BONEY REDUX

NAPOLEON ON THE DANUBE: The Battle of Deutsch-Wagram, by MARK HINKLE

from New England Simulations

One 22"x33" unmounted map; 400 back printed counters; one 24 page rules book; 2 two morale/reorganization charts; ziplocked. NES, 217 Depot Rd, Hollis NH 03049 . $24

Review by Paul Dangel

There's a novel just published (1992), called "The Death of Napoleon", by Simon Leys. In it, the author lets his fancy take flight to suppose that Napoleon actually managed to escape from Helena by substituting a look-alike in his place and then set sail for Europe, where some rather picaresque adventures begin because his "sub" has actually passed away … and no one will believe that he's really Napoleon! (Paging Dr. Loutsch!!) Gamers need not read this book, because they know full well that His Bonapartedness never died; he keeps getting resurrected biannually in paper format. And each time The Emperor arises, he seems to have acquired what his "advisors" insist is a new set of clothes.

"A few years ago, I was playing the Wagram folio game from the old Napoleon at War Quad and found myself wanting a little more then it had to offer, like some history. It is not to say that the game was bad, it's very good as a matter of fact, but as a simulation, any resemblance to the battle of Wagram was purely coincidental [sic]. I thought to myself, this could be better."

The opening paragraph from Mark Hinkle's designer notes leaves no doubt as to his motivation for producing this game. Certainly, all of us who have played wargames over the years have felt the itch to "tinker" with existing designs. For Mark Hinkle this itch clearly developed into dermatitis, because be didn't stop with just tinkering. He has, ostensibly, redesigned the old WAGRAM Quad game to the point where, to paraphrase his own words, any resemblance to the original is purely coincidental.

Unlike its quad-size predecessor, Napoleon on the Danube (NapNube) uses a full-sized map and 400 counters. The map scale is 480 yards per hex, and while the graphics are not dazzlingly brilliant, they are clear and adequate. The most striking feature of a map that includes pretty much every standard terrain feature known to Napoleonic man, is the extensive road network covering the battlefield south of the Russbach stream. The Austrian Highway Department has clearly run amok, but more on that later. Thankfully, all the extra space on the map that isn't used for fighting is filled with as many charts and tables that can be crammed into it.

Besides the map, you'll have to make room on your table for the two Morale/Reorganization Displays. Actually called the "Moral Displays" in the Game Components list, it just goes to show you how much the Family Values issue has affected our hobby.

The counters are a bit tame for my taste in Napoleonics, but they are certainly functional. Combat units represent brigades and batteries, although a comparison to the historical orders of battle does reveal a touch of harmless fudging. Combat units are rated for strength (450 - 650 men or 1 battery per point), morale and movement. Leader units come in Officer (corps commanders) and Army Commander varieties. Strangely enough, while the Army Commander counters show that leader's command capacity and movement allowance, the Officer counters show only the name and command designation (an exalted few show a command bonus) - nothing about his command abilities or movement allowance! These ratings are given in the rules, but there is absolutely no reason for leaving them off the counters. The informational markers - Strength Point, Out of Command/Out of Control, and Disrupted - serve to give you the first good clue as to where this design is headed.

There are only 11 pages of actual rules - nicely organized, illustrated and exampled - with the rest of the booklet reserved for optional rules, the three scenarios, and the CRT and Terrain Effects Chart. While the booklet is very professional in appearance, it's obvious that someone needed to be more adroit with the editing. For instance, the terms "minor roads" and "trails" are used interchangeably throughout, and the artillery bombardment example doesn't agree with the Line of Sight rule. Editing continues to be a problem that plagues even the best-intentioned of companies.

The standard brigade-level Napoleonic series has been (and has been for far too many years) the venerable but Alzheimerish Napoleon at War, as expanded by the equally senile Napoleon's Last Battles/Napoleon at Leipzig group. The popularity of these games has much to do with their accessibility in terms of playability; it has virtually nothing to do with their rather tenuous relation to either history or realism, and even less to the great strides game design has made since their appearance. In his search for more realism, Mr. Hinkle has made many important departures from these systems.

