bonaparte at marengo - simmons games · represent the french army are blue. the pieces that...

1. Quick Start .............................................................................. 22. Game Equipment .................................................................... 23. Introduction to Play ................................................................ 24. Playing Pieces .......................................................................... 25. The Game Board ..................................................................... 26. Setting up the Game................................................................ 37. Sequence of Play ...................................................................... 4

8. Movement ................................................................................ 49. Maneuver Attacks ................................................................... 610. Artillery Bombardment ........................................................ 611. Assaults ................................................................................... 712. Retreats .................................................................................. 913. Demoralization .................................................................... 1014. Winning the Game .............................................................. 10

Table of Contents

Bonaparte at MarengoRules of Play

version: 2006.04.09 - text changes from the original printed rules are in red.

2 Bonaparte at Marengo

1. Quick Start

One way to learn the game is by reading the rules straight through from cover to cover and then playing it. This is not, however, the only way. A different approach is to mix reading and playing. The following is a suggested way to mix them:

(1) Read sections 2 through 3. These intro-duce the game.

(2) Read sections 4 and 5. These explain the playing pieces and game board. The pieces are simple, but the game board is not and it is help-ful to look at it while reading about it.

(3) Set up the game by following the steps in section 6.

(4) Play the first two turns for each side, reading sections 7 and 8 – on the sequence of play and movement – while doing so. Neither side should attempt to attack on these two turns (this is just for ease of learning: it is not a rule).

(5) Play the third and subsequent turns for each side. From this point on, either side may attack. On making a maneuver attack, read sec-tion 9. On making a bombardment attack, read section 10. On making an assault, read section 11. On making a retreat, read section 12.

(6) When the first losses are inflicted, read sections 13 and 14 on morale and victory condi-tions.

(7) Try to keep the game going until all the rules have been read. After that players should feel free to start over or continue the game, whichever they prefer.

2. Game Equipment

The game equipment consists of:• 80 wooden playing pieces. These repre-

sent the armies that fought at the battle of Marengo. Color identifies them as French or Austrian, and symbols on them identify their type and strength.

• One 22" x 30" game board. The game board is a map of the Marengo battle-field, with various play aids along the edges. Symbols on the map determine how pieces may move and fight.

• Three markers for record-keeping.• Two copies of the twelve-page rules

booklet.

3. Introduction to Play

Bonaparte at Marengo is a two player game. One player controls the French pieces and the other controls the Austrian pieces. In the game, each player attempts to defeat the other by elim-inating his pieces and controlling territory.

The game is played as a series of 16 rounds, each representing an hour of the day of the bat-tle: June 14, 1800. In each round, the two play-ers take turns moving their pieces and attacking those of their opponent.

At the start, the map is controlled by the French player, but his forces are scattered; some are on the map at start but others enter later. The Austrian army is concentrated, but must enter the map from an entry point on the west edge, and attempt to destroy the French pieces and drive east to take control of the map.

Because many of their pieces are in play at the start, the French are stronger at the begin-ning. However, the Austrian pieces will en-ter rapidly, and by the middle of the game the strength advantage will have shifted to them. Towards the end of the game, the last French reinforcements will arrive and may, depending on relative losses, give them back the advantage over the Austrians.

4. Playing Pieces

The playing pieces represent the French and Austrian armies at the battle. They are wooden blocks, 1½" x ¼" x ¼" in size. The pieces that represent the French army are blue. The pieces that represent the Austrian army are red. Some example pieces are shown below:

One side of each piece has symbols to indi-cate its type and strength. That side is called the piece’s face.

There are three types of symbols:

for infantry piecesfor cavalry piecesfor artillery pieces

The number of symbols on a piece indicates its strength: one symbol for each strength point. Of the three example pieces above, the top piece is a three-strength infantry piece, the middle piece is a two-strength cavalry piece, and the bottom piece is a one-strength artillery piece.

Usually, only the player who owns a piece is entitled to see its face. This normal state is called face-down. (Note: this is not necessarily literally face down – players who sit on oppo-site sides of the board will usually prefer to keep their pieces’ faces towards themselves, which is convenient and suffices to hide them from their opponent.)

In some situations, the opposing player has a right to see the face side, and in those situations the face side is turned towards the ceiling. This is called face-up.

At the start of his turn, a player is permit-ted to do an out of sight “shuffle” of his pieces which are together in the same place on the map; this allows each player a way to restore secrecy for any pieces that earlier had been face-up.

For the mutual convenience of both players in keeping the faces of their pieces hidden, here are some courtesy suggestions:

• If a player needs to leave his seat or change his position so that he would be able to see the faces of his opponent’s pieces, he should give his opponent no-tice beforehand so that his opponent can hide the faces of his pieces by turning them literally “face-down”.

• A player should refrain from handling the pieces of his opponent.

• A player should not handle pieces from different places at the same time. This is to avoid the suspicion that pieces might have been secretly swapped in the pro-cess.

When a piece has to be reduced in strength as a result of an attack, it is removed and another piece of the same type – but a lower strength – is put in its place. For this reason, in addition to full-strength pieces, the game also includes low-strength replacement pieces. As a convenience, a few spare full-strength pieces are provided as well. Because of this, don’t be alarmed if after setting up the game, pieces are left over; there are supposed to be pieces left over.

A full-strength infantry piece represents about 1600 men and any battalion guns attached to them. A full-strength cavalry piece represents about 1000 troopers. A full-strength artillery piece represents about 40 guns and their crews.

5. The Game Board

Most of the game board consists of a map of the battlefield. Some space on the edges is devoted to play aids.

The map portion of the game board is di-vided into polygons to regulate movement and combat. These polygons are called locales. The faces of the polygons are called approaches.

