Late 17th to Late 18th century C&CN Mods

Here are my modifications to the Commands & Colors : Napoleonic system for use in the earlier period , i hope it is easy for you all to understand , I am also looking to do a renaissance modified set as well though i am not sure if i will use the Ancient set or the samuri set yet ( i decided on the ancient set ) and i am also going to do a Dark Age / Medieval set which will span the period from 500AD to 1500AD

Link to Download

9YW & WAS & 7YW  ( uses the napoleonic dice set )

Here is my next update , a Renaissance set , it is designed around the Ancients version of Commands & Colors

1500 to 1700  ( uses the Ancient dice set )

Link to Download

AWI & FIW ( uses the napoleonic dice set )

Link To Download

A Small Pointy Yari

Had a little try with my 6mm samurai , Baccus figures using the Commands and Colors "Samurai Battles" set of rules , quite an interesting game especially the honor part which if the dice roll poorly then your army decides to disperse and decides that yopu have no honor , and leaders like to die in combat , anyway here are some piceures from the engagement

Setup

end of battle , the top army with one honor left and 4 dead units and a dead commander vs the bottom army with one dead unit and a dead commander

Aftermath

this set of rules had some interesting concepts though not sure about all of them , i may try another battle with these rules but i would have to mark the bases some way , probably some coloured dots to make life easier. The game took a little over 2 hours to fight

Mind Your Minden

After a little thought , I have decided to refight Minden using "Commands & Colors"

This should be a good run-through to see how well the system handles lots of units in a compact board  which by the way is a custom size and also will have custom lines to separate the sectors for the cards

Here are maps of the table layout , I could set the game up as a all sides come on the table but i think that might make the game too long so i have decided to start the game from the first stage

I will post more pictures of the actual table setup later



The list of forces are as follows

French Army List

A. Brigade General - Comte de Lusace 
French Fusiliers: Militia class Close Order Infantry  Strength 4

French Fusiliers: Militia class Close Order Infantry  Strength 4

Veteran Fusiliers Normal class Close Order Infantry  Strength 5

Veteran Fusiliers Normal class Close Order Infantry  Strength 5

Artillery Battery:  Strength 3 Heavy Gun(s)

B. Brigade General - Lt Gen Guerchy 

French Fusiliers: Militia class Close Order Infantry  Strength 4

French Fusiliers: Militia class Close Order Infantry  Strength 4

Veteran Fusiliers Normal class Close Order Infantry  Strength 5

French Grenadier class Close Order Infantry  Strength 5

French Grenadier class Close Order Infantry  Strength 5

C. Brigade General - Duc de Fitzjames 

Gendarmes: Grenadier class Heavy Cavalry Strength 4

Line Cavalry: Normal class Heavy Cavalry Strength 5

Line Cavalry: Normal class Heavy Cavalry Strength 5

Dragoons: Militia class Medium Cavalry Strength 4

Dragoons: Militia class Medium Cavalry Strength 4

D. Brigade General - Lt Gen Beaupreau 

French Fusiliers: Militia class Close Order Infantry  Strength 4

French Fusiliers: Militia class Close Order Infantry  Strength 4

Veteran Fusiliers Normal class Close Order Infantry  Strength 5

Veteran Fusiliers Normal class Close Order Infantry  Strength 5

Artillery Battery: Strength 3 Heavy Gun(s)

E/F. Brigade General - de Broglie 

French Fusiliers: Militia class Close Order Infantry Strength 4

Fusiliers Normal class Close Order Infantry  Strength 5

Fusiliers Normal class Close Order Infantry  Strength 5

French Grenadiers class Close Order Infantry  Strength 5

French Grenadiers class Close Order Infantry  Strength 5

Dragoons: Militia Medium Cavalry  Strength 4

Dragoons: Militia Medium Cavalry  Strength 4

Hussars: Militia Light Cavalry Strength 4

British & Hanoverian Army List 

1. Brigade General - Lt Gen Lord George Sackville

British Horse Grenadier class Heavy Cavalry Strength 4

British Dragoons: Normal class Heavy Cavalry Strength 4

British Dragoons: Normal class Heavy Cavalry Strength 4

2. Brigade General - Major Haase

Hanoverian Artillery Battery: Strength 3 Heavy Gun(s)

