4th edition Napoleon -- Familiar newness

Columbia Games' Napoleon has been around in some form for almost four decades. While originally published around 1974 by Gamma Two games, the best-known and most widely sold edition was the 1977 Avalon Hill version that appeared in 1977.

In many ways, a non-hex-and-counter design like Napoleon was ahead of its time, and the last 10 years or so have seen a huge increase in the popularity of so-called block game as their shorter players time, enjoyable tactile mechanics and handsome appearance seem to be more in tune with contemporary tastes.

The AH version of Napoleon was an excellent example of all these traits. The game could easily be played to a satisfying conclusion in 90 minutes, it was fun and it looked real fine with its embossed blocks. Some lack of clarity in the rules  and a confusingly laid out battle board hindered the game  a bit, but gamers looking for a good strategy game made it popular and it featured in several strategy articles in the Avalon Hill General. Eventually AH let it go out of print and the right reverted to Columbia Games (Gamma Two's successor).

When he decided to publish a new, Third Edition of the game in 1993, designer Tom Dalgliesh opted to boost the number of blocks and telescope the view down a level. Whereas the 2nd Edition did not formally indentify the blocks and each block represented about half a corps worth of troops, the Third Edition assigned  a historical ID to each block -- generally a division. This almost doubled the number of blocks in play, and at the same time some important adjustments were made in the relative proportions of each arm -- infantry, cavalry and artillery and also the relationship between the size of the French and the two allies. For one example, whereas in the AH edition the Anglo-Allied and Prussian armies were the same size  as measured by "Combat Values" (CV) at 39 each, in the THird Edition the Prussian Army was notably larger, with a CV of 72 compared to the Anglo-Allied 57.

Similarly, the new Third Edition improved on the historical accuracy of the order of battle, for example, the amount of Prussian strength accounted for by the cavalry and the artillery was reduced, proportionately.

Some news things were added to the Third Edition, such as the army leaders Napoleon Blucher and Wellington and a streamlined battle board procedure and some things taken away -- like the horse artillery. Being a much larger game another thing lost was the short playing time.

Opinions were mixed on the net effect of these changes. For many of us, the new version of Napoleon was really an entirely new game that didn't supplant the old one at all -- and it has its own entry in BoardGame Geek.

The changes were, overall, less than successful, in my opinion. While worthwhile individually, in sum they changed the game dynamic fundamentally. While not resulting in a bad game, the changes did result in a very different one. I attirbute this to a fundamental reshaping of the maneuver dynamic of the game -- which is not a small thing, as the essence of Napoleon in Maneuver, not the combat system.

This happened because the size of the map and the ability of troops to move on  it increased only slightly, while the number of blocks nearly doubled. For example  the French Army went from having 18 blocks to having 38 blocks, more than doubling -- but the maximum road capacity of a primary road only increased by a quarter, from 8 blocks to 10 blocks. Also, the number of orders available to each side did not increase in proportion. In the old AGH game each side had TWO orders and the Allies had to split their two orders to just one each. IN the new edition everybody got one additional order, but this meant the French increased by 50 % while having twice as many blocks to move on a road net that was only 25% more capable. Meanwhile the Allies got Twice as many orders as before to move 70% more units.

The net effect was that the French, which used to have a more agile and mobile army than the Allies, now had the more ponderous one, by a substantial margin. This made it difficult for the French to force the P-AA into action within the time limit of the game.

Some approved of the changes, but I think it's safe to say that most fans of the original, Avalon Hill version were not persuaded all the changes represented improvements, so it was good news when Columbia announced that a new edition of Napoleon was planned and that it would be more like the AH version than the 3rd Edition.

As it turns out, I'd rate this as partially true. In size, the game definitely resembles the AH edition more. According to the Beta version of the proposed OB sent to me by Columbia there will be 23 French blocks. This is much more comparable to the 18 blocks in the AG edition than the 38 in the Third Edition. Likewise, the Prussians are slightly bigger now, with 17 blocks instead of the AH 16 blocks and nothing like the 25 in 3rd Edition. The Anglo-Allied army is actually smaller, this time with just 13 blocks instead of 14, although the CV is slightly higher. There were 19 in Third Edition.

While the blocks again represent roughly half a corps each, like the AH game, there are some significant adjustments to the OB and some of those changes resemble things we saw in Third Edition. For one thing, the leaders are still there -- Napoleon, Blucher and Wellington are all 1CV units that also have some movement and morale benefits.

In a refinement borrowed from other Columbia block games, units now have Firepower Ratings ranging from F1 (hitting a die roll of 1 only) to F3 (hits on rolls of 1 through 3) Im earlier editions all troops of the same branch were the same. In the Avalon Hill edition the Imperial Guard was just another 4CV infantry block, no different in the game than the German troops in the Anglo-Allied Reserve Corps. Now the Old Guard is F# while the Landwehr is just F1.

While the number of blocks is similar to the AH version the CV values in the 4th Edition are much higher.  In the Avalon Hill edition there were no Prussian units with a CV of 4, now there are 8. Conversely the old AH edition gave the Prussians 9 units with a CV of 2, now there are just four. Similar boost apply to the other armies so that the average CV per block has generally increased.

The horse artillery is back, but only for the French, who have one block.

How all this hangs together is not clear. The new map is little larger than the original AH map but the maximum road limits are back to 8. Yet the two sides keep their 3rd Edition allotment of orders -- 3 for Napoleon and two each for Blucher and Wellington so I expect that all three armies will have agile styles more similar to the Avalon Hill version than the Third Edition. The P-AA retain their heightened mobility from the Third Edition, but an important change to the victory conditions limits how much of a rope-a-dope strategy they can employ. In every earlier edition the burden of victory is on the French -- and it mostly still is -- except that if the French can occupy all three Allied home bases at the end of the game they can also win. This would seem to negate the common anti-French gambit of a late game retreat if at least one Allied army could make sure it didn't reach its break point. This gambit was hard to pull off in the AH edition because of the French mobility edge, but in Third Edition it was a real problem and a big reason why I only played with the historical setup. A free set up made it too easy for the Allies.

In the new edition, each block carries an historical ID, although only by corps, not at the divisional level like 3rd Edition.

The tentative OB is as follows:

French
Napoleon CV1 F1
Guard infantry CV4 F3
Guard Cavalry CV3 F3
Guard artillery CV3 F3 & CV2 F3
I Corps infantry CV3 F2 times two
I Corps artillery CV2 F2
II Corps infantry CV4 F2 & CV3 F2
II Corps artillery CV2 F2
III Corps infantry CV3 F2 & CV2 F2
III Corps artillery CV2 F2
IV Corps infantry CV4 F2
VI Corps infantry CV3 F2
VI Corps artillery CV2 F1
Cavalry Corps cavalry Two @ CV3 F3, one CV4 F2 & one CV3 F2
Cavalry Corps horse artillery CV2 F2

Anglo-Allied
Wellington CV1 F1
Reserve Corps infantry one CV3 F3 and one CV3 F1
Reserve corps artillery CV2 F2
I Corps infantry one CV4 F2 & one CV4 F1
I Corps artillery CV 2 F2
II Corps infantry one CV4 F2 & one CV3 F1
II Corps artillery CV2 F2
Cavalry Corps CV4 F2, CV2 F3 & CV2 F1

Prussian
Blucher CV1 F2
I Corps infantry two @ CV4 F2
I corps cavalry CV2 F1
I Corps artillery CV4 F2
II Corps infantry one CV4 F2 & one CV4 F1
II Corps cavalry CV3 F2
II Corps artillery CV3 F2
III Corps infantry one CV3 F2 & one CV3 F1
III Corps cavalry CV2 F2
III Corps artillery CV2 F2
IV Corps infantry two @ CV4 F1
IV Corps cavalry CV2 F2
IV Corps artillery CV 4 F2

As always, these are subject to change in the final published edition.

