The Fate of Marengo

Marengo and Fate join hands

I have been developing my ideas of using the Fate rpg system in some of my games. What i wanted was a system that allowed units to have character and perform like they would in real life , i have tried other sets of rules most of which are very good and give a good game but they didnt scratch my itch so i decided to write my own.

My Criteria was this:-
I wanted a grand tactical game with unit formations.

Units would have to have attached assets like battalion guns , squadrons of cavalry , swarms of skirmishers all of which would need to interact with other units on the table.

Units should not be uniform and should not look all the same.

a command and control system that gave the commanders problems controlling their army and also showed the differences between what was essentially a 18th century system verses a 19th century system.

a system that would help the combined arms interaction of units win over those units which did not use it.

a system that could be easily played solo and with little table clutter.

so i put pen to paper or more likely fingers to keyboard and had a little run through of the battle of Marengo

Effectively the Austrians had a river crossing with their troops arriving piecemeal throughout the day while the french defended and had to call up reinforcements. so here is the report and see what you think. All the are 6mm baccus based on 30mm squares

Table Setup
Marengo Army list

Opening Positions

Turn 1

More Austrians arrive , a few units on both sides suffer minor casualties

Turn 2

French reinforcements start to arrive , more minor casualties

Turn 3

The Austrians manage to break through across the bridge with the french morale getting weaker

Another view from the side just before the Austrian breakout

Turn 4

More reinforcements on both sides arrive , Austrian cavalry on the left force the french brigade back

Turn 5

The Austrians push forward , the french have almost broken , a few French units retire

Turn 6

at this point the French are almost finished , their reinforcements arrived too late to stem the Austrian advance.

Aftermath

So what went wrong for the french and what went right for the Austrians , well the superiority in gun numbers helped the austrians, the poor french communication at the beginning of the game helped them as well , there was the odd lucky die rolls on both sides that could have swung the battle either way , the use of combined arms for the Austrians helped weaken the french where it mattered.

On the whole a fun game that lasted a few hours , as this was a first go with the rules and solo as well i dont think it turned out that bad.