Napoleonic Skirmish game home brew rules

[vodkafan]

My friend has.been and I recently played an enjoyable game set in the Peninsular. I will put photos up over a few posts, this first post will just show the table and the opposing forces.
The table was about 3 x 3  I think. It basically consisted of a  dusty rural road with a bridge at each end over substantial rivers. On (what became) the French side of the road, off a side lane was an enclosed orchard of fruit trees. On the other side of the main road was a farm house and another walled enclosure that was mostly empty.
The pics should explain everything fairly well:






At the big bridge over the large river was a British supply train. It was a nice sunny day and the sleepy drivers of the ordinance were not expecting any trouble...  The mission of both commanders was to secure this supply train.





My friend had two units of French. This first lot in green are Voltigeurs Regiment D'Irlanders or something of the sort. They are Irish anyway.


These other chaps are also Voltigeurs I think. 


Here are my lot: A unit of line infantry, a mix of some veterans, regulars and novice replacements:



And a few hardy 95th Riflemen, led by- is that? - By Jove yes! It is Sargeant Harper with his multi-barrelled volley gun.


A few close up pics of the orchards and the farmhouse to round off this post.






I should mention that the three good looking bits of scenery were hand made by has.been himself.







 







 

[has.been]

The fighting area is in fact 4 carpet tiles from B&Q & therefore 1m (33")square. Those ones are a light brown which is not clear from the pictures as I piled on sand to make it more like the Peninsular.
Once again thanks Vodkafan for taking & posting the photos.

[Malamute]

Very nice. the buildings are lovely

Its great to see old school figure still being used. My first introduction to the hobby was in the late 1970s via Minifigs and Hinchcliffe Napoleonics, so I have a soft spot for these figures.

[vodkafan]

On with the action.  There was a bit of dicing at the beginning to determine where your troops could start off from a list of options. I decided that the 95th would be inside the farmhouse.
I had the option of placing my Line infantry actually with the supply train but decided that it would be a better game for both of us if it was under nobody's control at the start.
My first action is to get the skirmishers out of the farmhouse and to where they could do what they are good at. Here they are in the act of climbing over the garden wall


My opponent's Voltigeurs appear at the other end of the bridge, a bit sooner than I expected.


 Sergeant Harper rushes his men across the garden


I should explain at this point a facet of the rules. In a unit can be 3 troop types: Veteran, Regular and Novice. In every action, a Veteran can do things better than a regular, be it moving further, shooting, etc; and a Regular can do these things better than a Novice. (ie. it takes less command points) So, unless you want your unit to move at do things at the pace of the the slowest and worst soldiers in the unit, it is inevitable that the tendency is for the unit to get strung out. But unit cohesion rules still apply, if a straggler gets too far away from his leader he can't control them. A dice roll of two dice determines how many command points the leader has to spend for each unit per turn.
Here the French commander used all his points to rush as many of his best troops over the bridge and halt the rear most wagon



 

[has.been]

Just a note. Units can contain a mix of veterans/ averages or novices. For each 'hostile' action (e.g. closing with enemy/shooting/melee etc) costs a Novice 2pts. Average 1pt. & Veterans half a pt. so if your officer threw his two D6 & got a total of 5 you could:- a)move & shoot with 2 veterans/ advance a novice & melee with an average, or b)advance & melee with a novice and shoot with an average, or c)advance 10 veterans.

Non hostile actions (ducking down behind a tall wall/ running away/ retreating around the side of a building out of line of fire) are FREE, so you don't have to stand there & take it.

For shooting/melee etc.
Veterans throw 3 D6 (and choose one)
Averages throw 2 D6 (and choose one)
Novices throw 1 D6 (and are stuck with it)

 Target throws 3 D6 if in very good cover (and chooses one)
                     2 D6 if in some cover (and chooses one)
                      1 D6 if no cover (and is stuck with it)

There are other rules, but that is the gist of the system.

[Harry Faversham]

has.been, the rules sound good, any chance of putting them all on here so we can all have a play?
 

[vodkafan]

Ah yes I had forgot about the free actions. Has.been of course explains the rules much better than I can.
The action continues:
I throw the line infantry up the road at full speed. However I didn't have enough command points to move the novices, so this is only the veterans and regulars.


The supply train movement is diced for at the end of each turn, a single D6. They got a 4 so moved 4 inches away. But the wagon is now under French control so goes nowhere.


