From: kzucker@charm.net (Kevin Zucker) SIX DAYS OF GLORY The Battles of Champaubert, Montmirail and Vauxchamps February 9th to 14th, 1814. I am excited about the maps; they help carry the "feel" for this winter campaign. Anybody who has played "Napoleon at Bay" will recognise this period as a time of peak performance for the French Forces. I began work on this design in July of 1991. The original idea was to treat the three battles like Napoleon's Last Battles, at the same scale: 480 meters per hex, one-hour turns and brigade-sized units. This conception gradually changed over the course of development. For those with a copy of Napoleon at Bay, the game map centers on Montmirail (W-3228), and covers from Chateau-Thierry south to Sezanne, and from Meaux east to E-0628. In the Study Folder on pages 7 and 8, you can read about the Six Days Campaign: At Nogent (W-3142), Napoleon was caught in a blizzard of ill-tidings. Northward, Buelow had entered Brussels; Antwerp was cut off. Paris was clutched by a mounting panic, with Joseph one of the worst afflicted. Realizing that he could not afford further retreats, he cooly held to his central position at Nogent and sought to determine the general positions of Bluecher's various corps. During 8 February, he sent most of his cavalry and part of the Guard to join Marmont at Sezanne. Information concerning Bluecher was unexpectedly difficult to obtain, but Yorck was known to be following Macdonald and, early on 9 February, Marmont reported Sacken halted at Montmirail. Napoleon immediately left Nogent, followed by the rest of the Guard. (Esposito & Elting, Atlas) The game begins at night on February 9th. Napoleon has moved the Guard Cavalry, Ney's Young Guard, and Marmont's VI Corps up from Nogent through Sezanne toward Bluecher's army spread out along the highway toward Meaux and Paris. Until July of '95, development continued with the 480-meter scale, when the developer urged a complete change in scope. Though the battles worked fine, we kept running into the problem of off-map forces, particularly Macdonald's corps near Meaux which, though weak, posed enough of a threat to occasionally throw the Allies off balance. We had another project underway at this time, called Rossbach Avenged, on the 1806 campaign, at the scale of one mile per hex. We decided to redesign using the Rossbach Standard Rules, and were immediately pleased with the open feel, no longer cramped by the mapedge. The change entailed six hour turns and division-sized units, so the game really flies along. Six Days of Glory is thus the first game published in the new system. The scale is in between the Grand Tactical level of Last Battles / Leipzig, and the Operational Level, 2-mile hexes/2-day turns of Napoleon at Bay and 1807. In Six Days there are some similarities with both the lower and higher scale games. Yet it plays much quicker than either of its predecessors. Hidden Movement Combat Strengths are printed on the units. Stacking limits allow up to an entire corps in one hex if the leader is present. Players use cavalry scouts ("Vedettes") to screen friendly forces and probe the enemy. This is an important aspect of operations at this level which has never before been adequately handled. The Sequence of Play There are two six-hour daylight turns and one night turn each day: AM is Frost and PM Mud. Each Player Turn begins with a Command and Reorganization Phase in which eliminated combat units return to play at reduced strength, and Officers and Combat Units are placed in Command. The Command range is two hexes (up to 4 hexes on roads and trails). The Movement Phase follows, beginning with the Command Movement Segment (for units in command), then the Individual Movement Segment (Movement by Initiative for corps and individual units out of command). The Combat Phase requires Hidden Force Markers to be removed, optional cavalry retreat before combat, bombardment by artillery, and then all other combat is resolved. Combat This is a game of maneuver punctuated by short, sharp battles. Combat Results include De, Dr, Ex, etc. However, there are more elimination and exchange results, and some Dr2s, because of six-hour turn duration. Road March In order to obtain the full benefit of the road, units must be in road march column which requires no stacking. This entails corps formations getting strung-out on the roads and it takes an extra MP to deploy for battle. It costs an extra MP to cross a bridge unless you are moving in road march. Supply Each Player has a Baggage Train to which he must trace a supply line. The Baggage Train must have a supply line to a Supply Source. (There are no APs.) Other Pontoon Trains, Special limits on Night March, Damaging and Repairing Bridges, Repulse, Demoralization, Chateaux and Fortresses. Scenarios There are three quick battle scenarios you can play in two hours, and the campaign game which takes up to 10 hours to play. Counter Density The French player has 32 Leaders and Combat Units. If he employs all nine vedettes, his total on the map will be 37. The Coalition Player has 38 Leaders and Combat Units, his maximum 46. Markers include Hidden Force, Reorganized, Demoralized, Road March, Damaged Bridge, VP and Casualty Level Markers, Game-Turn, as well as three aide-de-camps per side to carry messages. The Situation Once the French Player moves up from Sezanne to occupy the central position, he will have enemy forces on opposite flanks. Thus, the situation is unlike most wargames, where forces tend to begin at the extreme opposite ends of the map. As a further wrinkle, the Coalition forces come into play according to their historical position somewhere on the main highway, on a turn determined by die