From: Jeffry Tibbetts Subject: Blood & Iron Reply Thanks to the members of CONSIM who discussed Pacific Rim Publishing's Blood & Iron: Bismarck's Wars for Empire. As I had not played the game for 5 years, the input of more recent experiences was very useful. Amendations to the 2nd Edition rules have been added to the Official Errata for this game at the Pacific Rim Publishing web site at www.justplain.com. (I tried for www.pacrimpub.com, but it had been taken by a bar in Seattle.) I have also commented on some of the philosophical questions raised here. ERRATA: ADD: 4.40 Stacking limits are in effect at all times. Units may not voluntarily exceed the stacking limit during movement, retreat (see 7.80) or Advance (7.90). If a corps is shattered (8.11) or a headquarters is disrupted and the component units then exceed the stacking limit, the owning player must immediate eliminate any units in excess of the stacking limit, at his choice. (See 11.53). CHANGE: 7.50 Overrun Attacks. During the movment phase, odds of 12:1 or greater automatically result in the elimination of all units in the defending hex.... (the crt is correct). CHANGE 8.20 Rallying Units. Following the phasing player's movement phase (NOT rally phase), the non-phasing player may attempt to rally his disrupted units. (This corrects the perceived conflict between 3.12 and 8.20 noted by Jim Parmenter as well as the error in 8.20.) ADD: 12.60 Reinforcements. Reinforcements, like replacements, are placed on the map at the beginning of the friendly movement phase of the turn in which they become available. If the stipulated entry hex is occupied by an enemy unit, the reinforcement is delayed until the stipulated hex has been occupied by a friendly unit. ADD 18.56 Alpini. The Alpini Brigade receives all the benefits of Rule 15.10 as if it were Austrian Mountain Infantry. Comments: 'Bloodless CRT' - remember that at 12:1 an attacker will automatically eliminate a defender during movment. An Austrian, French, or Prussian army of 3 corps would have between 36 to 45 combat points and simply squash almost any brigade or division standing alone in its path. Between 8:1 and 11:1, the defender is automatically eliminated in combat, so the troops will have to stop and wipe the blood off their bayonets, but not really get their epaulettes in disarray. This vulnerability of small forces will tend to make everyone want to move around in large groups for self-protection. See also, 7.11 Fortunes of War. 14.0 Leaders. In 1859, Garibaldi is a Leader, without consideration of the size of the unit. Refer to 14.40 Leader Casualties and 14.50 Sacking Leaders for Garibaldi's possible fate. If the brigade is disrupted, Garibaldi will still be able to effect its morale die-roll -- a leader does NOT die if his unit is disrupted... now, destroyed is a different thing than disrupted... but, see however, 14.40 Leader Casualties, because the corps could be just fine and the gallant officer could be shot down dead. Comment: Didn't you try to drive a train across all those cute, little German States? Ah shucks. Answer: What's wrong, Jim? - couldn't find Saxe-Rohmer? Comment: I don't like the seige rules - the stacking rules can prohibit the ability to mask a fortress - especially if one of the corps breaks. Do I remember correctly that there is no time limit at which a fortress can be under seige? Answer: The stacking rules reflect the fact that an attacker may not have sufficient forces to mask a fortress completely (Try covering Paris with just 10,000 troops). Within the time frame of the scenarios ( 2 turns to the week), any fortress could have held out until the end of the game. Going back to the hex scale (35 km per hex) and the stacking and fortress masking rules, you see that there cannot be more than 15 stacking points in a hex (5 corps and an HQ at best) and that the attacker has to have at least 2:1 in order to mask the fortress. Therefore, the biggest fortress garrison that can be masked is one corps plus one division. Masks will tend to be against stacks of 4 to 8 combat strength points. But, do not confuse masking with siege. A siege can possibly use up to all 6 hexes surrounding the target hex. One's best option on a siege is to mass bodies, add in artillery (see 15.24), bind well with a high efficiency leader, and engage in 3 rounds of combat in one turn. To quote Aldus' favorite comic book character: Ka-ZOT! Any garrison will be whacked down darn fast. And, if the garrison