Artillery Guard: Normal class Close Order Infantry Strength 4

3. Brigade General - Major Gen von Scheele

British Hatmen: Normal class Close Order Infantry Strength 4

British Hatmen: Normal class Close Order Infantry Strength 4

Hanoverians: Normal class Close Order Infantry Strength 4

4. Brigade General - Lt Gen von Sporcken

British Grenadier class Close Order Infantry Strength 4

British Hatmen: Normal class Close Order Infantry Strength 4

Hanoverians: Normal class Close Order Infantry Strength 4

5. Brigade General - Lt Gen von Holsten-Gofforp

German Cuirassiers: Normal class Heavy Cavalry Strength 4

German Dragoons: Normal class Medium Cavalry Strength 4

6. Brigade General - Lt Gen von Wurtignau

German Musketeers: Normal class Close Order Infantry Strength 4

German Musketeers: Normal class Close Order Infantry Strength 4

German Musketeers: Normal class Close Order Infantry Strength 4

7. Brigade General - Lt Gen von Wangenheim

German Musketeers: Normal class Close Order Infantry Strength 4

German Musketeers: Normal class Close Order Infantry Strength 4

German Musketeers: Normal class Close Order Infantry Strength 4

Table Setup

Well that was a hard fought battle for both sides , the early part of the battle saw the french gain ground and force the British back on the British right (Right of the picture) and on the opposite flank was a few demonstrations with sporadic fire

The french did launch their massed cavalry attack in the centre but that bounced and recoiled back only to be attacked by a lone unit of British Grenadier Heavy Calvary ( which rolls 6 dice !!)

on the right the British are a little worn down , they can hold their own but nothing fancy , the germans on the British left ( Right in the picture) are standing their ground while the french are trying to clear the villages

To counter the British advance in the centre the french peel off some units and attack the British in the British left flank which does have the desired effect of wearing some of those units down. This allows some french guard cavalry to strike home and together with supporting french infantry give the British a bloody nose

The Last picture is of the final positions , the french won 6 to 4 , a minor victory for the french but this could easily go bad as the french only have a few odd units on their left and a little more in the centre but most of that is militia

The british on the other hand have very little on their right some units in the centre but hardly any support and the Germans on the British left don't have the strength to attack as now the french have captured the strong points that are facing the Germans but with the majority of the french forces on that flank are militia they dont have the strength to force the issue with the germans

Aftermath

On the Whole a very enjoyable game and with my mods for the game i think it played like 7YW , Next i will have to go back earlier in time and do Marlburian/Great Northern War/Nine Years War all of which are quite diffrent.

On another note i did find that playing with figures on a 40x20 base nicer than a 30x30 but on the whole i would not do any rebasing.

March across the felt

After being inspired by a youtube video on a commands and colors game i had a flash of insperation , since I have lots of 6mm Baccus napoleonic based in 30mm square bases , got one of my old hex cloths out , cut up some carpet tiles for hills and setup a little game for me to play solo tomorrow

Setup

There are your enemy go get 'em

A very hard fought battle by both sides and lasting 22 turns ( 22 orders cards for each side )

The British attacked up their left flank but this stalled and the they took some heavy casualties but not enough to lose a banner , on the right flank a slow and supported advance pushed the french off the hill both sides sustained heavy casualties but the attack succeeded (i used small dice to mark the losses to the units.

Mid Game

Roughly midway through the game the British managed to gain the bombard card just at the point where the french were counter attacking on the British left , this was disastrous for the french as they lost a lot of casualties , this stopped their advance and allowed the British to push the french back.

In the end numbers told and the french lost by 3 banners to 5 but neither side really could claim victory.

End Game

Aftermath

Since i played this game solo i played each side to the best of my ability and quickly found that i forgot what cards the other side had , some cards were removed due to the player interaction that was required from those cards.

Another thought was that there is no requirement for a side to fight the battle in a shorter time so i used a blank piece of card and shuffle this into the the deck of command cards after the first 20 cards , this I decided would cause night to fall and allow 1 more move for each side before the game ends ( this card was not drawn this game).

One thing i did realise is that having larger forces will slow the game down and stifle the ability to create a combined attacks so i would suggest if fighting bigger battles then the number of units that can be ordered by a card be increased by 1 or 2 units but this would need to be done sparingly , this at the moment would be my only house rule.

This was a really interesting game , normally i would use field of glory for my goto set of napoleonic games but i did feel that these rules gave a nice period flavour even though they are reported to be a "game" rather than a simulation so more battles using this system will be forth coming.

Since i have French , British , Spanish and Austrian i will now have to finish my Prussian and Russian forces to give them a tryout.

A little Update , i have been working on a Late 17th/18th Century add on , i know there is an AWI set about to be released but here is my thoughts on a more mass battle set to say fight the larger battles in this period so if any of you wish to try them out let me know your email address so i can send you a copy.

Benghazi Sunstroke

So it has beed quite warm her in the UK so i thought lets keep the theme and do a bit of WW2 western desert , so grabbed some British and Germans and a scenario from the book "Benghazi Handicap" and set to it. I used Fist Full of Tows which does play very well solo and at half scale due to my small table size.

The initial onslaught of the germans was severely dented after a few turns as you will see

Setup

  

Turn 1 , Germans Advance on mass  , some casualties taken but nothing too bad

Turn 2 , 

Turn 3

Turn 4

Turn 5

Aftermath

A very enjoyable game , the Germans lost a tank battalion and a motor cycle battalion and the British a few casualties but the german 88 could have swung it for them but for the poor dice rolling on the 88's , off to the Russian front for him!! but without the infantry support the germans could not break through