REVISED MOVEMENT PHASE
All, The movement phase has been revised to include tactical marches from the Optional Rules section, see below. Movement Phase: a) Phasing Player Normal Moves b) Non-Phasing Player Normal Moves c) Non-Phasing player Tactical Marches d) Phasing Player Tactical Marches. TACTICAL MARCH Infantry/Foot Artillery = 30cms. Cavalry/Horse Artillery = 40cms March ends if within 35cms of enemy. Any thoughts let me know. :?: DB

DB, I assume all troops need to be in column to make a tactical march and can pass through difficult terrain - applying the relevant movement modifier. Can a unit do a normal move and tactical march or are they mutually exclusive. Tony

Seems like an unnecessary complication to me. Yours, James D. Gray

Looks like a good idea to me , column of march only. This would be my radical suggestion , but you'd have to reduce the standard movement rates for cavalry slightly. Movement Phase: a) Phasing Player Normal Moves (all units) b) Non-Phasing Player Normal Moves (all units) c) Phasing player Cavalry 2nd moves (Cavalry and Horse Artillery) d) Non Phasing players Cavalry 2nd moves (Cavalry and Horse Artillery) e) Non-Phasing player Tactical Marches f) Phasing Player Tactical Marches. TACTICAL MARCH Infantry/Foot Artillery = 30cms. Cavalry/Horse Artillery = 40cms March ends if within 35cms of enemy. Any thoughts let me know. :

A, I assume all troops need to be in column to make a tactical march and can pass through difficult terrain - applying the relevant movement modifier. Yes. Column (any type) and limbered artillery. Half speed for Difficult Terrain. Can a unit do a normal move and tactical march or are they mutually exclusive. One or the other - not both. S, Complicated? Not really - it makes a real difference to games at the beginning and certainly encourages the use of reserves. Now players do not see the final enemy attack coming a mile off! It can get in quick and create real surprise and a tactical edge. However it rarely comes into play once most brigades are within combat ranges and so does not really impact adversely at all. DB

DB, Valley Boy and I recently played a game where all forces, deployed or in column of march were able to add a variable amount of extra movement (based on a dice roll) until they were within 30cm (using 15mm figures) of an enemy unit. This certainly sped up the game, created some uncertainty in the mind of the defending forces commander as to how much time he had to prepare/manoeuvre and also meant some attacking units outstripped others so they didn't all arrive neatly at their designated places. We did this per brigade rather than per unit to limit dice rolling. So basically, I am being longwinded in saying that some form of march movement is usseful and not at all complicated, and perhaps a degree of randomness can also be interesting. The only problem I see with allowing rapid movements like this is it encourages coming to grips with the enemy quickly (which is great for a game) but denies the artillery their role of preparatory bombardment. Is there a way to allow for an assumed prolonged bombardment prior to contact? Or perhaps increase the artillery range? Ants

A, We have played through this and certainly considered the lack of artillery playing on the attacking forces. However after about 20 games it actually does not really affect the game at all - however I have increased the range of artillery slightly! :wink: (Just added 10cms to the long range). I tried all sorts of random movement for GdeB along the lines of Battlegroup Panzergrenadier, however, although I certainly know where you’re coming from, we found random movement did not have a particularly Napoleonic flavour. :cry: It tended to lead to many more dice rolls inevitably accompanied by even more rules, which did not really enhance the game significantly. DB

It would probably be wrong to allow tactical movement to take place in all types of columns, unless you rule that non-march columns are unformed/disordered by the rapidity of the movement. Reforming would probably need to take different amounts of time for different nationalities and periods with, for example, veteran and better 1805-07 French infantry possibly being exempt from disorder/unformed.

I've seen this in other rulesets and thought it a disaster every time. How on earth can you have some units moving at a realistic speed and others not? It makes the whole thing like a game of draughts.

DB, I wasn't meaning variable movement for all movement phases, only for the march moves. This represents a commander perhaps being a little less enthusiastic than one would hope. As this is at the command level, throw for each brigade, not unit. We used a straight die roll, each pip in the dice representing 2cm extra movement (for 15mm figures). Ants

CC, I like the idea - but do we actually really gain anything significantly above and beyond what we already have... :? DB