Foundations

I wrote a few weeks ago that I would expand, in due course, on the Throne & Altar rules, and I want to do that in a couple of steps.  I have already said that the rules are based on Greg Wagman's Altar of Freedom.  First, I want to give an overview of those rules, and then I will go on to set out what changes I have made to make them suit Napoleonics rather than ACW.

I have to do a bit of a balancing act, here.  I want you, dear reader, to understand broadly how the system works, so that you can understand later what the heck I am talking about when I discuss my mods, without telling you so much that you can reverse-engineer the AoF rules and play games without giving Greg money first.  If I let too much slip, please, don't do that.  His excellent rules are very reasonably priced - US$15 for the .pdf (about AU$20), and worth every penny.  If you want to play giant ACW battles on the wargames table that are all over by tea-time (and who doesn't), go and sling him a few shekels.  You can also see a video review of the rules here (presented by a couple of other guys in the author's club - and, just by the way, these blokes have the best wargames club setup ever), and a playthrough of the battle of Antietam, with a little historical background, here.  The Altar of Freedom link above also has a page of further AARs, some in video form, if you want to see more of it in action.

That said, here are the highlights of how the rules work.

Overview

First it is important to understand that these rules are grand-tactical, not tactical.  Players represent commanders of corps and armies, not of battalions and divisions, and their concerns should be those of generals at that level of command.  Details of equipment, of uniforms, of formations adopted from minute to minute and of unit roster counts as the battle progresses are, at this level, of no interest.  Of course over the length of a campaign the state of equipment, strength and readiness of units is of concern, but on the battlefield you just want to know the rough capabilities of your units and to be concerned with getting them to the right place at the right time - "get there fastest with the mostest", as Nathan Bedford Forrest didn't quite say.  Primary concerns of the rules are therefore:

- Command & Control

- Generalship, including reflecting characteristics of individual Generals

"Generalship" could mean all sorts of things, but what I mean by it here is:

- Ability to co-ordinate troops

- Ability to make use of terrain, including roads

- Ability to control the rhythm and flow of battle

Mechanics of Play

The first essential mechanic is that an army must be organised according to its chain of command - if there are multiple players on a team, it will not be a matter of "you move everything on that side of the road and I will move everything on this side".

Typically, there will be an army commander set over two or more corps (a battle with just one corps involved is hardly worth fighting).  Each corps consists of several divisions, which in turn consist of several brigades, of infantry, cavalry or artillery (each brigade is a single troop type).  The "brigade" is the manoeuvre unit on the table, and each is represented by a single base of troops.  I put "brigade" in quotes because a base may not be exactly that according to the historical TOE - in small battles, a "brigade" may be as little as a single regiment, battalion or battery, or especially in the case of artillery may be a converged representation of several batteries or regimental guns actually distributed around the brigades of a division.  This chain of command places limitations on what generals can give orders to what units.  Generals represented on the table are commanders of armies and corps - divisional and lower commanders are abstracted, as are aides and staff officers.

Second, and most central, is the notion of Priority Points.  Each general is assigned, by the scenario design, a certain number of these (typically 6-8 or so), which can be spent each turn on four things:

- Control of the turn clock, which dictates the pace of the battle

- Manoeuvring troops

- Micro-managing troops at turn end

- Rallying broken troops

At the beginning of each turn (which represents an hour of real time), generals assign PPs to the first two of these, optionally reserving some points for later use.  Units then start manoeuvring, starting with those divisions assigned the highest priority by their commanders and working down.  Sometimes divisions of both armies will manoeuvre "simultaneously" (although mechanically everything happens in sequence), but rarely will all troops in an army manoeuvre together.  There are likely to be several bounds in a turn, in each of which one or more divisions will be acting, but the trick is that you don't know for sure how many there will be.  Divisions assigned low priorities may not get to move at all.

The Turn Clock

The rather clever device that dictates how the pace of play falls out is called the turn clock.  This is a number, displayed on a polyhedral die, and re-set at the beginning of each turn.  Each side may bid (at the cost of PPs that could otherwise be used for other purposes) for control of it each turn, and whichever commander wins control can, to a degree, speed up or slow down the progress of the turn by reducing the number displayed on the turn clock until it reaches zero.  That is, he can determine that there will be either more or less bounds in which to pursue objectives.  At our Bailén game, for example, the Spanish mostly controlled the clock, and generally tried to run it down quickly so as to deny the French the ability to get things done and to hasten the time when Spanish reinforcements might arrive.

