Hi,

after much deliberation I'm almost at the point of deciding to go with 15mm on 30mm x 25mm bases. Before I commit and abandon Sam's recommended 40mm BW for 15mm figs can you answer this question for me. I'll be using a 6' x 4' table. Can you play a game with two support groups on that size table with 40mm BW? Or realistically are you limited to one support?

Cheers

Lasalle options - With the probability of Lasalle being on offer at Call to Arms in August, Napcon in September, and the unconfirmed possibility of Panzerschrek in June, I thought it was time to stir up some debate about how the comps are to be structured.

From what feedback I have seen the options seem to fall into two categories, straight rules changes and changes to balance the games.

For my 2 cents worth I have made a few notes as a starting point.
I personally feel that the comments about the Austrians being too tough are misguided, and their success in 2010 was due to the smaller table size and the fact that many of their opponents were still learning how to use their armies.

I also feel that British armies were historically an anomaly compared to the continental armies and despite the Pro-British bias of many players they should not easily beat other armies. They should be a challenge to use well and I suspect no matter what the rules being used, are always harder to attack with. But sometimes attack they must and I am sure it will not be any harder than attacking with any other defensively designed infantry force.

Rule Changes: I think most of these are not contentious but what do you think??

1. Infantry do only halve dice when fighting cavalry in open terrain.
: This seems to be fairly widely agreed with as its stops cavalry being too
effective in broken ground or in cover.

2. During deployment all commands must be deployed within range of their sub
commander and may not intersect with other commands (i.e. cannot mix inf and cav
battalions, unless they are all from the same command)
: Fairly straight forward and it means that if a player wishes to separate cavalry squadrons from an organic support then they will need to move them to another part of the battlefield to be useful and cannot choose an optimal matchup at deployment.

3. When two units from different commands charge the same target the second unit must
pass a DISC test.
:Again fairly straight forward, this means that other than a few select lists, all combined arms assaults will require a DISC test which will make them harder to co-ordinate.

Game Balances

1.” I’m with Stupid”

: This limits the ability for poor quality subordinates to abandon their responsibilities and leave the CinC to run the ship. I think the rule as it stands would be far too draconian for armies like the Austrians when they are on defence and only have one sub general.

Perhaps we could try something along the line that the sub general must remain within command range of at least half his units and that they must use his values rather than the CinC’s if he is within range.

2.” Off table reserves”

: This has caused a lot of angst, especially for those armies with no on-table cavalry. Different solutions I have seen are
* Only the core force starts on the table and all others must test to arrive.
* All support forces start on the table.
* Things stay as they are but we modify the arrival roll to bring them on faster.
* Forces arrive on move 1, this ensure they start at the back of the table and are somewhat delayed.

Personally, if it is a problem I would like to see all troops start on the table, or arrive on Move 1. Having troops off table affects the attacker more than the defender as if they arrive late they have to cross the table before they become effective. Also the cavalry models are so nice, it is more pleasurable to have them on the table.

3. “How the defender can win the game”

: As it stands, many players (British in particular) find it hard to win the game.
I think the best way to solve this is that the attacker must break the defender to win. This means 2 things will become very important.
- The attack/defence dice off. If both players opt to defend, one will be forced to attack if they loose the dice off. This should help the Brits who get a plus to their defence roll (except the Light Div).

- The objective marker will now have more relevance than it has in many games as if you really want to break your opponent, forcing him to test with less dice will be very handy.
- Perhaps if the attacker forces the defender to test, but they pass – the Result would be a draw?

While many armies such as the British and Russians are more suited for defence, there were occasions when they had to attack or counter attack on one sector of the battlefield. Just as the player does not get a choice, the historical Divisional General did not get a choice either and they both must hope that the extra attacking troops allocated are enough to do the job.

4. Larger tables
: I think 8’ x 6’ tables are essential to give a good game. This gives the defender a chance to advance, and then fall back in face of the advancing enemy. Maybe if we had the figures it would allow us to use a core force and 2 options? though that would slow the games down.

Thoughts esp from any organisers much appreciated.

Hi All

Has anyone had any experience with these?

Would they work for LaSalle?

Thanks

JP

Can the Wellington guys remind me what rule modifications they used in their last Tournament.

Cam

So the defender sets up within 6BW of their long edge. The objective is also deployed somewhere in the set-up area, and the defender is obligated to keep a unit within 4BW of the objective. Chances are more than one unit is kept nearby since one unit by itself won't last long. The attacker is then required to march across the whole board to overthrow the defender who is sorta squeezed against the edge, precluding any sort of defense in depth (10BW out of 40BW). Anybody notice in their games that the defender is hampered by a lack of room for maneuver?

Hi all
Having a game tomorrow using my 6mm stuff , I plan to use 1" = 1BW , the units will be 24 figures strong , based in two ranks 5mm frontage/figure.
I think it will work out OK.
I'm thinking that the table size will be reduced to 5x3 or maybe 4x3 foot ?
What do you think ?

Hi guys

Question from a Newbie

On the Black Hat website it suggests the rules are "ideal for small tables" - how small can I get away with ?

TIA