The Field of Fire rule was created because it was felt that units in close proximity, but not actually in contact with enemy units, shouldn’t be able to just sit there with impunity. That makes sense. Problems arose immediately once the matter was investigated more closely. Are we talking about small arms fire and battalion guns, or are we including skirmishers and such. If we are including skirmishers, then LOS shouldn’t be a factor since skirmishers could move into position regardless. Well, what about firing across a body of water, like an unfordable river? Skirmishers couldn’t cross that, so perhaps FoF should only count if the intervening terrain is impassable. The simple “Blocks can not enter a FoF without moving to contact” FoF rule was getting laden with clauses and exceptions.

I simply chose not to use it, and my games worked fine. Except I wasn’t really happy with the rules, so I had to fiddle. Most recently, I came up with the concept of Infantry Ranged Fire, which allowed infantry to fire just like artillery bombards, except with a range of only 1/3. This worked mostly because enemy blocks stayed out of Infantry Fire range. Recently, when playing Brandywine, it was used fairly often by troops firing at each other across Brandywine. A lot of units suffered one or even two hits, which is pretty major since Baggage Trains are rarely unpacked in this fast and frequently mobile battle. Infantry Ranged Fire with smoothbore muskets and no battalion guns shouldn’t be able to do that kind of damage from over 250 yards away. I liked Infantry Ranged Fire better than FoF, but not much better.

Back to the drawing board I went. I reasoned that I didn’t like FoF because it had the effect of forcing a player to move back a block that ran out of movement before actually making contact. This just seemed counterintuitive, to me. It felt wrong to have a unit stopping when in reality it should have been picking up the pace. Most combat started at range as the combatant closed, why can’t the rules reflect that! I decided to reverse the process and try a different rule:

If you end your move within 1/3 of an enemy unit (ignoring facing and LOS), you must immediately be moved into contact (as an Attacker or into Support) with the closest enemy unit.

If all enemy units within range are already contacted and supported, you may ignore this requirement.

This rule recognizes that once you end your move within 1/3 of an enemy unit, ranged fire and light troops are already becoming engaged, closing to contact just acknowledges this. Of course, if the enemy hasn’t moved yet, and subsequently moves away, then combat has has been avoided. Perhaps your intentions have been foiled, perhaps you were simply hoping to maneuver him out of position without resorting to costly combat.

I don’t bother measuring too exactly. You can spend all your time measuring down to the finest hair, only to have the map jostled, or suffer big meat hooks like mine, fumbling around with closely packed units. Even effective firing ranges aren’t exact. Among the variables can be visibility and powder quality. You do have to draw the line somewhere. The actual movement rates are there, and should be used as a guideline.

This rule should speed the game up even more with less measuring. Frequently, you may not be sure if you can close to contact, but it is more obvious whether or not you can get to within one third. I’m going to try this in my next video. You won’t be able to tell I’m using it, units will either be in contact, or more than a third away. I’m testing it to find out if anything seems not right. You can never be sure until you try it out.

Here is the game where I tried this out and immediately decided I didn’t like it!

Pub Battles Brandywine. What if Howe flank attacked from the South? Can Greene’s troops face down Cornwallis’ best?

A quick battle, and one that makes me curious what others might think about the way it ended. Please let me know in the comments below!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNfPOwK8GNw

This time, Napoleon decides to fall back and not fight the Austrians immediately. One of the things that I really enjoy when playing double blind solo, is that I can try different things out, and then “Run the simulation” and see how it goes.

I’m not trying to win, but the “boots on the ground” certainly are! I’m directing each command to the best of their abilities, given their limited knowledge, and the orders they were given. I let the chit draw simulate things like lost or confused orders.

The Alter Turn Order rules work great for simulating different leader’s abilities, especially when facing a human opponent, but I still think it gives players too much control. Yes, different leaders had different abilities, but isn’t the whole point of playing competitive wargames wondering “What if I had been in charge?”

Washington tries a radically different strategy. Let me know what you think of it!

What goes wrong? Let me know what you think happened!

Pub Battles: Gettysburg. Epic 3 day battle in under 15mins of video. The actual game took almost 5 hours to play, with both sides nearly winning on several occasions. Ordinarily, I don’t like playing any game for that long, but I couldn’t stop, I had to keep playing to find out what happened next. Sometimes my dialogue is a little off, because I was pretty exhausted after hours of narration. Hope you can cut a brother some slack.😉

As always, I was playing double blind solo. I don’t use written orders, but I do imagine what their orders might have been. That never includes: Hey, if you see a possible flank attack open up in another corps operational area, go ahead and rush over there and jump right in. It’ll be fine!

A quick video demonstrating a first day victory. If you pay attention to the troops moves and attacks, you can see how chit order, even though it isn’t specifically described, plays into how the battle falls out.

I have a minor nit to pick with the way Buford is handled at Gettysburg. Pleasonton is placed on the map with him. Pleasonton wasn’t there, but it saved having to add extra scenario rules. I get that, and that is the way it should be played until, like me, you’ve played it almost 200 times and you start exploring novel ways to use Buford. I have found several ways to make Buford really annoying. Ways that weren’t physically impossible, just highly unlikely.

As long as Pleasonton is on the map, Buford is in command and can attack. This allows his cavalry unit to be especially threatening. Threatening because as the player, you know exactly who and when all the troops are going to show up for the battle.

What to do about this? What is the simplest way to have Buford behave more historical?

Easy, don’t have Pleasonton appear until day 3 with the rest of the cavalry. That means that Buford can’t attack any units. He is completely a defensive unit. Now he acts as he should, historically. The actual rule reads like this:

Pleasonton does not appear until Day 3 with the rest of the Union cavalry. Until then, Buford may activate once per turn when any Union chit is drawn, but cannot be in command range until Pleasonton arrives on Day 3.

Boom. Done.

I’m going to try it in my next Gettysburg video, which should be posted by 5/17/21.

Pub Battles Antietam. Exciting game that had me assuming a different side would win easily each turn towards the end! Have you ever had games like this?