Agreed. I think the hinge point was when the French Cavarly split. Unable to support each other they were very vulnerable.

Agreed

The blocks? Yes. They are handy to use to explain the battle plan

lol. I thought Unformed units couldnt declare charges and suffered a negative modifier when firing but you are correct, as per 9.2 on page 53. Good pick up. 👍

No worries mate. Keep up the great work, really is inspirational. 👍🏻👍🏻🇬🇧🇬🇧

@@nickjennings8757 thanks

The fact that ‘trained troops’ don’t obey orders like robots is what makes GDA far more realistic than rules that don’t have such a mechanism. Friction is a constant on a battlefield. I have seen this happen routinely in my 33 yrs of service. Why would they be hesitant? For a multitude of reasons. Maybe a Bde commander has seen or heard something happening to a flank or rear he finds unsettling? Maybe the Bde commander thinks he knows better than the Div Commander? A good example is Sickles Corps at Gettysburg. Why the hell did he decide to just wander his Corps forward when he was given specific orders to remain where he was? That said, in the first turn of a GdA 2 game an attacking side can always overturn a single hesitant Bde of his choosing and you can always surrender the initiative to make a hesitant Bde obey orders

@@CheckYourLeaderTVyes, I know about “frictions”. But were they as often as we see them in the GdA reports? In turn 3 (I guess) your 3 French brigades became hesitant. None of them had previously engaged the enemy. None of them had suffered any bad losses. What happened to them? These are not “frictions” this is a catastrophe for any C-in-C if 80% of his army refuse to obey orders. How often such situations happened in real history? But in the games they occur very often. And this is not realistic. IMO.

@@levsharus5899 it’s completely realistic in my opinion. Hesitant isn’t a brigade not obeying orders necessarily. It’s friction. Battles don’t go in ‘turns’, but we break them down into turns so we can game it. It could be they are simply not moving as quickly as the brigades either side. Maybe the ground is heavy and thus slowing them. Maybe there’s a ditch that’s not obvious to them? Maybe the regulating battalion has encountered one of a multitude of problems. As the senior drill instructor at ADFA I have had to manoeuvre 900 officer cadets around a parade ground and it’s not easy. Imagine doing that with twice as many soldiers, with an artillery battery to manage and the enemy interfering with my plans simply by being present,.. after all I need to keep a watchful eye on them. ‘Hesitancy’ is simply a mechanism to frustrate and mess with your plans. And the reality is friction is constantly present. I say this from a position of a veteran of 33 years service both on operations and in a training environment. Now, if someone doesn’t like that because they think the reality is too harsh they can simply ignore the rule or alter it so only on a 1 dies a Bde become hesitant (or modify it some other way). But I think it’s a pretty accurate reflection of the reality of trying to manoeuvre soldiers on a Napoleonic battlefield . From the rules: “Hesitant does not mean the Brigade has suddenly stopped without a reason, the reasons were numerous and ever present. Hesitant represents a Brigade making slow progress due to unforeseen difficulties which may or may not involve the enemy. For instance, at the Battle of Toulouse the Black Watch regiment was halted within musket range of French infantry as the grenadier company was deployed incorrectly, the Brigade advance was halted in order to reorganise the regiment. While at the Battle of Hohenlinden, an Austrian Brigade halted as firing could be heard over on its right flank. Officers were sent to discover if the enemy were attacking but this turned out to be friendly fire. These are just two examples of “hesitant” Brigades caused by command errors and the fog of war. Both perfectly illustrate Clausewitz’s friction at work”. Personally I’d like to see more friction in the form of maybe bridges advancing WITHOUT orders 😃

@@CheckYourLeaderTV Well said Scott. Its interesting that wargamers think that everything goes like clockwork on Turn 1 because there is no enemy action yet. Like you, having done a few operations in green and many, many in blue, "friction" is just as likely to happen at the start as it is anywhere through the operation. Often it has nothing to do with the enemy!

@@ruckandmaul5018 yes, all may happen in the world, but I mean that the fresher a military unit is the less chances it will be hesitant to follow orders. And you should know it as a military man (I guess you are). Besides you are looking at the issue from your own experience and I guess you did not command brigades in a battle. The frictions you mean are on a lower level of command and often can be ignored on a brigade/divisional level as least important. Tell me historical cases from Napoleonic era when every 20 minutes brigades refused to obey orders (that is what happened in the game - at least 1 brigade became hesitant each turn). Not once or twice in a battle but many times different brigades every 20-30 minutes. I am looking forward to your historical examples. P.S. Please, do not tell me about frictions in a platoon or a section of your battalion during your service. This is not the level of command we are discussing now.