An example of a locale with three approach-es is shown below:

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The symbols used that define locales are as fol-lows:

sections 1-5 • quick start, game equipment, introduction to play, playing pieces, game board

3Bonaparte at Marengo

is an approach. Approaches can be either narrow (as wide as one piece) or wide (as wide as two pieces). Printed on each approach are various symbols showing the effects of terrain on movement and attacks into that approach.

is an infantry attack penalty. For each of these in an approach, infantry at-tacks against pieces defending the ap-proach are reduced in strength by one.is an cavalry attack penalty. For each of these in an approach, cavalry attacks against pieces defending the approach are reduced in strength by one.

is an artillery attack penalty. For each of these in an approach, artillery at-tacks against pieces defending the ap-proach are reduced in strength by one.

is an impassable approach. Pieces can-not move in either direction across an approach with this symbol.

is a cavalry-obstructing approach. Cavalry is restricted in attack or de-fense of an approach with this symbol.

4 is the capacity of the locale. This the maximum number of pieces the locale can hold (in this case, four).

The example locale above has three approaches and a capacity limit of four pieces. The top ap-proach has an infantry attack penalty of one, is cavalry-obstructing, and has an artillery attack penalty of one. The left approach is impassable. The right approach has an infantry attack pen-alty of one and a cavalry attack penalty of one.

In addition to the symbols representing ter-rain effects, a few special symbols are present in some locales. These are as follows:

indicates that French pieces are in this locale at the start of the game. The number of symbols indicates the number of French pieces that start in that locale (see section 6 for details).

indicates that the locale is a game objective. There are three colors of stars: red, green, and blue (see section 14 for de-tails).

Locales define the positions of pieces. A piece that is in play can be in one and only one locale at any one time – a piece may not straddle locales.

Within a locale, pieces can be either in the middle of the locale, which is referred to as be-ing in reserve, or they can be across one of the approaches, which is referred to as blocking that approach.

An example of how pieces can be positioned in a locale is shown below:

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(Pieces are face-up for illustration only.

In the example above, the infantry and the cavalry pieces are blocking the top approach into the locale, while the artillery piece is in re-serve in the center. For clarity, pieces blocking approaches should be oriented the same way as the approach. Pieces in reserve may be oriented any way the player owning the piece desires (the orientation of reserve pieces is strictly a matter of convenience – it has no effect on play).

Except on the edges of the map and around areas of impassable terrain, approaches are al-ways found in opposing pairs, as shown in the example below:

Opposing pairs of approaches are the boundar-ies between adjacent locales. It is only through pairs of opposing approaches that pieces can move or attack between locales. Locales on ei-ther side of an approach pair are referred to ad-jacent locales, and for each approach in the pair the other approach is referred to as the opposite approach. Similarly, the locale containing the opposite approach is referred to as the opposite locale. It is well worth noting in this context that the combat penalties for approaches in opposing pairs can be different from each other: in the ex-ample above, cavalry attacking from the upper approach to the lower would do so at a strength penalty of one, but cavalry attacking from the lower approach to the upper would not be under any strength penalty.

Some locales are connected by roads. Roads are depicted on the map as thin red or brown lines. Red lines denote primary roads. Brown lines denote secondary roads. Roads affect the movement of pieces: pieces can be moved far-ther in a turn if they are moving along a road. Additionally, pieces moving along primary roads are exempted from the command limit (see sec-tion 8 for details). An example of a locale with a road passing through it is shown below:

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In the above example, pieces could enter or leave the locale by road through either the left or bottom approaches, but not by the right ap-proach because the road does not cross that ap-proach.

There are other markings on the map show-ing hills, woods, marshes, rivers, streams, sunk-en roads and towns. These are cosmetic and do not affect play. (The effects of the depicted ter-rain are incorporated into the sizes and shapes of the locales and the terrain penalties on the locale approaches).

On the edges of the game board are the fol-lowing play aids:

• Time Track. This is for keeping track of the current round.

• Morale Track. This aid is for keeping track of morale – see the demoralization rules (section 13) for details.

• French “At Start” Display. This shows the French pieces that are deployed on the map at the start of the game.

• Reinforcement Displays. These show Austrian and French pieces that enter the game as reinforcements, and show where and when they enter. There are four such displays: one Austrian and three French.

Note: Players accustomed to traditional war games may be surprised by the absence of dice, combat results tables or terrain effects tables. Combat is resolved by a comparison of strength, and terrain effects are designed into the map it-self.

6. Setting up the Game

To set up the game, players should do the following:

(1) Put a marker on the 6:00 AM space on the Time Track.

(2) On the Morale Track, put down two markers for tracking the morale levels of the two armies. The starting locations for those markers are printed on the track itself.

(3) The players should get out the game pieces and sort them into the following groups (pieces should be face-up while this is done):

• A group for the pieces in the French “At Start” Display.

sections 5,6 • game board, setting up the game


• Four groups for the four Reinforcement Entry Displays

• Replacement pieces for handling losses.

(4) The French pieces from the “At Start” Display should be put in a box and gently shaken by the Austrian player, who does not look into the box. Then, for each locale that contains French pieces at the start of the game, the French player does a blind draw for the number of pieces that are to start in that locale. The French player may not look into the box as he draws pieces, but he can look at them as he puts them down so that he can orient them face-down.

(5) For Reinforcement Displays, the player who owns the pieces in each display turns them face-down. He may shuffle them in order to conceal which pieces are which.

(6) In the historical battle, the Austrian at-tack surprised the French. To reflect this, French pieces on the map at start cannot move (see sec-tion 8) until activated. A French piece can be activated in either of the following ways:

• An adjacent locale is enemy-occupied at the start of the French player’s turn.

• The French player selects it for activa-tion. The French player may select one piece at the start of his first turn. At the start of each subsequent turn, he may select two more pieces if: (1) a French set-up locale was ever enemy-occupied (whether it still is it or not), or (2) it is 11:00 AM or later.

Once activated, a French piece stays activated from that point on. French reinforcements do not need to be activated; they can move normal-ly when they enter play. A piece can block or re-treat from maneuver attacks (see sections 9 and 10) before being activated. The French player should not shuffle activated and non-activated pieces. A suggested way for the French player to keep track of which pieces are inactive is to keep the inactive pieces literally “face-down”.

7. Sequence of Play

The game is played as a series of 16 rounds.