elects to withdraw before the second or third round of combat, they will hand over the keys to the fortress on their way out of town. Now, if the French put an army in a fortress, then there's that much less between you and Paris. Example: the French put 2 corps in a fortress like Metz in 1870. That is one-fifth of their entire field strength, say 35 combat points. The Prussians can elect to maneuver in with 3 stacks of 25 points each, plus a good leader and an army HQ and 6 artillery units (remember siege artillery?) Yes, that's only 2:1 odds, but with -4 on the die roll. Prussian morale averages 9; French morale averages 8. The average roll of 2 dice is 7 and the French will crumble in 3 rounds of combat. The first break of a French corps will cost them at least 2 combat points. Same for the Prussians, except the higher morale and attacker's edge on the CRT. If those breaks come on the first round of combat and all the surviving French units passed their morale checks, the second round is 80:35 reduced to 78:33, still 2:1 with a -4 on the die roll. There are at this point, however, 5 French units, minimum, in the hex and the odds of disrupting a significant number of units begin to climb steeply. Every demoralized unit loses both a combat point and a point off its morale rating. By the third round of combat, the French should have, within the ebb and flow of the dice rolls, about 20 combat points left, possibly as much as half disrupted units. Remember each turn is only 3 days. Comment (the attacker's) supply can be traced through a masked fortress. Thus, for a practically indefinite length of time you can hold the enemy units at bay, and continue onward towards Paris IF YOU HAVE THE FORCES TO SPARE. (original emphasis). Answer: That was one of the operational structures in the original campaign: throw masking lines around the frontier forts and move on Paris. Remember that in this game, if you are masked or besieged, it may be hard to get at you, but it's a lot harder to get out (Rule 11.54). There were a number of comments indicating that Blood & Iron lacked fog-of-war. This may be due to individual playing style. Around here, we simply stacked most of the corps, divisions, and brigades on the army holding boxes and ran the army HQ counters on the map. When someone would ask what comprised that army, they would be told that they had to attack it to find out. Now, if there are a lot of units moving around and not stacked with the HQ, well hey, they're going to get noticed aren't they? (And, given the great value of HQs, if you leave them without a big escort, they might just get their ticket punched.... they are not to be used like trucks spotting hidden SU-152s in PanzerBlitz.) Jack Radey has a nice fog-of-war house rule that says everyone can always see the top unit in a stack but the individual units are never shown to the enemy until the moment of combat. Makes for much more iffy and warlike situations. (Now, if you're one of those count-out-the-last-combat-point-so-I-don't-run-any-risks-when-I-roll-the-dice, kind of wargamer, then you and I have vastly different ideas about what constitutes of fun.) (SAY! -let's make that the next thread!) The Optional Disruption To Death Rule: Chris Perleberg is not noted in the Designer's Notes as a playtester, but I do NOT doubt his comments on the original CRT. Given the severe effects of disruption, having a unit dissolve in the space of 1 attack may be unrealistically harsh. Historically, units entered battle in good order, lost cohesion through the process of combat, and subsequently dissolved or reformed. It is totally within the mechanics of Blood & Iron to achieve the outcome of Sadowa or Solferino or Mars-La-Tour within the three round combat structure. Limiting the player's options by accelerating the wasteage rate would seem to tend to narrow the outcome range ahistorically. Remember a turn is only 3 days. None of the units in this game (with the exception of the Army of National Defense, Hesse-Kassel, and Saxe-Rohmer) was going to come apart in any combat that was not very, very intense. That's why the players have the option of making combat, intense combat (2 rounds), or really intense combat (3 rounds). The attacker has to hit, then pummel, then finish the defender and the defender has the right to stand or to try to withdraw. Making that process with fewer steps will short-circuit the wargame's modeling of the actual combat of the period. - Jeffry Tibbetts