IF YOU THOUGHT "THE GUARDS COUNTERATTACK" ONLY MEANT STALINGRAD, THINK
AGAIN . . .

Review of Hougoumont: The Rock of Waterloo, designed by Ralph Braun and
Shawn McEvoy, published in Command #11 (1991); typically goes for around
$10-$25 unpunched on the auction and second-hand sites.


Two of my favorite gaming interests are Napoleonics and Squad Leader, so
when I heard Hougoumont described as "Squad Leader with muskets" I knew
I had to see it. Tactical (as opposed to grand tactical or operational)
Napoleonic games are rare; in fact the only other game remotely like it
of which I'm aware is SPI's old Grenadier, which I've never played. In
retrospect it seems odd that there hasn't been more done with true
tactical-level Napoloenics--the conventional wisdom, I suppose, is that
the interest of the period lies in either its broad strategic and
operational strokes or else in the delicious minutiae of formations,
combined arms, and battle management, all of which manifest at the
battalion and brigade level. But deep down in the regiments and
companies, where it's mano a mano biting off cartridges and fixing
bayonets, the nuances all pretty much flatten out and there's nothing
much to model. Hougoumont bucks this conventional wisdom, and short of
re-enacting is the closest any of us are ever likely to come to being
Richard Sharpe.


The game, of course, is focused on the French assault on the fortified
chateau that anchored Wellington's right at Waterloo, specifically the
first two hours of the fighting. As the day wore on, what began as a
mere diversionary attack ("a demonstration") by the Emperor's brother
Jerome ended up consuming two entire French divisions which could have
been used elsewhere. The British Guardsmen (including the famous
Coldstreamers) who occupied the chateau, accompanied by a contingent of
deadly Hanoverian riflemen and brittle Nassaurians, successfully staved
off repeated waves of French infantry. At one point the French broke
into the interior courtyard and the gates were only closed again by the
strength of the defenders' backs--Wellington would later opine that
forcing the north gate shut was the single most important moment at
Waterloo. So here we have a dramatic tactical situation with very high
operational stakes and an unparalleled historical backdrop--all superb
stuff for a game, and the only surprise is that no one's ever tried to
do it before. 


Scale is 25 yards per hex, 25 men per stacking point, 10 minutes per
turn (games are 12 turns long). Each counter basically represents a
company of 50-100 men with a half-strength step on the back. A handful
of leaders on each side also get their own counters, as does--in a truly
mighty piece of chrome--the French hero Legros (he who smashed open the
north gate with an axe). There is no cavalry. Artillery support is
handled semi-abstractly--the British howitzers which played such an
important role in the battle secretly target hexes before French
movement and fire combat, and their shells arrive (either on or off
target, either air or ground burst) at the end of the French turn.
Properly targeted, the results can be decisive. Units of both sides are
also subject to off-board artillery fire as they make their way up or
down the exposed flanks of the chateau (this effectively confines most
of the fighting to the grounds themselves).


So how does Hougoumont actually play? I solitaired it twice. The most
innovative aspect of the game, other than its subject and scale, is
undoubtedly its reaction system, which produces a turn sequence best
described as I _start_ to go, then you get to go (or shoot), then I
_finish_ going. Fire combat is part of movement for both the phasing and
the reacting player; units get 16 movement points, of which 8 are
expended through fire combat--meaning units get to fire twice per turn
if they elect to stand still. Under the right circumstances a single
unit may get to fire up to four times a game turn (twice in each player
turn). The inherent fluidity of the reaction system produces some
interesting tactical possibilities which it takes a while to get a feel
for; if one unit advances within range of another, for example, the
reacting unit can fire and then fall back before the advancing unit gets
to continue moving and (perhaps) return the fire (the designers create
the annoying phrase "boom and zoom" to describe this technique). Is this
design-for-effect? Sure, but it feels right to me. In one of my games
the French managed to clamber over the walls of the flower garden in
several places at once; the British Guards moved in repel with close
assault, taking fierce fire from the French as they did so, with
Hanoverian rifleman all the while picking off French units from the
other side of the yard. This is just the kind of "storyline" that I play
tactical games for.