A round is divided into two turns. In each round, the first turn is the Austrian player’s turn, and the second turn is the French player’s turn.

The Austrian player’s turn consists of the following steps:

(1) The Austrian player resolves artillery bombardments declared in his previ-ous turn. See section 10.

(2) The Austrian player conducts infantry and cavalry assaults. See section 11.

(3) The Austrian player conducts move-ment. See section 8.

(4) The Austrian player declares any artil-lery bombardments he wants to con-duct in his next turn. See section 10.

The French player’s turn is structured the same as the Austrian turn, except with the roles of the two players reversed.

At the end of every round, the marker on the Time Track is advanced one space. This contin-ues until the last round, after which victory is determined, as per section 14.

8. Movement

In a player’s turn, he may move his pieces that are on the map and may bring onto the map any eligible reinforcement pieces. Once on, pieces may not move off the map again.

In general, each piece can either move with-in a locale (from reserve to blocking or from blocking to reserve), or to an adjacent locale. The only way a piece can move to a non-adja-cent locale in a single turn is by road.

Pieces are moved in groups. A group consists of one or more pieces that start in the same place and end in the same place and are moved at the same time. Pieces are considered to be in the same place if they are in the same locale, and ei-ther in reserve together or blocking the same ap-proach together. Note: a piece moving by road is always in a group by itself – even if other pieces are moving by road to and from the same place, they still must be moved separately.

A player is limited to moving no more than three groups and/or conducting three assaults (see section 11) per turn. This limit is called the command limit. This is a combined limit for both – i.e. a player does not have one limit for groups moved and a second limit for assaults.

Pieces blocking enemy maneuver attacks (see section 9), conducting artillery attacks (see section 10), and retreating (see section 12) do not count against the command limit. Also ex-cepted are pieces moving by road on primary roads – any number of pieces may move on pri-mary roads in a turn.

A player may move his groups in any order he pleases.

A piece may only be moved once in a turn. Once it has been moved, it may not be moved again that turn.

A player may not move pieces into a locale if that would cause the number of pieces he has in that locale (not counting any enemy pieces) to exceed the locale’s capacity limit.

The capacity limit is for the entire locale. There are no sub-limits for reserve or blocking. Any or all of the pieces in a particular locale can be in reserve or blocking a particular approach.

A piece may not move to block an approach unless the locale opposite that approach is en-emy-occupied. Should the enemy pieces later leave the opposite locale, the blocking pieces must move into reserve - they cannot remain and continue to block the approach. Such block-ing pieces may move into reserve in the same

locale without it counting against the command limit, but if they move into the opposite locale, the move does count against the command limit. If the enemy pieces left in the enemy turn, the blocking pieces must leave in the next friendly turn; if the enemy pieces left in the friendly turn, then the blocking pieces must leave in that same friendly turn (NOTE: if the blocking pieces had already moved in that turn, they still must move out, but they must move back into reserve in the same locale; they cannot proceed into the op-posite locale).

Pieces are prohibited from moving across impassable approaches.

Pieces cannot move across an approach that is blocked by enemy pieces. An enemy-blocked approach can only be crossed by assault (see section 11).

Pieces may attempt to move into an enemy occupied locale, provided that the approach they are crossing is not enemy-blocked (none of the enemy pieces in the locale are blocking the ap-proach the moving pieces are crossing). Such a move is called a maneuver attack – see section 9 for details.

The legal movement options for a piece de-pend on which of the following cases apply:

• The piece starts the turn in reserve (and is not moving by road).

• The piece starts the turn blocking an ap-proach.

• The piece is moving by road.• The piece is cavalry.• The piece is entering the map as a rein-

forcement.

The rest of the rules in this section will ex-amine each of these cases in turn.

A piece in reserve at the start of the turn (and which is not moving by road) has the fol-lowing movement choices:

• It may move to reserve in an adjacent locale.

• It may move to block an approach of the locale it occupies.

The following example demonstrates these choices:

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Pieces are face-up for illustration only.

In the example shown above, the infantry piece may move to block the approach to the top

sections 6-8 • setting up the game, sequence of play, movement


locale but may not move into it because the ap-proach is enemy-blocked. It may move into re-serve in the locale to right – but may not block the approach to it because the locale is not en-emy-occupied. It may not block or cross the ap-proach to the left because it is impassable.

A piece blocking an approach at the start of a turn has the following movement choices:

• It may move into reserve in the locale it occupies.

• It may move into the locale opposite the approach it occupies.

The following example demonstrates these choices:

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In the example shown above, the top infantry piece may move into reserve to the left, but may not move into the opposite locale to the right because the approach is enemy-blocked. The bottom infantry piece can either move into re-serve at the top-left, or it can move into reserve in the opposite locale to the bottom-right (note: the bottom infantry piece cannot stay where it is, but may move to the top-left without that move counting against the command limit).

A piece moving by road can move along the road for up to three locales in a single turn, fol-lowing the road from locale to locale. In order to use road movement, however, it must start its turn in reserve in a locale containing a road. Additionally, approaches and locales through which a piece moves by road must meet both of the following requirements:

• They must be connected by an unbroken road.

• They must not be occupied by enemy pieces.

At the end of a road move, a piece is in reserve.

Roads have a limited capacity. Only three pieces may cross any one approach by any one road in a single turn. Of these, only one can be on its first move of the turn, only one can be on its second move of the turn, and only one can be on its third move of the turn. The moves must be made in order (i.e. a piece using its first move cannot cross after a piece using its second or third, and a piece using its second move can-not cross after a piece using its third) and must

be in the same direction. In order to accommo-date this limit, a piece is permitted to wait on one of its three moves while another piece uses the road.

There are approaches crossed by more than one road. In such cases, each road has its own capacity for that approach, independent of the other.

The example below illustrates road move-ment:

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In the example shown above, the cavalry piece is the first to move and moves the full three locales. The infantry piece moves second, but can only move two locales because it has to give up its first move waiting for the cavalry. The artillery piece moves third, but can only move one locale because it has to give up its first move waiting for the cavalry and its second move waiting for the infantry. The pieces cannot move by road through any of the approaches on the right or bottom of the example because the road does not cross them.

