Neil Thomas' "19th C. Wargaming"- 5th Franco-Prussian Playtest

Improves & sustains of K&P are discussed by French Soldiers and contractors.

It takes a village to make a set of good rules...

At this point I've made so many small changes and added so many necessary mechanics that Neil Thomas can no longer be held responsible for the rules. Accordingly, they've been switched to the 6D6 files and renamed "Kepi & Picklehaube". 

While I certainly want to give Mr. T credit for inspiring my direction in this period with his book, I've streamlined many of the mechanics and added many others. My latest design maxim is that "you cannot have tabletop tactics without tabletop mechanics". In other words, you can't have tactics on the table if the rule mechanics don't enable / encourage / guide / direct / force players to them. While I agree with Mr. T that you can't legislate every possibility or prohibit every stupidity, there needs to be enough mechanics to play the game in an historical manner yet still within the given resources of time, table, figures, etc.

With the above firmly in mind, the rules continue to be fine-tuned. Significant issues in the works are concentration / spreading of firepower [especially for artillery], balancing skirmishers, and table terrain considerations. 

Targeting. With Artillery ranges of 24-30" common, it is important that guns can't be used to sniper units. With that in mind and the significant problem of line of sight when multiple batteries are firing into the same area, I consulted with His Eminence, Bruce Weigle. As always, Bruce responded quickly with good historical and gaming insights on the use of massed batteries. Net decisions are:
  a) Declaring Targets. All Fire against a particular Target Unit must be declared and executed before going on to the next Target. Should the Target be destroyed additional designated Firing Units have no effect. 
  b) Supporting Fire. Additional Artillery batteries firing at a given target add one dice of attack per battery to the primary Artillery battery. This is largely due to the difficulty of coordinating Fire and seeing where shots are landing to correct following shots.
  c) Pre-measuring. An old gaming mechanic problem. I lean towards allowing it any time as being fastest, easiest and most realistic. For the moment, I'm disallowing it.

Skirmishers continue to be a classic gaming challenge. If they are able to fire and move, should they fire before the move, after the move, or both? If before, they are almost impossible to catch as they can fire then fall back out of LoS into terrain. If after, it limits their combat potential to offensive as they move up and shoot. Still pretty useful as it extends their range 4" thru movement.

Increasingly, I am reminded how important terrain will be to this scale - there has to be more contours and such to break things up. It is also very much the terrain on which most of the battles were fought - somewhat broken, hilly, and cultivated. At 1" = 100m, plowed fields  are only 1-3" square as are towns; hills have many spurs and valleys coming off their ridge line and they are pretty close making them a prime location for defense. With guns that effectively fire at ranges of 3000m, and rifles at 600-1200m, line of sight is a critical issue, even more so than in the preceding wars: Seven Weeks War [aka Koniggratz], American Civil War, and 2nd Italian War of Liberation.

This playtest introduced another long-term miniature gamer to the rules. Host 2K watched mostly while I played against another member of our club. As playtesting was the purpose more than winning, a scenario or terrain, a simple board was laid out with two towns and a central ridge. The Prussians outnumbered the French in Infantry and artillery while the French had a cavalry advantage. As I forgot to take pictures for the first several turns, we are entering about mid-game.

View left flank and down the table. Prussians to the left have been advancing against the French on the right. This encounter battle had the French outracing the Prussians to the central ridge and two center towns, but needing to stay back out of line of sight in some areas to counter the superior Prussian artillery. Below, the French hold the closer town with three battalions, a skirmisher and a battery, while their cavalry mix it up with the Prussians at the bottom. At top, the French have three Guard battalions near the upper town, a battery and two light dragoons in support.

above: Prussian cuirassiers [center] and light dragoons hold off twice their number of french hussars. On this day, the French were consistently outrolled by a hit or two and unable to maneuver well enough to trap the Prussians.

Far Right Flank closeup. Prussian brigade advances upon the town. Cuirassiers and lt. dragoons flanked by skirmishers to the left, with four battalions and a battery providing the main weight of attack. French opposing them have three Guard battalions, two lt dragoons, and one battery. Overall, the French didn't handle themselves very well, and the small edge in numbers and quality was transformed into a big advantage in the field.


Left flank town under pressure. Here, three line battalions, a battery and a skirmisher [to left, two stands] successfully hold off their numbers in Prussians - barely. The wood occupied by the Prussians countered the town held by the French.


Right flank town about to handle a Brigade+ of Prussians. The cavalry is just off camera to right. Prussian skirmishers [2-stand Unit] have four battalions to their left then a battery.


Far Right Flank cavalry action goes bad for the French. This was balanced by the Near Right Flank infantry fight also going badly for the French. The problem with trying to hold a town is that it is not a fortress and most towns are too small to hold 1000 Soldiers in full protection. Ergo, they can be take with superior firepower if the attacker gets the troops and position to do so. In this case, the right of the town was cleared away by the cavalry and skirmish Unit, and the left was poorly supported by French Units on the hill. This allowed a small advantage in Prussian Units to edge the French out of the town completely.


French Guard and supporting cavalry probably don't have what it takes to re-occupy the town. While there is one fresh Guard Unit to left, the jumbled positioning of Units give the Prussians a significant edge. This French colonel should go back to Algeria!


On the left center, French doing better. Not quite as outnumbered and the Prussians here are not being quite as well handled. Their cavalry have interfered a bit in the fight, and the superior firepower of a battalion has trimmed down the French skirmishers considerably.

Far left cavalry Action inconclusive. French had 4-2 advantage but did not use it effectively to pin and destroy Prussian counterparts. This wouldn't have been as big a problem if the French hadn't lost nearly every melee they got involved with! I'm also still learning how to back up a cavalry attack with additional cavalry - it is quite different from Infantry. The decisive nature of the melee mechanic means that it is usually better to do what was done historically, and have your second line of cavalry several hundred yards back, the easier to reinforce the front line should it have to retreat.


Once again, an interesting playtest and an enjoyable one. I am continually impressed by the nuances of play available with the relatively straightforward mechanics provided in a 4-page rule set. Granted, they are not written conversationally nor with lots of examples. Our blind tester gave them a thumbs-up and had little trouble being guided thru them. A few errors were made by me along the way as it is hard to both play and explain effectively.

Keeping the changes made for this test, want to try having the melee loser retreat 1d6" instead of one move. I think a retreat is pretty hard to manage and largely out of control of command of either the battalion itself or the brigadier. Stabilizing a retreat would be reflected in movement over subsequent turns.

These rules are ready for a lot more play including blind playtesting - let me know if you are interested. 

Must say that I'm pretty eager to bang out some of my 15s and play on the table myself! I may have to use some substitutes to band out more games at home while the laborious painting aspect of the project is in progress.