Divisional Commander Review

As well as playing various GW game systems, I love to play historicals as well. Napoleonics is especially high on my list. I have played Napoleon's Battles since the 80's. For those of you not familiar with the rules, Napoleon's Battles was the brain child of Bob Coggins and Craig Taylor, and is a grand tactical set of rules. What is grand tactical? Grand tactical is primarily concerned with you as the overall commander of a battlefield army. This means keeping control of your army's ability to maneuver, reach its objectives, and retain your fighting force's ability to exist on the field as a fighting force. The rules are not concerned with such things as flanks, how the battalion/regimental commander has you exactly deployed, or specific morale of your battalions. That is the responsibilty of your lower level commanders. Why do I explain this? It is because Divisional Commander is a games system to compliment your existing army for Napoleon's Battles, but is set with much for detail as standard tactical rules set.
This last year, Capitan Games purchased the ownership and publishing rights of Napoleon's Battles, and have determined to offer 3 levels of rules for your Napoleonic enjoyment. Divisonal Commander answers the tactical needs and we will be looking at their rules.



First Impressions:
Ordering Divisional Commander was rather easy, and the shipping was quite prompt. The rules arrived in excellent condition, although I seem fortunate in that respect. The envelope for the rules was rather beaten and it was torn in several locations, especially the corners. I can only assume the hardboard backer that they placed inside the envelope with the rules absorbed most of the punishment. Capitan Games would do better with a more sturdy envelope, especially when shipping overseas.
The rules themselves are a softbound set with a rather excellent look. The look is that of a journal at first glance with handsome artwork and a professional look. The spine appears to be solid and well glued. The outer skin is firm and should hold up to reasonable usage rather well.On the inside the text is for the most part well sized and easily legible. The exception is the Index, the Orders of Battle and the country datasheets in the back. These definitely need a better eye and lighting to easily read. The Orders of Battle are not a problem as a person would read them in detail, The Index should have been larger as this should be a quick reference during games and be easily legible at a glance. The datasheets would have best been layed out in landscape format with one country per page vs the portrtait layout with two countries per page. Capitan Games has alleviated this problem by offering pdf downloads of the datasheets and quick reference sheets from their website.
The pages are layed out nicely with a watermark used on each page. Although clearly visible, the watermark does not interfere with ease of read and add character to the rules. I've seen comments that the rules do not have enough margin to the spine, but I do find that to be the case. The typesetting is clear and the neat, a very professional and legible format. The graphic explainations are clear and easily understood.
The rules have used and amusing tool for the their rule clarifications and explainations. They have the image of a British Colour Sergant (CS White), which is used repeatedly throughout the rules to highlight important facts in the rules, give explainations, and point out key areas.

The Rules:
First note for the veteran Napoleon's Battles gamers. This is NOT a rules set mirroring the NB rules, providing added detail for a lower level of command. These rules use a completely turn organization and game mechanic than Napoleon's Battles. The plan was simply to let you use your miniatures with these rules without having to rebase.
The basic maneuver units are battalions of infantry, regiments for cavalry, and a battery for artillery. The scale is 10 cm = 150 meters. Each figure represents approximately 20-40 men, and a battery represents 3-4 guns. The designers have provided conversion for the use of other scales, but the rules measurements are designed around 15mm figures being used.
This system uses a wider variety of formations compared to NB, seven for infantry, and five for cavalry.
The game system as a whole is an orders based system, with the orders being general orders (Attack, Support, Defend, etc) that are placed by the corps/divisional commanders. It is easier to make this orders if you are in command radius of your higher command. The brigade commanders place more specific orders which are restricted based upon their orders from above. If, for example, your upper command places a "Defend" order, no orders may be given at the brigade level that would move the unit closer to the enemy units. As expected at this level the manuevers a much more detailed than the Napoleon's Battles set. Much of the ability to execute the orders given then falls on the quality of the commander and this ability varies based on country and the ability of the individual.
Small Arms fire, Artillery and Melee are based upon dice. In order to cause casualties in the shooting phase for small arm fire, each stand will roll a die and must beat a standard value based upon range. The better the troop the larger the die (these are called shooting dice) that is used. Poor quality troops might only use a d6 while the best might use a d12, making the change to do a casualty much higher. Artillery damage is based upon gun size and accuracy. This means you might miss your target, but you could still do damage, including to your own troops if you try to place that fire too close to your ranks. Quite a feature i like. We've all come across those gamers that try to "thread the needle" with their fire. Now this gamble might have consequences.
Melee is fought in a somewhat similar technique as small arms fire, a die is rolled for each stand. These are called Combat Dice and the die used is based upon the quality of the unit. Only those stand in direct contact get to actually roll dice, the others are either reinforcement stands or non-combatant stands. The reinforcement stands can do damage although it is minimal compared to those rolling dice.
Morale is used throughout the game in many situations including when a unit begins taking levels of casualties in their unit. Other checks include when being charged, the charger's ability to close, etc. Once again a die is used to determine this, and having attached leaders can be a great asset to keeping a unit in the fight.

Conclusion:
Divisional Commander is an intriguing set of rules which provides a much greater detail to gaming than the grand tactical rule of Napoleon's Battles. These rules are not for the gamer looking for a quick play set, but if you are a gamer that wants meat and bones Napoleonic detail, and the ability to show the features of this era's warfare such as skirmishers, elite troops, multiple formations from square to echelon to open order, this might be the rules set for you. This doesn't mean that rules does not have its weaknesses.
The following items bothered me as I read through the rules, and will keep a gamer from being able to just pick up the rules and start pushing troops around without some considered planning. The designers have made with the rules with all the necessary data needed, but at the same time made them vague enough to not let me just push around a unit as is. As an example I will take a Russian Line Infantry Battalion. The data gives me options in Experience, Drill Points (these are used to change formation), Morale, Shooting Dice, and Combat Dice. All of these come with a top and bottom range, but no guidance as how best to assign these values. This is left to the gamer to determine if the battalion deserves to roll a d6 or a d8 for shooting and/or combat. Is their morale a 3, 4 or 5? How is this possbility tied into their experience? Although the rules include historical OOB's (Orders of Battle) for 4 historical engagements, they do not include what values the designers feel should be assigned to each unit. This would have gone a long way to give a new player insight into their rules what they would consider the "standard" unit would have for values. Is the aforementioned Russian battalion on the whole a better shooting unit, so a d8 would be used with a lower d6 used for the second line battalions, or is reversed that most would use a d6 and only the combat hardened units would use a d8? This is the great gray area in the game and will cause a lack of standarized play with the rules where personal bias for or against a country can strongly effect the outcome of a scenario.
Capitan Games plans of releasing scenarios for the game, and this will probably go a long way to remove the gray area and provide guidance for scenario design. Until then, this is rules set is not a set that is ready to play "out of the box" without research first.

Happy Gaming!