A cavalry piece that ends its move in reserve may continue its move and block an approach in that locale, provided that the locale opposite that approach is enemy-occupied. This is called continuation.

A cavalry piece that starts its move block-ing an approach may not move back into reserve in the same locale and then use continuation to block a different approach in that same locale.

A cavalry piece may use continuation after a road move, but only to an approach that is con-nected by road to the road on which the piece moved. There is no command limit cost if the entire move (including continuation) is by pri-mary road. Note: a cavalry piece that starts its turn in reserve on a primary road is permitted to “move” in place and then use continuation along the primary road (at no command limit cost) to block an approach in that same locale.

Continuation is at the end of a move – after a piece has used continuation, it may not move any further that turn.

Cavalry may split off from a group to per-form continuation, but it becomes a new group and incurs an additional command limit cost when it does so.

A cavalry piece using continuation must be turned up to demonstrate that the piece is cav-alry. It can be turned face-down afterwards.

The example below shows the continuation ability of cavalry:

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In the example shown above, the gray ar-row indicates the move that any type of piece (infantry, cavalry, or artillery) could make. The two black arrows show the continuation choices available to cavalry. Note that the cavalry could not block the approach on the left, because the locale opposite that approach is not enemy-oc-cupied.

A piece entering the map as a reinforce-ment does so using road movement (exception: see the paragraph below). The first piece to enter from a given entry point in a turn is on its first move and can move three locales, the second is on its second move and can move two locales, and the third pieces is on its third move and can move one locale. A piece is not permitted to enter play if the entry locale is at its capacity limit or enemy-occupied; it must wait until the condition no longer applies. If there are more pieces than can enter in one turn, the remainder can enter in subsequent turns.

In the historical battle, the Austrians threw a pontoon bridge across the Bormida River. To reflect this, in addition to being able to bring pieces on by road, they can bring one additional piece in per turn using non-road movement. As with normal reinforcements, this piece may not be brought in if the entry locale is at its capacity limit or enemy-occupied. A piece crossing the pontoon bridge counts as a separate group for the command limit.

sections 8 • movement


Order of entry for reinforcements is up to the player controlling the pieces.

Reinforcement entry is optional. Because a player is able to bring reinforcements into play in a given turn does not mean that he has to: he can wait until a later turn if he chooses.

9. Maneuver Attacks

A maneuver attack is a move by friendly pieces into an enemy-occupied locale. Maneuver attacks occur during movement and are part of movement.

A maneuver attack can only be made across an approach that is not blocked by enemy piec-es.

A group making a maneuver attack into cav-alry-obstructing terrain must include at least one infantry piece. When making an attack into such terrain, a player must turn one of the attacking pieces face-up to show that it is infantry. The piece may be turned face-down again at the end of the move.

A cavalry piece may make maneuver attacks while moving by road. Infantry and artillery pieces may not. A cavalry piece doing so must be turned face up to show that it is cavalry. It can be turned face-down again at the end of the attack. A cavalry piece moving along a primary road may make a maneuver attack without los-ing its exemption from the command limit.

A maneuver attack does not automatically succeed. There are two possible outcomes:

(1) Blocked. The enemy player may choose to block the attack if the following conditions apply:

• The attacking pieces started their turn in reserve. If the attacking pieces started their turn blocking the approach, the attack cannot be blocked.

• The enemy player has one or more piec-es in reserve in the locale.

If the enemy player chooses to block the attack, then he must move one or more of his pieces from reserve in the locale to block the approach. The attacking player then chooses to either leave his pieces in place (this would still count against the command limit), advance to block the opposite approach (a cavalry piece moving by road does not lose its command limit exemp-tion by doing this), or split the group and have some advance and some remain in place (split-ting the group requires an additional command). This ends the attacking pieces’ movement for the turn.

(2) Successful. If the enemy player was not able or willing to block the move, the enemy pieces must retreat (see section 12). The friend-ly pieces then move into reserve in the locale. If the friendly pieces are cavalry pieces moving by road, they may continue their move according to

the rules of road movement – including making additional maneuver attacks as they proceed.

Below are two examples of maneuver at-tacks. The first example shows a blocked result and the second shows a successful result:

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Pieces face-up are for illustration only.

In the (blocked) example shown above, the light gray arrow shows the infantry piece con-ducting a maneuver attack into the locale occu-pied by the enemy cavalry piece. The dark gray arrow shows the enemy cavalry piece blocking the approach. The black arrows show the choic-es the infantry piece has after being blocked: to stay in reserve where it is or block the approach opposite the one blocked by the enemy.

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Pieces face-up are for illustration only.

In the (successful) example shown above, the black arrow shows the infantry piece conduct-ing a maneuver attack into the locale occupied by the enemy cavalry piece. The gray arrow shows the enemy cavalry piece retreating from the locale. Because the enemy piece retreated, the maneuver attack succeeds and the infantry piece moves into the locale.

10. Artillery Bombardment

A bombardment is when an artillery piece fires at enemy pieces (each side has only one artillery piece, so the problem of attacks by multiple artillery pieces doesn’t arise). The ar-tillery piece is the attacking piece and the enemy pieces targeted by the bombardment are the de-fending pieces.

Only an artillery piece may conduct a bom-bardment. Infantry and cavalry pieces may not conduct bombardments.

A bombardment takes two turns to conduct. A bombardment is declared (and the piece turned face-up) at the end of a player’s turn, but is not resolved until the following turn. Additionally, an artillery piece may not declare a bombard-

ment in the same turn in which it fired (the effect is that artillery can only fire every other turn).

An artillery piece may move in the same turn in which it declares a bombardment, but it may not move in the same turn in which the bom-bardment is resolved. Exception: if an artillery piece is forced to move after a bombardment be-cause it is blocking an approach with no enemy pieces in the opposite locale, it must move back into reserve in the same locale.

