eckmuhl, Wagram)
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BILL? WHAT ON EARTH DOES THAT MEAN? Partial retreats is not connected with ZOC kills in any way, is it? It's about retreating of a stack into a hex with friendly units in case the size of both of them exceeds the stacking limitations. That's how it's described in the manual. That's how all of the players in here understand it. I saw numerous posts both in here and in the allies tavern where the mechanism was described in details. No one said anything about the possibility to retreat into a hex in enemy ZOC. I never saw it. Maybe I'm too unexperienced? Maybe, but players with 1000s of points in store posted and they didn't notice it too. And now you say it works in a completely different way. Were you not one of the HPS team would I say "Ha! The guy knows nothing about the engine!" But you are! Does it mean we all were understanding one of the game aspects in a completely wrong way for quite some time and no one told us? Or it will work differently in a new version, my sincere appologies then![:I]

<center></center>
<center><b>Eyo Imperatorskogo Velichestva Leib-Kirassirskogo polku
General-Mayor Anton Valeryevich Kosyanenko
commander of Little Russian grenadiers regiment</b></center>

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Richard</i>
<br />Bill,

2./ The ability to assign victory point values on a unit by unit basis in the oob - this would be a great way of distinguishing militia from grenadiers, etc. For instance, a 500 strong C quality line unit could be worth 10pts, whereas a 500 man militia unit might be only worth 8pts and an A quality grenadier unit 12pts. This would give Boney greater incentive for keeping the Old Guard in reserve for the decisive moment.

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Sorry for straying off topic, but this is a great idea (for all systems). C troops should be the base value they are now with the point value modified up and and down as you vary. Those A+ guard units would get pricey - and the A+ cavalry would only rarely be committed to a dicey attack....

<b>Général de Division Michael Cox</b>
<font size="4"><i>Principe <font size="1">della </font id="size1">Toscana</i></font id="size4">
Comte de Moselle

<i><font size="4">Armée du Rhin</font id="size4">
<font size="2">2e battallion, 1er Regiment de Chasseurs a Pied, Inf. de l'V. Gde.</i></font id="size2">
<center></center>

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Kosyanenko</i>
<br /><blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Bill Peters</i>
<br />I did a test using the Partial Retreats rule. Contrary to the manual I highly suggest the use of this rule. It allowed the retreat of units to a friendly adjacent stack in my test whether Weak ZOC was ON or OFF.

All of our playtest games will use this rule in part to eradicate the problem of ZOC kills.

Bill Peters
Former NWC President, Club Founder, Prussian and Austrian Army Founder, Stefan Reuter's hunting buddy. HPS Napoleonic Scenario Designer (Eckmuhl, Wagram)
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

BILL? WHAT ON EARTH DOES THAT MEAN? Partial retreats is not connected with ZOC kills in any way, is it? It's about retreating of a stack into a hex with friendly units in case the size of both of them exceeds the stacking limitations. That's how it's described in the manual. That's how all of the players in here understand it. I saw numerous posts both in here and in the allies tavern where the mechanism was described in details. No one said anything about the possibility to retreat into a hex in enemy ZOC. I never saw it. Maybe I'm too unexperienced? Maybe, but players with 1000s of points in store posted and they didn't notice it too. And now you say it works in a completely different way. Were you not one of the HPS team would I say "Ha! The guy knows nothing about the engine!" But you are! Does it mean we all were understanding one of the game aspects in a completely wrong way for quite some time and no one told us? Or it will work differently in a new version, my sincere appologies then![:I]

<center></center>
<center><b>Eyo Imperatorskogo Velichestva Leib-Kirassirskogo polku
General-Mayor Anton Valeryevich Kosyanenko
commander of Little Russian grenadiers regiment</b></center>

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Slight correction to my post - you CAN retreat to a friendly stack that is adjacent to yours with Partial Retreats OFF IF the stacking limit is not met.

Frankly I will still use the Partial Retreats rule from now on. Al Amos has proved that you could pile in the units in a hex. Some incredible number too that we will never be able to attain to in our games.

So yes, the Partial Retreat rule has NOTHING to do with retreats as far as it pertains to being able to retreat to a friendly. It WILL save big stacks from being ZOCd, however, and I plan on using it in all future games for that reason alone regardless of whatever other effect it has.

Bill Peters
Former NWC President, Club Founder, Prussian and Austrian Army Founder, Stefan Reuter's hunting buddy. HPS Napoleonic Scenario Designer (Eckmuhl, Wagram)

[url="http://www.fireandmelee.net"]Fire and Melee Wargame site[/url]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Mike Cox</i>
<br /><blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Richard</i>
<br />Bill,

2./ The ability to assign victory point values on a unit by unit basis in the oob - this would be a great way of distinguishing militia from grenadiers, etc. For instance, a 500 strong C quality line unit could be worth 10pts, whereas a 500 man militia unit might be only worth 8pts and an A quality grenadier unit 12pts. This would give Boney greater incentive for keeping the Old Guard in reserve for the decisive moment.