The biggest Black Hole of Design in NAW/NLB has always been the Command system. NapNube uses a command system quite similar to that found in the NLB/Leipzig games: a hierarchyl use of Command Points and Ranges to place units In Command. As you might expect, "In Command" units behave normally, while "Out of Command" units cannot enter enemy zones of control. Fairly standard stuff. NapNube adds a third command state called "Out of Control" - a state which applies to combat units that are outside their Officers' command range but which manages to bring visions of grognards having paté food fights. Terminology check needed here, methinks. This system is not overly complex; the chains of command are straightforward enough so that you don't need to be a cultural anthropologist to understand the superior/subordinate relationships. Some of the added chrome, though, did cause me to scratch my nether regions. For instance, an Army Commander's command range is increased when he's on an elevated terrain hex. Officers, however, do not get this elevated bonus. Lack of telescopes, I suppose.

Design changes in movement capabilities included more flexibility for ZOC's - rigid ZOC's are for Ancients, not Napoleonics - with accompanying Disruption checks for leaving one. There is also Grand Tactical Movement, an addition that allows units to treat minor roads like major roads and, essentially, double their movement allowance, an extension that has a critical effect on the outcome of the game.

In the area of combat, NapNube makes its radical departure from NAW/NLB with significant modifications to the combat results. The old "Ar-Dr-Ae-De-Ex" results are still there, with the addition of some numeric results like "A1/D2". However, the results are now focused on strength point reduction and disruption. For instance, attacking units that retreat are also disrupted, making them vulnerable to counterattack. A "D1" results requires the defender to lose one strength point per attacking unit! But, the change that has the greatest impact is the one allowing a retreating unit to enter an enemy ZOC. Instead of being "vaporized", as in NAW/NLB, units that so retreat are penalized by the loss of 1/2 a strength point for each enemy strength point exerting that ZOC. This eliminates my favorite tactic of running a puny 2-7 cavalry unit around the line to block enemy retreats. Under this new rule, any retreating unit that enters its ZOC would lose only 1 SP instead of being eliminated. This is a good, realistic rule that entails a minimum of fuss.

What is less clear is the use of Morale. While it's fortunate that the morale effects are not overdone for a game at this scale, I'm not quite sure what "morale" represents in NapNube. It can't be the qualitative difference between two units, because that appears to be reflected by the manpower scale, which ranges from 450 to 650 heads per point. Whatever, morale ratings are used to shift the final combat ratio left or right, for morale checks which are triggered when a unit exits an enemy ZOC, and for rallying "disrupted" units.

When your units have been beaten and bruised, NapNube borrows - and then expands - another concept from the NLB/NAL games: Unit Reorganization. In a nutshell, eliminated units that pass an adjusted dieroll can return to play on their reduced sides. In NLB/NAL game Reorganization prevents an army from being totally exterminated by allowing the dead to "live again". (Ed. Isn't that what Poulter is doing with his recent releases?) However, when applied to NapNube, the Reorg rule works in the same fashion. However, it fails to take into account the "new" system's different method of applying combat losses. There are far fewer outright unit eliminations than in the NAW/NLB/NAL systems. Instead, units tend to be whittled away through strength point losses until common sense dictates that they be pulled out of combat. Instead, the Reorg rule actually encourages players to kill off their units that are at less than half strength (keeping one eye on Demoralization numbers) because they can resurrected. Fallacy there, somewhere.

Complementing the basic rules are some highly recommended Optional Rules: Combined Arms, Divisional Integrity, Cavalry Retreat Before Combat, and Operational Withdrawal (recommended by School Boards across the country). Rounding out your dealer's option package are Cavalry Charges (add this when you get bored) and Leader Initiative (which undermines the entire Command system but is fun). All of the above are accompanied by a warning that that they "… will favor the French."

When all is said and done, Mr. Hinkle's quest for reality has made NapNube a somewhat superior simulation than its ancestors… something even Larry Baggett could probably have done. Well, maybe not Larry - but almost anyone else. But as GAME, NapNube comes up short. The fault, though, lies in the balance - not the rules.