Ambiguous anniversary -- 10 years after Iraq, personal thoughts

Seth In Iraq, April 2003

From early childhood I was always fascinated with the military, the history of war and soldiering. I cannot remember a time when this wasn't so. Before I was out of elementary school I had read every book of military history at my local library. Growing up I always knew what I was going to do when I grew up -- be a soldier.

Along the way I discovered other loves and interests as well, and being a journalist often vied for first place in my heart, but when it came time to apply for college (and there was absolutely no question of a skipping college, as I wanted to be an officer) my selection criteria were two -- that it have a journalism program and that it have ROTC. I had also applied for West Point, and my Congressman, Rep. Hastings Keith, had appointed me as an alternate, but the primary apparently went and I wasn't willing to wait another year.

Now 30+ years of life brings a lot of detours, side trips and changes in perspective and it's not my place here to recount my entire life story. Suffice it to say that I did get the chance to be both a journalist and a soldier, so I did get to be what I wanted to be when I grew up. But the 10 year anniversary being marked today has much more to do with the soldierly part of my personal story, than the journalist part.

Naturally, a military career involves the possibility of going to war and, as it turned out, right up until New Year's Day of 2003, I thought the twists and turns of fate were going to mean that it was my fate to serve a full military career without ever going to war. Sure, there had been plenty of wartime incidents since I earned my commission in 1979 -- Grenada, Panama, Bosnia, Kuwait and more. But it always seemed that I was in the wrong place as each happened and I missed out. For example, because I was the Commandant's List graduate at the Field Artillery School, I was offered the opportunity to go on active duty and I had a choice of going to Fort Bragg for the 82d Airborne or going to Germany. Well, I'd always wanted to go to Germany, so that was my selection -- and just as I arrived in Germany Grenada happened!  While there's no guarantee I would gone to Grenada anyway -- possibly a newly arrived lieutenant might not have been deployed -- it's possible I might have. Instead I spent three years serving in Germany in the Cold War that never turned hot.

Likewise I missed the first Gulf War because I was in the Yankee Division at the time and it wasn't activated.

So I watched the gathering war clouds in late 2002 like every other citizen, with little notion that I might personally be affected. When asked, as I was often, I would tell people that it seemed very unlikely that the Army would need or want a broken-down old major from the Individual Ready Reserve.

And then on Jan. 7, 2003, the telegram came.

"Pursuant to Presidential Executive Order of 14 Sept., 2001, you are relieved from your present reserve component status and are ordered to active duty."

My daughter could hear from from the hallway as I employed my soldierly vocabulary rather loudly to express my astonishment.

So on Feb. 2, the day after my 48th birthday, I was off to Fort Sill, Oklahoma and a peculiar adventure.

Through a series of events that are all-to-familiar to anyone who has spent any time in uniform and yet are too banal to be worth memorializing, I found myself watching the start of the Iraq War like most everyone else -- on CNN. In my case, I was watching the opening salvos from a hotel room in Fort Carson, Colo., where I was temporarily parked while I waited for transportation to join my wartime assigned unit -- Joint Special Operations Task Force -- North.

Yeah, in yet another peculiarity of my wartime career, I was on my way to take part in the war in the Kurdish zone up north. Ironically, I would get to earn a combat patch after all -- and that patch would be the Special Forces Patch!!!  I will credit my extensive reading of history to help me handle the capriciousness of wartime fate that brought this result. For it meant, quite frankly, that I had a very easy war, personally.

Joint Special Operations Task Force North was built around the Headquarters, 10th Special Forces Group, and they were on the move, so it took me a while to catch up to them, but finally in early April I did, in Costanza, Romania, after passing through Germany. And so I got to watch the fall of Baghdad, like many of you -- on Fox News, which we had a feed for. Eventually I ended up in Iraq, itself. If you look at the map, below, from the wargame Operation Iraqi Freedom, I landed in hex "I-2" flying in on a C-17 I shared with an M1 tank! We rode into a convoy to Irbil, in hex H-2 on the map, where I spent the next 35 days working in the HQ for JSOFTF-N.  For most of that time I held a position on the staff called "Ground Fires Officer" which essentially meant I was coordinating the artillery in the JSOFTF-N area. This would have been an interesting job -- except for the Turkish parliament. Because Turkey refused to let the 4th Infantry Division invade Iraq via Turkey, they had to go through Kuwait instead -- which meant there was no artillery in JSOFTF-N to coordinate! We had a grand total of six guns of 105mm artillery in the entire area (and that only because the commander of the 173rd Airborne Brigade insisted on bringing his whole brigade). All our fire support was provide by air, so the Air Force guy sitting next to me was pretty busy, but I had little to do except watch his desk while he went to the latrine and a few other admin tasks.

It was a great ringside seat, however. While much smaller than the Task Force that invaded Iraq from Kuwait, JSOFTF-N was considered a corps-level command under CENTCOM and therefore I got to see the war unfold at a higher level HQ.

Operation Iraqi Freedom. Seth passed through hexes I-2, H-2, H-3 and H-4

A little over a month after arriving in Iraq the 10th SFG handed over control of operations in northern Iraq to the 101st Airborne and pulled out -- European Command wanted their Green Berets back. So we drive through Hex H-3 to hex H-4 (Kirkuk) and flew out, bound for Germany and then Colorado and my war was over, just like that. It took another six months for the Army to finally decide it didn't need me anymore and send me home, but those six months were just spent in casual duty at Ft. Carson and Ft. Sill.

So I had an easy war. Remarkably, we did not suffer a single fatal casualty among American forces in JSOTF-N while I was there. Our job was to tie down Saddam's forces in Northern Iraq so they couldn't intervene  elsewhere. To do that we had an eclectic mix of forces. Numerically, the bulk of the force was represented by about 60,000 Kurdish Peshmerga militia, but the bulk of the combat power was represented by the three battalions of green berets of the 10th Special Forces Group. At various times we also had a battalion of infantry from the 10th Mountain Division, a Marine Expeditionary Unit, the 173rd Airborne Brigade and other stuff. There was air support provided by the USAF, USMC and USN. Oh, and some folks from the "Other Government Agency" were about, here and there.

So here's my ambivalence about the whole experience. I got to go to war, after all, which was a childhood ambition and the culmination of an entire military career. And I'm thankful that I came through it not only physically safe, but spared any real psychological toll from my experience. As I have told people before, it's an oddity of my life that, despite being a "combat vet," that the only place I've been downrange from hostile fire ended up being as a reporter in Brockton, Massachusetts!

