Napoleonic Wargame Club (NWC)

Bill,

So you probably won't be requesting a "stop and fire" feature (ie. in response to defensive fire) that will make it harder for an attacker to plan his melee assaults with chess-like precision?

On carrying over the ACW melee option into this series, presumably meleeing against skirmishers would be permitted in the main turn? Perhaps also melees against units that are no more than 1/4 strength of the attacker, to prevent a player using a tiny unit to hold up an advance.

Also, if the ACW melee option is introduced, why not also have a cavalry charge "sub-phase" too, immediately before the melee sub-phase? Then, with a cavalry charge phase it would be more convenient to introduce a square for/counter-charge sub-phase as well, like in the old BG engine, but within a single turn.

Thus the turn would be as follows:

1./ Movement and firing (presumably with any unit that fires offensively automatically ending their move - although I'd welcome the possibility of movement <i>after</i> firing, as this would allow a unit to fire and then fall back.)

2./ Cavalry charge sub-phase

3./ Square forming and counter-charging in accordance with pre-issued orders. Since these would occur after all infantry movment/firing and once the active player's cavalry had already been committed to a charge, there'd be no real opportunity for gamey tactics.

4./ Melee, preferably with infantry melees conducted before cavalry melees. Then any continuation cavalry melees.

This sequence of sub-turns would retain the best features of the old BG engine without the need for multiple file exchanges. It would also facilitate the introduction of square forming and counter-charges into the single phase system.

Lt.Col. Rich White
4th Cavalry Brigade
Cavalry Corps
Anglo-Allied Army

Rich - sorry but I have worked with John too long to try and introduce something this complex to him.

He really needs to devote as much time to his govt. work and frankly I am not going to waste his time trying to send countless emails to get all of this anywhere near what we think it should be. Usually it turns out that there is one key thing missing, his time is up on that enhancement and we move on and are left with the option/new phase thingee to play with.

For me the game is fine as is with minor options added in that Rich and I think he can do in a short amount of time. Or as Chick Hearn, former Laker announcer used to say, "Its crunch time at the Forum."

I have backed off of requesting massive new features since Jena. We have another title coming out within a year and it will have some new features that will be nice, one of them you already have, dismounted dragoons, which was meant to be in the new title but because of updates needed for the series came out beforehand.

When I heard of the TC2 discussion I thought it over for a few days and came up with some objections. These are mainly outlined below but the skirmisher again would be able to block infantry. And no, I am not going to ask John to allow infantry to be able to attack them in the Move phase - again just too much time involved.

I am not saying that the series could never have it just for right now I am not asking for stuff like this. And frankly from what I heard from TC2 and what I have seen in the ACW series I am not impressed with the fix. As a matter of fact I have moved back to playing the Multiphase format again for the ACW games.

Because of the 10 min. move I dont need to do that here. The units cant buzz around and do long moves anymore using the reduced movement.

Colonel Bill Peters
Armee du Rhin - V Corps, Cavalerie du V Corps, 20ème légère Brigade de Cavalerie, 13ème Hussar Regiment
HPS Napoleonic Scenario Designer (Eckmuhl, Wagram, Jena-Auerstaedt and ... more to come)

[url="http://www.fireandmelee.net"]Fire and Melee Wargame site[/url]

Monsieur when you are in business ju try to satisfy the customers and I would say that I was never to busy to hear from them. That why I had a staff that took care of my customers in fact I got to the point that I knew them by their voice. If Monsieur Tiller is that busy he could delegate someone to up date his games or at lest listen! Monsieur that’s only my point of view!

Col de Art 6/3 II Corps AN Marbot CS

Cliff, yes, and he has listened to you guys for years, hence the incredible amount of updates for an engine that was released back in 2000 or thereabouts. We have been pouring our lives into this series for years now.

But what I am getting at is that to get him to put more work into the engine would:

1. Detract from him doing the "bread and butter" contracts that help him and his family enjoy a better livelihood ...

and

2. Introduce more confusion into the picture. As listed below adding in a fixed Melee Phase after all fire and movement is over would only make skirmishers powerful again.

I am playing a game with another member using the phases just to see how it will play out. While the cavalry can run the skirmishers over they still can slow up the infantry too much. Something we had in the BG days and frankly it always bothered me to no end.

Anyway, this is pretty much all I have to say on the matter. Moving on to discuss other things ... and hopefully get a job tomorrow!

Colonel Bill Peters
Armee du Rhin - V Corps, Cavalerie du V Corps, 20ème légère Brigade de Cavalerie, 13ème Hussar Regiment
HPS Napoleonic Scenario Designer (Eckmuhl, Wagram, Jena-Auerstaedt and ... more to come)

[url="http://www.fireandmelee.net"]Fire and Melee Wargame site[/url]