Bloody Big Battles for Seven Years War?

I have been playing 18th century war-games for a very long time. Over the years, I have tried different rules that gave different levels of fun and realism. During the last three or so years, I ran games using my own rules (someday I might publish them). I was generally very happy with the flow of play and outcomes coming to a reasonable historical event. While happy with the rules, I was still limited to small to medium sized battles in the eighteenth century. My rules were based around battalions as maneuver elements. No matter how easy I tried to make the mechanics, it was just too many units for the larger battles and table depth became a problem for fights on different fronts. At the same time, I have gotten fully into Bloody Big Battles for nineteen century gamings.

Our group likes BBB so much, we pushed them into the Napoleonic Wars. Using the unit abilities, we have been able to get the feel we like. The advantage being that we do not have to remember a list of rules. Using the same system, makes it easier to bring in new or occasional players, as the BBB system is very straight forward. With lots of time on my hands these days, my mind turned to the idea of pushing the rules even farther back into the mid eighteen century. After some thought, I think it will work well. The main concern was could this be done with the basic rules without adding or modifying the existing rules. I tend to feel modifying published rules is a slippery slope, so I try to avoid it, as once the guard rails come off, the changes turn into a flood and in some rare cases, acrimony between players. So, sticking to the rules was the base principle.

I chatted with a couple of my gaming buddies to go over my ideas and they seems to think it was worth a try. So once we get together for regular gaming again, we will try them out. In the meantime, I needed to put these things to paper, so I would not forget… With that in mind, here we go!

The big consideration was moving from an infantry battalion, cavalry regiment and artillery battery system. BBB works best at the Brigade level in my opinion (regimental and brigade works to, in the right types of battles). This is an easy change (just have to accept the change!). This means that the infantry units will be 500 to 1000 per base (we will do double bases for smaller battles). Guns will be twelve gun batteries. As all our artillery is mounted for standard Konigkrieg bases, we will use two bases per unit. This will help make it easy to show when artillery is limbered (show in column) and even make half or damaged batteries obvious on the tabletop (no need to mark these). When we play earlier periods, we go with a 2/3 scale for cavalry. This better shows their offensive potential per frontage and allows for the larger cavalry units to better reflect the period. These scales are the same we used in Napoleonics (we have both based the same). With the organization set, next are the rules we will try.

• The first change is to do away with the “in depth” formation.  Units are either in line (unlimbered) or column (limbered). This will give the battlefield the right look to represent the period.
• Do no use the in “depth modifier” for melee. This further reinforces linear nature of combat in the period.
• Give all normal infantry Devastating Volley trait to improve firepower.  This will not apply to some units that have poor fire discipline, bad powder or units that rely on nuisance fire (this would apply to units of Russian infantry, various militia and light troops).
• A rule that is not in the base rule, but was added on the user group was the “Shock” trait. This rule gives cavalry unit +1 to melee when fighting from the front. This is to give a heavy cavalry in the period that extra punch. This applies as much in SYW as Napoleonics, so seems to fit. It will be applied to most heavy cavalry units in the period.
• The “Aggressive” trait to should be applied to grenadiers, some guard and some other elite troops. This further strengthens the variability of heavy and elite heavy units.
• Apply Skirmish 1 only to those brigades that are made up of primarily light troops (Chassuer and Grenz brigades come to mind). These formations were rare, but they did exist. They should not be used as combat troops or skirmish lines in the open. Further, skirmish combat was more ridged, so the limitations on skirmish bases seems appropriate. The should also be given the “Fragile” trait to show their weakness in close combat and the’re willingness to run away when pushed.
• Passive trait will apply as normal to armies with poor coordination, as normal.
• In order to show the weakness of brigades, as they take losses, we will try variable quality ratings. Really small brigades should move down one quality rating (e.g. from veteran to trained). Really large brigades should move up one quality rating (e.g. raw to trained).
• The other consideration is to limit commanders.  Probably only the overall and wing commanders.  Add the column/division commanders if they are something special or to reflect better battlefield control (e.g. Frederick or Brunswick). This makes it harder to move units when they are spread out. 
• Lastly, I want to try out making all but but elite infantry units Fragile.  This would reflect the more ridged structures and the greater difficulty of re-ording formations in the period.  It would also speed up battles, in that fewer units would stay on the board as long and allow lines to be broken and incentivizes players to have two lines.

That it! As soon as we can get together and game again, we will give them a try. So, if you like BBB, maybe try something outside the 19th century!

• Manteuffel