On one of my periodic meanders through what new rules are available for Napoleonics, I had a proper read of the rules by Crusader Publishing called "March Attack." I remembered being quite encouraged by the level of combat and the mechanisms that I saw when I first bought the rules but then I got lost in the plethora of made up terms and abbreviations that I needed to nail down the definitions of, before I could understand how the rules work.
Once I got my head around what "manoeuvre groups" were (not that complicated really) and Valour et Discipline tests (VD tests? Hmmmm!) things quickly fell into place. What I really liked in the rules:
The scale; battalions / cavalry squadrons are represented by two bases of figures, so divisional or even Corps level battles are possible on a regular sized gaming table.
Casualties; unit size and quality are combined into one Combat Value score. This tally of morale and actual casualties can be whittled away during a battle until a unit effectively ceases to have any effectiveness and is "destroyed." This does require keeping unit status recorded on some sort of roster but I am fairly relaxed about that.
Command level; even though individual regiments / battalions are represented and act individually, the rules encourage the wargame general to think at the level of the "Manoeuvre Group" (brigades or divisions in effect.) For example skirmish combat is not required to be ordered or controlled. It is assumed that the battalion colonels know what they are doing for this. Instead an overall effect is calculated for complete areas of the battlefield and the results applied to the individual units. Also morale is only tested for complete Manoeuvre Groups once they have lost a third of their component units.
As an inveterate tinkerer, I was always going to make adjustments to the rules as written... Some are to streamline or amend rules that I don't like but more often it is to introduce mechanisms or flavour that I want in my games.
An example of the former is the Skirmish combat which in the game has an esoteric calculation that ends up with each side having values that are compared. I decided to simplify this to whole number skirmish values for each battalion that can be represented on the table by that number of skirmisher figures. (I have the figures and by God I am going to use them!) The starting number of skirmishers and when they are lost can be recorder on the roster as we already have it for the units' CV record...
An example of the latter is the use of "blinds" to represent groups of units until they are contacted by the enemy (or found out to be fakes - just a few skirmishers screening nothing behind them.)
To add period / national flavour to the rules I am quite keen on the idea of Opportunity Cards. These are played as an interrupt during the opponent's actions. Just as an opportunity fire or to do something that reflects the strengths and skills of a particular army. Different nationalities will have a hand of cards that will hopefully encourage the player to use the army historically, because that is how it is most effective.
Another way to encourage historical behaviour from Old Regimes armies is to give them some advantage to sticking with outmoded tactics. 18th Century armies were usually drawn up with units in line formation and closely supported by neighbouring units on either flank and to the rear. One idea I had was to make the brigades immune to morale checks whilst they have a f deployment like this. So a brigade that has its 2/3 of its constituent units steady and in line with support on flanks or to the rear, does not take Army morale checks until it has 2/3 unit losses.
