Napoleonic Wargame Club (NWC)

I have the historical Waterloo battle open. Along with some comments about it I also wanted to note that:

1. Movement rates are as per the NRC game. 10 points for Infantry, Wagons and Artillery, 14 points for Cavalry and Horse Artillery.

2. New 2d tile for fields looks better than older version.

Waterloo notes:

1. Prussians arrive at historical times at 100 or 80 percent chance! Thus finally a HISTORICAL Waterloo battle.

2. Map is 142 x 100 hexes. Has a tad more area than the BG Waterloo map. Thus the Prussians will have a bit more marching to do to get into the action.

3. Waterloo is on the map! What a concept.

4. Exit hexes for the French will keep the Allied player watching his flanks.

5. First Player is French; Major Defeat = -625; Minor Defeat = 0; Minor Victory 625; Major Victory 1250. French have 201 points to start (the 1 point is Napoleon's chair! - ok, just kidding about that one) - actually its because one of the exit hexes is a 1X. Thus the 1 point.

6. No, Grouchy has no chance of showing up. Its the HISTORICAL scenario. There are MANY other versions of the battle that add in lots of variations. Even Martians helping Napoleon out! Ok - kidding about that last one of course.

7. Hougomont is called the Chateau de Goumond. That was a new one on me but Waterloo is not my main beat on the Napoleonic scene. To you that know the battlefield well you will probably like this touch. Its worth 75 points while La Haye Sainte is worth 100 points. Now that's a switch from BGW. The chateau area is two hexes with the objective being in clear terrain and not the actual chateau building. Would be interested to hear from Rich or Dierk on the rationale of this. Popelotte is worth only 25 points. There is a 150 point objective in Mont Saint Jean and a 50 point objective on the road leading north from the Sand Pit. Other than that there are no other objectives. In other words its a soldier's battle and the objectives (as we all know) are not the main attraction. Kudos to Charlie and Rich on doing that. I prefer to have battles between armies and most of us think that Jerome's attack on the Hougomont farm was dumb anyway.

7. Ammo - 1200 ammo for the Allies (with it increasing as the Prussians arrive of course) and 2000 for the French.

The British dont have as many guns of course so really the onus is on the French to not run out of ammo more or less BUT so the Prussian guns have a good allotment I would think that it would behoove the Allies to keep some of their batteries limbered rather than on the firing line.

Visibility is 40 hexes. Light Mud is the initial weather setting. 50 percent chance of Clear by 1300. Games starts at 1115 so the Frenchie AINT gonna be doing the Full Barrett for those crucial turns!

MP rates: Mud cost 3 MPs per hex. That means only 3 hexes per turn in the open for Columns. It cost me 7 MPs to change from Column to line leaving 3 MPs but the cost is higher for Mud for a clear hex - the PDT file doesnt say what rate it is for Mud (just for Clear) so I gather that 3 MPs becomes 4 or 5 MPs. It would be nice to have a dynamic PDT file view so that you would see the REAL MP rate. Something I will ask John to do if its possible so we can know the proper rate for when the weather changes.

So you wont be seeing the FULL BARRETT guys. Good! That solves that issue (almost wanted to say something a week or so ago about the discusion on this but couldnt say anything of course.

So kiss the Full Barrett goodbye.

Other nice things:

All of those nice changes that we discussed in our group about 2/3 Disordered combat value for the attacker to stop this nonsense of guys using disoredered units in combat. In our playtesting of my current title we have found this to be a nice change. The 1/2 defender value does have its limits but it does help out as well.

The Charge continuation coding is HARD coded - its not an option. Thus no longer will OPEN hexes stop a charge after the first couple of hexes attacked. You can enter open hexes with cavalry and then hit another defender. This is a nice addition and big time kudos to John Tiller for doing this. No more staggering those defenders in other words to have the cavalry stop short of them.

X2 X2 X2 X2

X X X X

C C C C

In the above diagram each X is separated by a hex. The second rank of defenders (the X2s) can now get hit after the cavalry attacks and defeats the first rank as they will have a full FOUR hexes of melee-range once they make contact and start attacking.

Anyway, must go. Hope that whets your appetite a bit!

Oberst Wilhelm Peters
2nd Kuirassiers, Reserve Korps, Austrian Army

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Bill Peters</i>
2. New 2d tile for fields looks better than older version.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

A port from the ACW games actually. The "old" fields simply didn't look like tall rye in early summer in central Europe. [8D]

And watch out for those fields because they also badly impede movement and visibility. As it should be. [^]

You know, the fields were my pet project in this one. Everyone has to lobby for *something*. [:D]

<center>Général de Division D.S. "Green Horse" Walter
Baron d'Empire, Duc des Pyramides
Commandant [url="http://home.arcor.de/dierk_Walter/NWC/3_VI_AdR_Home.htm"]3ème Division[/url], VIème Corps Bavarois, L'Armée du Rhin
Brigade de Tirailleurs de la Jeune Garde
</center>

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by D.S. Walter</i>
<br /><blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Bill Peters</i>
2. New 2d tile for fields looks better than older version.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

A port from the ACW games actually. The "old" fields simply didn't look like tall rye in early summer in central Europe. [8D]

And watch out for those fields because they also badly impede movement and visibility. As it should be. [^]

You know, the fields were my pet project in this one. Everyone has to lobby for *something*. [:D]

<center>Général de Division D.S. "Green Horse" Walter
Baron d'Empire, Duc des Pyramides
Commandant [url="http://home.arcor.de/dierk_Walter/NWC/3_VI_AdR_Home.htm"]3ème Division[/url], VIème Corps Bavarois, L'Armée du Rhin
Brigade de Tirailleurs de la Jeune Garde
</center>
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Hey, thanks for doing that. Good addition to the system. Didnt even note that they were from the ACW games.


