Thx for the kind words. The tabletop is made with matts from Hottz matts combined with his fields. Rivers, roads and housing is home made, while trees are assorted from timecast.
If anyone is interesting in some prerelease proof reading of the rules "Champ d´honneur", while I work on establishing a website for them, they can send med a pm with their mails. They have finished translation into english, and I have been working on making them accesible for players which have not tried them before. I have copied the introduction below, so that you can see if it looks like something that might be of interest. As it says, these are not the current vogue, more "old school updated" stuff.
"Introduction
Champ d´honneur is the first English language of this ruleset, which in various guises has been more than 20 years in the making. The purpose of the rules is to allow players to play Napoleonic battles on any level from brigade to multi-corps engagements. To accomplish this, the rules focus on command and control while streamlining the tactical control of units. However, it is the object of Champ d´honneur to represent the tactical evolutions inherent to the period, while still allowing the players control of these.
The rules are designed so that most figures and basing systems can be used. Although base sizes are recom-mended; these can be altered with little effect on play.
Champ d´honneur is not meant for the casual wargamer, but for the serious Napoleonic aficionado, who wants to see a battle unfolding in a credible way, and therefore is willing to invest in learning the historical aspect of the game. What on the surface is simple mechanics, offer an endless variation of tactical situations. If you play Champ d´honneur, you must accept restrictions in your ability to manoeuvre your troops. If you want your troops to react instantaneously, as if controlled by radio, this is not the game for you.
If you are new to the rules, a command of an infantry division is a good introduction, which can be handled with a basic knowledge of tactics, and the allowed de-ployment distances. Once this is mastered, players can learn to command the supporting arms, and finally master the rules of corps command.
These rules have not existed in a vacuum, and inspiration from many different wargame rules is incorporated. The rules however establish a unique flavour in their approach to grand tactics and the interplay between the arms. It has been a design object to establish a firm system, that allow endless variation in troop / army capability, both on the command and control and on the unit level, without having to resort to national modifiers or a lot of special rules, although a few has been added for extra flavour. By varying the capabilities of the units and commanders, as well as the organization of forces, it is possible to recreate armies that must be handled with specific historical tactics. This way, scenario designers can represent the capabilities of any army in the revolutionary or Napoleonic wars.
The primary motivator behind the rules is to make players as limited in their decision making as their historical counterparts, and to recreate the friction of war. The player will find that activation of orders will delay their implementation. This delay will depend on the capabilities of leaders and staff.
The orders in the rules are simple and unequivocal, and they do not require any prose from the players stating their intentions. The command officers are used as markers of the axis of operation of a command, which must be either defending or advancing. Changing the direction of operation takes time, so that fancy manoeuvres requires effective staff work and players will find that the straight way to an objective is often the simplest.
Orders are only relevant on the grand tactical level, so once units are engaged with the enemy, they are free to fight within the restriction of their tactical capabilities.
Time is to some degree abstracted in the rules, but the ground-time relationship has been a great design priority to get right. The basic time unit is a turn representing 20 minutes. If a command has an attack order, it will immediately engage any enemy to its front within 1500 meters. This has been deliberately designed in order to mimic a historical time-ground relationship such as that of Soult´s attack at Austerlitz or D´Erlon at Waterloo. This is done in one move and the enemy is immediately engaged. There are no increments with time to change decisions or redeployments on either side.
When commands are engaged, their time scale changes as they move in tactical phases. These phases do not represent a fixed time and their number is random. There is no movement rates in tactical phases, the players simply moves the units, which is designed to make the game as decision driven as possible without creating an imperative need for an umpire.
Units function within the command, which is the building block of the organization. Each command has a limited number of tactical options, as defined by their operation points. These represent the historical use of regulating battalions. The more points a command have the higher it´s tactical flexibility. The size of commands and the number of operation points are the defining element of an army, and variation of these can make forces into plodding giants or nimble rapiers.
The relative position of units in the game is the basic of the tactics. Units must be placed in mutually supporting positions where they cover each other’s flank. This is necessary both for movement and especially for defending. Infantry and artillery in good order with secure flanks have little to fear from enemy cavalry, whereas units with their flanks in the air are extremely vulnerable. Players must also be warned that these rules are extremely uncompromising when it comes to flank attacks!
There are no musketry fire tables in these rules! Players move their units into effective distance (100 meters) and resolve combat. This means that combat in the rules involves all offensive and defensive fire, bayonets, swords, lances and head-butts, as well as their eventual morale and casualty effects - all added into one resolution. The design theory is that unit control was lost once units became engaged. It is not within the design scope of the rules to have players decide when a defensive volley will be released or at what part of an attack that is left to the battalion commander. The basic outcome of any encounter would be the immediate retreat of one side or a prolonged firefight.
This approach means that several mechanisms have been constructed to get a believable outcome, but the player will get less control that with many other rules. He must decide the formation of his unit and the target of his attack, and the rest is out of his hands.
Skirmishers were immensely important in the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, and their function has received a large amount of attention in the design. The objective has been to allow the player with superior skirmishers to use these effectively, as part of the destructive phase of his attack, before a decisive move is made with formed infantry. Skirmishers fight in an attritional way and players will often find themselves committing more to a skirmish fight that they originally intended – like their historical counterparts.
Artillery has received special attention in the rules. Fresh, well-supplied artillery in a good position could inflict a horrific toll on the enemy. However, this was seldom the situation batteries were in. The rules emphasize the effect of ammo depletion, counterbattery fire and the restriction of doctrine, command and control. It therefore requires careful planning and some luck for a player to get the optimal effect of his artillery, whether on the defensive or offensive. This allows historical amounts of artillery to be deployed without disrupting the playing of the game to a historical conclusion.
The appendix presents examples of different formations from throughout the period to serve as inspirations for the players. However, the individual interpretation of unit capabilities is left to the players and scenario designers. I do not pretend to have the definitive answer on whether a Prussian fusilier or a young guard battalion in 1813 had the best morale – that argument is one of the pleasures of our hobby.
I hope that you will find these rules as enjoyable and rewarding to play/simulate Revolutionary and Napoleonic warfare as they have been for me to design.
Special thanks go out to all the regular players. Their patience, inspiration and dedication have made the rules into what they are today.
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