Napoleonic Wargame Club (NWC)

I don't have Musket and Pike, is that a different engine from the one that is used in Napi & CW games?

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I think that the fairest way to describe it would be that it is more of an evolution of the NB engine -it shares a lot of the same characteristics (such as unit facing along hex spine), but there are some differences.

For the sake of this discussion, grab this file: http://hist-sdc.com/images/spotlights/m ... _notes.pdf and have a look specifically at the OOB and PDT portion (noting that the OOB part starts about halfway down the page and there is bibliography information at the top of that page.

Christian,
yes, Musket and Pike is a different engine with several major changes. One is that each unit classification can have a different point value. Bill Peters considered using that engine to make 1814. So a Napoleonic game using it could have the French Old guard worth 10 points per 25 men, young guard worth 7, line infantry 5 (B and C rated units), conscripts 4 (say, D rated units), etc. There are other differences, but I do not remember exactly what they are. It has been at least 3 years or so since I last played it.

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I am ambivalent about making supply worth points. It is my understanding that, as has been mentioned, that the idea of units going low/out of ammo is to restrict their use and not let them battle all day long. Furthermore, the random nature of it, as opposed to each unit having a set ammo supply, is also designed (by Tiller) to simulate lack of fire control, variable ammo issued to each unit, etc and to add some randomness to the game (again, to make units less able to maintain combat). I have found this to be much more of an issue in the Civil War games than here, with Waterloo and Spain being the exceptions and being the games that players tend to spend more time fighting in line formation.

Anyhow, I would not want the wagons to be worth too much because then things can get too gamey for my tastes. On the other hand, forcing players to defend them would add more realism and another layer of choice to the games. I would think it should be considered on a scenario by scenario basis and not just a blanket change. But people can do whatever they want and if folks want to spend time changing the games this ways they totally should (but please make a back up copy of your game so you can still play the original scenarios).

Regarding HPS/Tiller, Bill Peters has always been very clear that he is not offended if people mod his games within the parameters allowed by JTS/HPS (meaning no map editing). He has pretty strong feelings about a lot of his design decisions and will argue them to no end, but it is not like he will hunt you down on the internet to complain that you added in point values for supply wagons. I am one of his playtesters and was recently corresponding with him about my desire to make Eckmuhl and Wagram use PDT movement and fire values similar to Bautzen and he offered helpful hints.

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MP - one big change is that you have half as many weapons' slots as in NB (each weapon takes up 2 slots for effects vs armoured and non-armoured targets). You can adjust melee and armour bonuses in the OOB file as well. Mind you the engine allows for negative integers but unlike CWB does not allow for fractions -so in other words - if you wanted a really big unit (say 1000 men) but did not want them to melee as 1000 -you could slap a -2 into the OOB and give them a specific -20% modifier. but you could only do this for 10, 20, 30, 40, 50%, etc...

There are things that are in the NB engine that are currently not part of the MP engine - like being able to set command ranges for all levels of command -right now I think MP cuts out at Wing and Army level or something like that.

Anyway I have all of the current documentation from REN on either the Ren page or MP page on the SDC site (and if for some reason that anyone finds that some of the links don't work -drop me a line and I will fix that).

In the H&R scenario I'm playing with Anton I asked him his opinions:

Regarding the wagons. I'm not sure if it's a good idea. Traditionally we were concerned with the space these wagons occupy on the map. You may have noticed the number of wagons present in the scenario. And that's approximately half the number I used to place - absent are arty ammo wagons and the corps wagon train. At the same time their strength was greatly reduced. As a result you may see a huge train of wagons that is able to block roads, produce traffic jams etc. They need to be guarded, allowed time to maneuver (especially while retreating through a defile), brought to the front etc. All this produces a wide variety of situations normally unheard of in the HPS/JTS games. The only thing that prevents me from adopting the idea of points for wagons right away is the relative value of supply. I'm afraid the players will pay exaggerated attention to the supply and, instead of looking for the enemy, will start looking for his wagons. The cossack in me applauds this and will be the first to begin that kind of warfare. I'm afraid this will kill the game balance.
To sum it up. I believe wagons ought to yield points. But their value in point must be carefully adjusted. As an experiment I already assigned in our scenario 1 point for 10 supply. But that needs to be tested out in a big scenario.

To what strengths are the VP values set?
I think for infantry that is VP per 25 men, I guess for cavalry too and artillery per piece I guess, but supply is 10?
Or can you set a VP fraction like 0.1?

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Uhm, assigning points values to supply wagons makes them a target, a valuable target. Name one battle where it was recorded that a unit was sent marching across the battlefield to attack an ammunition caisson? And I'm not talking about baggage wagons. Baggage wagons were to the rear and any time they were attacked, the units involved inevitably ransacked them for plunder thus disrupting their combat efficiency.

Personally, I think ammo (if you wanted to include it at all) should be handled like fatigue and used as a modifier to combat. No supply wagons. Period. I don't get why firing doesn't induce fatgue in the game, but that's a matter for another discussion, however, it would definitely prevent units from "blasting all day".

VP's for ammo wagons?? Nobody, not even Napoleon's Old Guard won laurels for capturing ammo wagons. It contributes nothing to the battle, nothing to the theme and nothing to the tactics of the day.

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Rob Hamper
General der Kavallerie Robert Prinz Hamper von Lusatia
2. Kavallerie-Brigade
Reserve-Kavallerie-I. Armee-Korps
Königlich Preußische Armee

It also depends a lot on the scenario but in general destroying or capturing the supply of the enemy will to some extend hamper his ability to fight another battle and so they deserve some VPs for sure, not much but some so that the player doesn't use them careless or in an unhistorical way

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I've always felt that Supply wagons ought to have a VP value, especially for the Peninsular. Most gamers probably just consider that a supply wagon just carries ammunition, but it might also represent food or other useful equipment. Without these essentials an army can no longer function.

However, in most scenarios I didn't want to make supply wagons worth as many points as infantry, so I decided it was necessary to modify the typical VP values for the various troop types. As has already been pointed out in this thread, it's worth bearing in mind that while retrofitting VPs for supplies to the earlier games is certainly possible, they were originally play-tested without. Anyway, for most of the previous games (ie everything except Waterloo and NRC) it'll be Bill Peter's decision.

Of course the M&P engine (ie. Renaissance) has a more sophisticated system for VP values, so it's possible to set this value on a unit-by-unit basis. Consequently, it would be possible to have a very high value supply wagon to represent, for instance, a royal treasury.

Col. Rich White
British/KGL Cavalry Division
Scenario Designer for BPW and Renaissance