And yet, while I am proud of my service, I have come to feel very disillusioned about what that service amounted to. While nothing I did contributed to that outcome, the bottom line is that the war I was in ended up being a huge disaster for my country.

Like most Americans, I was deeply affected by 9/11 and when the Bush administration made its case for war, I was prepared to believe them. I was convinced that they must have secret information that proved that Saddam really had WMD and was ready to use it. Certainly we acted at JSOTF-N as if that were the case. It was a genuine concern throughout combat ops. I would have found it unbelievably cynical to think that the administration was wrong about there being WMD. And I simply assumed that the government would not do something like invade without having a well-thought-out postwar plan.

Well, we know now that I was wrong, of course. Not only were there no WMD, but worse, there was no plan. You know, I can forgive the delusion about the WMD. We were owed better, but they were human and I understand how human failings can lead to a delusion like the WMD fiasco. But I can't forgive the lack of planning for the postwar situation. I mean, there was no possibility we were going to lose the fighting part of the war. Zero, zilch, nada. Long before the end of World War II, Gen. George C. Marshall and his planners started planning for the end of World War II -- and while many mistakes were made in 1945 and 1946, there was a plan and it was carried out and it basically worked. So what's the excuse for the Iraq debacle? There was at least as much time available planning for that postwar world as Marshall had.

So, while we won the initial campaign, we lost the war because we were failed at the highest levels. And I resent it. I resent it that President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary Rumsfeld and Gen. Franks lost my war.

Those who follow me online at Facebook and elsewhere know that I have been a consistent critic of those who advocate for war with Iran, and I'll make no bones about it, my Iraq War experience drives that criticism. I've since retired from the Army. I, personally, won't be going back to war. (Any scenario that has me toting a  rifle again is so dire that you know we'd in deep doodoo.) But I have had to go to a funeral for someone who died in the war -- a friend of my daughter -- and I have seen the corrosive cost of the Iraq War on our politics, our budget, our civil liberties and our good sense. The bar has been raised, in my view. For at least the second time in my life, I have seen the government get us into an ill-advised war (Vietnam, now Iraq) that it couldn't win.  Third time is not a charm.

So 10 years on, I find myself an older, sadder and, I hope, wiser man. I hope it's also a wiser country.

Guadalcanal Diary -- AAM style

Co. B, 5th Marines, upper right, and Co. L, 5th Marines, lower left, prepare to advance 

As has been my practice, when I recently revisited the official Axis & Allies scenarios GC-1 & GC-2, which I played together as  a combined game, I revised the OB to account for units now available that were proxied in the early scenarios.

The twin scenarios are unusual, as each half of the scenario has the same OB. There was no need to adjust the Japanese OB, which is comprised on one Imperial Sergeant, four Arisaka Rifles, one Type 89 mortar and one Type 92 machine gun per group.

The American side, on the other hand, had a couple of appropriate substitutions. First I substituted Marine Riflemen for the M1 Garand, now that Marines showed up in Contested Skies, which seems appropriate as the two American forces involved are Co. B and Co. L of the 5th Marines. THe North Africa set finally gave us the M1919 MG to replace the Vickers MG that did so much duty as  a proxy for Allied machine guns in so many scenarios. Each company is comprised of six Marine Rifleman squads and one M1919 MG section. Rounding out each company is the one piece that didn't need changing from the originally published scenario -- the Mortar M2 at one per company.

As the Marine Rifleman cost the same as the M1 Garand and the M1919 MG just on emore point than the Vickers, I daw no need to adjust the Japanese OB for balance.

The maps are the basic Able-2, Baker-2, Charlie-2 and Dog-1, but heavily modified by scenario special rule to turn almost the entire map into LOS-blocking, cover roll-providing terrain. While some hills and town hexes remain unchanged, many others and all clear terrain are turned into forest hexes. As the Forest (Jungle) terrain type had not yet appeared when the scenario was published I left the terrain effects unchanged as "Forest," judging that the mobility hindrances of the later terrain type would have made the scenario unplayable.

This unusually close terrain meant that the mortars and machine guns on both sides lost most of their utility as there were few places where they could fire more than one hex away. The same factor robbed the Marine Riflemen of most of their advantage over the Arisaka Rifle units. The game was going to be a knife fight.

The SA of the Marine Riflemen -- Gung Ho -- seemed to have some promise as it might deter some Japanese attempts to close into close combat due to defensive fire.

The marines have to set up first, so I took that side. I set up the L Company on Baker-2 next to the pond, figuring it was the only place where I might get some ranged shots. B Company set up at the edge of the Hill on Charlie-2. One Japanese platoon set up in Matanikau Village on Dog-1, while most of the other platoon setup just east of the edge of Matanikau in the hexes of Charlie-2 that looked like village but were scenario defined as more woods. The only exception was one Type 89, which set up in the march next to the pond to get a first turn pop shot at the Marines across the pond.

The close terrain, limited mobility of both sides and objective-oriented victory conditions meant there wasn't a lot of fancy maneuvering. Both Marine companies advanced to contact, while the Japanese platoons avoided it until Turn 3, except for the Type 89 mortar by the pond, which was quickly eliminated. Turns 4-6 saw the Marines and Japanese in a heavy firefight along the edges of the villages and the Marines slowly attempted to surround it in order to get Enfilade Fire bonuses (We used the Expanded Rules except for the deadly defensive fire option. ). The Marine succeeded in getting the bonuses but didn't succeed in rolling well enough to take advantage of them. One particularly bad turn of fire saw the Marines fail to do any fatal damage at all and I considered this the turning point of the game, as the Japanese slowly won fire superiority.

The last couple of turns saw desperate attempts by the Marines to salvage something but they fell far shot and, as  it turned out, the final outcome as the Marines were left with a  sole surviving Marine Rifleman squad facing three Arisaka Rifle and one Imperial Sergeant at game end.

It was a good scenario and seemed very evenly matched. When I had played it out solitaire a couple of time each side one, so I it appears well balanced.

Exciting news for Tide of Iron

Fantasy Flight Games and a new outfit called 1A Games jointly announced that FFG has licensed the Tide of Irons game system to 1A.

Details here; http://1agamesworld.com/

This is an interesting development and may do for Tide of Irons what MMP did for ASL, in that 1A has been founded specifically for the Tide of Iron line.

Tide of Iron has been well received, but it did seem to be on hiatus as far as attention from FFG went, and I was wondering if we were ever going to see it move to the Pacific, for example. We still don't know, and it appears that the first 1A product will be based on the fighting at Stalingrad, but a Japanse expansion seems pretty obvious direction to go.
While a new company, the principals ar enot new. Bill Jaffe and Dama Lombardy have already both been involved in Tide of Iron expansions and Mr. Lombardy, in particular, is a real hobby old-timer. He was editor for the first serious competitor of Strategy & Tactics magazine, called Conflict, back in the early 70s.