An artillery piece may not assault in the same turn in which a bombardment by it is de-clared or resolved.

In his turn, a player is not obligated to de-clare a bombardment; bombardment is always optional.

A piece may only conduct one bombardment in a turn. Once it has fired, it may not fire again that turn.

In order for an artillery piece to conduct a bombardment, it must be blocking an approach: it may not be in reserve. The targeted enemy pieces must be in the locale opposite that ap-proach.

A bombardment declaration may be can-celled at the time the bombardment is to be re-solved, either because there is no longer a target or at the discretion of the bombarding player. If a bombardment is cancelled, no losses are in-flicted, the artillery is turned face-down again, and the artillery is free to move that turn.

After a bombardment is resolved, any target-ed pieces turned face-up during the attack are turned face-down again. The bombarding artil-lery remains face-up until the end of the turn.

A bombardment is resolved as follows:

(1) The target is selected. If the approach op-posite the attacking artillery is blocked by en-emy pieces, those pieces are the target. If the approach is not blocked, but there are enemy pieces in reserve in that locale, the reserve piec-es are the target. If there are no pieces blocking the opposite approach and there are no pieces in reserve in the locale, the attacking player may pick the pieces in any of the other approaches in that locale as the target.

(2) The strength of the bombardment is cal-culated. This is the strength of the firing artillery piece. If the target is in the approach opposite the attacking artillery, and there is an artil-lery attack penalty for that approach, then the strength of the attack is reduced by the size of that penalty. If the target is in reserve or in some approach other than the opposite approach, no terrain penalty is assessed.

(3) The losses are applied. From among the target pieces, the defending player chooses which piece will take the losses from the attack. For each point of strength in the attack, one point of strength is lost. If the strength of the attack is equal to or greater than the strength of

sections 9,10 • maneuver attacks, artillery bombardment


the targeted piece, it is eliminated. The piece the defending player chooses must be turned face-up so that the losses are visible.

Shown below is a step-by-step example of a bombardment. For steps involving calculations, the numeric values for the example are in pa-rentheses:

The bombardment is declared: the artil-lery piece is moved in to block the approach, the bombardment is declared, and the artillery piece is turned face-up. Note: the target piece is drawn a little behind the approach it occupies so that the terrain penalty symbols for that ap-proach can be seen.

Waiting until the next turn: the artillery is left face-up throughout the enemy player’s turn. The attack will be resolved during the attacking player’s next turn.

The target is selected. There is an enemy piece in the approach opposite the artillery piece, so the enemy pieces in that approach are selected as the target.

strength = 1

The strength of the bombardment is calcu-lated. The strength of the attacking artillery piece (1) is reduced by the terrain penalty of the approach occupied by the defending pieces (0), yielding the attack strength (1). (1 - 0 = 1).

Losses are applied. The bombardment had a strength of 1, so the defender must lose 1

strength point. The defending player turns the defending piece face-up – a two-strength infan-try piece – and inflicts a one strength point loss by replacing it with one of the replacement one-strength infantry pieces.

End of the bombardment. The artillery piece and the target infantry are returned to the nor-mal face-down position – the defending piece right away, the attacking piece at the end of the turn. The artillery will be eligible to declare a new bombardment at the end of its next turn.

11. Assaults

An assault is when one or more pieces at-tempt to advance together across an approach that is blocked by enemy pieces. The pieces at-tempting the advance are the attacking pieces and the enemy pieces blocking the approach are the defending pieces.

In his turn, a player may make as few or as many assaults as he likes, up to his command limit.

Assaults are resolved one at a time; the re-sults of one assault are applied before the next can be started.

Only one assault can be made across a given approach per turn, but multiple pieces can par-ticipate in it. An assault costs one against the command limit, regardless of the number of pieces participating.

A group of pieces attacking in an assault must include at least one piece that can be used as a leading piece (see step 1 of the assault resolu-tion sequence below for an explanation). Other pieces can participate in the attack even if they are not leading it.

In order for pieces to participate in an assault together, they must be blocking an approach together – they may not be blocking different approaches and they may not be in reserve. The target for an assault is always the locale oppo-site the approach the attacking pieces occupy.

A piece may not conduct an assault and move in the same turn. If a piece conducts an assault, it may not move until the next turn.

If a locale is taken by an assault, no other friendly pieces may move into that locale that turn other than those that participated in that assault.

If the attacking pieces are defeated in an assault, no friendly pieces may move across the approach that was assaulted that turn, even if the defending pieces blocking the approach were eliminated by the assault. Friendly pieces

may assault or move into the locale across other approaches.

If a locale is taken by an assault, any cavalry among the assaulting pieces may use continu-ation and block any approach in that locale if the locale opposite it is enemy-occupied. If this causes the group to split, each split creates a new group and counts as a move against the command limit.

When a player declares that an assault is to be made from an approach, not all the pieces blocking that approach have to participate – the player may choose to leave some behind. In making an assault, the attacking player must indicate which pieces are attacking and which are not (suggestion: one way to indicate which pieces are attacking is to push them forward a little so that there is a gap between the pieces that are attacking and those staying behind).

An assault can result in losses for the at-tacking or defending pieces, as a result of artil-lery defense, the assault resolution, or cavalry pursuit. As will be described later, some pieces from each side will have been named as lead-ing the attack or defense. Any losses must first be applied to these leading pieces, and then, if all the leading pieces are eliminated and more losses are required, to the non-leading pieces. Between multiple leading pieces, the enemy player (the one inflicting the loss) gets to decide how to distribute the losses. Between multiple non-leading pieces, the friendly player (the one suffering the loss) gets to decide how to distrib-ute them. If the required loss is greater than the strength of the pieces participating in the attack, the extra losses are ignored – losses in an assault are never applied to pieces not participating in the attack, even if they are in the same locale as the attacking or defending pieces.

After an assault is over, any pieces turned face-up during the attack are turned face-down again.

