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May 17 11 6:54 PM

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Orange and I re-fought Saalfeld recently which raised a couple of small rule questions that kept us very happily shouting at each other for a few hours. I thought therefore that I might seek some clarifications so we can argue about a completely different set of trivia next time we meet.

1) Side movements of units and changing face
This has come up a few times with us in a variety of guises.
a) A unit is on a road traversing East-West but is deployed in line facing North. The unit wishes to march down the road to the West in column of companies. How much of a move does this require to change face and begin marching?
b) A unit has marched North in column of companies on tactical move orders in the last move and is still over 35cm from the nearest enemy. In the next move it wishes to deploy in line facing West. How much of a move does this require to change face and continue marching?
c) A unit in line facing North wishes to reposition 5cm to the West but still remain facing North. Is this ‘shuffle’ allowed? If not what manoever is allowed that would effectively achieve the same result?

2) Pushing out a skirmish screen whilst on HOLD orders.
A unit in line within its designated hold area is on HOLD orders and for reasons I won’t go into, has its own brigade skirmish screen positioned currently immediately to its rear. It is approached by enemy columns screened by skirmishers who approach to within 5cm of the line. Can the brigade skirmish screen deploy in front of the defending line and engage the enemy skirmish screen?

3) Routing/Retreating out of buildings
Two units have recently successfully assaulted a building from two faces. One enters the building the other remains positioned outside. The enemy ripostes with two new units and re-takes the building from the OTHER two sides of the building. The defenders are thrown out in rout. Which face of the building do they ROUT from? Is it via the face they entered into the building (which is currently free of figures) of do they recoil through BOTH faces and unform the other friendly formed unit stationed immediately outside on the other face?
[O argued here that as his attack was from two different angles, the defending unit had to rout out of the back of the building in an average spread and would thus catch the other defender on the way……hmmmm…my take was that as the unit had entered the building that way then that was the obvious and logical way back out!]

4) Using squares to block cavalry
Having rather fortunately gained cavalry superiority I had the urge to throw some spare Saxon hussars into the French rear (dastardly but rather fun idea I thought). O rather ingeniously stopped this by forming a wall of dancing squares that continually flitted back and forth effectively blocking the way as the gaps between units were always just millimeters smaller than my unit frontage. (OK….OK… I lost it a little at this point). Is this allowed? Can squares maneuver in the face of formed cavalry in this way? Can any unit saunter around in front of formed cavalry? Can cavalry fold around squares?
[I assume this to be a lost cause…but would like to know anyway]

As for the game….well…
O made some tweaks to the ORBAT (as always) which generously gave me (as the outnumbered Prussian-Saxons) use of attached battalion guns and some small increases in unit strengths. Although I managed to throw double 1 twice whilst firing two other batteries (rapidly eliminating them from play) the battalion guns, and some rather fortunate cavalry exchanges rather tipped the play in my favour and on this occasion Marshal Lannes got a bloody nose and Prince Ferdinand lived to morganatically maraud another day…….

The lesson here re-inforced the folly of representing battalion guns as artillery and not adhering exactly to the good DrB’s pretty rulebook. They should ONLY be represented as extra musket fire (immediately lost during retreat etc) as the extra firepower they deliver as 4pdrs makes the units disproportionately effective at holding off incoming. Hey Ho.
Nevertheless a splendid game and a real privilege to run out O’s beautifully painted Saxons. I enclose a rather hastily taken photo salvaged from my rather inadequately pixelled phone camera that shows the full might and scary sight of a full division of well figured French battalions approaching!
image

Cheers
M

PS:Morganatical: a marriage between people of unequal social rank…wiki wiki
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Rudorff

Brigadier

Posts: 1,141

#2 [url]

May 18 11 8:54 AM

Re: Saalfeld moments

Maturin wrote:


1) Side movements of units and changing face
This has come up a few times with us in a variety of guises.
a) A unit is on a road traversing East-West but is deployed in line facing North. The unit wishes to march down the road to the West in column of companies. How much of a move does this require to change face and begin marching?

Formation Change Table pg 80 - Form Column by Turning a Line through 90' or vice versa - 1/2 turn. So you can turn into column from the line and move up to 7.5cm. This line is missing from the QRS. It used to take a whole move, but this is better.

b) A unit has marched North in column of companies on tactical move orders in the last move and is still over 35cm from the nearest enemy. In the next move it wishes to deploy in line facing West. How much of a move does this require to change face and continue marching?

You cannot have Tactical movement and normal movement in the same turn and you need to be in Column to tactical march anyway (Pg7. A formation change is normal movement, so as above you can take 1/2 move to turn through 90' and still move up to 5cm (1/2 a line move).

c) A unit in line facing North wishes to reposition 5cm to the West but still remain facing North. Is this ‘shuffle’ allowed? If not what manoever is allowed that would effectively achieve the same result?

