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

MORALE
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.

Looking from behind the French lines at my refight of the Battle of Sahay

WEATHER
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.

A simple weather gauge

2 = fog
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.

Testing The New Command & Control Rules - The Battle of Eckwelt

MY regular wargames opponent and I will test the latest edition of my rules by each picking a mid-18th century army to use on a battlefield created by my random terrain generator.
I know he will almost certainly want to choose a French army, and probably have it led by his hero, Maurice de Saxe, but he is the guest and so he can select from any of the following:
1. French
2. Franco-Bavarian
3. Austrian
4. Austro-Saxon
5. Prussian
6. Prusso-Saxon
7. Pragmatic
For the purposes of this test, each force shall consist of 20 units drawn from the following army list:
General...1
Foot...6-8*
Light infantry...0-1
Cuirassiers...2-4^#
Dragoons...2-4^
Hussars...0-2
Guns...1-3
*If at least seven battalions are chosen, one may be elite
^The number of cuirassier squadrons must not exceed the number of dragoon squadrons
#If four cuirassier squadrons are chosen, one may be elite
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AS more-or-less expected, my opponent has chosen a Franco-Bavarian army led by Saxe, while I have gone for a Prussian army commanded by Frederick the Great.
The next stage is for us to each write down, but not yet reveal, the composition of our force.
I have gone for, in addition to Frederick: eight foot battalions, four squadrons each of cuirassiers and dragoons, and three guns.
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NEXT we used the random terrain generator to select our battlefield. It turned out to have a large forest of firs, a smaller wood of oaks, a small but steep hill and, to the south-east, a town.

The battlefield looking form the south-west

We agreed the battle would be taking place east of the Rhine at an unspecified date, thus somewhat getting around the anachronistic point that France and Prussia were allies in the War of the Austrian Succession and only became enemies in the Seven Years War when Saxe was long dead.
We named the forest Tannenwald, the oak wood Eichwald, the hill Steilerhügel and the town Eckwelt.
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WE now revealed our chosen armies.
Mine was:
Frederick the Great (rated superior)
Wickradt-Winterfeldt Grenadiers (rated elite)
Winterfeldt Foot x2
Kanitz Foot
Brandenburg-Schwedt Foot
Lehwaldt Foot
Wickradt Foot
Grevenitz Foot
Garde du Corps (rated elite)
Brandenburg-Schwedt Cuirassiers
Preussen Cuirassiers
Buddenbrock Cuirassiers
Porzellan Dragoons
Württemberg Dragoons
Bayreuth Dragoons
Normann Dragoons
9pdr Gun x3
Victory Points: 30 (a general counts as 3pts, a foot battalion 2pts and each other unit 1pt; an army loses if its number of victory points falls below half the starting number)
My opponent, along with Saxe as his general, chose seven foot battalions, one unit of light infantry, four squadrons each of cuirassiers and dragoons, and three guns:
Maurice de Saxe (rated superior)
Grenadiers de France (rated elite)
Picardie Foot
Navarre Foot
Touraine Foot
Poitou Foot
Alsace Foot
Wittmer Foot
Chasseurs de Fischer (light infantry)
Gendarmes de la Garde (rated elite)
Royal-Cravate Cavalerie
Colonel-Général Cavalerie
Cuirassiers du Roi
Languedoc Dragoons
Hohenzollern Dragoons x2
Dragoons du Roi
8pdr Gun x3
Victory Points: 29 (a general counts as 3pts, a foot battalion 2pts and each other unit 1pt; an army loses if its number of victory points falls below half the starting number)
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EACH general is rated superior, which means he adds one to the command die of whichever section of the army he is with.
In addition, Prussian foot will add one to every musketry throw when in firing order.
Because this will give me quite an advantage, I am balancing it, at least to some extent, by giving my opponent, whom I will from now on refer to as Saxe, the choice of which long edge of the table to deploy on. This might not matter with some battles, but here it is likely to make a sizeable difference.
Literally quicker than you could say Jack Robinson, Saxe chose the side with the hill.
The Tannenwald is passable by light infantry at half-speed and other foot, who cannot be in firing order, at quarter-speed. The Eichwald is passable to light infantry at normal speed, other foot, who cannot be in firing order, at half-speed and horse at quarter-speed. The Steilerhügel reduces all movement by half.
Next: we each draw a sketch map of our initial dispositions.
To be continued

The Set-Up

WE had a lot of fun using my random terrain generator to set up the table for its first battle.
The dice decreed two rivers, two hills and a built-up area, and we also let the dice decide where the rivers would flow, the size of the built-up area, etc.

Nearest the camera is the fast-flowing and high-banked Passer River, which turned out to be impassable to troops, and in the centre is the Einsamenhügel.
On the far side of the table is the spa town - little more than a village, really - of Bad Wörishofen, which is set on the Wörthbach River in the shadow of the Kneippberg.
The Wörthbach is impassable to artillery, except via the bridge, but can be crossed by infantry in one turn and cavalry in half a turn. Infantry would lose firing order while crossing.
The Kneippberg is steep, slowing troops to half speed, even while going directly downhill.
The Einsamenhügel is by no means so steep, slowing troops only by a third, and not at all if going directly downhill.
In practice, bearing in mind the size of the table, only the Einsamenhügel is likely to come into play.

Christening The Table

I WILL be christening my new wargaming table with a battle, set in the 1740s, against my regular wargames opponent.
As the guest, he will have choice of sides but since he is a huge Francophile I have little doubt which side he will pick as the battle will see the Pragmatic Army taking on a force of Franco-Bavarians.
Each army will consist of a general, five battalions of regular foot, one battalion of grenadiers, four squadrons of heavy cavalry, one squadron of hussars and two guns, but there will be some differences between the troops' capabilities.
I will also be using my random terrain generator, modified to take into account the larger dimensions of my new playing surface when compared to the kitchen table we had been using.
The table is 6ft by 2ft 6in and the battle is being fought in central Europe, somewhere east of the Rhine.
Random Terrain Generator
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, 5 or 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.