Axis & Allies: Guadalcanal -- Review with an eye to art

"Axis & Allies: Guadalcanal and the other games in the Axis & Allies series are what could be called an artistic interpretation of the historical battles they represent. I use the word artistic because I'm a designer and sincerely see games to be an art form. If these games were paintings they would have been painted with a broad brush indeed." -- Larry Harris in the Designer's Notes for A&A: Guadalcanal, 2007

Like many Boomer generation wargamers, I was primed for exposure to "real" wargames by the neat series of American Heritage games published by Milton Bradley in the 1960s that included the titles Battle-Cry, Broadside, Dogfight and Hit the Beach. None of these was anything resembling a "simulation." Only Dogfight  might be considered a very light wargame by today's standards -- the others were war-themed abstracts more than anything else.

While not being simulations they did, however, provoke an emerging interest, sparked not only by the theme and play of the game -- but by the nice little booklet enclosed in each game that discussed the historical events that inspired the game in the first place.  Broadside and Dogfight led to Midway and Afrika Korps, which in turn led to Strategy & Tactics magazine games and Persian Incursion.

For later generations of wargamers I think the various Axis & Allies series games have played  a similar role. While hardly simulations, they still exhibit a respect and even love of history that shines through despite their highly abstract nature.

A&A: Guadalcanal is not the place to go for a detailed study of the order of battle, tactics or chronology of the Solomons Campaign. Indeed, the name of the game is somewhat of  a misnomer, because it doesn't concern itself with just the fighting on Guadalcanal, unlike the earlier Avalon Hill Game. A&A:G is about the entire campaign for the Solomon Islands -- or at least that's the area depicted on the map board.

This is unsurprising, as the fighting on the island alone is hard to design a good wargame for. The Japanese were essentially campaigning on a mistaken premise -- that the Marine garrison was small enough for the Japanese to defeat. In fact the Allied land force was several times larger than the Japanese thought and the Japanese land forces were never really very close to winning. The contests was much closer at sea and in the air and, really, that's where the campaign would be won or lost. Had the Japanese won  air and sea superiority the the size of the Allied garrison would not have mattered.

Like all Axis & Allies series games, the presentation of A&A:G is very high quality. The distinctive trait of an A&A game is the little plastic toy soldiers and weapons used for playing pieces. Each of the sides has models representing infantry, artillery, AA guns, transports, submarines, destroyers, cruisers, battleships, aircraft carrriers, fighters and bombers. While the AA guns are generic sculpts, the others are distinct by nation and based on historical examples, with the Americans in green and the Japanese in orange. There was a production error that switched the cruiser models, so the Japanese sculpt is in American green and the American cruiser in Japanese orange. This has no effect on play, but free replacements were (and maybe still are) available from Hasbro's customer service upon request.

Even the "correct" models aren't historically precise. The American battleship is depicted by an Iowa class , for example, which did not fight in the Solomons -- nor did the Shinano, which is used to represent the Japanese carrier.

Other key elements of the campaign are depicted by die-cut cardboard pieces -- supplies and airfields.

There are also cardboard control makers, a token to show the first player and "advantage tokens" used as an optional rule. Red and grey plastic chips are used to represent additional units of the same type when stacked beneath them, with far more than will be needed in play provided.

There's a very nicely mounted full-color mapboard showing the Solomon Islands chain from Bouganville to Guadalcanal with two small supplementary base cards for the main bases at Rabbaul and New Caledonia which abut the main map. The map is divided into land areas and sea zones. There are six land ares representing islands or groups of islands and 11 sea zones. The two adjoining base cards each add a land area and sea zone as well for a total of 21 possible locations in the game, which is not a large number by wargame standards.

There are two cardboard player aid sheets and a 28-page lavishly illustrated rule book.

There are a dozen black dice and a unique "Battle Box" which is used to hold them. This is probably the most controversial aspect of the game, with players either loving it or hating it. The basic function of the box is to randomize the dice and then assign their outcomes to specific unit types. This is a departure from the usual procedure in Axis & Allies games which allows the unit's owner to assign hits as desired, which protects the more valuable pieces. In A&A:G a single hit might go straight to that carrier or vital transport you were escorting.

Critics question the randomization provided by the box, because it appears too narrow to really allow a good spin and the general awkwardness of manipulating it. Some players have come up with an alternative system that uses 12 differently hued dice instead.

Overall the game is very attractively presented.

Aiding setup, all the starting locations are printed directly on the map, so setting up should be completed within a few minutes.

Each turn is divided into three phases, with each player taking alternating actions throughout, so there is little of the bane of wargames -- downtime. Both players are fully engaged all the time.

The first phases in MOVEMENT, with the First Player and then the Second Player moving in turn, in sequence: Transports, battleship,s, carriers, cruisers, destroyers, submarines, bombers and finally fighters. Players alternate within each sequence, so, for example, the First Player moves his transports, then the Second player moves transports, then First Player moves battleships, and so on. This creates a lot of scope for strategic play.

Phase Two is COMBAT, which is likewise done in an interactive sequence, although this time divided by target: Attack air units, Attack sea units, unload transports and destroyers and finally Attack land units/airfields. Again, a simple system that creates some interesting tactical decisions.

The Third phase is REGROUP, which like the other phases is conducted through a sequence where each player alternates doing the steps: Determine island control, land air units, build airfields, repair/reinforce/deploy, score victory points and finally, pass the First Player marker -- so players alternate being First Player each turn.

Each unit type has unique characteristics. Infantry, for example, costs 1 reinforcement point to build, has no ability to attack air or sea units and has  a "Land Attack" value of "1," which means it adds one die to number of dice rolled when attacking land units.  In comparison, a battleship costs 12 to build, but adds 1 die when attacking air units, three dice against sea units and 2 dice against land units.

Some units, battleships cruisers and artillery, have a range which allows them to fire into an adjacent zone as well.

Units also differ widely in their movement. All sea units can move one sea zone, while land units can't move on their own at all, but have to be transported. Air units have a range (2 for fighters, 3 for bombers) which they get to use twice per turn, once in the movement phase and then again in the Regroup Phase.

Reinforcement points are earned by controlling islands, starting from a base level of 10, with four per controlled island. Here there was another critical error in the published game, which lists the values as 5 and 2, respectively. Errata with the correct value was published online immediately, although the game is playable with the lower values. Presumably both sides would find themselves starved of resources with the lower figures. Besides getting new units, players can spend reinforcement points to buy supply tokens. Supply tokens, which cost 2 reinforcement points each, are the game's real 'currency' and can be spent to build new airfields, repair ships and airfields and deploy sea units closer to the front. Like any good resource management game, A&A:G will never give you enough supply to do everything, and proper attention to logistics is just as critical as battle management for victory.

Victory is achieved by being the first player to score 15 victory points. The most common way to earn VPs is by controlling an undamaged airfield -- one per airfield per turn. Players can also earn VP by sinking enemy capital ships (battleships and carriers - one each). This builds in a de facto time limit of  four, or maybe five, game turns. Each player starts with one airfield and can easily build 2-3 more shortly, so 15 will likely be reached by one or both players by turn 4 or 5. IF players are tied, they play another turn until the tie is broken.

So that's the basics: A very abstract, military themed game -- or is it a wargame?

It's clearly not a "simulation." No time scale is specified or implied. There's no direct correlation between the game pieces and the historical order of battle. The game''s geography is accurate, but highly simplified.