The Irish Voltigeurs start to deploy from behind the orchard but they get a very low dice roll so they don't get very far


The Riflemen take up firing positions and I have enough command points for one of them to take a shot


His near miss put the wind up the lead Frenchman who turns and bolts


The Line infantry advance up the road a bit, with the novices behind. I can't afford to wait for them


The French Commander's dice gods are being fickle with him as usual and he gets another low throw, but deploys further into the orchard and sends two round the side


The supply mules have moved another small distance. All the Riflemen fire this time


One Frenchman is down! And the one who was spooked can be seen running away at the other end of the bridge. But the French, under fire, have managed to turn the cart around


The French Officer attempts to rally his men to push forward and retaliate. He wants the whole supply train


I need to get my Line Infantry to the mules and get them to safety! I have only enough command points to send the 6 best men forward


Here you can see how my unit is getting increasingly more fragmented and strung out. This was interesting as it made for decisions of priority and risk taking


The French are making off with the wagon. Oh no! This one had the beer ration and the toilet roll!
But the sniping from the Riflemen has downed another Frenchie


The sergeant and another veteran rush forward to take control of the mule train. The sergeant is not quite there this turn to the farmost mule. The other men take cover behind the wall, they sense enemy movement in the orchard


Here we see the same point in the action from the enemy side if the commander was in a hot air balloon

[vodkafan]

Another shot from the French Commander's hot air balloon showing his lacklustre Voltigeurs advancing round and through the orchard..


At the other end the sight is a happier one for the French


Oops the balloon seems to have drifted over the British side


The sergeant has reached the farmost mule. The other one is already on the way to safety. The men lining the wall fire a crashing volley...


They hit one of the Frenchmen out in the open and send the other running away


More later, comments and criticism welcome as always
 
 

[rumacara]

Seems a lovely game.
A simple table with enough scenario and still great.
Also curious about the rules.

[DintheDin]

Very interesting game mechanism, please, tell us more!
Very nice table you have! I'm sure you much enjoyed this game!

[agentbalzac]

Great game - lots of fun and character and some intriguingly simple rules.   

Please post them for our general delectation.

[vodkafan]

Next turn the sergeant hands over to a subordinate and takes his place at the wall. The battle is starting to get sticky.


The French view of the situation


The Voltiguers at the bridge bravely advance forward and get as far as the trees but are met with a hail of accurate sniping from the 95th. Harper's volley gun alone took out two at once.
Here the officer and a couple of other men are down wounded and the rest are running away.




The Irish Voltigeurs pull themselves together and get into firing positions along the orchard wall and even get some men into the trees. They fire but cause no casualties among the British.


The Brits in turn keep French heads down


The Novice recruits come in handy after all, as the supply mules are handed over them and the Regulars return to the wall to fight


The French Commander in his hot air balloon can only watch impotently as his quarry slips away a bit at a time


At the bridge confusion reigns. The French just can't make any any headway and don't feel like doing much with the officer wounded.


However the supply wagon is now safely in French hands and lost to me forever.


Up to this point I had been considering to possibility of trying to recapture the wagon, even though that would probably be suicidal. Now I don't have to worry about that, I see the possibility of executing a fighting withdrawal without a single Brit being lost. But my opponent senses this too and he's not going to let it be easy for me.
Come on lads!


Get up Murphy it's just a flesh wound!







 










 

[vodkafan]

Another turn and one of the mule bases reach safety and the other one is nearly there.


The sergeant starts to pull his Line infantry back in a text book manoeuvre firing as they go in half sections.


Sergeant Harper starts letting his men go one at a time


The French put up a desperate harrassing fire


"Sacre Bleu, Les Rosbiffs are getting away!"


Sergeant Harper covers his men with one last blast on the volley gun


And gets another man down


I should mention that the French at the bridge have been firing at the Riflemen the whole game every chance they got but the 95th were in such good positions the best they did was stun one with a ricochet and stop him firing for one turn.
Harper joins his men racing across the courtyard


The enraged Voltigeurs are close behind


And the Irish in the orchard are getting ready to attack


One rifleman is into the farmhouse. The others are climbing over the wall


The French discharge muskets at their backs


The Irish burst out of the orchard




But the line infantry are safely away down the road


 All the Riflemen make the farmhouse. The Rifleman who was into the house first the turn before uses this turn to run upstairs and fire from a window. He was shot and wounded by a French ball (their best shot of the whole game!) but the next turn my opponent graciously allowed that he could be dragged downstairs by his mates and evacuated out the back door.
We enjoyed the game immensely.

Notes: I have to say that the French commander was plagued by terrible bad luck this game. My dice throws ALWAYS gave me just enough command points to do what I wanted to do and his NEVER did. It could easily have been an entirely different game if his men in the orchard had  been able to outflank me and bottle me up on the road. And yet another different game if I had been accompanying the supply train on the road at the start.

The rules: I liked the points mechanism of the rules and the different cost for grades of troops. Have one minor quibble with the rules, it is that it is too hard to actually kill someone. Frenchmen didn't die even with direct hits. They could be pinned, wounded, or made to run away, but if wounded they recovered after a while and got up again. I felt that there should at least be a cumulative effect that if they got hit twice they should be out the game. I understand that in a skirmish game with only a few figures they should not be too  easy to kill, but still....

Comments welcome, hope you enjoyed my report and photos.  

[Harry Faversham]

VF, any chance of your good self, or has.been, posting the full rules as they look to be a great set for skirmishing.

 

[vodkafan]

VF, any chance of your good self, or has.been, posting the full rules as they look to be a great set for skirmishing.

 

Harry, I don't have a set at the moment, but I will see has.been tomorrow