Napoleonic Wargame Club (NWC)

looking for hints.....

I think I am fairly familiar with the rules regarding "Leaders and Command Range".

I still struggle with organizing and finding Leaders after or during a heated engagement.

I wish Leaders and units were color coded (Cavalry vs infantry) like you see in some board games.

I realize we do have Division color, but that just does not do enough. I find it so hard reorganizing after the fir flies.

Especially in the Waterloo game, that gives you all the extra leaders who have no command function till someone bites the dust.

Does anyone else have problems with the organizational aspect of these games during battle?

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C.N.Matthews

Using the "Highlight Organization" and clicking a leader icon, I think highlights their whole command.

Also, in all the series I play, I learned years ago to never keep any leaders in the front lines. Keep them right behind or close by and the higher commanders a bit further back to help with rout & reorder.

You need to keep tight lines, but centering the brigade leaders with their formation, will still give their effects to the units, though I don't think as good as being right with them, it still works well enough. With the French, it should be even more effective because of the good ratings & range. The doctrine works well for me with the CSA in the ACW series and they are similar in superior ratings, in most games, like the French are here. Also the Coalition holds up well, even with less describable ratings, ranges & unit quality et al. The only time I might stray from the concept is in cav charges, as a leader can have a good bonus. But I am a bit cautious to charge, given the mixed ratings etc for Coalition cav in most games.

DC's, CC's, Wing Co's etc, are further back in a tiered system so that they provide the check, but can also pick up routed units as they run back. Not the easiest task sometimes as a Coalition player, but I'll usually try to retreat units of the same organization to a central leader and crowd around them.

The whole system has led me to generally lose very little or no commanders in most of my games. The only real badge of honor I can claim for my otherwise terrible game play....

Only some of the extremely best players have been able to pick off leaders and very, very few guys can get at the top commanders and usually because I created a gap in the lines in my ZOC control by accident. As a Coalition player, your higher commanders are often your lifeline and sometimes the only way to keep any sense of order. When they go, the whole thing can go to pot easily.

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Generalfeldmarschall Scott Kronprinz "Vorwärts" Ludwig von Preußen
Kommandeur des Königlich-Preußischen Armee-Korps
Chief of Staff (CoS) of the Allied Coalition
Allied Coalition Webmaster & Club Website Support

I played a Frenchmen that had Ney in the front line ... lucky guy didn't lose him to a wound

A lot of great players move their leaders LAST. They will attach a brigade leader to a combat ... sure ... but the main management leaders move last and you then end up being able to lay out your command range that way.

So move your units first ... keep brigade leaders with the units ... move the Div Corps Wing and Army leader last ...

And avoid big leader stacks too .... If you have left over leaders keep them back in the reserve or use them to rally units (remember the rally-org rule - their leadership bonus works if the unit is in their command range).

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Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Prinz Peters von Dennewitz

3. Husaren-Regiment, Reserve-Kavallerie, Preußischen Armee-Korps

Honarary CO of Garde-Ulanen Regiment, Garde-Grenadier Kavallerie

NWC Founding Member

For Club Games: I prefer the Single Phase mode of play. I prefer to play with the following options OFF:

MDF, VP4LC, NRO, MTD, CMR, PR, MIM, NDM, OMR (ver 4.07)

I normally play in 3D, but when I am having trouble finding leaders I switch to 2D and in the view tab select leaders on top. That, combined with highlight org, helps me find units. With leaders on top, once you find, say, a division leader, when you click him you will see his brigade leaders highlighted on the top of their stacks. If you brigade fronts are at the limit of your brigade command ranges (a problem for the Austrians in the 1809 and 1813/1814 games), I will often move the brigade commander to the center of the formation to see what I can do with the brigade while staying in command range..
Jim

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I think finding the officers can be troublesome, especially in those titles that have a huge amount of leaders like Waterloo.
I wish we could have different icons for officers based on their rank, but for now it must be enough to use division colors and highlight organization to narrow the search area to find an officer.

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that's kind of what I am driving at.......if the Infantry and Cavalry leaders were different colors that would be perfect. A player could tell instantly just by the color.

