Notes on Tactics
Infantry
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Eager infantry can charge other eager infantry, but it’s risky: they need a 4+ to charge or they become shaken and can be routed by fire the next turn. If they wait until the enemy is shaken, by contrast, they charge on a 3+ and the enemy is more likely to flee.
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To make enemy infantry shaken, you need to beat them in firing. Multiple attacks can help achieve this. Multiple attacks are also helpful in charges.
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Infantry can only destroy other infantry by surrounding them, or by routing so many enemy units that the enemy general can’t rally them.
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Squares are an effective way to counter enemy cavalry, but vulnerable to artillery.
Cavalry
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Ordinary cavalry charging eager infantry in square need a 6 to go through with the charge, so this is risky. You will have better luck if veteran (+1), if charging shaken troops (+1), if general present (+1), or if lancers (+1). On the plus side, infantry can’t kill you, though they can drive you a long way away.
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It is also easier to charge infantry not in square (+1) or from the flank (+1) or rear (+2).
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The good news is that, if cavalry charges against infantry are successful, they are devastating and you can often continue your charge from behind the enemy’s lines.
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Against cavalry your aim is to drive the enemy cavalry off so as to have time for their guns and infantry.
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Cavalry is vulnerable to artillery, since it automatically routs a long way if beaten by enemy fire while shaken. It is therefore a good idea not to leave your cavalry sitting in the open under enemy artillery fire.
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Cavalry can get carried away in their charge and be difficult to recall. It can help to have a great general in command of them, since he gets an extra PIP point every turn.
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Cavalry is more effective in the middle and later phases of a battle; do not waste them on futile charges in the opening turns.
Artillery
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A key role for artillery is to make enemy units shaken, either so as to disrupt their attack or so as to make it easier for your infantry and cavalry to attack. Note that artillery cannot fire on enemy units that are being charged, so you have to do your softening up in advance.
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Artillery is vulnerable to charges from the sides and rear, but otherwise strong from the front, where you have a +1 firing bonus, chargers face a -1 morale penalty, and a beaten enemy is apt to flee. Beware, however, of attack from multiple infantry units, which can render you shaken with musketry fire and then charge to destroy you, while you can only blast away at them one at a time with grapeshot.
Morale
Veteran units are more willing to charge and to face charges, less likely to flee if shaken and losing at firing, and more likely to de-shake. Likewise, raw units will often balk at charging and run away when charged and are hard to de-shake.
Momentum
The key to victory is to exploit your successes: otherwise the enemy has time to rally and reform their line. To crack a division, you need to rout most of its units and keep them routed. If routed units rally, they become shaken: do not give them a chance to de-shake: attack!
Acknowledgements
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I would like to thank my brother, Dave, for his suggestion of the title taken from Jomini.
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I am not conscious of copying another system, save that the basic concept of a PIP system is taken from Phil Barker’s DBA family of rulesets (the Plan idea from DBMM), which he also applies to the Napoleonic period in his as-yet-unpublished ruleset Horse, Foot, and Guns.