British Firing Line

BRITISH and British-trained infantry - principally, at Waterloo, the King's German Legion - were well-versed in using a two-deep firing line in place of the usual Continental practice of a three-deep line.

To reflect this, such troops in our Waterloo refight will cause their opponents to suffer a -1 modifier in combat.

This will apply in infantry-v-infantry combat (and infantry-v-artillery in the unlikely event of that happening), but not in infantry-v-cavalry.

The reason for the horsemen's exception is that infantry attacked by cavalry in the Napoleonic Wars almost invariably formed in squares, largely negating the difference between a two-deep and three-deep line.

Because Bob Cordery's big-battle rules in The Portable Napoleonic Wargame are at a higher level of abstraction than the battalion or the squadron, the precise formation adopted by individual battalions and squadrons is not represented on the tabletop.

As Cordery puts it: "The basic manoeuvre unit is the division ... and it is assumed that it will automatically adopt the best tactical formation for the circumstances ... so rules about line, column, square, etc are far less important in these higher-level rules."

Since British and British-trained troops formed about half the strength of Wellington's infantry, the Allied commander will be allowed to designate three of his six infantry corps as giving their opponents the -1 modifier detailed above.