Don't get me wrong; I like this game. Nonetheless, the balance is heavily in favor of the French. This is especially true in the second scenario - the July 6th Battle at the Russbach -which I take to be the main scenario because its set up hexes are printed on the counters. Here two-thirds of the Austrians are deployed along the heights behind the Russbach Stream, and the remainder are deployed on the Bisam Hills to the west, separated from the main army by the stream. There is one minor road (or is it trail?) connecting the two parts of the army, and it skirts the north most hexrow. The French are deployed immediately south of the Russbach, opposite the Austrian center. Like a spider in the center of a web, the French army rests on the extensive road network mentioned earlier. The French win by amassing points which are gained by destroying enemy units, exiting cavalry units off a secretly predesignated map edge area and by capturing the towns north of the Russbach. Austrian points come from capturing or holding towns, killing French unit and by keeping corps' in good morale.

The French player has to be blind to not see that the Austrians are badly divided … and that the two Austrian corps' on the Bisam Hills are "Out of Command". So, he immediately does a "Schwarzkopf" by leaving a one or two corps screen along the Russbach and shifting everything else to the left. There is the chance that this move will trigger the arrival of the off-map Austrian V Corps, but the V is weak and only serves as more victory point-cannon fodder for the French. The "Schwarzkopf" also effectively negates the special Austrian Offensive rule which, when declared by that player, gives the Austrian corps' deployed on the Bisam Hill enhanced morale advantages for four turns. The penalty for declaring the "Offensive" is the loss of points for non-demoralized Austrian corps. At best the "Offensive" rules makes the battle a little more interesting in the face of the "Schwarzkopf Francais" , but in the end it makes little difference.

What can the Austrian player do to counter this move? Not much. An attack by the main army across the Russbach will eventually have some success but at a high unit cost. Any breakthrough is easily sealed by a rapid transfer of French reserves along interior lines using that excellent road net. Even the chancey arrival of ArchDunce John (the Poster Boy for Hapsburg Inbreeding) and his Army of Inner Austria offers little hope. Only the transfusion of the main army units across the Russbach directly against the French drive will show any chance for success, but getting the Austrian army there along that one, easily blocked minor road is like pulling an elephant through a keyhole … or getting a liveable royalty rate from The Gamers.

The July 5th scenario, covering the French crossing of the Danube and the battle for position, is better balanced, mainly because the Austrians don't have their backs against a mapedge, more fluid, and, thus, more exciting. Unfortunately, it's not the main event - and The Big One is why you people buy these things. The complete, two-day battle, has a play balance hovering somewhere between the other two scenarios, but to finish that you've got to have a bit of time on your hands.

To the extent that Hinkle has attempted to up-date the old Nappy brigade system and bring it into the "modern" era he has succeeded … but he really has only gotten as far as about 1988. NapNube has some color and it shows some obvious thought. The felicity of these facets, though, is ameliorated by the battle's inherent lack of balance. With a game system meant for play more than insight, the balance factor looms larger - and about as menacingly - than the shadow of ole Boney himself.

CAPSULE COMMENTS:

Physical Quality: Unexceptional , but simple and functional in a way that would put the Shakers (who are quoted in the Design Notes in what has got to be a hobby first) into seraphic rapture.

Playability: Just complex enough to keep the veteran gamer interested. I wouldn't spring it on a beginner, though, and NAW/NLBers will have to de-program a bit. Solitairability is quite high, and playing time is a good 3 hours, although a winner becomes apparent well before the last turn is reached … usually the turn when the Austrian player makes the fatal mistake.

Historicity: Both enhanced and undone by it. Solid, if uninspired, brigade-level Napoleonics with many optional rules to juice up the flavor. Unfortunately, the battle's balance could prove to be its death knell as a game.

Comparisons: The NAW Quad Wagram is playable, but mortally dated. SimCan's Napoleon's Last Triumph (1982, and battalion level) was as unplayable as it was ambitious. The highly detailed, but equally outdated battalion-level monster La Bataille Deutsch-Wagram (Marshal Enterprises, 1981) is another old hero for which worship is more appropriate than play… if you can find a copy.

Overall: A good, play-oriented brigade-level that can be played in a reasonable amount of time. Tinker with the victory conditions and you might even have a good game. A fine effort by a new company.