Hi there,
Given the troops scale for guns at two per model, do the rules allow for battalion guns to acompany infantry formations?
regards
David b
Battalion Guns?
(11 posts) (6 voices)-
Posted 2 years ago #
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Hi David -
We hemmed and hawwed with it and finally decided to leave them out, perhaps to return as an optional rule in the Wiki.
From an historical point of view, it seemed that nobody who used them in this period, found them very useful or decisive. Napoleon's mid-war experiment with them is an anomaly, made possible by those mountains of captured ordnance, but even he concluded that it hadn't been worth the effort. After all, if they really were so useful in bucking-up mediocre infantry, then why didn't he revive them for his 1813 army? Instead, he opted to create more regular batteries.
From a game-design point of view, it seemed clunky to say the least, since it would alter the shape of an infantry battalion on the table, with concomitant effects on things like flanks, frontage, contact, etc. Because miniatures are so wildly out of scale by design (unless you're playing with 2mm), adding a gun base to an infantry battalion wildly distorts the scale of the unit. It created all sorts of potential questions that would complicate the rules, for what could only be marginal utility in a limited number of cases.
Finally, from a marketing point of view, gamers don't like to buy extra stuff. Most gamers don't use limbers, for instance, because they're an added expense. Most gamers probably won't buy and paint extra skirmisher figures for their SK screens in this game, so I had to make sure that the SK rules could function even without those markers. I doubt very much that more than 10% of the people who buy this game will ever paint up engineer units, and so on. So I had to consider whether it was worth it, to add sections of rules, for something that most people would ignore.
That's not to say that there's not room for some creative optional or house rules here. I can see, for instance, allowing the 1806 Prussians to have an extra shooting die in Line formation, to represent the battalion guns.
But I'll leave that to the players on the Wiki.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Hi there,
Without knowing all that much about the game mechanics, you could just have artillery units of one or two gun bases.
IIRC the rules mention arty units of 3 or 4 bases, perhaps more for Ruskies, so I'm guessing there's no problem to go to 1-2-base units to represent the batallion guns of infantry units and fudge up a mechanism to stop them being gathered into a grand battery.
I reckon everybody will use skirmisher figs, because they have them already and/or they look cool. You're probably right that players of 25mm figs will try to find a way to avoid buying limbers, in 15mm or smaller the lead is not to costly.
Can we have engineers? I hope so, I like painting up the exotic stuff, painting more units of line is just a chore.
regards
David B
Posted 2 years ago # -
Yes, engineers are definitely in the rules. And we have some fun new stuff for them that will hopefully make them more useful than in most Napoleonics games.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Hi all
Did anyone ever come up with a good optional rule for battalion/regimental guns? I'm quite interested in the 1790s where this is quite a key characteristic of the period.
cheers
Mike
Posted 1 year ago # -
Perhaps these could be addressed much like Skrimisher bases with the gun model as more of a "marker." So long as the Battalion is operating, the guns would be assumed to be in the formation shooting in the same lane of fire as the Battalion.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Battlevault´s marker option seems great, personally I would allow only 1 extra dice to the units normal shooting for the batt guns , no extra range, canister , etc....and probably would remove the marker if the unit loses melee as defender or moves across terrain impasable to artillery .
Posted 1 year ago # -
Hi Vilcum - those are pretty much the rules I was thinking of. Definitely use them as a marker because as Sam points out making them a physical part of the unit creates all sorts of difficulties.
I've been wavering a bit as to whether they should inhibit movement, - mainly to provide a downside to using them, otherwise they are just a nice bonus.
Not sure it would be that historical though because i believe they were actually quite mobile compared to a line of troops. You could even go as far as saying a unit couldn't move in that turn after using the bonus.
Posted 1 year ago # -
I would not put any penalty to movement, as for my little knowing about those guns they were more than capable of maintain pace with an infantry battalion given easy going, I would leave it as simple as possible, one could get lost in a miryad of detail(limbering, range,using canister,etc...). The "downside to using them" IMHO is not having then converged in a brigade battery
Sam pointing to only allow the bonus in line formation seems very good.
Posted 1 year ago # -
True - I will try it out and post how it goes
Posted 1 year ago # -
I doubt very much that more than 10% of the people who buy this game will ever paint up engineer units, and so on.
I guess I'm one of the 10% of those people, but not sure if I should be worried (to devoted?) about this or cheerful :-)
Posted 1 year ago #
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