I Am Napoleon

I am Napoleon!

Or at least, I was "Napoleon" for the duration of a fascinating year-long PBeM campaign run by my good friend and decades-long wargamer buddy, Dr. Harvey Mossman.

An excellent preview of the campaign, from the perspective of one of the corps commanders is viewable here. This excellent journal by Marshal Davout allows me to discuss the campaign without tooting my own horn too much.

Oh, yeah. I won.

(Napoleon can't be humble, you know.)

This sort of thing can be among the most rewarding wargame experiences ever. They are hard to pull off, not least because they require an extraordinary amount of work and dedication by the umpire/GM/organizer. How Harvey, a practicing medical doctor, found the time to do this, I'll never know.

I've played, literally thousands of board wargames since I started the hobby back in 1969. I only recall a few. And I've probably played in a hundred or so miniatures games in that time. I remember a few of those as well.

But I remember every one one of the few free kriegsspiels I've taken part in. They're so absorbing that they become as much a part of your life as that great vacation you took, that fun club you were in, that demanding college course, special dates you went on, your favorite birthdays.

I took part in another Napoleonic campaign once. I was the Prince of Orange in a Waterloo campaign that used the old AH map but Trevor Dupuy's QJM method for combat. We lost. I was the Japanese commanding admiral in a naval kriegsspiel based on a carrier battle that might have happened around Wake Island in 1941. I won that one. I ran a modern naval scenario using the Harpoon 4 rules to manage a large submarine battle between Soviet and NATE subs under the Arctic ice cap.

As a wargamer, the first principle to remember is to forget everything you know about wargames as much as you can. It's a completely different experience. You don't know the rules, for one thing. You certainly don't know much about what's going on -- and the enemy side is not the only mystery.

As Napoleon I had to steel myself for operating in an extremely murky environment. This is far more realistic than any other wargame experience you might have -- even taking part in a normal umpired or double-blind game. Yes, if you play Axis & Allies double blind you may be surprised -- but you at least know the rules. Not so in this case. All we had to guide us was general historical experience. The exact mechanics of the rules, combat resolution and movement were not shared.

The specific campaign that we refought was the 1806 campaign that led historically to the battles of Jena-Auerstadt. Naturally things played out somewhat differently this time, but perhaps not as differently as one might have expected. Once again it appears the campaign culminated in twin battles -- in this case Jena-Gera.

In part this was because I decided that the real Napoleon's strategic judgment was correct and so I endeavored to try to achieve a similar result. While I had the advantage of hindsight, however, so did my opponents, and I was afraid a simple recreation of Napoleon's historical approach would be too easily countered. So I decided to try to mask the fact I was copying the master by some initial feints and counter-marches.  I'm still awaiting Harvey's debriefing, so I don't know for sure how well that all worked -- but he has indicated that it had less effect at the beginning than I might have hoped but the effects proved much longer lasting than expected.

While I imitated Napoleon's strategy, my model for command style was more Ulysses S. Grant. While many of the corps commanders were frustrated at times at what they saw as a reticence to share intelligence and lay out detailed plans, I felt the end result vindicated my approach. The reality was that, due to the limitations of Nineteenth Century Command Control and Communications, anything I passed on to subordinate commanders was likely to be so outdated as to be positively unhelpful. By the time a report got to me at GHQ, it would be between 6-24 hours hold. Sent back down it would be another 6-24 hours old by the time the corps leader saw it. If the information was only 12 hours old it might be useful -- but if it was 48 hours old it was more likely to mislead than inform.

Likewise with my plans. As it was, I ended up sending out some confusing orders and counter orders despite my best efforts to avoid falling into the trap implied by the formula: Order + Counter-order = Disorder. I don' t think it happened too often, but had I attempted to micromanage or explain in explicit detail every step of my thinking or the evolution of my plans in real time I think it would have been a real mess at the receiving end.

Instead I preferred to let the subordinate commanders use their best judgement based on the facts on the ground as they saw it with some general guidance on my part. In fact, I had no explicit plan. Aside from a general line of advance and the hope I could achieve a good central position when contact was made, my plan was basically to keep everyone well in hand and in supporting distance so that when contact was made, nobody was in danger of being overwhelmed. And that's how it worked out -- which is immensely satisfying.

As I noted, we haven't had the "Great Reveal" yet, so I don't know what happened on the other side of the hill except for a few hints from Harvey, my own observations and the insight we derived from a single intercepted message. It appears, however, that the Prussians allowed themselves to become too spread out to properly react to the changing situations. It appears, based on what positions were reported to me, that some important parts of the Prussian army were not present on the battlefield when it counted. During the climactic battle on the last day, in contrast, every French Corps -- all eight of them -- were engaged. I viewed achieving that as my job as the overall CinC. How well they fought was up to the corps commanders, but I believed that I had put them in a position to win.

I'll say more once the the "Great Reveal" happens. I'm not  a big one about the Ws and Ls. I'm much more focused on just enjoying the process when I game. I don't denigrate winning, but it is really just one part of gaming for me. I will admit, however, that winning this sort of game is very, very satisfying. It appears I was blessed with no troublesome subordinates and I was rewarded for putting them in a position to win with an actual victory. But even had the battle gone the other way, I felt that I had done my part.

Commands & Colors: Napoleonics arrives -- let the stickering begin!

I'll give GMT credit, once they make the game available they don't make you wait for it.

This is in contrast to Days of Wonder, which made me watch the agonizing progress of my order of Memoir '44/Samll World expansions across the country via FedEx ground, I'm not sure it was doing me a favor. It sat in Connecticut for about three days. I think FedEx deliberately holds onto stuff so it doesn't arrive before its scheduled delivery time.

In any case, GMT e-mailed me that my CCN was shipped and bang! There is was on my doorstep.

