Rereading the Dominion of Napoleon Bonaparte rules this morning I realized that I'd misinterpreted the Artillery bombardment section (note to self: read the instructions carefully). Having revealed this error, I thought I'd better have another go just to make sure I hadn't messed up elsewhere (any excuse for a wargame).
Battle of the Pyramids
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| Snipped from a Wikipedia page |
Note regarding the units; the French are all Column Infantry but are formed in squares. The Mamluk Cavalry are all Elite. The Mamluk Infantry are all Unreliable (see query at the end).
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The game started rather predictably with the French squares holding off the charging Mamluk cavalry which was replaced by some shaky Infantry.
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However, things started to go wrong for the French
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Queries for readers:
1. When (as in picture 4) two units are facing blank grids and effectively only flank attacking each other, I shunt one along a grid so that they can face one another - Is that correct?
2. When a unit that starts off Unreliable (ie does not become unreliable due to circumstances of the battle) wins its reliability roll does it still become Reliable as the rules suggest? In this game I allowed an Unreliable unit of Mamluk Infantry to become reliable after a successful roll, however I feel that if they started out as unreliable, they probably would stay that way (?)
2. When a unit that starts off Unreliable (ie does not become unreliable due to circumstances of the battle) wins its reliability roll does it still become Reliable as the rules suggest? In this game I allowed an Unreliable unit of Mamluk Infantry to become reliable after a successful roll, however I feel that if they started out as unreliable, they probably would stay that way (?)
1. No - Under Rules for Deployment: “Once deployed in a Sector units do not move. The only movement is from a Reserve to their battleline.” So the two units stay where they are. When one of the units’ Sectors is chosen for combat, then the unit in that Sector can do an outflanking attack on the other unit. The unit being attacked cannot attack back at this point. If it survives when its Sector is next chosen then it can then perform an outflanking attack itself on the enemy unit. Note that the battlefield at this time in the battle is assumed to be a most confusing place (all the noise and smoke!), with I suspect units not always sure where they themselves were, let alone where the enemy were!
ReplyDelete2. Under Unreliable Units: “On a roll of 4, 5 or 6 the unreliable unit is no longer unreliable - remove the unreliable attribute from it - and fight that round’s combat as normal.”
An unreliable unit that makes its unreliable roll is no longer unreliable and from this point on is considered as a normal unit of its troop type. For the infantry in this case they were of very dubious quality so it is unknown if they will stand and fight or not. If they make the unreliable roll successfully then they have summoned up the courage to fight and from then on get stuck in as any normal infantry unit would. If they fail it, then they have run at the first whiff of combat!
Hope this helps
Steve
Steve
DeleteFantastic, thanks for clearing up those issues! I sort of assumed that the Fellaheen had been encouraged by their success and stood their ground!
When I first started writing Dominion of the Spear, I used a larger grid with units moving around but I found that units outflanking other units was my biggest headache with sometimes a whole chain of units outflanking an enemy unit but they themselves being outflanked by another unit! Hence the ruthless simplicity of the current rules, which hopefully though still manage to produce a plausible but interesting narrative of a battle.
ReplyDeleteThough I'm obviously still getting to grips with the game, it's working well for me - I get quite invested in the success or otherwise of the units!
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