Germany 1813 - Campaign Map & Rules

Germany 1813

Background to the Campaign

The League of Ancients is a wargames club in Melbourne, who despite the name, are neither a bunch of old geriatrics (well not all of us) or focused only on playing Ancients wargames.  The club plays a broad cross section of periods (Ancients, Medieval, Napoleonic, ACW, Franco Prussian, WW2 to name only some), scales (6mm to 28mm), rule sets, and styles (Competiton, Skirmish, Historical Refights, etc) of game.

A group of us recently adopted the new Field of Glory Napoleonic set of rules published by Osprey.  To try and encourage more people to play Napoleonics and this rule set, I was persuaded to put together a campaign.  We now have 12 people playing, representing each of the major powers - France (4 players), Prussia (2 players), Austria (3 players) and Russia (3 players).  We left out Sweden as no-one has a Swedish army, but who knows, as the campaign evolves, the fiendish Bernadotte may yet be able to be convinced to join in (on one or other side!).  While based on 1813, we decided early on not to make it too historically exact as this would have involved mountains of research by the umpire, which would only be contradicted by better read players, and we would get bogged down in a ton of facts and counter-facts.  Rather we chose to run it based on the challenges faced by the histroical armies facing each other in Germany in 1813, but with more hypothetical starting points and army compositions.  The objective of running the campaign is to have lots of battles, some pleasure in moving pins and armies across a map, and not too much admin for either the players or the umpire.

Below are the home made rules we are using for running the campaign (4 pages long so hopefully short and sweer).  The battles are fought according to the FOG N rule system, and the armies are based on the FOG N lists that are available as a supplement to the rules.

Campaign Rules (the ones players need to know)

Updated 12 November 2012

Victory Conditions

·         Destruction of the enemy army or their nation’s will to fight.  Only the umpire and the respective players know what it entails for their nation to lose “the will to fight”.

Organisation & Deployment

·         Army strengths are set using FOG N points.

·         Army & corps sizes are determined at the start of the campaign by the umpire.

·         Detailed army lists are drawn up by the players using the FOG N lists (and any other umpire determined restrictions or options) and sent to the umpire.  THIS MUST INCLUDE A CALCULATION OF YOUR SCOUTING VALUE (see below).

·         CinC’s determine where they want to deploy their corps, within the parameters set in their campaign brief.

·         Only Corps are represented on maps for movement except in fortified towns (see below).

Orders

·         Each turn is two days long.

·         Orders are issued each turn per independently moving corps on a set template (see below)

·         There are 4 possible orders:

o   Rest

o   March

o   Force March

o   Engineering (build bridges, fortify towns/battlefields, build supply depots)

·         Order template must also show Line of Supply (LOS), start and end point of march and what tactics to adopt (see below).

·         Orders (see below) must always include the map reference so I know what you’re talking about – e.g. move from Spandau (2B) to Torgau (4A).

·         Orders can be given for a destination  more than one turn away and the umpire will simply move you there over a number of turns (or stop when you meet enemy to follow orders).

·         Possible tactics are:

o   ATTACK – will attack enemy up to 10% larger than self, incl pursuing enemy who retreat

o   SCOUT – will find and observe enemy, and fall back if attacked by a force within 75% of own size (otherwise may choose to stand and defend). 

o   DEFEND – will find enemy and hold your ground if attacked by a force up to 125% of own size (otherwise will fall back)
All Corps have the option of attacking enemy equal to or less than 60% of their strength

CORP NAME & CMDR: XV Oudinot			Campaign Date: 18/19 August 1813
	Rest	March	Force March	Engineering
ORDERS	Specify where & Map ref	(incl start & end points) & map ref	(incl start & end points) & map ref	Specify
	Attack	Scout	Defend
TACTICS	X
Short comment on your intentions	KISS
SUPPLY POINT & LOS	Koblenz via Ransbach & Herborn

·         You can split two tasks over the two days of the turn (e.g. build a bridge and move).

·         If you order a corps over an unbridged river, the umpire will automatically slow you down to bridge it, you don’t need to give the order.

Weather and other random events

·         These happen… but you don’t know how, when or why.  You’ll be told about it when it affects you.

Movement

·         The edge of the map is the edge of the world.  You go off, you die.

·         Approx. 12 hexes per turn (36kms) – normal road movement.  This is modified by the umpire with a dice roll (not all nations have the same modifier ;-)

·         Corps consisting entirely of cavalry and horse artillery can move 15 hexes per turn.

·         Double speed – forced march (will need a full rest day after this)

·         Half speed – off road

·         Difficult terrain (all hexes with colours) is only crossable by roads.

·         Half speed – bad weather

·         1 day to bridge a minor river, or build field defences on a battlefield

·         2 days to bridge a major river build a minor unfortified supply depot (suitable to supply 1 corps)

·         1 week to build and fortify a major depot (the original depot is abandoned and becomes unfortified once the new one is built).

·         Corps normally occupy a single hex and line of march alone.  Attempts to march multiple corps together, or across each other’s lines of march will slow you down. Simply divide the movement rate by the number of corps moving through the same hexes together to get the reduced speed.  So 1 corps moves at 12 hexes, 2 corps moves 6 hexes, 3 corps move 4 hexes and so on. 