But there's some fidelity to history, nonetheless. There's interplay between services and scope for combined arms tactics. The essence of the land-sea-air campaign and its components are present and interact with each other. A battleship isn't just differently named than a destroyer but is functionally distinct as well -- something many "real" wargames of the SPI era didn't do.

And there's definitely some game, there. Players have real choices to make and strategies to try.

Five years on, the consumer verdict on Axis & Allies: Guadalcanal is in. It wasn't a breakout hit, but clearly it's not a flop. It appears to be out of print -- the few copies on Amazon are listed for more than $100 and it's not seeing a lot of play on eBay, so getting a copy now may be more trouble than it's worth -- but if you already have a copy I think it would be worth pulling it out again, as it appears to be somewhat underrated. It may not have been enough of  a "simulation" to please many wargamers and yet there's far too much wargame there for most non-wargamer tastes, but there is an interesting game there and a good impressionistic take on the Solomons Campaign. I think Harris' characterization of a game as a form of art is a useful context to use.  Just as a photograph and a painting of the same topic can each provide different insights into a subject, so can different styles of wargames.

Up Front facing a bad RNC check it appears

BoardgameGeek thread reports that some additional legal issues (not related to Up Front, itself) have cropped up that are putting the project at risk.

The thread is here but the gist of the situation is that someone who loaned money to Valley Games has sued for repayment and has gotten a judge to agree to attach the assets of Radiant games claiming that VG transferred its assets to Radiant merely to avoid having to legitimately repay him.

Naturally, as a legal matter it's pretty messy and there's no way for me to judge either the merits of the respective arguments or the likely outcome. It's bad news because I had gone ahead and pledged the Kickstarter ... and it will be disappointing to lose the money if it ends up not happening. I guess my existing copies of Up Front may retain their collector's value a bit longer.

I had to say, I did have my doubts as to whether I should do the UF Kickstarter because the legal issues were floating around out there. I finally decided to take the plunge because the Rewards were so good -- but  Kickstarter makes sure to emphasize that there are no guarantees.

I've backed three other KS projects. Two are with pretty well-established outfits -- Columbia Games and Steve Jackson Games and I'm not too worried about them coming through. The third is The Guns of Gettysburg which is from an outfit I have less familiarity with -- Mercury Games, but no storm clouds have been noted. In related news, Bowen Simmons health issues seem to have forced him to discontinue filling orders for Napoleon's Triumph, which is a pity. Hopefully he will get better soon. If I hadn't gotten laid off getting a  second copy of NT was on my to-do list. Hopefully there will still be  a chance to do that in the future.

Checking out the progress of the Napoleon Kickstarter

Allan B. Calhamer, inventor of the game Diplomacy has died

Gamescience box

Word is seeping through the Internet gaming community that Allan B. Calhamer, the inventor and designer of the board game Diplomacy, died Monday at the age of 81.

Gamesicence Map

While Diplomacy didn't bring Mr. Calhamer a fortune, and perhaps not widespread fame, it has, I believe, earned him immortality. Diplomacy is among that select few games that has earned the title of a "timeless classic."

In the adventure gaming hobby's earliest days, Diplomacy was considered of the the three legs of the hobby triad -- which was comprised, back in the 1960s, of board wargaming, miniatures wargaming and Diplomacy.

Allan B. Calhamer

The hobby evolved over time and role-playing games, collectible games and euros all far outgrew those original trio, but Diplomacy was never truly eclipsed in the genre of game that it spawned. While it's seen many variants and imitators over the years, Diplomacy has still retained its status as the premier game of cutthroat diplomatic competition. It's so cutthroat that friendships have been ended and marriages thrown on the rocks due to game events. It takes a certain kind of gamer to play and enjoy Diplomacy and it's certainly noit for everyone.

Large deluxe Hasbro box version

By today's standards it violates a lot of accepted rules for good game design -- it takes a long time to play and it has player elimination for example. While it's gone through a whole host of editions over the last half century through various publishers and languages, in the end the components are extremely simple -- a map of 1900 Europe divided into land and sea areas, a set of markers divided into armies and fleets for each of the seven nations and the rules -- the basic nature of which can be listed on a single page.

My first exposure to the game was actually from a home-brewed variant while I was in high school. My best friend's older brother had gone off to Yale and been exposed to the game. He didn't have his own copy, but the was able to create a facsimile edition when he got home for the summer and we spent the summer break playing out Yale variant game and having a blast. Naturally, having done the game from memory, our version had some changes from the original, (and not improvements) but before long we got a copy of the actual game -- (this was the Gamescience edition) and kept playing.

Current Hasbro edition

Myself, I had too eclectic tatstes to settle on playing Diplomacy only -- but many people did and still do. I did take part in some postal Diplomacy for a number of years -- a very popular way to play. Diplomacy was exceptionally well-suited for postal play and later, Internet play.

When Avalon Hill bought the rights the game got access to widepread distribution that increased its popularity and Diplomacy is one of just two of classic Avalon Hill titles that Hasbro has kept in print since it took over AH (The other being the equally classic game Acquire).

AH wooden block version

I've always been partial to the wooden-block Avalon Hill edition, but the first Hasbro version with its metal cannon and battleships is also quite nice and I like that version as well. The current edition is a very cut-rate edition with die-cut cardboard counters (although the map is nice) but Diplomacy is remarkably independent of the components used to play it. In that way it reminds me more of old abstracts like Go or Chess than most modern games. It's possible to have a really nice, physical game to play on -- but you can still play quite nicely with bare-bones, even hand-made, components as well.

Mr. Calhamer never really followed up with anything nearly as successful. He wasn't a brilliant game designer in the way of his contemporary Sid Sackson or today's Reiner Knizia. But he did design a brilliant game.There may be those inclined to dismiss him as a one-hit wonder, but I think that's a mistake. A one-hit wonder, after all, does have a hit -- which is something the vast majority of artists never have at all. And game design is, at heart, a form of art. Mr. Calhamer designed a game that, I am quite sure, will still be bringing enjoyment to players not yet born.  That's success.

Napoleon Kickstarter starts

OK, the Napoleon Kickstarter showed up a few minutes ago -- I may have been Backer No. 1!

It's a plot to take my money, I say!

Oh, My, yet another Kickstarter project that I feel compelled to take part in!

Yep, Columbia Games is joining the fun and has announced a Kickstarter project for a new, 4th Edition of their classic Napoleon game.

Now the Avalon Hill edition of this game was my favorite game for many years, and while it finally got knocked out of the No. 1 slot, it's always remained highly regarded by me, being one of the game I liked well enough to have gotten several copies of over the years.

I also picked up the Third Edition, which increased the number of blocks by almost double, and changed the map a bit and some rules. While I really wanted to like the new version -- because I liked the idea of the blocks representing specific units, mostly -- after playing it  a few times I reluctantly concluded that Columbia had erred and the new edition really wasn't better than the Avalon Hill version.

