My 15mm collection is based for Empire. That means lots of 2, 3 and 4 figure wide bases….how will that work with Lasalle?
I have plenty of 3-figure wide based infantry units so it shouldn’t be a problem.
French: six battalions of four stands each. One cavalry regiment of six stands. three bases of artillery
Allies: 1 Russian battalion of four stands, four Austrian battalions of four stands each. Three bases of artillery.
I've also made a "Base Width" measuring device....
I didn't actually PRINT out the QRS...just referenced it on the PC.
French turn: What's the difference between long and short range artillery fire?
French guns put two hits on an Austrian battalion – 3 dice, 4+ to hit, range 11 BW. Two hits converts to
one DISR. I cannot figure out what to do about it – do I test morale?
Moving on….time to advance.
How far do generals move? I notice that units can still move full if out of command range.
Oh look! “Remove smoke markers from your artillery”….I need to dig out some smoke markers….
Yikes! My old smoke markers are horrible!
This is better....
Austrian turn
Artillery fires – 3 dice, 4+ to hit, range 8 BW. One hit converts to zero DISR. Oh well!
Movement – flank battalion forms square
Okay, it looks like you remove smoke markers after moving! I’ll just toss them out until I learn what they’re for.
French turn: artillery fire, no effect. General advance, but I’m just pushing the cavalry up a little because
I want to stay out of musketry range and don’t know if premeasuring is allowed.
Austrian turn: I’m guessing now that “Short range” artillery fire is canister.
Six dice do four hits, which is converted to 1 DISR. Russian battalion forms line.
French turn: Artillery, no effect.
Unlike Terry, I know better than to charge cavalry into fresh infantry
(especially if it’s in square), so I’ll hold off….though it’s tempting. French battalions
are just barely out of charge range (4 BW?). General advance covering about half remaining
distance (I eyeballed it). I did premeasured the general’s command radius to make sure everything is in command.
Austrian turn: Time to shoot! Let’s see how it works….it doesn’t look like spreading the fire out is going
to produce any results. So I have to concentrate as much a possible (I don’t really like this….it’s
“gamey”). The Russian line puts two hits on the center battalion advancing on it = 1DISR. I just can’t
bring myself to fire two Austrian battalions at the same target when both have an enemy unit to their
front….so I’ll split fire. And what do you know! One unit gets two hits for 1DISR. It looks like the square
would only fire with one die. Austrian artillery fire puts another DISR on a French column.
No movement from the Allies – let’s see what the French do.
French turn: okay, shooting first. This is very weird…the columns shoot one die each. I’m starting to
think an attack column might need to be two bases wide (and shoot with two dice). I don’t know…too
late now. However, the three columns advancing on the Russian line do two hits for 1DISR. The artillery
put 1DISR on an Austrian unit and the rest of the fire has no effect.
Wow, I have no idea how to charge. No morale test? I’ll just move them in. It appears the
Austrians/Russians will get a chance to respond in their turn and THEN we fight (like WRG 1685-1845 rules).
Austrian turn: Reaction phase. One reaction is to FIRE. I will do that. The Russian fire is divided and has
no effect because of this. 3DISR now on the French battalion attacking the artillery. Musketry has no
effect anywhere. I know I do not like this….
Combat: Okay, since the Allies already shot, I’m assuming that doesn’t happen again (because they are
all in contact with the enemy), so we’ll just fight. I’m laying out the dice first. Since I haven’t specified
morale I’ll assume it’s all the same. It’s basically eight dice per infantry unit, minus one die per DISR. (I
can see how it’s impossible for the Russians to fight with four dice like Terry did in his ‘playtest’…).
Die rolls! See the photo for the actual rolls. I can’t really figure out how the Russians divide up their
dice, or what “Enemy covers less than or equal to your front”. I’ll ignore it and figure I’m okay since this
isn’t a squirrelly attack.
Results: Now this is breaking the spirit of this playtest…but I remember reading comments about Lasalle
from somebody playing it at Historicon where he said you needed twice as many 5+ results to get a
‘Decisive’ result. That is NOT on the QRS! This seemed to be an issue with Terry – but I’m going to play
it as requiring twice as many 5+ results for a decisive result, otherwise the combat is “Inconclusive”.
Okay…as luck would have it…every single combat was “Decisive”! The artillery did zero hits, so I’m
ruling that 1 is more than twice zero. My non-QRS interpretation will have no actual effect on this playtest.
Hmm…defender breaks if it loses, attacker falls back. I don’t know how far. I’ll eyeball it.
I have taken a photo of the after-combat results. I’m at a total loss of what to do now. Do I put DISR on
any units? Do I pick up routers? Do nearby units take any sort of morale test? How do I check “Army
Morale”? The QRS has an Espirit chart, Recovery Attempt chart and DISC tests. I don’t know what to do with them.
Game called on account of wargamer confusion. This is certainly always the rules designer’s fault!