·         Mulitple corps can move into a single hex without penalty (e.g. to give battle), but will need to move out along different routes or suffer penalties as above.

Forced Marches

·         Used to pursue retreating enemy or get to a point quickly.

·         Possible only for 2 days (1 turn) (unless straight after a battle when it is only for 1 day) and then requires 1 full day rest (so a fresh pursuing corps could catch a retreating corps that has fought a battle).

·         Umpire will roll a dice to determine losses from straggling and deserting.  Can range from 0-25% losses.
- 19 May update - a % of these are recovered after your enforced rest day with a maximum of 50% of the original losses possibly being lost.  All permanent losses are halved for Guard corps, doubled for cavalry corps (Guard cav are neither doubled nor halved).

·         Corps within 1 days march will force march to a battlefield, unless their orders say otherwise.

·         Corps retreating from enemy in line with their orders will, if possible, automatically force march to avoid contact if the enemy force march.  This won’t be possible if they are fatigued from a previous force march.

Scouting

·         Corps can see 6 hexes in all directions (sometimes varied by random events).

·         They will be able to see enemy corps as well as supply lines.

·         Corps are assigned a Scouting Value (SV) based on how many Light Cav, Light Inf and Dragoon bases your Corps contains (1 SV per base).

·         Corps that see each other will find out more about the enemy if they have a better SV.  The umpire will tell you what you can see.

Battle

·         Will start at the time of day pro rated based on when the armies met

·         Battlefield set up as determined by umpire  - either based on actual map by umpire, or random generated by players using FOG N rules.

·         Armies deployed and fought as per FOG N, with whatever additional scenario elements umpire may choose to include.

·         Defeated armies will generally retreat down LOS unless ordered otherwise.

·         Where possible players should fight their own battles J but the umpire may appoint another player if someone is unavailable or to reflect a particular campaign condition (e.g. to reflect an inexperienced general)

Supply Depots

·         Every Corps must have a town as a supply depot and a LOS along a road to within 2 hexes of the Corps position

·         The Corps will remain in good order so long as this LOS is not broken

·         LOS is broken by an enemy Corps(or Division coming out of a fortified town) occupying a hex your LOS goes through, or by your army moving off road more than 2 hexes away from your LOS.

·         If your LOS is cut, after 2 days (I turn) your Corps will start losing strength due to straggling, desertions and foraging at a rate of 10% per day from Day 3.

Fortified Towns

·         All starting depots are considered fortified as well as towns marked in yellow.  They are all occupied by a single division that cannot move other than to move up to 6 hexes to break an enemy LOS.  This is the only time a single division can move.

·         For simplicity, these fortified towns cannot be attacked.

·         Armies can fortify a town if they want to change their army’s main supply depot.  This is the only time a new fortified town can be created.

Communication between players and umpire

·         Obviously as the umpire I can’t stop players emailing each other, but if I get the sense that you are coordinating widely dispersed armies unhistorically in tandem, I may be forced to roll lots of ones on my “random generation of bad events dice”.  J 

·         Orders must be submitted on the standard form or they will be ignored (or interpreted in my own way).  These must be in by the end of Saturday each week.

·         If players do not issue their orders on time their units will not move other than as a reaction in line with their orders.  Repeated failure to get orders in on time may result in your personality in the campaign having a fatal fall from his horse.

·         I will give you your updated positions by the end of Sunday (Monday at a stretch) as well as announce any battles that need to be fought.

Sequence of Play

·         Issue orders via email (Players to umpire) – end Saturday

·         Dice for random events (Umpire)

·         Make moves (Umpire & Players – assuming players want to follow events on their own map)

·         Determine losses for Forced Marches and breakdown in supply (Umpire)

·         Determine contacts and responses (Umpire)

·         Inform players of contacts and get their responses (Umpire and Players) – end Sunday

·         Fight battles and determine outcomes (Umpire & Players) – whenever possible.

NOTE: The campaign may “pause” from time to time to allow battles to happen (or the umpire to go on holiday).  I will let you know if you DON’T need to send in orders.

Initial Deployment

The main French supply depot is Dresden (8B)and the French Corps can be deployed anywhere within the following parameters:

·         West of the Katzbach (6C), South of Wittenberg (1D & 4A), North of Koenigstein (8B)

In addition the French have detached divisions in the fortresses of Magdeburg (1C), Wittenberg (1D & 4A) and Torgau (4A) on the Elbe, as well as Glogau (6A)and Schweidnitz (10C).

The Prussians under Blucher are in the north somewhere on the road from their main supply depot at Spandau (2A), still north of Luckenwalde (2C).

The Russians under General Wiitgenstein are coming from the east on the road from their supply depot of Breslau (6D & 10B).  They are still east of the Katzbach (6C).

The Austrian supply base is Thieresienstadt (8C).  They arrive on the map through this point.

Campaign Map

We are using the map from the Avalon Hill Board Game, The Struggle of Nations

The map has hexes, though they unfortunately are not numbered.  This does leave room for some confusion, but so long as players specify towns en route, as the umpire I normally get it right.

Each hex is 3km across.  The towns highlighted in yellow are fortified and occupied by French garrisons.  Update: 19 May 2013 - we now have numbers in our hexes!  Anyone interested in getting a copy can contact me and I'll be happy to email it to you.