'Eck as like

The time has nearly come to play the game I originally set up some weeks ago, which has undergone a couple of revisions since I last wrote about it. The official Epic scenarios for Expansion 6 of C&C Napoleonics include one for the second day of Eggmühl (they prefer the modern spelling) on April 22nd 1809. This covers a somewhat larger area than the one in Miniature Wargames which I am ripping off, and misses out a couple of the key terrain features from the latter and so isn't much use for validating force sizes. I have therefore had to once again resort to the higher mathematics and have revisited my previous mental calculations, this time writing things down and using a calculator. As a result both sides have lost a unit of cavalry, the remaining Bavarian cavalry units have become smaller, the Prussians are down a light infantry unit and up a foot battery. Getting correct proportions within each arm is straightforward; ensuring that the balance is right between infantry, cavalry and artillery is slightly less so.

The table is (re)set

Rules for the two terrain features not in standard C&C will be:

• Forests with field works:
• units and leaders must stop after crossing sides with fieldworks - in or out
• units may ignore one flag if attacked via a side with fieldworks
• infantry may not form square if attacked via a side with fieldworks
• battle into via fieldworks: Inf -2, Cav -3, Art -1
• battle out via fieldworks: Inf 0, Cav -3, Art -1
• otherwise normal forest terrain rules apply

• Two level hill:
• top level is uphill of side slope hexes which are up hill of flat terrain
• artillery are -1 for firing uphill two levels

In addition the stream is decorative except:

• infantry cannot form square in a stream hex
• passing through it or battling into it negates any cavalry charge bonuses.
• units in a stream hex cannot play the following Tactician cards: Artillery Canister, Charge if Charged, First Strike, Infantry Combat First.

Bavarians cross the decorative stream

I have never cared for the victory conditions system employed by C&C which seems to consist of little more than eliminating as many opposing units as possible. In designing my own for this scenario (or more accurately porting across those in the MW article) I am constrained by not being able to think of a way of translating the playing of cards into the type of turns more usual in other rule systems, so we'll just play until the French win, until it's time to go home, or until someone gets fed up, whichever comes soonest. I shall attempt to keep things simple:

• Napoleon's instructions to Davout were to clear the artillery from the Bettel Berg and to sieze control of the road. The French/Bavarian objectives are therefore:
• ensure there are no Prussian foot artillery batteries on any of the seven hexes of the Bettel Berg
• close the road by putting three units into contiguous hexes, at least one of which is on the road
• if they have achieved both these at the end of any Prussian turn they win a major victory
• The Prussian objectives are simply to prevent either happening by the end of the evening, thereby gaining a major victory.
• Should the time allowed end with one of the French objectives met and the other not then the French will gain a minor victory if Prussian losses (in blocks not units) are at least 125% of French losses; otherwise it is a minor Prussian victory.

One outstanding issue is how to trigger the arrival of the French reinforcements; I am hoping that inspiration will arrive at some point in the next twenty four hours.

The newly arrived and dodgily varnished Prussian 6th Hussars; not as bad as their brown coated colleagues though