GAME OF KINGS - wargaming rules for battles in mid-18th century central Europe (part two)

COMMAND & CONTROL
I HAVE tried everything, from going without command and control altogether (Neil Thomas's preference), to Bob Cordery's card-based system from The Portable Wargame, which is essentially a stripped-down version of Brent Oman's Piquet set-up.
But in the end I found that what works best is Phil Barker and the Wargames Research Group's Pips, or action points as I like to call them.
How it works in Game Of Kings is that an army is divided into three sectors - typically a centre composed of foot, the general and probably guns, and two flanks, each composed of horse and possibly light infantry (but the exact composition of each sector will partly depend on the particulars of the battlefield).
Players move alternately. When on turn, a player rolls a 10-sided die - this is the only time a die other than a six-sided one is used - to see how many action points the centre gets, and two distinguishable, eg differently coloured, ordinary dice to see how many action points each flank receives.
For each sector, use action points in the following order, the player choosing which sector goes first.
1. Try to rally retreating units (this is the only compulsory use of action points).
2. Fire guns.
3. Move units (a gun that has been fired cannot also be pivoted, limbered or otherwise moved).
4. Fire muskets, carbines and any other missile weapons.
5. Resolve melees.

Two battalions of Bavarian Kurprinz Foot flank a 9pdr gun. Behind them a half-battalion of Kurprinz Grenadiers are beside a horse-and-limber team, illustrating why I no longer use limbers (the space they take up is disproportionate) 

MOVEMENT
Foot in firing order and so able to fire volleys: 6cm
Other foot: 8cm
Limbered guns: 6cm
Heavy and medium horse: 10cm
Light horse and generals: 12cm
But see The Variation below
As mentioned in the caption to the picture above, I no longer use limbers for my guns as I think they look out of proportion to other troops, but a marker can be used to show if a gun is limbered.
It takes a Pip for a foot battalion to adopt firing order, and it may not otherwise move or fire that turn. However, a battalion can fire even when not in firing order, but, as will be seen under Musketry, the chances of it being effective are much reduced.
Heavy-cavalry troopers carried more equipment than their medium-cavalry brethren, but had better mounts, hence their movement rates are identical.
A gun needs an action point to limber or unlimber, but the gun may be pivoted as part of unlimbering.
Foot and horse can make a 180-degree about-face without loss of movement, although it does cost an action point, but a second about-face in the same turn reduces movement by half, as well as costing a second action point.
All troops can pass through friendly light foot without penalty to either group, provided they have enough movement to take them beyond the light foot. Similarly, light infantry can pass through any friendly troops.
There is no bonus for charging, either in terms of movement or melee effectiveness - such matters are deemed to be at a tactical level far below the immediate concern of the general.
When a unit wheels, measure the distance covered from the front-centre of the unit.
The Variation
Dice are generally used to help decide the effectiveness of musketry, artillery fire, hand-to-hand fighting and morale, but in most rules movement distances are fixed.
I believe this is unrealistic - a general can order a squadron of dragoons to try to seize a hill, but he cannot know exactly how long they will take to reach the hill. Perhaps an unsuspected feature of the terrain will hold them up, or maybe they will be inspired to gallop faster than an enemy squadron trying to take the same hill.
Accordingly, uncertainty is added by rolling a die if a unit is moving three-quarters or more of its maximum move distance. If 6 is thrown, add 25 percent to the distance covered; if 1 is thrown, subtract 25 percent.
Exception: if a unit has been ordered, say, to line a river bank, it would be absurd to make it overshoot and enter the water thanks to The Variation rule.

My regular wargaming opponent is a huge Francophile, and his hero is Maurice de Saxe, shown here with the Picardie Foot and Gendarmes de la Garde