An assault is resolved as follows:

(1) Attacking leading pieces are declared. From the pieces making the assault, the at-tacking player must declare which are to be the leading pieces in the attack and turn them face-up. Only infantry or cavalry pieces with a strength of two or more may be declared as the leading pieces. Additionally, each leading piece’s strength must be greater than the terrain penalty for the attacked approach. The leading pieces in the attack must be either all-infantry or all-cavalry – they cannot be a mix of the two. The minimum number of leading pieces is one. The maximum number is one if the attacked approach is narrow, two if wide. Note: cavalry cannot lead an assault into cavalry-obstructed terrain.

(2) Artillery defense is declared. If the de-fending pieces include any artillery pieces that did not declare or resolve a bombardment attack in their previous turn, the defending player may

section 10,11 • artillery bombardment, assaults


opt to have those pieces conduct an artillery defense. To do so, the defending player selects those pieces and turns them face-up.

(3) Artillery defense is resolved. If an artil-lery defense was declared, it is resolved. For each strength point of artillery, one strength point of loss is suffered by the attacking pieces.

(4) Defending leading pieces are declared. From the pieces defending the approach, the defending player must declare which are to be the leading pieces of the defense and turn them face-up. The leading pieces in the defense must be either all-infantry or all-cavalry – they cannot be a mix of the two and they cannot be artillery. The minimum number of leading pieces is zero. The maximum number is one if the attacked approach is narrow, two if wide. Note: cavalry cannot lead the defense of a cavalry-obstructing approach.

(5) The strength of the assault is calculated. This is done by adding together the strengths of all of the attacker’s leading pieces in the assault (after applying any artillery defense losses) and then subtracting the terrain penalty for the ap-proach the attacking pieces are trying to take (the infantry penalty is applied if the leading at-tacking pieces were infantry; the cavalry penal-ty is applied if the leading attacking pieces were cavalry). The adjusted strength can be a nega-tive number as a result of losses to an artillery defense. If all the leading attacking pieces were eliminated by artillery defense, then the strength of the attack is zero minus the terrain penalty for the approach.

(6) The result of the assault is calculated. The strengths of the pieces leading the defense are subtracted from the strength of the assault. If there are no leading pieces for the defense, then nothing is subtracted from the strength of the as-sault. The difference is the assault result. If the result is greater than zero, the attacking pieces win; if the result is less than or equal to zero, the defending pieces win.

(7) Losses from the assault are applied. The winning side loses one strength point. The los-ing side loses one strength point and one more for each point the result was above or below zero. Note: it is possible for all of the defend-ing pieces to be eliminated and for the defense to still win.

(8) Cavalry pursuit is declared. If the win-ning player has cavalry pieces participating in the assault, but which were not leading it, and the losing player did not have cavalry as his leading pieces, the winning player may choose to declare a cavalry pursuit. If he does so, he must declare which cavalry pieces will lead the pursuit and turn them face-up. If the pursuit is declared, the minimum number of pieces is one (or else there can be no pursuit). The maximum number is one if the attacked approach is nar-row, two if wide. Note: a cavalry pursuit may not be declared if the approach occupied by the

defenders or the approach occupied by the at-tackers is cavalry-obstructing. Cavalry pursuit does not count against the command limit.

(9) Cavalry pursuit strength is calculated. If a cavalry pursuit was declared, the strength is calculated. This is done by adding the strengths of the pursuing cavalry pieces together, and sub-tracting from that the terrain penalty of the ap-proach occupied by the attacker (if the defender is pursuing) or the defender (if the attacker is pursuing). The terrain penalty is for the ap-proach occupied by the pieces being pursued.

(10) Cavalry pursuit losses are applied. If a cavalry pursuit was declared, losses are applied. The pursuing cavalry takes a loss of one strength point (this comes from the cavalry pieces carry-ing out the pursuit, not the pieces leading the assault). The enemy pieces take a loss equal to the cavalry pursuit strength.

(11) The winning pieces own the locale. If the assault was won by the defender, then the surviving attacking pieces withdraw into reserve in the locale from which they were attacking and the defending pieces remain in place. If the assault was won by the attacker, then all of the defending player’s pieces in the locale (not just those defending the approach) must retreat (sec-tion 12) and the attacking pieces advance into reserve in the locale they assaulted, after which any attacking cavalry may use continuation.

Shown below is a step-by-step example of an assault. For steps involving calculations, the numeric values for the example are in parenthe-ses:

The assault is declared: the two pieces at the top are declared as conducting an assault against the three enemy pieces below. Note: the pieces are drawn a little behind the approaches they occupy so that the terrain penalties for the approaches can be seen.

Attacking leading pieces are declared. The attacking player selects a three-strength infan-try piece to lead the attack and turns that piece face-up.

Artillery defense is declared: the defending player announces that he will conduct an artil-lery defense and turns the artillery piece face-up.

Artillery defense is resolved. The strength of the defending artillery piece (1) is the number of strength points the attacking pieces must lose. The loss is taken from the piece leading the at-tack. The attacking three-strength infantry piece is replaced with a two-strength infantry piece.

Defending leading pieces are declared. The defending player selects a two-strength infantry pieces to lead the defense and turns that piece face-up.

section 11 • assaults


strength = 1

The strength of the assault is calculated. The strengths of the leading attacking pieces are added together (2) and the penalty for the ap-proach blocked by the defense (1) is subtracted yielding the assault strength (1). (2 - 1 = 1).

result = -1

The result of the assault is calculated. From the assault strength (1), the strength of the lead-ing pieces of the defense (2) is subtracted, yield-ing the result (-1). (1 - 2 = -1). Because the re-sult is less than or equal to zero, the defending pieces defeat the attacking pieces.

Losses from the assault are applied. The de-fending pieces won, so they lose 1. The attacking pieces lost, so they lose 1 plus 1 for each point the result was above or below zero (1) for a total loss of 2 (1 + 1 = 2). The defending pieces’ loss is applied by replacing the two-strength lead-ing infantry piece with a one-strength infantry piece. The attacking pieces’ loss is applied by eliminating their two-strength leading infantry piece.