In my opinion the old AH version was one of the very best three-player wargames ever done and it enjoyed a very fine balance and tight timing that really ended up being quite elegant. The way the new edition changed things the exquisite timing and balance of the original game was upset. It wasn't ruined -- so long as you played with the Historica setup you still got  a worthwhile game-- but it was no longer the classic the Avalon Hill edition was. Basically the number of units was increased without making comparable changes to the map and rules which resulted in overcrowding, more ponderous movement and an imbalance against Napoleon compared to the original game.

Wisely, it appears that the AH edition forms the basis for the new, 4th edition of the game which will start a Kickstarter campaign tomorrow, Monday Feb. 25th.

The rules are available online but they clearly are an outgrowth of the Avalon Hill edition, not the Third Edition. There has been some expansion in the number of units -- from 48 in the AH edition to 55 now, but three of those are the three commanders (Napoleon, Wellington and Blucher)  so the real increase in units is about 4. There's no listing of units on the site yet, but apparently the order of battle has also been tweaked a bit.

The leaders represent the most obvious carry-over from the Third Edition game, where they were introduced. This seems to be something the designer has decided he wants to backfit to all his older designs. Leaders showed up in the latest version of Quebec 1759, too.

The horse artillery is back by popular demand. While one could argue about the historicity of representing them at this level, they were a popular game piece and I'm already seeing positive comments.
The other thing which is changed is a simplification and clarification of the battle board rules. This was always the weakest part of the Avalon Hill game -- it really wasn't explained well and it made what is essentially a simple system seem complex.

The other major change I noticed, and this is also in line with the Third edition, is the change in the Allied supply cities. In the AH edition, Ghent and Liege are each worth 1 lost Allied unit per turn if held by the French -- with Liege costing a Prussian unit and Ghent a British unit. Brussels costs one of each.  Now Brussels and Ghent are one British unit each while Liege costs TWO Prussian units each turn it is held by the French. I assume the intent of this change is to introduce a little divergence of interests between the two Allies. In addition, the French can now win if they hold all three cities on the last turn, which negates the previous Allied strategy of just running away during the last few turns if they haven't suffered enough losses. This seems designed to make sure there is some fighting.

So it looks like Napoleon will join Ogre, Up Front and The Guns of Gettysburg in my Kickstarter queue. Interestingly, while Ogre is the oldest of the group, there's every reason to believe that both Gettysburg and Napoleon will beat it into my mailbox.

In nay case, I am looking forward to seeing the new Napoleon. While I was dissatisfied with the Third Edition, I was also unsure whether it was worth still playing the Avalon Hill version. This new edition seems to combine the best of both.

Dice research

Came across some interesting research done on 6-side dice.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/That%27s_How_I_Roll_-_A_Scientific_Analysis_of_Dice

It can make rather more difference than I would have thought and may make me examine my dice collection a little more carefully in the future.

Spammer comments

Just a administrative note. A lot of spam comments seem to be showing up. All comments are moderated and anyone posting as "anonymous" is assumed to be spam unless strong evidence shows otherwise. If you want to comment, please ID yourself. Thanks.

Kicking it! Wargames and Kickstarter

Over the past few months I've backed three wargame projects on Kickstarter, the crowd funding site that's become pretty popular for creative projects.

In each case, I've backed a project that was, in many ways, a proven quantity. And in each case, I think it's fair to say, was long-awaited.

Cover of Mercury Games edition

The most recent one is Mercury Games edition of Bowen Simmons The Guns of Gettysburg. Bowen needs little introduction here, I've written many posts about his previous designs -- Bonaparte at Marengo and Napoleon's Triumph. I think Bowen is one of the most innovative wargame designers we have ever seen. He's shown a remarkable ability to think "outside the box" -- or in this case, outside the hex.

His Guns of Gettysburg, while sharing some DNA with the earlier games, appears to be quite different in many ways and it really looks to be another tour de force as far as  a playing experience goes. If Bonaparte at Marengo was wargame-as-chess, and Napoleon's Triumph was wargame-as-poker, Guns of Gettysburg seems like it will be wargame-as-wow.

Sadly Mr. Simmons apparently ran into some serious health issues that left his nearly complete masterpiece in limbo and in real danger of never seeing print. To the rescue came Mercury Games and now, through Kickstarter, there seems to be a real chance we wil not only see the game, but we will have it in time for the 150th anniversary of the battle this July. Sweet.

Cover

The first of the three projects I backed was the new designer's edition of Ogre. Much like Simmons work, Ogre was a labor of love for an innovative game designer, in this case Steve Jackson. While Mr. Jackson has designed a lot of very popular stuff since -- notably GURPs, Car Wars, Illuminati and the Munchkin series, many -- including me -- still consider Ogre to be his masterpiece.

Ogre has been out of print for a very long time, so when the word came that a new, super-duper deluxe edition was planned, I was definitely in.

This new edition looks to be absolutely amazing in size and production value. I just wish I'd had the money available to buy several sets, as I think this will be quite the collector's item. It's also expected to arrive in the June-July time frame.

The third Kickstarter project is the one I'm most surprised to see -- the new edition of Up Front.

I was quite certain that the game would never be reprinted, despite demand, because it seemed like the legal questions surrounding the rights were intractable. I am very happy to report I was wrong and
 the problems appear to have been tractable after all. And so we have a new, expanded edition of Up Front coming.

I haven't seen an ETA on this one yet, but it looks like there's still  a lot of work to do yet. Still, I think there's real market for Up Front. In many ways it was really ahead of its time when it appeared 30 years ago. In my opinion a lot of hex-and-counter wargamers simply didn't know what to make of it. Since then we've had the rise of Magic:The Gathering, euro-games, card-drive wargames and other innovation sin game design that were foreshadowed by 1983's Up Front. So now that the world has caught up to it, maybe it's time for Up Front to come back.

GMT hit by hackers

Very odd situation. GMT reports it was the target of a denial of service attack.

Guns of Gettysburg Kickstarter

This is exciting. Kickstarter for Guns of Gettysburg starts Friday! Apparently the plan is to have the games shipped in time for the 150th anniversary this year.

It would be way cool to be able to play Guns of Gettysburg at Gettyburg for the 150th.

The cover of Columbia Games' Richard III wargame

So it appears Richard III has been found.

I'm not a big fan of wargaming that particular era and the War of the Roses is an especially confusing affair. Despite playing Kingmaker a lot back int eh day and more recently having Columbia Games' Richard III o n my shelf, I have to confess that I still can't quite follow all the ins and outs of the conflicts/.

It is exactly this sort of war that I think it's very hard for the modern mind to wrap itself around. There was no great ideology at stake. It wasn't a war between competing national interests or disparate cultures. Why, exactly, some thousands of men were willing to risk their lives is unfathomable. Sure, i get what Richard II and the other heirs had at stake. And even the interests of many of the nobles. But thousands of common soldiers also fought, died and underwent the necessary discomforts of campaigning and it's hard to see why.

As for poor Richard himself, well, he's not a very sympathetic character -- and his probable hand in the murder of the Princes of the Tower really makes him pretty monstrous. So it appears he ended his life being cleaved in the skull by a halberd -- a common soldiers weapon, BTW -- and a minor mystery of the time can now be answered in the footnotes of the relevant history books.

1806 Campaign -- Put up them dukes -- and final thoughts

I don't actually have an awful lot to add to Harvey's analysis of the campaign. I'm not even sure I have any quibbles.