Oberst Wilhelm Peters
2nd Kuirassiers, Reserve Korps, Austrian Army

Just glancing around at some of the old familiar scenarios

And, well opend up historical Ligny, and at first, thought that it would be easier for the Prussians to defend. If you can bet the French into it, Wagenlee is going to be nice to defend (bit of a race though, unless the French diddle, you won't beat them in force).

Some nice terrain for defense, with the lower movement, the guys int he towns will have a chance to get themselves a bit better organized.

Then I noticed.

Ligne Creek is rated "stream" its entire length [:0]

No more fighting over the crossings. The positions in St. Armand and Ligny are much more easily outflanked.

Oh my, this will change things muchly.

FML Gary McClellan
1st Jäger Bn
Chief of Staff Imperial Austrian Army

There was a pretty informed article in one of the club newsletters many years ago on this issue. The author argued that the creek was in reality a stream. Maybe I can dig it up.

<center>Général de Division D.S. "Green Horse" Walter
Baron d'Empire, Duc des Pyramides
Commandant [url="http://home.arcor.de/dierk_Walter/NWC/3_VI_AdR_Home.htm"]3ème Division[/url], VIème Corps Bavarois, L'Armée du Rhin
Commandant l'Ecole de Mars, Armée du Rhin
Brigade de Tirailleurs de la Jeune Garde
</center>

Here goes ...

http://www.wargame.ch/wc/nwc/newsletter ... html#Ligny



<center>Général de Division D.S. "Green Horse" Walter
Baron d'Empire, Duc des Pyramides
Commandant [url="http://home.arcor.de/dierk_Walter/NWC/3_VI_AdR_Home.htm"]3ème Division[/url], VIème Corps Bavarois, L'Armée du Rhin
Commandant l'Ecole de Mars, Armée du Rhin
Brigade de Tirailleurs de la Jeune Garde
</center>

Interesting Article Dierk. Sounds like it may well be realistic the way it is.

Still going to make the game play out quite differently. Between that, and the lower movement, the Prussian Defense shouldn't take the awful losses to initially do, but are a bit lacking in good defensive position, once the line of the three towns is breached.

Looking forward to it. Tell you what, why don't you wander up that way in our game [:p]

FML Gary McClellan
1st Jäger Bn
Chief of Staff Imperial Austrian Army

Based on my reading a stream was the corect choice for that...multiple sources pointed to it as such. [:)]

Gen. Hamilton, Baron d'Barbancon
21st Division
VII Corps, ADR

Saxon Leib-Garde, de la Jeune Garde, Garde Impériale

Thank you Dr. Walter, but you missed this little diddy from the <u>Letters to the Editor</u> in Edition 9:

<i>-----Original Message-----

<font color="orange">From: Edi Birsan

To: The Editor

Date: Thursday, January 20, 2000 5:47 AM

Subject: Terrrain at Ligny

I was interested in the comments on Ligny terrain (NWC Newsletter - November 1999) and can add the following:

In 1977, 79 and again in 1986 I visited the area to do a personal tour of the battle sites of 1815. I followed parts of the Ligny 'river' and what I was struck with was something that held true for many of the waterways in the area. When you were outside of the towns the rivers were quite easily passable and at one point you could jump across it if you did not want to get wet. However, as the waterway approaches a village or a town, the town folk had built up the river banks to be steep and made the river impassable by wagons and probably horses (though I have no real experience on horses so I can only guess) certainly they would make for obstacles for foot soldiers.

So you have this odd aspect: roads give the best travel, roads lead to towns/villages which grow up by the side of running of water. There the roads lead you to the one point where crossing the water will be the most difficult. I believe a similar experience was reported in the panic at the end of the Battle of Waterloo, where there was this huge traffic jam at Gennappe at the bridges in town when just a little bit out of the town the 'river' was easily fordable.

Edi Birsan</i></font id="orange">


FM Sir 'Muddy' Jones, KG
2nd Life Guards, Household Cavalry
CO, Cavalry Corps
Allied CiC

That would sound logical.

<center>Général de Division D.S. "Green Horse" Walter
Baron d'Empire, Duc des Pyramides
Commandant [url="http://home.arcor.de/dierk_Walter/NWC/3_VI_AdR_Home.htm"]3ème Division[/url], VIème Corps Bavarois, L'Armée du Rhin
Commandant l'Ecole de Mars, Armée du Rhin
Brigade de Tirailleurs de la Jeune Garde
</center>

PDT files can model this by making streams impassable to wagon and artillery but passable to infantry and cavarly (though from what was written those high banks would make it difficult for cavalry to cross - but not impassable at the same time).

I wanted to note that Creeks are hard coded such that you can make them passable at all. I was trying to use a Creek hex for the Russbach - impassable to wagons but not for infantry but even if you change their values they still negate movement.

The best thing to do is just to use streams and have change the PDT file values for them a bit. I havent checked the ones for Waterloo yet but will by the weekend.

I have a game with Ernie starting up and dont want to be up the creek without a paddle! Or was that Poodle?

(why doesnt Phil Natta play this series?)

Oberst Wilhelm Peters
2nd Kuirassiers, Reserve Korps, Austrian Army