Cavalry pursuit is declared. The defending side won, and included cavalry that was not leading the defense, so the defending player can and does declare a cavalry pursuit. The pur-suit is by a two-strength cavalry piece, which is turned face-up.

result = 1

Cavalry pursuit result is calculated. The strength of the cavalry (2) is reduced by the ter-rain penalty in the approach occupied by the at-tacker (1) yielding the pursuit result (1). (2 - 1 = 1).

Cavalry pursuit losses are applied. The pur-suit had a strength of 1, so the attacking pieces lose 1 strength point, which is applied by reveal-ing and then replacing a two-strength infantry piece with a one-strength infantry piece. The pursuing cavalry loses 1 as well (pursuing cav-alry always loses 1) which is applied by replac-ing a two-strength pursuing cavalry piece with a one-strength cavalry piece.

The winning side owns the locale. The de-fending pieces win and hold their position blocking the approach. The surviving attacking pieces withdraw into reserve in the locale from which they attacked. The assault is over and all pieces involved in the assault are turned face-down again.

12. Retreats

A retreat occurs when pieces are forced out of the locale they occupy as a result of an enemy maneuver attack or assault. A retreat can result in losses to the retreating pieces.

When a player’s pieces in a locale must retreat, all of that player’s pieces in the locale must retreat: none can remain behind.

The withdrawal of attacking pieces after an assault is not technically considered a retreat and is not covered by the rules in this section. The attacking pieces are not being forced to re-treat to a different locale but rather are remain-ing in the locale from which they started.

Retreating pieces are turned face-up at the start of the retreat, and turned face-down again at the end.

An artillery piece that is forced to retreat is eliminated.

For infantry pieces forced to retreat from re-serve, a one strength point loss is assessed. If there is more than one infantry piece in the re-serve, the retreating player chooses which piece will suffer the loss.

Cavalry pieces forced to retreat from reserve do not suffer any loss.

For each approach from which infantry or cavalry pieces are forced to retreat, a one strength point loss is assessed. (Exception: if the retreating pieces were participants in the assault that caused the retreat, they do not take additional losses above and beyond what they suffered in the assault.) If there is more than one piece blocking the approach, the retreating player chooses which piece will suffer the loss; it can be either infantry or cavalry.

The retreating player gets to choose the ad-jacent locale into which his pieces retreat, with the following restrictions:

sections 11,12 • assaults, retreats


• The retreat may not be into the locale from which the enemy pieces came that caused the retreat.

• The retreat may not be across an impass-able approach.

• The retreat may not be into an enemy-occupied locale.

• The retreat may not be into a locale that would cause the total number of the player’s pieces there to exceed its capac-ity.

If there are multiple retreating pieces and multiple locales into which they may retreat, the pieces may retreat into different locales.

Retreating pieces are put in reserve in the lo-cale into which they retreat.

If there are no locales into which the retreat-ing pieces are permitted to retreat, the retreating pieces are eliminated.

Retreats do not count against the command limit.

An example of a retreat is shown below:

4

The infantry piece at top was defeated in an assault by the enemy pieces opposite it and forced to retreat. Because of the defeat, the oth-er infantry and cavalry piece in the locale had to retreat as well. The infantry piece at the left was blocking an approach and therefore had to suffer a loss of one in the retreat, eliminating it. The piece in reserve was cavalry and there-fore retreated without loss. The retreating pieces cannot retreat to the top because that is where the enemy is coming from, and cannot retreat to the left because the locale to the left is en-emy-occupied, and cannot retreat to the bottom because the approach is impassable, so the only available retreat direction is taken: to the right. The retreating pieces are turned face-up at the start of the retreat and face-down at the end.

13. Demoralization

Demoralization is a state of reduced effec-tiveness for an army. It is the result of excessive losses.

Printed on the game board is a morale track on which markers are placed at the start of the game. Every time an army loses a strength point, its marker is moved down (towards zero) by

one. If the marker ever reaches zero, the army becomes demoralized.

If one army is demoralized in a round and the other army is not demoralized in the same round, the non-demoralized army gets an in-crease of five morale points at the start of the next round.

If an army becomes demoralized, all of its pieces have their effectiveness in combat re-duced. They can no longer conduct assaults and they are under a one-strength point penalty (per piece) in calculating their assault defense strength. Artillery bombardment strength, ar-tillery defense strength, and cavalry pursuit strength are not affected.

If an army becomes demoralized during an assault in which it is the attacker, that assault is completed before the ban on demoralized armies conducting assaults is applied. If the de-moralization occurred during defensive artillery fire, the demoralized attacking pieces are under a one-strength point penalty (per piece) in cal-culating their assault strength in that assault.

14. Winning the Game

If at the end of the game, one player’s army is demoralized and the other player’s army is not, then the player whose army is not demor-alized wins. NOTE: the rules give the players the ability to simulate the pursuit of a demoral-ized army (which is how the battle ended his-torically), but from a purely competitive point of view, there is seldom any point in continuing play should one side become demoralized while the other does not.

If neither or both armies are demoralized at the end of the game, then territorial control is used as a tie-breaker. To that end, there are eight locales at the east end of the map marked with stars that serve as territorial objectives. The stars are in three different colors (red, blue, and green). The Austrian player wins if at the end of the game he has pieces occupying at least two of the eight locales from at least two of the three colors. The French player wins if at the end of the game the Austrian player has not achieved his territorial objectives: i.e. his pieces do not occupy any of the territorial objective locales, or all the locales they occupy are of the same color (all red, all blue, or all green). Again, ter-ritorial control determines victory only if both or neither army is demoralized.

•Contact information:

web: http://www.simmonsgames.comsupport: [email protected]: [email protected]

sections 12-14 • retreats, demoralization, winning the game

The genesis of Bonaparte at Marengo is in battle maps drawn in the nineteenth century. The most distinctive aspect of their appearance is the way the armies were rendered, as strikingly geo-metrical long straight lines, one army in red the other in blue. This appearance is what I came to call “The Look”.

