General d'Armee: Napoleonics

It's been a long Napoleonic road.  Way back in my weeee days I started playing Napoleonic battles in 25mm using plastic Arfix miniatures and lead miniatures from Minifigs (I started wargaming at age 9 with my dad).  Over the years I played just about every Napoleonic rule set I can imagine.  Multiple sets of home brew, Playable Napoleonic Wargames, Napoleon's Battles, Napoleon, Black Powder, General de Brigade, Age of Eagles, and so on.

I'm very excited to have settled on using the General d'Armee rules written by David Brown.  I'll be hosting my first game using this system on April 24th, playing the Bautzen scenario from the main rulebook.

After all this time I had a ruleset I was mostly happy with for a while - my home brew set called Empires at War.  But, I knew the melee system, while brutal and quick, wasn't very good.  I was also getting tired of having to write my own rules and maintain/develop them constantly.  I toyed with Age of Eagles (Fire and Fury for Napoleonic's).  I like some of the key aspects of that game, the reduced shooting ranges, consolidated results table for shooting/melee, and some other things.  For Empires at War I was already trying to develop a lightweight but meaningful "command and control" aspect to the rules.  I was getting close on that front.

When I base miniatures I tend to watch videos on YouTube in the background - most often they are various wargaming related videos.  My feed happened to load up the Too Fat Lardies series covering the General d'Armee rules.  I'm always open to reading and hearing about rulesets, even if I think or know I will be unlikely to play many rules, because often they contain interesting aspects and innovations I have not seen before, which is interesting to me.

I burned through the General d'Armee series of videos.  Long story short, it has all the aspects I was crawling towards myself.  The lightweight command and control system based on ADCs.  When I say lightweight, I mean it doesn't bog down the game - it flows quickly, BUT - and this is a big but - it also has an important influence on the game that at the same time isn't potentially crippling.

Most command and control oriented rules I've seen lean to heavily into the concept.  The command aspect becomes the game itself.  If you fail at the command phase you effectively accomplish nothing on the tabletop.  That is what I wanted to avoid and have avoided in the past.  General d'Armee has an elegant implementation of the command and control aspect.  While rolling for ADCs and assigning them to brigades is absolutely important, especially if you are on the offensive, a bad phase here or there - even if you rolled so bad you didn't get a single ADC - doesn't mean your army sits around sipping tea (and getting ground into oblivion by the other side).  Each brigade will have a decent chance of following orders without any added help (provided they are steady).  Exactly the right mix I was looking for in this regard.  The ADC system in General d'Armee allows you to hedge your bets or manipulate the percent chance of success in your battlefield operations.

The charge, shooting and melee systems - using a combination of a 2D6 modified result oriented (opposed rolls for charges and melee) resolution is another thing I was looking for.  But, added to this are casualty dice - which add a whole extra element to the limitations of a purely "modified result" type system (such as is seen in Age of Eagles).  This hybrid of modified result and traditional shooting dice to-hit approach strikes a balance in the rules that I find to be very innovative.  I had one of those "darn, why didn't I think of that" kind of moments.

Another first is the QRS included in the book.  For the first time in memory I don't have to create one myself.  The QRS is fairly comprehensive and covers what you need to play the game, not just the high level tables.  Joy!

The system uses brigade skirmish screens.  Since I'm in the middle of basing my Russians, I based the skirmishers on appropriate bases for this purpose.  Additionally, I've based up my first batch of Russian ADC's (my brigade command stands are already done).  I'll be adding another 6 ADCs for a total of 12, which is plenty to cover many scenarios for the Russian army.

MacDonald's Attack at Bautzen - 1813

This is the game I will be running on the 24th of this month.

The French must capture the Russian redoubt or village of Rischen by the end of the game.  The Russians must avoid the French victory conditions.  The game ends after 16 turns.

French forces deploy up to 20cm [9"] in, anywhere along the Binnewitz table edge.  The Russian player deploys up to and including the heights and the village of Rischen, but no further.

Table size is 6 foot by 8 foot (28mm figures).

The Russian redoubt can hold one battalion in Column or a battery of Artillery.