<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Sorry for straying off topic, but this is a great idea (for all systems). C troops should be the base value they are now with the point value modified up and and down as you vary. Those A+ guard units would get pricey - and the A+ cavalry would only rarely be committed to a dicey attack....

<b>Général de Division Michael Cox</b>
<font size="4"><i>Principe <font size="1">della </font id="size1">Toscana</i></font id="size4">
Comte de Moselle

<i><font size="4">Armée du Rhin</font id="size4">
<font size="2">2e battallion, 1er Regiment de Chasseurs a Pied, Inf. de l'V. Gde.</i></font id="size2">
<center></center>
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I have wanted this since 2000. Ever since I started work on Eckmuhl. Guys and I talked about it as far back as when NIR came out. How that French OG was being killed and it was the same points as per Moscow Militia. Or that British Guards in BGW were the same as Hanoverian Landwehr.

If one side has a marked difference in morale than you can change the overall points for that side's VP factor but that is not and never will be the answer.

Bill Peters
Former NWC President, Club Founder, Prussian and Austrian Army Founder, Stefan Reuter's hunting buddy. HPS Napoleonic Scenario Designer (Eckmuhl, Wagram)

[url="http://www.fireandmelee.net"]Fire and Melee Wargame site[/url]

<i>I have wanted this since 2000. Ever since I started work on Eckmuhl. Guys and I talked about it as far back as when NIR came out. How that French OG was being killed and it was the same points as per Moscow Militia. Or that British Guards in BGW were the same as Hanoverian Landwehr.</i>

--------------------

Alright, let's get up a petition to John in a separate post. I'm sure everyone agrees that this would be a useful feature and it should be feasible, since it's already in the WW2 engine.


Capt Rich White
4th Cavalry Brigade
Cavalry Corps
Anglo-Allied Army

I kind of like the idea of ZOC, but there should be a limitation placed on what units can utilize it. It seems to me that a simple ratio could be applied. If the unit surrounded has a 3-1 (or whatever ratio you decide works best) strength advantage over a surrounding unit, it does not creat a ZOC. In other words, no more surrounding a Regt of 500 with a bunch of 50 strength skirmishers on 5 sides, and smashing them with 2000 strength formed unit from the 6th side. The 500 could break out through 50 pretty easily. With the ratio, you would have to have at least 175 in each hex to pin the surrounded unit. Also, no ZOC kills by skirmishers alone against formed units of say over 150 men in strength.

Ensign William Davis
23rd (Royal Welsh) Fusiliers
4th British Brigade
Anglo-Allied Army

Gentlemen,

In my opinion there is definitely a place for ZOC kills, although some restrictions/modifications would be appropriate. Several have commented that losing 2000 men at a time seems excessive -- while I concur to some extent, keep in mind that the casualites do not only represent death, capture and incapacitation, but also can model a total loss of cohesion in the unit based on loss of command and control. The unit(s) may still exist as a mass of fleeing men, but be in such a state that they cannot be returned to battle readiness within the confines of the scenario. The next day half of the men or more might be present for duty, but for that day they are finished. I like the idea of units perhaps not crumbling immediately -- either the losing unit takes a morale check in which if it passes it takes higher than normal losses if it can't retreat (up to double) but stands, while if it fails it surrenders. I also like Mark Eason's suggestion that the unit gets an opportunity to break out by meleeing the weakest unit attacking. Kosyanenko's suggestion is also well thought out, but perhaps too complicated.

I don't like units being attacked from the two rear hexes being automatically eliminated -- a unit retreating towards its own lines can be meleed in a situation where if it "retreats"/flees forward it is back in its own lines, but instead it is eliminated. Eliminating this so that units can retreat in any direction with soft ZOC on would go a long way towards eliminating some people's problem with the system and would be a very easy fix.

Another thing to consider is whether a unit that loses a melee ought to always have to retreat. Perhaps a "hold at all costs" type of situation could result in a unit taking higher casualties in a loss, but holding the ground. Perhaps a modified morale check (maybe an additional -1 or -2 beyond standard modifiers) should be taken by a losing unit which determines whether it actually loses the ground.

General Theron Lambert
Comte d'Angers et Duc de Montereau
3rd Brigade, 3rd Division
VI Corps
Armee du Rhin
Commandant de la Division de Cavalerie de la Moyenne Garde