Austro Prussian Wars of 1866 Rules

[sdennan]

Hi Everyone

I have ordered a copy of the book for when then reprint it.

Just a couple of questions about the rules. Does anyone have an AAR to read?

How does the mixed formation work? Is it skirmishes in an extended line followed by the rest in line in support? AUstrians have two bases in extened line and everyone else in column in support?

Really looking forward to getting my hands on a copy. Even if its only for the rules. Im sure the whole of it will  be fantastic.

Simon

[mollinary]

Hi Simon,

Congratulations!  I am just off to Partizan, so I shall try and answer your questions when I get back.

Cheers,

Mollinary

[mollinary]

Hi Simon,

I am back from a lovely sunny day at Partizan, have mown the lawn, and am now focusing on the web.  The book itself contains descriptions of a number of games using the rules, including the OOBs, covering the main corps on corps battles in Bohemia, namely Gitschin, Nachod, Trautenau, and two versions of Skalitz. It also includes a discussion of tactics and how to fight the armies.  While we were writing the book. I put up an AAR on this site on one of the Gitschin battles, it should be easy enough to find. I too would be interested to hear of others AARs using the rules.   Regarding the mixed formation, it simplifies basic Prussian doctrine.  Companies and battalions formed up in three double lines on the field. Normally as they closed on the enemy the third double line would be deployed in advance of the rest of the company/battalion as the firing line. The remainder of the unit would be in support in column.  As they felt the enemy, often the second double line would reinforce the first, broadening the front  and feeling for a flank. Sometimes, even the final double line joined this firing line. By this time, with everywhere up, you no longer have a mixed formation, but an extended line. In the amended rules this is very difficult to manoeuvre, and vulnerable against an Austrian charge.  Your challenge is not so much deploying an individual battalion, but deploying a brigade to best advantage. We had great fun with this, and even experienced players found it very hard to do effectively.
For the Austrians, two stands is the maximum we allow a battalion to deploy as the skirmish chain, the rest, as you say, in column.  Funnily enough, a lot of gamers did not bother with the skirmishers.  I think this was a mistake, as they protect the column from the initial firepower of the Prussians.  Once you have the book, and play the games, I will be very happy to answer specific questions. Bear in mind, we were writing a book, not a set of rules - that is a bonus!

Cheers,

Mollinary

[Hertsblue]

A few Austro-Prussian pics here, Simon. Not a scenario from the book, but an entertaining game nevertheless.

http://www.pendrakenforum.co.uk/index.php/topic,7656.msg79935.html#msg79935

[sdennan]

Thanks Guys.

Im just excited about getting the book. Everything is a bonus.

We have been using RFF straight for 10mm 1859 games and are going to try some of our own modifications for that

[mollinary]

The little book birdie tells me the reprints should be with Ken Trotman shortly, if they have not arrived already!

Mollinary

[Leman]

Brilliant maps for building a battlefield. Much more straightforward than in '1866' rulebook. Something similar for 1870/71 would certainly come in handy.

[julesav]

I've just received my copy of the book. Fantastic book, very informative.

The games are simply mahoosive though! 12 base battalions in groups of 12 battalions is common, table sizes approach 15ft x 7ft! Great news for Pendraken sales I reckon?

However even in 10mm these style of games are well beyond my megalomania!

[mollinary]

Glad you like the book, but you are correct to identify our megalomania!   

But, remember, you do not need to imitate slavishly to use the scenarios.  For example, you can halve the number of figures required just by going for 2 figures a base.  You can always also think of using one base as representing two, and using a marker for the odd ones.  Or you can look at using all the scenario info and using Brigade level Fire and Fury rules, with some mods.  Look at the Wyre Forest Wargamers site and their amendments called Fire and Furia Francese to see if you can get some ideas.  Or see if you can use Neil Thomas' rules from his 19th century book.  Lots of options!


Mollinary

[julesav]

Hi Mollinary

It's a fantastic book on a fantastic subject! Something to be proud of to be sure!

I'm working my way through possible rules sets for the war. However I'm beginning to suspect that, although fascinating, it's a bit unplayable rather like the Anglo-Zulu War!

So far we've tried Neil Thomas's rules, Black Powder, Bruce Weigle's 1866, and yesterday we trialled 'Volley and Bayonet' by Frank Chadwick. Yesterday's game ground to a halt amidst a version of V&B rewritten to be principally Napoleonic plus 8 pages of errata! I'd like to try the Polemos variant but I'm a bit put off by needing to play unfamiliar rules plus amendments, frankly that's never easy. Next rules on the list for trial are Peter Pigs ACW rules.

If only I'd got a first edition of your book I'd have been able to afford armies of size suitable for your RF&F scenarios! Lol!