What I do have is a bit of amazement that my campaign plan actually came together more or less intact. That, I would not have predicted.

I do think that the course of the campaign illustrated how important the principle of Simplicity is in war plans. It's among the principles of War of a very good reason. Wargames, in general, do not do justice to all of the principles of war equally. Instead they tend to overestimate the impact of some while leaving some others neglected -- to the detriment of those who want to use their wargames to better understand the real thing. 

In particular, I think wargames generally do a poor job with Simplicity, Security and Unity of Command and its only when you take part in a large multi-player game like Harvey's that you get an inkling of how important those principle can be. The kind of gamer who likes wargames is often the sort of person who likes intricacy and details and is therefore perhaps a little less likely to undertsand the virtues of a simple plan. Indeed, I think we all know players who glory in coming up with very complicated plans. And in wargames sometimes they will work!

Less so in real life and in this campaign I think it can't be emphasized how important it was to the eventual French victory that the initial plan was  simple. It could be described in a few words -- feint left, move right.

Still, at the end of the day, the overall commander's influence over events is limited and its up to the subordinates to carry out the plans and here, I think, I was very lucky. Before the Great Reveal I told Harvey that I thought all the subordinate commanders seemed to have done well, as far as I could see. Now that I've seen the whole story, my opinion is strengthened. While I might not have approved every single minor move, I see no big errors and overall I see a lot that was extremely praiseworthy. For the most part all the marshals showed flexibility of mind, commendable initiative and yet exclleent adherence to orders and the campaign plan.

Of the right corps commanders, all performed excellently, and it is really hard to single out individuals from among such an august group,

Marshals Murat, Ney and Soult did extremely well finding and fixing the enemy, often fighting successfully while outnumbered. Marshals Augerau, Bernadotte and Bessieres all landed powerful offensive blows that shattered their opponents.

But two of the marshals, I think , even managed to rise to heights worthy of special recognition.

The first of these is Marshal Davout, who executed lengthy marches with skill and occupied the single most exposed position of the campaign and held his ground against all comers. His steadfast defense of his position provided the fulcrum which leveraged all the power of the French army into an irresistible force.

So, in recognition of Marshal Davout's critical contribution to the overall victory, the Emperor Napoleon awards him the honor of Duc de Zeitz, named after the site of his exceptional stand.

Tom Thorenson aka Davout, Maréchal de France, Duc de Zeitz

Marshal Davout is an extremely hard act to top, but the performance of his colleague, Lannes, was even more remarkable. Lannes fought a battle at Gotha, disengaged from that battle, forced marched across the entire theater, fought and won another battle at Jena and then turned around and fought yet a third battle, also at Jena, that stymied the last best chance of the Prussians to salvage a victory.

His handling of his corps will be studied as an example of the operational art for generations to come. It might compare to the Valley Campaign of Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, but that would be anachronistic, as 
Jackson won't be born for another 18 years!!

So to honor Lannes, the Emperor Napoleon names him the Duc de Jena, which he is entitled to flaunt at local wargame clubs for the rest of his days.

Paul Fish, aka Lannes, Maréchal de France, Duc de Jena

. Altogether this was a great experience. I want to thank Harvey, again, for all the work he put into this project and I'd like to thank all the players who took part as well. Please feel free to comment and share your thoughts about the campaign as well.

1806 Campaign Day Eight -- Decision at the Battle of Altenbourg

Fighting breaks out along the main front and continues around Jena

By the time Napoleon rode back to Soult's headquarters he was already having misgivings about his plan to put Murat in charge of scooping up Ruchel's exposed troops. It seemed that neither his corps commanders nor the Prussians were in a mood to delay the decisive day any longer and by dawn heavy fighting was already starting to break out along the entire front.

Finally Napoleon cancelled his previous day's orders, mostly out of courtesy, because Nappy expected the decisive moment was at hand and the battle would be decided before Murat or anyone else on that flank could react to any changes. Murat, Ney and Lannes were on their own.

Battle rages along the entire front from west of Zeitz to Zwickau. While defeated, Brunswick's troops are not captured, causing some anxious moments for Davout. Meanwhile Ney and Lannes turn about to face a new threat from the West as Ruchel approaches Jena.

 
Things now started to happen at a rapid clip. Unbeknownst to me, Lannes and Ney were having to react to the approach of more Prussians under Ruchel, as well as dealing with Saxe and Wartens. I was getting worried reports from Davout about the remnants of Brunswick's forces in his rear area, but to his credit Davout kept his cool and held his ground.  I judged that nothing that happened on the left flank would have an immediate impact on the main front, where the fighting was becoming very intense!

The pugnacious Blucher pesters Davout, who is also under heavy pressure from Kalckreuth's command. Ney and Lannes fighting a  meeting engagement with Ruchel at Jena and Murat's missing cavalry reappear on the map to the West. Meanwhile, Napoleon has noticed something on the main front, where the battle rages ....

Shortly before noon saw Ney and Lannes dealing with Ruchel to the West and Davout assailed from front and rear on the main army's left flank. here the marshals earned their batons, as everyone kept their wits about them and refused to panic. Ruchel and Kalckreuth demonstrated the sort of aggressiveness that would have caused Napoleon serious trouble had it occurred earlier in the campaign -- but now it was a case of too late, if not too little. 

It was too late because Napoleon had returned to Soult's position to observe the raging battle and through the smoke he discerned that there appeared to be a small gap in the Prussian line between Zechaltz and Grawert's commands with a clear path to the artillery reserve beyond. And the Guard was near at hand, just a few hundred yards away, having had their orders to join Murat cancelled. Napoleon's instinctively knew this was the moment! He rode over to Bessieres and pointed to the gap and ordered the Guard to attack. He rode on to Murat's nearby cavalry and ordered them to follow the Guard. This was the roll of the dice -- everything would depend on the outcome of this attack.

The second Battle of Jena occurs to the West while the Prussian left flank begins to give way in the east and the Guard hits the center.

As the Guard disappeared into the smoke of battle in the center, victory was already beginning on the far right as Augerau and Bernadotte overwhelmed the Prussian left before Altenbourg.  Any chance of the Prussians stabilizing their front disappeared under the bayonets of the Old Guard and Bessieres swept all before him.

The Prussian front crumbles under a powerful assault. Kalckreuth finally starts to drive Davout back, but soon finds the army melting away to his East. Ney and Lannes check Ruchel at Jena.

By one in the afternoon the Prussian army is melting away in flight. Davout was hard-pressed at the end, grudgingly giving ground to Kalckreuth's attack, when suddenly the advancing Prussians saw their flank supports running away. Meanwhile, the second Battle of Jena was a temporary stalemate, although Ney and Lannes were about reaching the end of their ropes. Had the battle continued, Harvey said they would have been in trouble. But the battle didn't continue ... as the Prussian army was in rout, covered by a rear guard.

Kalckreuth holds his ground while the French pursue

Tomorrow -- final thoughts and a couple of new dukes

1806 campaign Day Seven -- Battle of Jena

Dawn breaks with Hohenlohe's troops nowhere to be seen, but Brunswick and Ney well engaged.

