Not that we necessarily need any more rules sets but...

Joined: 26 Jan 2008 Posts: 23

I had been slowly but surely working on a Flames of War adaptation for the American Civil War. Real-life and other projects (My Samurai variant chief among them) eventually overcame my initial enthusiasim for it.

However, I had worked out a command and control system for the game that at first appears complicated but once it is put into practice flows nicely in my opinion. The end result however was that the game tended to look like an entirely independent system then an adaptaion of the FOW rules.

Recently I have had the sudden unexpected urge to start learning about the Napoleanic period something that prior to this I had cared little for and limited knowledge of the period.

The more I learn about the period the more I started thinking of turning the ACW rules into a Napoleonic rules set instead. Needless to say I am in that very process at the moment and have some ideas I would like to bounce off of you guys in the community.

The first is that their are no real "army lists" in the game, a plyer makes their armies by purchasing Battalions (the functional units in the game)and making up a Division or more if the points allow. Basing in the ACW game was surprisingly similiar to Evan's excellent example in the Gallery here and I choose to stay with that basing Structure. For example Infantry Battalions can be Line or Light and have points cost associated with 3 factors, two of which all of you should be familiar with; Motivation, Skill and Officer.

A Battalion may be purchased in one of the 9 different combinations of Motivation and Skill Fearless Veteran all the way to Reluctant Conscript, and also have an Officer that must be purchased along with the battalion which also has 3 ratings.

Battalions perform actions in the game based on Command points provided by the Officer. The better the Officer the more the Command Points the better the Battalion's Motivation the more actions the Battalion can perform in a turn.

In doing this the rules-set has veered away from the move-shoot-assault phases of Flames of War. A Battalion may perform any of these actions as long as Command Points are left and the Officer is suffiently motivated to see them carried out.

Skill provides battalions with a Threshold Veteran battalions have a 10/20, Trained have an 8/16 and Conscripts have a 6/12. This comes into play with the next addition I have made Disorder markers. Each time a unit gets hit in a turn the unit gains a Disorder marker, there are no infantry saves like in FOW. Once a Battalion has a number of Disorder markers that exceed the first number (ie 10 for a Veteran battalion) the battalion halves it's ROF. Once a battalion has a number of Disorder Markers that exceed the Second number (ie 20 for Veteran) it starts losing companies/stands.

At the beginning of each turn the player can attempt to remove Disorder markers by rolling 1D6 for each Disorder marker for each of his Battalions seperatly by battalion. The 1D6 is based upon the Battalion's Skill (ie Veteran battalions need a 3+ to be successful). For each Success the battlion has a Disorder marker removed from it.

Once a Battlion loses a company because the second threshold number has been eceeded it must make a Morale test based upon it's Motivation. Every turn after that a battalion has Disorder markers that exceed the first number it must make a Morale test. If the battlion loses half of it's companies or more then it must make a Morale test every turn.

Rof fire is handled with each Company/stand providing 1 ROF. Certain Formations in the game lower or raise that number. this means that a 6 company Battalion has a ROF of 6, In Line Formation the same Company has a ROF of 12, it the Same Company is French or Austrian then it has ROF of 18...Ouch! Range of infantry is 16" but with a +1 modifier to hit for distances over 8."

Formations determine where the battlion's flank is located and how far a battalion may move while in that formation.

I thought I would get people's reactions to this and if there is an intrest I can forward the rules along to Dillingham or Nicofig.

Joined: 21 May 2007 Posts: 117 Location: Cheltenham

Have you got the rules set you can post up so some of us can have a read

Joined: 26 Jan 2008 Posts: 23

I am in the process of putting the final touches on them, but I wanted to see if there was actually any interest before I continued.

Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 7:34 am

Sure, I think it's a good thing to have some rules about the napoleonic era.

Site Admin Joined: 03 Mar 2006 Posts: 174

I'd particularly like to see what you've done with FoW Civil War. My playing group has expressed recent interest in venturing into the Civil War genre. We've got a sizeable chunk of painted figures ( though I think they're 25mm) but need a rules-set that is easy to play. We have a number of players who won't invest a large amount of time into learning a new rules set ... but they're growing pretty familiar with Flames of War and so that would make teh transition into this era easier for them. I've been thinking of hammering out something myself for the period (also thinking that it might in turn result in my own submission to the NapoFoW realm here), so I'd certainly be interested in seeing what you've written.