FRENCH ORDER OF BATTLE

C-in-C: MacDonald (Campaigner)

8 x ADCs

 

Brigade: Ledru
Unit	Units	Strength	Grade
27th Légère	1	4/8/10	Line
Line Regiments	2	4/8/10	Recruits
Neapolitan Elite Regt.	1	4/8/12	Line
6pdr Foot battery	1	4/6/8	Line
Skirmishers	3 Bases	3 hits per base	N/A

 

Brigade: Gerard
Unit	Units	Strength	Grade
Line Regiments	5	4/8/12	Line
Skirmishers	5 Bases	3 hits per base	N/A

 

Brigade: Zucchi
Unit	Units	Strength	Grade
Italian Légère	2	4/8/10	Line
Italian Line Regiments	3	4/8/12	Recruits
Skirmishers	5 Bases	3 hits per base	N/A

 

Brigade: Charpentier
Unit	Units	Strength	Grade
14th Légère	2	4/8/12	Line
22nd Légère	3	4/8/12	Recruits
Skirmishers	5 Bases	3 hits per base	N/A

 

Brigade: Meunier (On Table Reserve)
Unit	Units	Strength	Grade
3rd Légère	1	4/8/12	Line
Line Regiments	4	4/8/10	Recruits
Skirmishers	4 Bases	3 hits per base	N/A

 

Brigade: Reizet
Unit	Units	Strength	Grade
Dragoon Regiments	2	4/8/12	Line, Campaign Cavalry

 

Brigade: Balabio (On Table Reserve)
Unit	Units	Strength	Grade
Italian Dragoons	2	4/8/12	Line, Campaign Cavalry
Italian Chasseurs à Cheval	1	4/8/12	Recruits, Campaign Cavalry
Italian 6pdr Horse battery	1	4/6/8	Line

 

Brigade: Artillery (If all attached to brigades, -1 ADC)
Unit	Units	Strength	Grade
6pdr Foot battery	2	4/6/8	Line

 

RUSSIAN ORDER OF BATTLE

C-in-C: Wurttemburg (Commissariat)

7 x ADCs

 

Brigade: Knorring
Unit	Units	Strength	Grade
Soum Hussars	1	4/8/12	Line, Battle Cavalry
Tartar Uhlans	1	4/8/12	Line, Campaign Cavalry
Cossacks	1	4/8/10	Recruits, Cossacks

 

Brigade: Schachafskoi
Unit	Units	Strength	Grade
Musketeer Regiments	3	4/8/12	Line
Jäger Regiments	2	4/8/12	Line
Skirmishers	4 Bases	3 hits per base	N/A

 

Brigade: Pischnitzky
Unit	Units	Strength	Grade
Musketeer Regiments	3	4/8/12	Recruits
Skirmishers	None

Brigade doesn’t meet minimum bases (2) for brigade skirmish screen.

 

Brigade: Ivanov
Unit	Units	Strength	Grade
Musketeer Regiments	2	4/8/12	Line
Jäger Regiments	2	4/8/12	Line
Skirmishers	4 Bases	3 hits per base	N/A

 

Brigade: Karpenkov
Unit	Units	Strength	Grade
1st Jägers	1	4/8/12	Veteran
33rd Jägers	1	4/8/12	Line
Skirmishers	2 Bases	3 hits per base	N/A

 

Brigade: Bistram (On Table Reserve)
Unit	Units	Strength	Grade
Musketeer Regiments	2	4/8/10	Line
Musketeer Regiments	2	4/8/10	Recruits
Skirmishers	None

Brigade doesn’t meet minimum bases (2) for brigade skirmish screen.

 

Brigade: Pantschulid (On Table Reserve)
Unit	Units	Strength	Grade
Mounted Jägers	1	4/8/12	Line, Campaign Cavalry
New Russia Dragoons	1	4/8/12	Line, Battle Cavalry
6pdr Horse battery	1	4/6/10	Line

 

Brigade: Artillery (If all attached to brigades, -1 ADC)
Unit	Units	Strength	Grade
12pdr Foot battery	1	4/6/10	Line
9pdr Foot battery	1	4/6/10	Line