Lasalle - Wednesday 26th May

[Warren Gleeson]

I'm hoping to run a game of Lasalle this Wednesday. It will be a basic French against Russian battle using the minimum forces to test out the rules.

It will be an open game, so if you're interested do join in.

You can download the quick reference sheets from the Honour website look for 'Extra Copies of the Quick Reference Sheets (QRS)'
http://www.sammustafa.com/honour/wp-con ... 02/QRS.pdf

All being well we should have Glenn, myself, and Paul L.

Cheers

Warren

[Warren Gleeson]

We'll work on the premise that 1 base width is 2 inches.

Key things to be aware of (and firstly that this isn't a review);

The turn sequences is all about face in comparison to the more traditional I-go-you-go games, it is more in line with the Principles of War game system;
1 - Reaction Phase - where you react to charges etc, and initiate counter charges, firing etc.
2 - Combat Phase - Hand to hand combat
3 - Activity Phase - General movement and charges
4 - Status Phase - check army moral, game end, reinforcement stec.

Movement is by 'Basewidths' or BWs. These are determined by the scale being played, and are quite simply the width of a standard base within the armies. It does assume that all figures (artillery, infantry, cavalry) are based to the same convention, though the number of figures per base is up to the players. The book does include a fair selection of options. For the purposes of our game I will set the BW at 2 inches. The more traditional SOund of the Guns 15mm etc. will likely have 3cm as the BW.

The game works on bases, with 4 bases to most units, though large units have 6. This means that on a traditional 1:20 premise, most infantry will be 32 figures in four bases of 8, whilst cavalry will generally be 12 figures in bases of 3. The larger Austrian and British Guards units will be 6 bases of 8 figures! The larger cavalry units seen by Austria and Russia will either be 6 bases of 3, or two units of 4 bases of 3. Of course, if you use 15mm figures based in 4s, an infantry unit could simply be 16 figures, so a lot more approachable.

Figures aren't removed, rather a unit acquires disruption until it is broken and removed. A unit can attempt to reduce it's disruption through the game.

There are no firing arcs, a unit simply fires straight ahead, and usually hits the first unit in the path of the units fire (exceptions and rules do cover this).

Games are played until an army reaches it's break point (one third of its starting morale) then dices for its army morale to see if continues with the battle. The number required is dependant upon the turn number. A game continues for a basic number of turns with a variable number of bonus turns.

The books does include army lists four the 5 major protagonists throughout the entire Wars, as well as Minor state lists to supplement the Majors. The rules assert that no further books are required, and that any lists which aren't included within the book will slowly be introduced to the Honour website. It looks like they are keeping to their word since the site does now include lists for Bavarians, Saxons, and Poles, as well as the Ottomans. The lists operate at a very loose points basis, in that once the attacker and defender have been determined each player gets their basic core list of troops, then supplement it with an agreed number of 'Support Choices'.

Cheers

Warren

[Warren Gleeson]

I had my first game against Glenn this Wednesday. No doubt we did some things wrong, but I think that we did most of it right to get a good feel for the game.

We took two of the basic 28mm forces, a French army of 1812 on the attack against a Russian army in defence.

The forces were;

French
9 Battalions
1 Foot Artillery Battery of 4 guns

Russians
6 Battalions
1 Light Foot Battery (5 guns)
1 Medium Foot Battery (5 guns)

We played using the farm and fields table set-up without any additional terrain. The objective was assumed to be halfway along the Russian base edge.

I outlined the general rule mechanics then we walked ourselves through the turn sequence. By 8.00pm we were underway, and found the turns moving along fairly quickly. The French were soon advancing rapidly across the table taking fire from the Russian guns and suffering some disruption along the way. It might be worth pointing out at this time that units don't suffer casualties through figure removal, but rather through 'disruption'. They suffer disruption from enemy fire, as well as combat. Commanders may attempt to remove disruption at the end of the movement phase through a dice roll taken against the units discipline with modifiers for movement etc. By turn 5 Glenns French had a few units with disruption, with one having 3 disruption, which under the game mechanics is the most as small unit can have before it is broken and removed from the table.

The French launched a few assaults in Attack Column against the Russian line, whilst the Russians attempted to attack the French in the town before they had fully established themselves. The attacks proved to be fairly brutal; if one side wins by a significant margin the defeated enemy is removed, otherwise the units retire and suffer disruption.

By the end of the game the Russians had lost two units, one to the initial French assault, with the second falling to the French artillery cannister fire which had been advanced to support their infantrys attack. The French had only lost one unit, though a few had started to build up disruption markers. With the French around the flank and advancing towards the objective I was happy to give the game to the French.

In summary the game mechanics are fairly fast. Being the first game we were referencing the rules quite a bit which slowed things down, but can see future games being mainly driven through the quick reference sheets (which fortunately do include page references to the rules if there is a question). I would suggest that the game suits a divisional level game in a standard wargames club evening, and a Corps level game for a day (assuming that you have a big enough table). I'm happy to give the game another go though with more units next time, and definitely cavalry to see how that dynamic works.

Cheers

Warren