This day saw action occurring in three different areas. The quietest was the main front, as the Prussian main body under Hohenlohe settled into a new defense line and the main body of the French army followed. Davout was the quickest out the gate, but the other corps commanders also started edging forward.

1300

Napoleon, realizing that a major battle was unlikely this day, took advantage of the lull to ride over to the left flank and finally get a first-hand look at what was happening over there.

This is what he found when he arrived at Ney's headquarters :

1800

Lannes had already been given leave to go north to cooperate with Ney and he did an excellent job of it, swinging around Ney's flank while he pinned Brunswick in place and slamming into Brunswick's flank.

Napoleon decided to stay an observe the battle, taking dinner with Ney. By the time dinner was finished and Napoleon was ready to head back to the main front, the battle of Jena looked fairly well won:


As Napoleon rode south to return to Soult's headquarters, where he planned to spend the night, he came across this scene:

While Suchet was hard-pressed, Napoleon thought the widely separated elements of the Prussian army could nor possibly be in effective communication with each other and that there was a chance to continue to defeat them in detail.

Ruchel had stirred enough through forced marching to become a factor in the main front, running into a portion of Murat's force along the road to Neustadt. Murat's troopers were too tired from a straight 48 hours in the saddle to be more than a speed bump -- but a speed bump was sufficient. Ruchel was about 12 hours too late to play the dangerous role that he could have played. Events would prove that he arrived on the scene just as the campaign was being decided elsewhere.

As elements of the French army close in on Hohenlohe's position, Ney and Lannes fight a neat little action around Jena. Meanwhile some of Murat's troopers find Prussians on the road behind them.

Still, Ruchel's appearance did provoke Nappy into making a rash call of the sort he had promised himself he wouldn't make. Based on Lannes and Ney's reports I judged that Brunswick had been neutralized and therefore ordered that Lannes keep up the pursuit while Ney turned around to deal with Saxe and Wartens. Murat was given overall "tactical command" to oversee the encirclement of Saxe and Wartens using his own cavalry reserve and Ney. I told him I would send the Guard as well. After dispatching these orders Napoleon returned to Soult.

Lannes outflanks Brunswick.

Well, it was a nice plan on paper, but in reality, none of it happened. Ney was, it turned out, almost fought out and Lannes got a sudden desire to seize Weimar and therefore stopped pursuing Brunswick. Murat didn't actually have most of his corps present. Two divisions were with the main army and three were floating around far to the west. One of the two actually present was in the process of being destroyed and so he had just one tired bunch of troopers available. Oh, and Nappy changed his mind a few hours and decided he had a better use for the Guard.

Tomorrow: The Battle of Altenbourg

1806 Campaign Day Six -- A battle that didn't happen

The battle line takes shape as the French corps arrive

Day Six was shaping up pretty satisfactorily as far as Nappy was concerned. Soult seemed to have fixed the Prussians in place at Gera and the rest of the army was coming up rapidly. Orders were dispatched to Bernadotte to fall in on the right of Soult while Davout was to fall in on Soult's left. Augerau was told to take position on Bernadotte's far right while Lannes and Bessieres were to be the army reserve. Ney was off somewhere on the left watching the far left flank while Murat had been told to hasten East w8ith his corps -- on the theory that Ruchel would be too late to influence the main battle, even if he stirred.

Some of those were good and accurate calls, some were not. I was still -- and would be for another day or so -- operating under a mistaken notion about my left flank. I was under the impression that Ney, Lannes and Murat were all operating farther north that the actual case. It may be because their reports were unclear. It might have been because my mind was muddled. The bottom line, however, was that Napoloen's orders did not have an accurate basis in fact when it came to the Left flank. That things turned out OK over there was largely attributable to the good decisions of the marshals on scene with an assist from the Prussians, who also seemed to not have a good idea of the actual state of affairs.

My overriding objective was to try to hit the Prussians with a coordinated multi-corps assault. This necessarily took time to set up and  my plan was to launch a four-corps simultaneous assault at dawn along the river line by Gera, with two corps in reserve to exploit a breakthrough.

So, while most of the troops were in position by that afternoon, I didn't want to start fighting so late in the day, being concerned that nightfall would rescue the Prussians from the consequences of a defeat.

This didn't mean there was no fighting. Inded, there was jpoustinga long the front all day as the two sides struggled for position. Meanwhile Ney was fighting his own little war with Brunswick aroudn Jena. While he was holding his own, the two sides were two evenly matched for one of the other to achieve victory.

Early afternoon. Skirmishing all along the front. Murat starts moving some troopers east while Lannes and the Guard come up

Around this time Lannes started lobbying to be released to join the fighting around Jena. I was reluctant because I really intended on using him to add weight to Davout's attack, acting under the mistaken impression that Lannes was several miles north of his actual position. Lannes pointed out that he didn't have a clear path to Davout as there was a battle in the way!

Meanwhile everything was in readiness for the next day's battle. Disturbing reports from Davout about enemy troops in his rear prompted me to change my orders from the original double envelopment to an attack by echelon starting with Augerau on the right. While I was uncertain about the Left flank and made plans to go there myself to check it out, I was confident that Augerau and Bernadotte was poised for a great victory. The Guard's progress was a little slow, but I figured they'd show up in time to be useful the next day.

Harve's Powerpoint notes some failures of reconnaissance this day. Among them was Ruchel not detecting the departure of half of Murat's cavalry and some other intel failures. But among them was the french failure to detect that the Prussians were about to pull out overnight! This is not entirely accurate, as there were some reports sent up by some corps that hinted at the possibility. I decided that it was too late to do anything about it, however, and if the Prussians were not there in the morning, well, we'd just have to adjust.

The Prussians pull back!!!

And in the morning the Prussians were, indeed, gone!!

As it turned out, they hadn't gone far and the decisive battle was just delayed.

While disappointed at the delay, overall I considered the Prussian retreat as a big moral victory and I think it actually set the stage for the decisiveness of the Oct. 18 battle.

There are several reasons for this view.

First, it wasn't a big enough withdrawal to change the overall dynamic. I think if you're going to make a move like that then you need to go big and make it a significant move. Instead the Prussians merely fell back a few miles without any meaningful change in their dispositions.

Secondly, it kind of left Brunswick in the lurch and robbed the Prussians of any benefits they might have gotten from being on the immediate flank of the French army.  As it was, Davout was put under  a lot of pressure on Oct. 18.  Having Brunswick so much closer might have made a big difference.

Thirdly, it actually gave the French needed time to make the blow more powerful. The Guard had time to come up, as did a portion of Murat's cavalry. With the Guard present, I was better minded to consider Lannes arguments for using his corps differently than I had intended.

The one untoward development -- which was unknown to me at the time -- was that Ruchel was starting to stir. I am not sure why some of Murat's cavalry pulled back to defend the passes to the south of Gotha. It was contrary to my instructions and it had the unfortunate effect of easing the pressure on Ruchel. He came closer to playing a spoiler role in the upcoming fight than I would have liked.

Overall, however, I don't think the Prussian retreat did much for their chances.

It did mean, however, that the next morning would bring some scrambling.

Tomorrow: The Battle of Jena