Manoeuvring

What divisions move in a bound is determined by what priority points were assigned by commanding generals at the beginning of the turn.  Troops are moved one brigade at a time, and may be interrupted by enemy defensive fire.  Troops not in the immediate presence of the enemy may move, in large bodies, very quickly along roads - roads in this system are not just decorative features, but are crucial to moving troops about.  This means, in turn, that road junctions (and the villages and towns that, in Europe, typically accompany them) become important tactical objectives.

Once all movement is complete, manoeuvring units engage in combat, either ranged (skirmishing) or close (volleys at fifty yards and in with the bayonet, or sabre as the case may be).  Shooting range for infantry is 2", which doesn't sound like much but represents some 300 yards or more on the tabletop.  Shooting (long-range exchanges between skirmishers) therefore tends to be fairly inconclusive - if you want results, you must close to contact.

Importantly, casualties are not counted.  Combat may inflict "fatigue" points (which represent a mixture of fatigue, casualties, demoralisation and disorder), or unit breakage.  These are represented on-table with some marker - a die will do, or a separate little base with casualty figures if figures are being used. If a unit is not broken but stays in the line, fatigue does compromise its combat-effectiveness to a degree.

End-of-Turn Activities

Once all regular manoeuvring has been completed (either because everybody has carried out their planned movements, or because they were interrupted by the turn clock running out), generals may spend any reserved PPs.  Some limited final manoeuvring may be carried out (but no more combat of any kind), and units broken by their exertions may attempt to rally.

Victory
In general, victory is achieved by "breaking" the enemy army.  Each scenario will specify a break point for each army, representing a certain fraction of the brigades on table.  Once that many brigades have been broken, you lose.

Characteristics of Generals

Each general, in a given scenario, is given one or two personal characteristics, which greatly affect how he interacts with his troops.  AoF has a menu of twenty such characteristics, and since the rules are aimed very much at re-fighting historical battles rather than playing points-based pickup games, they are assigned according to the individual generals' personality, temperament and performance displayed at that battle.

For Bailén, I gave Dupont the characteristics of Inept and Micromanager.  Dupont had been a fine divisional commander, but on this occasion, commanding a corps in battle for the first time, he cocked it up royally.  This was reflected in the scenario by the two characteristics.  Despite being given the extravagantly high rating of 19 Priority Points(!), he was unable to bring them effectively to bear.  First, as a Micromanager he had to reserve half his points each turn for end-of-turn adjustments, which left him only ten points to spend on turn clock and manouevre for his five divisions.  Being Inept, he was not permitted to give any two divisions the same priority number, so that most turns he bid nothing for the turn clock, assigned 4, 3, 2 and 1 points respectively to four of his divisions, and left one division without orders.  This problem was only exacerbated with Vedel's reinforcing division arrived on-table.  At the end of each hour, then, he had points to burn for rallying broken units (although none were broken until late in the game) and getting his troops forward and nicely lined up in readiness for the next turn.  At the start of the next turn, though, such preparations went all to hell as his divisions manoeuvred, each with a different priority.

Castaños, on the other hand, had never fought a battle at all, and won this one largely in absentia and by luck.  He applied no particular skills of generalship, so I have him as Hesitant and Grandiose.  The combination meant that the PPs available to him each turn could vary randomly between zero and eight, making it difficult to form reliable plans or to follow through on those he formed.  Despite the considerable force available to him, he therefore took some hours to force his way across the river into Dupont's rear.

Next...

Taking a rule set designed for ACW and simply playing it with allegedly Napoleonic troops could no doubt be done, but the result would be rather flat.  The ACW was fought between troops raised in a single culture (I do not want to get into social distinctions here between Southerners and Yankees), among generals trained in the very same schools, and with a very limited palette of troop types.  The European wars involved a wide range of nations, each with its own history, traditions, temperament and military doctrines.

The challenge is to reflect that greater variety and richness sufficiently for the battles to feel "Napoleonic" (or at least to feel distinctly different from "ACW", and in the right direction, bearing in mind that I wasn't there for either event), while keeping the simplicity and speed of play that is such an attractive aspect of AoF.  Over the next several posts I will go through what changes I have made (and will continue to make, based on your feedback) to turn AoF into T&A, starting with troop types.

If you have any comments, please leave leave them here, rather than by e-mail, so that we can get a conversation going.  I have already altered the rules a little since last month based on John M's remarks concerning cavalry vs. infantry, and will continue to tweak them in response to experience and well-formed argument and evidence.  In due course I will make available here a .pdf of rules modifications (requiring a copy of AoF to make complete sense).  A quick-reference card is already available, and will no doubt be updated as we go along.  Perhaps in the fullness of time we might, by agreement with Greg, even be able to make a complete rule set in its own right.