It will take me longer to apply all the sticers than it took to ship it!

With a week of vacation ahead I hope to get in a session or two.

Napoleon -- wargame man of the year for 2010?

Napoleon is like the Lady Gaga of wargames --- eww! Let me take that back.
He's the Will Smith of wargames, nobody's name is a bigger draw when you're trying to make a sale.

It appears that first-run copies of Battles of Napoleon will be hard to find, just as last month the initial run of Napoleon's War sold out before the game was even published. And I have no doubt that the publication of Commands & Colors: Napoleonics will be one of GMT's biggest hits of the year and will probably also sell-out quickly.

Now these are all good games, and most are based on previously successful games, but it's still interesting that Napoleon is still the go-to man for wargames even in this tough economy.

I don't even consider myself a big Napoloenic guy -- but I have at least 8 wargames named after Napoleon: The AH and Columbia versions of Napoleon; Napoleon at Waterloo, Napoleon's Last Battles, Napoleon;s Battles, Napoleon's Triumph, Napoleon's War and Bonaparte at Marengo. I expect to get both the Battles of Napoleon and C&C:N, so that will make at least 10 with the man's name in the title -- not even counting a various other games set in the era I also own.

Instead of blogging I've been sending too much time on BGG debating on a thread comparing Napoleon and Grant. Most of the discussion has been about Grant, and that may very well be that Napoleon truly is incomparable as a general and a historical figure. No matter how much I like and admire Grant, I have to admit that he has had nowhere near the impact of Napoleon on history. Grant is an important figure in American history, but Napoleon is a world history figure. Indeed, I would say that he rates among a very, very selct few generals who have achieved a degree of ppular renown that even the generally ill-informed have heard of him. Even people who slept through all their history classes have at least heard of folks like Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Charlemagne, Genghis Khan and Napoleon, And I feel confident in stating that he will still be among that select group (maybe the future will add someone) centuries from now.

He's been written about, analyzed extensively and probed in far more detail than I can attempt here, but I think it's notable how much Napoleon and his era are identified with wargaming. I think if you had to pick just one iconic image for wargames, you'd probably have to select a Napoleonic soldier or cannon for that image.

You can't get away from Napoleon, really, even as a Civil war buff, because he played a big role in that conflict. While long dead, the top leaders of the Civil War were marinated in Napoleonic thought, dreamed of Napoleonic glory and studied his campaigns intently.

So even though I'm only a casual student of things Napoleon, I expect to get a lot of Napoleonic gaming in this year as I put all the new games through their paces.

Worthington Games Napoleonic title reportedly nears shipping

It's looking like a banner year for mass-market low complexity Napoleonic games, with titles planned by GMT, FFG and Worthington Games, but it looks like Worthington is determined to be first out the gate. The buzz is that copies of the game will be seen at conventions this month, so there is some hope of seeing it before mid-June, which would be nice for obvious reasons.

I pre-ordered it months ago so I hope I'll get one of the early copies. With luck perhaps the redoubtable Mark K. and I can get in a special gaming session.

Head-to-head competition

One of the interesting phenomenon seen in wargaming is the creation of directly competing designs -- games that depict the same topic, at the same scale, with similar complexity levels and pricing. This is something seen much less often in euro games. For example, the publication of Pandemic didn't inspire other companies to come out with their own plaque-fighting games. But there's no shortage of strategic level Eastern Front games, regimental Battle of the Bulge Games, World War II carrier battle games, platoon-level combat games, etc. This dates back to the early rivalry between Avalon Hill and SPI where both companies seemed to enjoy matching each other's titles. Often they would come out close enough that there could be dueling reviews, for example, SPI's Descent on Crete and AH' Air Assault on Crete were both reviewed in the same issue of F&M.

So it's interesting to see that GMT and Worthington Games will each be coming out with similar Napoleonic battle wargames this year. The GMT game will be Commands & Colors: Napoleonics based, naturally, on the Commands & Colors system that gave us Battle Cry, Memoir '44, Battlelore and C&C: Ancients. Worthington's game will be Napoleon's War: The Hundred Days, based on their popular Wars for America series, seen most recently in Hold the Line.

The game systems are similar in scale and style, while differing just enough in important details that one can't be seen as a clone of the other. Up until now the two systems have avoided covering the same topic. Borg's games have run a wide gamut, from ancient warfare, fantasy battles, the Civil War and World War II. Worthington's comparable games have been much more limited in scope, being focuses on the small wars of North America between 1758 and 1815 so far.

So the upcoming games represent the first head-to-head direct competition between the two game systems, which may present fans of both with some interesting choices. Should they buy both? Would owning both be redundant?

The Worthington title may be the first one out the gate, as it's been offered for pre-order with the promise of production with the next 3-4 months. C&C:Napoleonics has also just been offered on the GMT pre-order list but there are several games ahead of it in the pipeline, so I don't expect to see it until summer.

Worthington is going with plastic figures, which has generally been a popular choice, although the figures do not appear to be nationality authentic in uniform details, being merely color-coded for side. The first set has blue French, Red Anglo-allied and Grey Prussians.

C&C:N will likely uses wooden blocks with stickers, similar to C&C:A. This will allow the use of authentic uniform illustrations and the wooden blocks have also been well-received in the past.

It's not clear how the other components will stack up. Both companies have produced some very nice stuff lately, so it's hard top give the edge to one or the other at this point.

I plan to get the first one of each line, but I doubt I can afford to maintain a steady stream of purchases for both. My inclination is towards C&C:N, largely because I expect it to be wildly popular and therefore easy to get on the table. But I'm willing to give the Worthington games title a shot, especially because the initial game covers the Waterloo campaign. After that it will be time to choose.