roll, and not on the mapedge. I visited Phoenixville on February 7th to play the game using mounted counters and map press sheets. Ed Wimble played the Coalition, and I took the French. Actually, I didn't play that well, but I wrote up some Players Notes which I'll tag on here. In addition to playing the game, Ed and I compared notes on what a marching unit would actually look like and how much space it would really occupy; to answer the question of how many Movement Points it should cost to end Road March. There's a picture of an Old Guard marching column pasing through Montmirail in the original Napoleon at Bay rules folder. The men are marching seven abreast, and about six feet between files. If the column could continue like that indefinitely, 5,950 men could squeeze into one hex on the road. (A hex is just under one mile, 1700 yards.) That's more than the strength of either Old Guard division: Friant had 4,600, and Michel had 3,900 men in their two divisions. There are very few if any units in the game that exceed 6,000 men. What that tells us is that one-half MP is enough to cover the cost of changing formation, but to allow for some confusion, we made it a whole MP. That represents about an hour's marching for the infantry (which have 5 MPs) in a six-hour turn (they had at least an hour's halt every four hours). When I originally designed Napoleon at Bay, the first prototype was set at one-mile hexes, but I couldn't accomplish what I wanted, basically to show corps-level operations, at that scale; so the final result was 2-mile hexes in NAB. This game is quite a bit different; instead of NAB's two-day turns, it has six hours (and twelve hours of night). Note that as the ground scale increases arithmetically, from one to two miles, the time scale is squared and then some (6 x 6 = 36, not 48, hours). But the ground covered by a hex also increases geometrically, which means the area of a hex goes from one square mile (in Six Days of Glory) to four square miles (in NAB). It has taken many years to develop a good system for showing operations at this scale, and I am very proud of the result. I have also taken measures to make sure this is a player-friendly design, and I can tell you - despite the discussion in the dusty old warehouse in Phoenixville - we played through to a result! SIX DAYS OF GLORY - FRENCH PLAYERS NOTES, OPENING MOVES Don't allow Karpow and Krepow to remain near the French Line of Communication. Take an ample cavalry force to deal with them. If you decide to send infantry, make sure you have cavalry along - otherwise the Cossacks can retreat before combat. (It's always good to have at least one vedette in any attack, to fulfill a potential exchange result.) The French Player has a tough row to hoe. You'll have to despatch Olsufief quickly while tying up a minimum of strength doing so. And make sure your units are all in Supply at the end of the first day; otherwise they can't road march. The Cavalry corps and Marmont's corps alone (for example) can take care of Olsufief. But even while despatching Olsufief, the French Player must be looking ahead at the Coalition reinforcements -- remember, they don't all arrive on the mapedge. Sacken's in particular appear well down the road to Montmirail. You will have to decide how much of your army to apportion against Bluecher -- at the minimum, retain enough around Champaubert to have a reserve for counterattacks against Bluecher's thrusts. Leaving a more substantial force in the east is probably not viable, because Sacken and York's forces, should they be allowed to combine, will probably overwhelm your rearguard before you can finish Bluecher, who usually arrives last. If he arrives more quickly, and the northern and western armies are delayed, Bluecher may present a tempting target. At the very first turn, the French Player should consider sending at least Ney's and Grouchy's Corps by the direct road northwest to Montmirail, in order to forestall the conjunction of Sacken and York. Other corps may be sent as well; these should be chosen on the basis of their Officer's Initiative. Even the Guard, which generally should remain under Napoleon's direct command, may begin its march down west while Olsufief is still resisting. Napoleon can catch up with them, if indeed his presence is even necessary at Champaubert. For those who have the game, many thanks and I hope you play it a hundred times! I want to let you in on a couple of changes: SUPPLEMENTAL ERRATA FOR 6 DAYS OF GLORY, 11 APRIL 1997 All of the Errata dated 27 March applies in addition to the following: 2.11 First Player Turn Individual Movement Segment [change] Delete entire italicized "Note" (one sentence). 7.32 Out of Command Effects on Movement [change last sentence] They MAY move into an enemy ZOC. 7.42 Combat Unit Initiative Checks [change last sentence] If the Combat Unit passes this check it may move, but its "out of command" marker is not removed and, therefore, it may not advance after combat. 8.22 Road March Restrictions [clarification] Road March is performed single unit by unit; the restriction prohibiting entry of friendly-occupied hexes was meant to imply that units making a road march may not stack. 11.33 Commander Present Modifier [Remove rule from the game.] 17.11 Coalition Independent Units [Remove rule from the game.] 21.7 Scenario 2 [clarification] French units are listed as exiting the map. These units historically exited at the north map edge to pursue Sacken and York. In the campaign game, however, French units do not exit. Please feel free to send any questions to me directly. Kevin Zucker Designer/Writer/Composer/Teacher Time/Space/Energy/Weight/Plasticity in a Gravity Field kzucker@charm.net