Cheers

Jules

[mollinary]

Thanks Jules, we put a lot into it, and got a lot out of it.  We are about to start work on a second book looking at Koniggratz, and a variety of scenarios from within that battle. Even we could not envisage doing Koniggratz at a scale of 48 figures per battalion.  However  one of the useful characteristics this war shares with the ACW is that bases designed to serve as a corps in one scale can, with a removal of some command stands, serve as a division, brigade or regiment for other scales.  The starting point for my armies was Bernie's "Trapped Like a Fox" rules, so battalions of four bases and an officer. My Prussians also serve for 1870. A corps for those rules (which give a really fun game, by the way!) deliver enough figures for a brigade in our level of RFF.  When we look at parts of Koniggratz, and at Podol (which is going to be a rule tweak test) we may move to 24 bases a battalion, simply because we have the figures, and you can have fun with the tactics that way!   But the scenario, which only involves less than a Brigade a side, without guns or cavalry, could be done at the bigger scale.  The aim of the books is to give all the info any wargamer might need to fight this war, whatever scale he/she might wish to use.  As to suggestions which might help you into this fascinating period, what about still going for 12 base units, but making the units regiments? So, instead of 72 bases a brigade, you would need only 24. The Jäger Battalions can be small units of 4 bases. This is essentially using the Brigade level Fire and Fury scale, with the regimental rules.  Your regiments could still use the sort of formations we talk about, which would give you the feel for 1866, which was so much of what John and I were looking for. Or, why not go for two figures a base, half the base width and depth, halve all the ranges, moves and  table size. You still have good looking units, in half the space.   If we are spared, we hope to move onto something for 1870 after the Koniggratz book.  Anyway, thanks for your interest, and good luck whichever way you go.  

Mollinary

PS we are taking a battlefield tour to Bohemia at the end of next week for Cultural Experiences Battlefield Tours, so will walk the fields again.  Retirement is a wonderful thing!

M

[Steve J]

PS we are taking a battlefield tour to Bohemia at the end of next week for Cultural Experiences Battlefield Tours, so will walk the fields again.

We will be in Linz in Upper Austria in early August and Bohemia is just a stones throw away. So out of interest, where abouts are you going?

[cameronian]

Ordered my book ages ago, heard nothing from Ken Trotman as yet, has the new print run been released yet?

[mollinary]

Hi Cam,

Suggest you contact Richard Brown of KenTrotman direct. The new print run has certainly arrived.

Mollinary

[cameronian]

Done that, no answer as yet 

[mollinary]

We will be in Linz in Upper Austria in early August and Bohemia is just a stones throw away. So out of interest, where abouts are you going?

Hi Steve,

We will be doing the APW, so it is NE Bohemia for us - but the trip is only a week, so we will be out by the end of the month.  We will take in all the major actions up to and including Koniggratz, so that includes Podol, Jicin, Nachod, Trautenau, Skalitz, Burkersdorf, Scwheinschadel, Koniginhof and the big K itself.  Staying in Jicin and Hradec Kralove, it really is a lovely country.

Mollinary

[Steve J]

Yep, beautiful part of the world, as we took a day trip there a few years ago. Fingers crossed we hope to do the same again.

[holdfast]

A tardy and rambling response for Dour Puritan on the issue of the maps from the map and board designer (and co-author).

We start by walking the ground and reading the reports. From these two activities we identify the ground features that are/were key. These do not always feature on maps as the contour interval is usually greater than a man's height. A significant bump or dip that hides a unit or allows a covered approach may not appear as such on a map. The obvious example is the Gully of the river Cidlina at Gitschin which is appears on maps as a small trace but actually allows units with a 50 yard frontage to advance in cover. It has to be represented in such a way as to allow the attacker to use it as a covered approach, with no single blocking position available to the defender. The question is how much you then put out on the board, since both sides have a bird's eye view of the covered approach. Here it all depends on how many and how good your umpires are. If they have walked the ground and the players have not then the umpires can announce extra detail in the micro terrain as units arrive at a particular point.

We also try to look at the approaches to a position from the viewpoint of both the attacker and the defender. It is surprising how much 'dead ground there is, and how difficult it is for the defender to identify all the dead ground.

The best maps are often those drawn at the time as they show the features that were known to be important at the time. A modern map can have too much detail or too little detail. The sort of micro-cover that the Prussians were trained to use - and did use  - does not show up in any maps and has to be assumed to be there. Again the umpire has a role here.

Generally we will only reproduce an unique, odd looking hill if the shape was significant in the action being gamed. Fancy shaped features on the periphery where very little happens, are too much trouble. Water courses are somewhat more important to portray as areas that are well drained today might not have been then, while areas that were simply boggy then may have been deliberately flooded to produce significant water features (again, Gitschin has areas that are now lakeside holiday camp sites that were just soggy and poor going then).

In the end it all boils down to common sense and umpires. In 1866 the Prussians will always squeeze more advantage out of whatever cover is available that the Austrians, by dint of their tactics, training and their small unit leadership. So if you want to give a Prussian unit an advantage for using cover in an area where the Austrians would not get any advantage that is entirely supportable.

Holdfast

[Leman]

Thanks for that Holdfast. In the past I have used green card squares on the table which, when turned over, give info about the terrain and its advantages and/or disadvantages. It really helps to walk a battlefield, as I discovered at Mars la Tour. I have returned today from 2 1/2 weeks on the canals, which took me through Market Drayton so I took the opportunity to walk up to Blore Heath (1459). Still cannot really see what prompted Audley to make a mounted charge across a stream and then uphill, even if the Yorkists were pulling a fast one on him by way of a feint withdrawal. Can only assume chivalric honour as Audley was a French Wars veteran. This battlefield is virtually untouched, other than by farming, and there is a fascinating booklet on it edited by Paddy Griffith. Caliver may have a copy (?).

[sdennan]

The rules are here and I have nearly fought off the jet lag enough to have a look at them.

For just a quick game down at the club for 3 or 4 hours how many units do you recommend?

Simon