Cavalry commanders dark blue..........infantry light blue for the French.
Cavalry commanders dark grey..........infantry light gray for the Prussians.

and so on..........

is this a difficult change for future updates?

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C.N.Matthews

thanks Jim,
I do use that........but i still have difficulty, especially playing (which I play allot) Waterloo.

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C.N.Matthews

Thanks Bill,
Great tips.........I do move my leaders last.
In Waterloo (the big campaign) its hard to avoid stacks of leaders.
As I said in my earlier post, once the shooting starts I lose track of the leaders and then its a struggle to reassemble.
I never see anyone comment about the engine with respect to my problem, so I thought I would ask.

I was just thinking what would be cool.
If each scenario had the point value for each Leader on its counter next to its name.
Is there a way to determine the value of a particular Leader BEFORE he is killed?

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C.N.Matthews

To be honest we can be thankful for any additional "complication", it likely resembles the heat of the battle better, so if you lose track of your leaders that is a fine enhancement of the FoW as the FoW is not nearly what we need in these games.

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Clint,
I like your ideas for the color coding of commanders to add some clarity.

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managing your leaders is the most important aspect of this game. It takes time and patience but it is worth it.

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Hi Chaps
Here is a post I had in Pierre's from a while back might prove useful:

I have a colleague I have been giving a little training too (he is is an allied officer) and I just wrote this email to him about techniques for improving your management of the command system in HPS. I thought I would share it here for any of the less experienced players who perhaps have not mastered it yet

'Yes the K key is vital

When working on your officer deployment try this:

The little star on the toolbar allows you in 2d view to view leaders at the top of the stack
If you go into 2d view and select a stack then move leaders to the top with the star (they don’t actually move its just for viewing)
Then select the leader and click the 2nd from the right hand end button – ‘highlight org’
Then push the k key. These actions will allow you to see both a unit commanders command and ensure it’s all within command range.
Brigade commanders command the units all commanders above just command the commanders. So division guys don’t need to have their command zone covering the units as long as they cover the brigade commander

I always end every move with a full 2d sweep of command and officer positioning across the board. I try not to move the officers to much during the move as I find this can mean when I get to this final part of my move system that I cannot move the officer enough or position him to ensure he has all his units or most of them under command.

You also need to keep your French brigade commanders out of the front line. When they die you get them replaced with poor quality leaders. As the French army is all about command quality (its core advantage) you must not get so many brigade leaders killed as you have in melees.
It does not matter quite so much as allied commander as your unit commanders are crappy anyway,

A lot of players whine about the poor allied command. As I have demonstrated in this game and others it’s more poor understanding of the system than the commanders . Remember if you keep everyone in range the bonus to rallying comes down the command chain from CinC all the way to brigade with +1 for each successful pass. So even with low ratings if you manage your units well they will reform most of the time. Routs of course being a big disruption to that rule.

Another useful thing when manoeuvring is to ‘highlight org’ so you keep your btn and sqds closeish to each other allowing your later move of the brigade commander to maintain control

Final tip on that same subject is ‘highlight division colour’ which is quite cool for seeing which division is which. Only problem is the colour spectrum is sometimes not broad enough with some divisions employing the same colour.

Hope this all helps. Command is absolutely essential if you are to compete with the best players they are all masters of it using similar processes to mine as above.'

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Marechal Knox

Prince d'Austerlitz et Comte d'Argentan
Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur

"What is history but a fable agreed upon"

And slightly off-topic. When moving commanders about try and ensure No Opportunity Fire against Skirmishers is off. For some reason the engine sees leaders as skirmishers and you may well have your units shot at as a leader is moved on to one.

I have noticed that.

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C.N.Matthews

Indeed Andy that's a great tip, its annoying when you move a leader and blam some arty somewhere kills 12 of your cavalry.
I generally move my leaders last so this can happen to me, I did not realize it related to that optional rule though. Great tip thanks Andy!

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Marechal Knox

Prince d'Austerlitz et Comte d'Argentan
Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur

"What is history but a fable agreed upon"