Test any unit which, during a half-turn (a turn consist of Player A's actions and then Player B's), has lost effectiveness to firing or has lost a melee.
Roll a die, needing the following minimum score to avoid losing a further 25 percent effectiveness: elite, 3; regular, 4; poor, 5.
+1 if a general is attached to the unit (he is eliminated if the unit is eliminated).
+1 if a friendly unit (not light infantry or a gun) is to the rear and could reach the testing unit in two normal moves (a friendly unit can only add support in this way to one unit per half-turn).
A unit that fails its morale, and a unit that loses more hits in a melee regardless of whether it fails a morale test, immediately retreats one move (with the normal possible Variation), ending with its back to the enemy.
On subsequent turns, action points must first be used to try to rally retreating units. A 5 or better is required to halt the unit so that it can return to normal action on the following turn. A general with the unit gives +1 to the rallying throw.
A retreating unit is eliminated of the first move of a retreat is obstructed by horse or foot (except light infantry). If the blocking unit is friendly, it must take a morale test, unless it is horse retreated into by foot.
Formed foot lose their firing order when retreating and so have an 8cm move.
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| Looking from behind the French lines at my refight of the Battle of Sahay |
This, with minor amendments, comes from Charlie Wesencraft's With Pike And Musket.
At the start of the game, roll dice to determine the weather according to the weather gauge below.
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| A simple weather gauge |
3 = light rain
4-10 = fair
11 = light rain
12 = heavy rain
At the start of each subsequent turn, roll one die to determine if the weather has moved down one notch (a throw of 1 or 2), stayed the same (3 or 4) or moved up one notch (5 or 6).
Weather affects units as follows:
Fog = visibility reduced to 6cm (unseen foes cannot be fired at); movement reduced by 50 percent.
Light rain = all musket and carbine firing suffers -1 per die.
Heavy rain = movement reduced by 25 percent, all musket and carbine firing suffers -2 per die.
Fair = no effect, unless the gauge stays on the same fair number for a third turn, in which case extreme heat reduces movement by 25 percent for as long as gauge does not move.
RANDOM TERRAIN GENERATOR
For non-historic battles, a random terrain generator can be used.
Because my figures are 10mm scale, and the move distances and firing ranges are suitably small, my 6ft by 2ft 6in table might seem overkill.
In fact I deliberately went for an oversize table to prevent the flanking edge-of-the-world effect that in my opinion spoils too many wargame set-ups.
Anyway, here is how the random terrain generator works.
1. Mentally divide the board into 12 sectors (two rows of six) each 1ft by 1ft 3in.
2. Roll a die for each sector, a 4-6 indicating a terrain piece.
3. If a terrain piece is indicated, roll again: 1-hill, 2-water (stream, river, lake or marsh, etc), 3-wood, 4-built-up area (anything from a farmstead to a walled town), 5-Player A's choice, 6-Player B's choice.
If the exact nature and size of the feature cannot be agreed by the players, more dicing will be necessary. This is also a good way to decide the route a river takes across the board.
Note that on average a battlefield generated under this system will have six terrain features, but a stream or river might well run through several sectors while still counting as a single feature.
NATIONAL/ARMY CHARACTERISTICS
Decide these on a battle-by-battle basis.
For example, Prussian foot at my Mollwitz refight added 1 to musketry throws and suffered no penalty for wheeling. Prussian horse in melees inflicted a hit on a throw of 5-6 instead of 4-6, and all wheeling cost half a turn.
At Dettingen, British and Hanoverian infantry battalions firing muskets will have a 50:50 chance of adding 1 to each die thrown that half-turn.
VICTORY
Unless specific objectives have been agreed, an army has lost when its army points total falls below half the starting total.
A general is worth 3pts, an infantry battalion 2pts and all other units 1pt each.
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