Strictly speaking you would need to change into column by turning through 90', then move the 5cm. That is one turn's worth of movement, then the next turn you change back into line by a 90' formation change. I'd probably allow the shuffle if you were outside of firing range or agreed not to fire, but since it is you....two turns

2) Pushing out a skirmish screen whilst on HOLD orders.
A unit in line within its designated hold area is on HOLD orders and for reasons I won’t go into, has its own brigade skirmish screen positioned currently immediately to its rear. It is approached by enemy columns screened by skirmishers who approach to within 5cm of the line. Can the brigade skirmish screen deploy in front of the defending line and engage the enemy skirmish screen?

Yes, no issue there, the skirmish screen can be depoyed up to 20cm forward of the Brigade's position.

3) Routing/Retreating out of buildings
Two units have recently successfully assaulted a building from two faces. One enters the building the other remains positioned outside. The enemy ripostes with two new units and re-takes the building from the OTHER two sides of the building. The defenders are thrown out in rout. Which face of the building do they ROUT from? Is it via the face they entered into the building (which is currently free of figures) of do they recoil through BOTH faces and unform the other friendly formed unit stationed immediately outside on the other face?

[O argued here that as his attack was from two different angles, the defending unit had to rout out of the back of the building in an average spread and would thus catch the other defender on the way……hmmmm…my take was that as the unit had entered the building that way then that was the obvious and logical way back out!]


Rout away from the direction of the enemy, so I agree with Orange, I'd spilt the angle as there are two attackers, for the first half move anyway.
Pg 51 Section 5.1 b)


4) Using squares to block cavalry
Having rather fortunately gained cavalry superiority I had the urge to throw some spare Saxon hussars into the French rear (dastardly but rather fun idea I thought). O rather ingeniously stopped this by forming a wall of dancing squares that continually flitted back and forth effectively blocking the way as the gaps between units were always just millimeters smaller than my unit frontage. (OK….OK… I lost it a little at this point). Is this allowed? Can squares maneuver in the face of formed cavalry in this way? Can any unit saunter around in front of formed cavalry? Can cavalry fold around squares?
[I assume this to be a lost cause…but would like to know anyway]

Yes, completely legal and has many historical counterparts, off the top of my head Winkel Grenadier Bttn after Jena, Prinz August Grenadier Bttn at Prentzlau during the Prussian Retreat, French Reserve after Salamanca (Garcia Hernadez charge), French Old Guard at Waterloo, and NO to folding round squares.

As for the game….well…
O made some tweaks to the ORBAT (as always) which generously gave me (as the outnumbered Prussian-Saxons) use of attached battalion guns and some small increases in unit strengths. Although I managed to throw double 1 twice whilst firing two other batteries (rapidly eliminating them from play) the battalion guns, and some rather fortunate cavalry exchanges rather tipped the play in my favour and on this occasion Marshal Lannes got a bloody nose and Prince Ferdinand lived to morganatically maraud another day…….

The lesson here re-inforced the folly of representing battalion guns as artillery and not adhering exactly to the good DrB’s pretty rulebook. They should ONLY be represented as extra musket fire (immediately lost during retreat etc) as the extra firepower they deliver as 4pdrs makes the units disproportionately effective at holding off incoming. Cheers
M



M, my thoughts above, yes to more photos as well, and I completely agree about the battalion guns. I even think that Broon has been generous allowing an extra 6 figures, RMDs extra 4 fits it better in my view, but I'll not complain too loudly.

Cheers, Gary

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#3 [url]

May 18 11 2:39 PM

Yes - Saalfeld - a painful topic for me as I failed to win despite being French.

In mitigation, all that I would say is that I did change the orbat in favour of the Prussians - all Saxon btns were made 30 strong, and 1st btns of each Saxon regiment were made 1st Line and the Prussian player was given 4 individual artillery pieces under the guise of btn guns but then treated as ordinary artillery for firing purposes. To make matters worse, we also forgot that cannister for 4pdrs is a +3 and not +4 ! I also gave the Prussian player an additional (small) brigade - reinforcements from Blankenberg - but, to be fair to Maturin, I gave up before these arrived.

The French orbat was unchanged except that I had staggered arrival - a brigade every two turns, starting with the 17th Light and ending with the divisional artillery. This meant that the French player had no artillery for most of the game - My research, however, suggests that this is historical (except for 5 x 4pdr cannon that arrived earlier but which I foolishly chose not to represent).

What happened I hear you ask? I rather stupidly decided to engage in a high risk cavalry battle on my right flank in which I lost almost all of my cavalry (bad throws of the dice) at little cost to his. This meant that my right flank was pinned by his cavalry and progress in the middle became painfully slow, exacerbated by being outgunned by his artillery.

Must have another go with a slightly modified orbat and with proper treatment of btn guns.

Most of the issues that arose have been well answered by Rudorff. The way in which the skirmisher question was put, however, does not deal with the issues that arose. In fact, there are three of questions that arose from skirmishers:-

1. Player A is on assualt orders and is moving forward. Player B is on hold orders. Player B's skirmishers happen to be deplyed to the right of his line, taking pot shots at one of Player A's columns and are not covering Player B's line immediately to the front. Player A wins the initiative and moves two btns in line approx 10 cms way from two btns in line belonging to Player B. Player A also puts his 18 skirmishers halfway between his line and player B's line. Is it open to Player B, in his movement phase, to insert his skrimishers between his line and Player A's skirmishers bearing in mind that they will be too close to his own line to be an effective skirmish screen?