Conventional wargames, with square pieces of cardboard on hexagonal grids, never capture The Look – they have plenty of geometry but it is not the geometry of linear warfare but the ge-ometry of hexagons, dominated by the direction of the grain of the hex grid.

Ironically, early wargames, the nineteenth century German Kriegspiel, physically were quite close to The Look: they used rectangular wooden blocks on a gridless map. The Look is not something that wargames never had, but something they had and lost. If I was to suc-ceed, it would be by at least a partial return to these roots.

Of course, it can be asked why a fuss is being made about The Look anyway – isn’t what mat-ters how much fun the game is to play, or how accurate it is historically?

I think, however, that these things are bound together. How much fun a game is, how ac-curate it is, and how it looks are all grounded in the game as time machine. The best games transport the player from the time and place in which he lives into the time and place the game represents, and people respond so strongly to vi-sual cues that if you give them the right ones the job is half done, and if you give them the wrong ones you may never succeed no matter what else you do right.

So, the quest for The Look led to the idea of using the rectangular blocks of the Kriegspiel. However, the gridless representation of the battlefield, which the Kriegspiel shared with modern miniatures, carried with it grave prob-lems – in such systems, typically there are huge differences between almost identical distances like 15/16 of an inch and 17/16 of an inch, re-sulting in a fussiness that is very dislocating to the sense of period – no Napoleonic commander ever worried about whether the enemy was 99 yards away or 101 yards away.

But if the map wasn’t to be gridless and wasn’t to be a hex grid, what would it be? The only alternative systems I knew of were point-to-point systems and area systems (actually the two are different graphical representations of functionally the same thing). Area systems have been used for many years, but while they have been used with great success in large-scale games, the few games using them for small-scale battles were not as successful and tended to have even less of a linear 19th century period feel than hex-based games.

Searching for an alternative I came upon the idea of a point-to-point variant: instead of the pieces being positioned on the points, they

would be positioned on the connections around the points. When I began to work with this idea graphically, it quickly became apparent that the area representation worked much better than the point representation, and with that realization, the game’s physical design was locked in: The map would consist of polygons with rectangular block pieces that would deploy on the faces. At that point, all that was needed were some game mechanics to go with the physical design.

Years ago I had done some work in Napoleonic game design, mostly with variants of Frank Davis’s brilliant Wellington’s Victory game system. What Davis had done really well was capture the differences between the arms (infantry vs. cavalry vs. artillery) from which the game drew its period flavor.

I did not, however, want to rehash what Davis had done. This was partly because I had no idea how to integrate elements of his system into the physical design I was committed to, and partly because his system was fantastically complicated and I wanted a simple game.

Simplicity was a goal because I felt that if you wanted to design a complex game, a com-puter game was the right medium, not a board game. In a computer game, the programmer could put the complexity under the hood where the player would never have to deal with it; all of the benefits for the player and none of the costs.

What a board game could offer that a com-puter game could not was in part aesthetic (The Look being much more easily accomplished on 30 by 20 inch, 300 dots-per-inch paper than on a 16 by 12 inch, 90 pixels-per-inch display) and in part social: Computer games are best played alone, while board games are best played with friends.

From long experience, I knew that complex-ity and length were huge barriers to social gam-ing. I was looking for a game that would fit in with having a friend over for an evening, and nobody wants to spend the whole evening read-ing rules and setting up the game.

The first consequence of the quest for sim-plicity was that the number of pieces would have to be kept small. It is very hard to have a game that can be played in a reasonable time if it has a large number of pieces, even if the mechanics are simple, so the game system was scaled to keep that number small.

A related idea was to keep all the math in the game simple – single digit numbers only and no long division. For this reason, I selected a dif-ferential combat resolution system, and the unit strengths were expressed simply – one, two or three. Another mathematical simplification was in movement – the ground scale and time scale were set so that pieces would move only one area per turn. Terrain effects on movement are expressed not by “movement points” but by the

sizes of the areas – the more difficult the terrain, the smaller the areas.

Another advantage that fell out of the use of areas was that they were large enough that the effects of terrain on combat could be drawn directly onto the map, instead of having to be represented indirectly through a terrain effects table. Similarly, the differential system and sim-plified math made it possible to do away with combat results tables as well. Tables are an an-noyance; it is often difficult to find space for them in the design of the game board without making the board bigger and players find them an annoyance when on separate sheets. Both for the physical design of the game as well as ease of play, I was quite happy to be able to do with-out them.

The design of the rules for bombardments and assaults were done not long after the map design was completed. They reflect two things: the ability of the three-dimensional playing piec-es to easily represent limited intelligence (with two-sided pieces, having pieces “face-down” is a maddening exercise in memorization), and my desire for the strong distinctions between the arms that had characterized Wellington’s Victory. The multi-step system incorporates both, with the fortuitous effect that the inclusion of intelligence provided the uncertainty that in most wargames must be provided by dice. Thus, by happy chance (so to speak) dumb luck was almost completely designed out of the game.

Movement, on the other hand, proved a much more difficult problem. Napoleonic infan-try and artillery didn’t fight on the move, and retreating infantry and artillery were extremely vulnerable to being run down by enemy cavalry. Additionally, co-ordinating a moving fight over a large area was far beyond the capabilities of the period’s courier-based command system. To portray these problems, I tried many rules varia-tions: in some, the armies wheeled around like modern tank armies, and in others pursuit was so difficult that the French army could win simply by walking backwards slowly. The final version is built on the rules for maneuver attacks and command limits, which work to force retreating infantry and artillery to the primary roads, while leaving cavalry some ability to conduct more fluid battles of maneuver.

In looking at the design as a whole, the thing I find most interesting is how the original pursuit of The Look resulted in a game that rejected the great majority of the conventions of wargame design, without that result having ever been intended. Throughout the design, the choice of new physical and graphical components changed the matrix of what was possible and impossible, easy and difficult, resulting in a game that is cer-tainly different from other wargames, and which I hope will be as enjoyable and interesting to play as it has been to design.

Design Notes

bonaparte at marengo - simmons games · represent the french army are blue. the pieces that...

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