"You have to learn the rules of the game"

"The true method of knowledge is experiment." - William Blake

Your bloggist prepares for the playtest

And so back to the battle of Polotsk. I believe that it is traditional at this point to provide plenty of background detail that no-one could possibly be interested in and I am nothing if not a conventional wargames blogger, so here goes. I painted my Napoleonics collection many years ago and for reasons long forgotten - although probably related to idleness - I chose three stand infantry units and two stands for cavalry. These small sizes make me think that a stylised, grid based rule set will work better than a more naturalistic one. In particular my figures as based aren't very good at representing particular formations and so are better suited to the type of game where it is assumed that lower level commanders are automatically dealing with all that stuff and that any sub-optimalities are reflected through the dice rolls.

Command & Colours got the nod, the forty odd quid was shelled out and that brings us to Polotsk on a non-squex table. Russian infantry units have either three or four stands and so I had to bulk some up with cannibalised stands from other units. French units are always four stands and so for game purposes I've left them physically at three. In order to distinguish infantry units, light infantry are in line and all others, including line, are in column. Cavalry units are doubled up to four stands. I hope all that is clear.

Russian guards take the village with militia in the background

Based on my experience with James' interpretation of the C&C ancient rules, I have made the following decisions:

• Range/movements are converted at 15cm per hex
• All measurements are made from the centre of the unit front.
• Friendly units can be no closer to each other than 15cm; there is no restriction on how close enemy units can be to each other.
• To offer support units must be within 20cm
• If two units are close enough to offer support to each other (including units that have rule restrictions from offering support or are enemy units) then no unit can move between them. 
• Movement and fire can be in any direction; facing is unimportant.
• Retreating units must retreat within a 45 degree arc of a line drawn straight back to the baseline, but can snake.
• Units can melee, and cannot fire at, an enemy within 15cm