It is what it is,…

If table size is an issue you can play GDA2 quite comfortably on a 6x4 table using 28mm if you keep your games small or reduce the size of your units. Or play in 15mm or smaller, such as 6mm.

O'r play i'n 15mm and use centimetres. These distances are around 2/3rds of the inches distance which increases your table size!

Regimental’s are always a blast. Enjoy!

I use counters / blocks from the ‘Command and Colors:,Napoleonics’ boardgame. The map is a copy straight out of the scenario book. I grid the map by simply dividing it into 3 x 3 foot wide and 2 foot deep ‘sectors’ to match my 9 x 6 foot table (obviously scaled down). I might put a video together to explain the method I use

@@CheckYourLeaderTV Excellent

I start on Bautzen tomorrow.

I’ve been playing Napoleonics for about 40 years now. GDA2 is the best set at divisional level I’ve played. Even at Corps level it shines. Blücher is the only other rule set I use and that’s a’Corps’ or ‘Army’ level game.

Please make sure you watch the ‘Wash up’ video to ensure you see the corrections I made re: rule mistakes. 😃👍

6 foot X 9 foot

So 12ft by 6 x12ft will be OK for 15mm?

Cheers Scott

@@eddiepennington345 6 X 4 would suffice.

As they should be. They were historically attritional grinding matches if both commanders valued their possession

I have yet to even try out GdA1...I have plenty of 10mm Austrians, Russians and French, I"m just a slow painter is all. But, I've been plugging away at them so I can play it :D

Yes,.. initially the French had both batteries on the lower terrain but on turn 3 they positioned the Horse artillery on the high ground. Personally I thought it would have been better to put a foot battery on the high ground and use the more mobile horse artillery to move up and support the garrisons. The French artillery ended up ultimately where I suspected it might go, with one battery on the high ground. And yes, it’s imperative to have a second line for your troops to rally on

@@DE-rd1zl GDA2 is better FWIW

@@DE-rd1zl You will definitely like GdA2 better. It’s much more streamlined, and has more emphasis on command & control. Not nearly as many modifiers to consider when resolving charges and combat. They are still there; but, don’t require the extensive mathematics to resolve.

I can’t recall,.. either Battlefield Accessories or LASERCAST

Hey, whatever floats your boat 😀👍

I think Andrew is right here. To be fair - all of the aspects you rated highly in GdA v2 are pretty much straight copies of concepts out of Empire / Empire family of rules. The artillery rules the GdA, use of reserves, ammo rules etc .. straight copy of Revolution & Empire The skirmishing rules - very similar to Republique v5 (also a great set of rules for large battles) Throw in Legacy of Glory and Valmy to Waterloo, and you can see where GdA comes from. GdA effectively streamlines and simplifies a lot of simulation style rules from the last 30 odd years, and presents them in a fantastic and well polished book. This is of course a good thing, and it’s great to see the hobby moving back in this direction. But yeah - don’t turn your nose up at Empire, because if you love GdA, then the reality is that you are already enjoying Empire, modernised and streamlined more or less. Nothing beats a decent simulation game :)

@@steveoc64 there’s very little that’s in any Wargame rules that’s revolutionary or ground breaking. GDA2 however is the ‘complete package’ imho.

Most are Perry miniatures

Rules are GENERAL D’ARMEE 2

Thanks.

True, and it’s a fortunate French commander that had so much Intel on the composition and quality of the Russian forces. Unfortunately scenarios usually give an abundance of Intel. That said, Intel was gathered by cavalry and Cossacks and the Russians in 1813 had an abundance of both. Furthermore given the perilous state of the French army in 1813 it would not have been a stretch for the allies to conclude the composition of a French brigade. Enemy Army Orbats and doctrine were well understood by their opponents particularly after over a decade of war.

@@CheckYourLeaderTV Thanks for your reply. It would be really interesting to see you go through the same planning process where someone else has devised or presented you with a scenario, giving you very limited information about the opposing forces, so there is much more fog of war.

@@TSSFJake having planned for operation whilst deployed on actual military operations there is always gaps in intel. That’s why there must always be some assumptions made when planning operations. The trick is to make sure they are kept to an absolute minimum and account for the worst possible situation and having a plan so robust the enemy actions are rendered irrelevant.