Sunday 24 June 2012

Solo Command and Colours Napoleonics - Without the Cards

I have fought an action this weekend using using a rule set that primarily consisted of Command and Colours: Napoleonics with a few extras - the main one of which I shall describe here. I am not a huge fan of command cards for solo purposes although will happily use them in face to face play. I am very fond of the 'friction' that   the use of the cards causes and so I wanted to replicate this in some fashion. I decided against using a purely dice driven command point system (similar to DBA) because I wanted to have an element of uncertainty about the location of where a command could actually be used.

The system I have devised uses a version of that which is used in Worthington Games: Napoleon's Wars in that each side has a set number of command points that can be varied on a turn by turn basis by a dice roll. This is fine for face to face play but I wanted add the 'zonal' effect which would serve to add uncertainty as to where troops could be commended.

For the purposes of the game I fought I gave each side a base of three command points. The random d6 roll that followed looked like this:

  • 1 = -2 command points
  • 2 = -1 command point
  • 3 and 4 = no change
  • 5 = +1 command point
  • 6 = +2 command points
Then followed the second part of the process. For each command point the side then has they roll a further d6 with the results as follows:
  • 1 and 2 = left zone
  • 3 and 4 = centre zone
  • 5 and 6 = right zone
Overall it worked out pretty well and injected just the right amount of 'zonal uncertainty' with also the possibility that a side may not be able to order troops at all if the dice rolls go the wrong way. The game played out OK - 24 game turns in all - although the random rolls were very unkind which prolonged the action, perhaps too much. It did occur to me that perhaps a mechanism whereby a degree of manipulation to the command points available based on the location of the commander - perhaps a dice modifier. The reason for this is so that a player can exert a degree of control depending on where the commander is.

I will still need to work on this but the first run out of this idea proved the feasibility of the concept. 

The report on the game will follow - once I have sorted out the photos and trimmed it down by several thousand words!



6 comments:

Kaptain Kobold said...

I've been considering how to do a zone-based command system for cardless M44/C&C type games. Your idea is pretty much the point I'd got to :)

There's a lot of rolling for the individual command point assignment - I am considering something simpler, but not quite sure what yet.

Ross Mac rmacfa@gmail.com said...

Just shooting off the cuff, rolling once for points and then again for each looks like a lot of work to lazy me. What about something like rolling 1 die divided by 2 for each section. If rounding down that gives 0,1,1,2,2,3 pts for that section. Then give the General 1 which he can use where he will or give him +1 for the section he is in.

David Crook said...

Hi Kaptain,

The 'zonal location' aspect was a rather late addition although I readily agree it seems a little dice heavy. I will think about this further but as it stands it worked pretty well. Something slicker would be nice though.

All the best,

DC

David Crook said...

Hi Ross,

That seems a workable suggestion and one I may well 'borrow' in some fashion. The commander aspect was certainly the missing link from my system so having provision for this was going to be my next thought.

All the best,

DC

Kaptain Kobold said...

Ross's idea seems like a good starting point.

David Crook said...

Hi Kaptain,

Actually bang on the money! I shall be using Ross's suggestion with a very small tweak of my own. As a result I will need to refight the battle I ran over the weekend as I reckon it will be a lot more representative of what I was trying to achieve.

All the best,

DC