2. If the answer to question 1 is yes, are Player B's skirmishers an effective screen vis-a-vis Player A's skirmishers such that Player A's skirmishers must fire at Player B's skirmishers?

3. Even if the answer to 2 is 'yes', in our case, we had 18 Player A skirmishers facing off against 8 Player B skirmishers. Are all of player A's skirmishers required to fire at Player B's skirmishers or would fiire be divided so that, say, 12 Player A skirmishers fire on the Player B skrimishers whilst the other 6 fire at the line behind.

The last point can be significant because a single casualty can now not only do away wih the no casualty morale bonus but also convert a large line to a medium line and a medium line to a small line etc and thsi can have significant consequences.

Rgds

O

PS Don't know if Maturin took more photos of Saalfeld - I didn't (too pissed off to reach for my camera). I do know, however, that he took loads of of photos of a recent refight of Hagleberg and I would uge you to badger him to post thse up.

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Rudorff

Brigadier

Posts: 1,141

#4 [url]

May 19 11 10:06 AM

O,

1. Player A is on assualt orders and is moving forward. Player B is on hold orders. Player B's skirmishers happen to be deplyed to the right of his line, taking pot shots at one of Player A's columns and are not covering Player B's line immediately to the front. Player A wins the initiative and moves two btns in line approx 10 cms way from two btns in line belonging to Player B. Player A also puts his 18 skirmishers halfway between his line and player B's line. Is it open to Player B, in his movement phase, to insert his skrimishers between his line and Player A's skirmishers bearing in mind that they will be too close to his own line to be an effective skirmish screen?


The movement of player B's skirmishers is okay, provided he has the movement allowance etc, and so long as he doesn't come within the restricted area of player A's formed units. Not strictly relevant in the context of this question, but I got the distance wrong in the first answer, it is now 30cm, not 20cm. I'd missed that, and it is a significant change for those of us with rifle armed skirmishers (Page 110 11.3.c)

2. If the answer to question 1 is yes, are Player B's skirmishers an effective screen vis-a-vis Player A's skirmishers such that Player A's skirmishers must fire at Player B's skirmishers?


It has less to do with being an effective screen and more to do with target priority, skirmishers first priority target is other skirmishers. (Page 114 - 11.18.1)

3. Even if the answer to 2 is 'yes', in our case, we had 18 Player A skirmishers facing off against 8 Player B skirmishers. Are all of player A's skirmishers required to fire at Player B's skirmishers or would fiire be divided so that, say, 12 Player A skirmishers fire on the Player B skrimishers whilst the other 6 fire at the line behind.


I'd suggest that this would depend on their actual positioning in respect of each other - by this I mean if Player A has 6 figures that have direct line of sight and are with arc of of the formed line, and none of Player B's skirmishers to their direct front then they can fire at the line. :idea: is only included to break up the skirmishers into firing groups

AAAAAA :idea: AAAAAA :idea: AAAAAA

BBBBBB :idea: BB

LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL
LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

Obviously if B's skirmishers are further to his right then they mess up the line of sight, but anyway B can only cover the frontage of 8 of A's figures, so I'd be inclined to say that under most circumstances, 12 of A fire on B's skirmishers and the other 6 should be able to fire on the line as at only 2.5cm between them A would struggle to get all 18 in arc.

That looks and sounds clumsy reading it back, but I hope you can see what I'm suggesting.

In a more general way about the battle, I too have experimented with the oob for the Allies. I've been meaning to sound out people for ages about the grading and size of the Saxons. I have come to the view that there is nothing in the accounts of the battle that suggest that the Saxons were any less enthusiastic that the Prussians. Prince Louis rode up to one battalion to ask for volunteers to form a new skirmish screen after the schutzen got scattered, and the whole battalion stepped forward; individual battalions made repeated attacks after being repulsed etc so I've been grading them all as 1st Line. By the same token I've also been fielding them at 32 figures - they had only just been mobilised, the campaign was only days old, they were in friendly territory etc, so I'm of the opinion that should be at or near full strength. Since they have a 4 company organisation that means 32 figures by my reckoning. Thoughts?

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#5 [url]

May 22 11 7:42 AM

Rudorff
Excellent replies - all of which I have come to agree with after some contemplation and reflexion . I shall have to start letting O win a few arguements if you are going to agree with him ALL of the time
The nice thing about the current rules I think is that these ambiguities are more easily resolved than previously.
As for the Saxon strength.... I was very lucky to get away with defending in this scenario. To be honest I think that if O had pushed on a little more he would still have overwhelmed me. The Saxons are the lynchpin of the battle and if you make them too weak I am sure the French player will not see them as an obstacle, reducing the flexibility of the scenario and possibly making it less challenging.
Cheers
M

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