The movement/fire and reaction system is the heart of the game. There
are additional rules to cover the opening, closing, and barring of
gates, leader effects, melee (which hinges on morale), fires, and
British ammo depletion. Victory is dependent on control of different
areas of the chateau and its grounds, as well as the number of troops
each side commits to the fighting (if you achieve your objectives but
have siphoned off too many men from the surrounding formations you may
at best achieve a tactical victory). The British are largely
invulnerable to fire combat behind Hougoumont's fortified walls, so the
French must win by forcing a breach in one or more gates with
overwhelming force, preferably simultaneously. The two games I played
both resulted in "major" British victories (one level below the
historical result, "monstrous fine"), with the French managing to
control only the orchard at game's end. While the reaction system is
designed to foster just the kind of player interaction I presumably
missed out on by playing solitaire, truth be told I'm a little skeptical
as to how the system would work between actual face to face
opponents--at the least it would seem to require healthy measures of
patience and sportsmanship to preclude endless wrangling over whether
one player was given enough time to react to another's move or not.


Given the wildly innaccurate musketry of the era, the single biggest
factor in determining the effectiveness of fire combat is the density of
troops (stacking points) in the target hex. An interesting contrast
between the opposing forces emerges here: the British troops are man for
man "better" than the French--hence comparable units have lower stacking
densities and are harder to hit. It's relatively easy to pick a step off
of the full strength French companies (100-odd men crammed into a 25
yard space), but at full strength these units are themselves deadly due
to the sheer amount of lead they can project. Fire combat, incidentally,
is easy to resolve--there are only a couple of modifiers, trivial to
remember--but all of the firing and reacting has the potential to
generate a fair amount of "wristage."


If you think the small scale means a system top-heavy with lines and
columns and squares, think again; all units are essentially in skirmish
mode. This is appropriate, as the grounds of Hougoumont did not lend
themselves to full formations, but I don't quite buy the designers'
argument that formation and facing are "built right into the game." It
would have been nice to see some sort of formation effects modeled if,
say, the advancing French formed into line to sweep the open areas.
Likewise, the designers state that units that are outflanked will pay
the price for it, but as things stand there's really no disadvantage to
a unit receiving fire from behind or from its sides.


Oddly, melee causes no casualties--the loser simply retreats, forced to
make a beeline for his own side of the board. This produces some
particularly odd effects as the fighting for the interior portions of
the chateau intensifies. Units end up making bizarre hops back and forth
over the garden walls or in and out of buildings. (So much for defending
to the last man.) Nor is there any provision for units remaining "locked
in melee" over multiple turns. With close-quarters fighting such a key
part of the battle it's disappointing not to see melee handled as
carefully as fire and movement--some house rules are definitely in order
here. While I'm nitpicking, the rules for artillery targeting could also
benefit from some refinement. As things stand, the British can drop
shells just about anywhere on the board and shift their fire around
effortlessly to counter French advances; if the British gunners had
Predator drones at Waterloo I must have missed it ;-)


The map depicts the rectilinear lines of the chateau buildings and
grounds without succumbing to the need to "pixelate" them by following
the 60-degree angles of hex edges. Unlike in Squad Leader, however,
where a building literally occupies the space depicted on the map, here
the effect is finally only cosmetic; the straight lines must be
"translated" to standard hex sides for movement and LOS.


The physical components are acceptable but nothing special. The maps and
counters actually look better set up together than either does alone.
Both map and counters are missing information that would have done a lot
to add color and atmosphere. On the map, the individual buildings of the
chateau are not identified (which one's the famous chapel?) Given that
these few buildings are the _raison d' etre_ for the entire game, it's
really too bad they're only depicted as generic brown blocks. Likewise,
instead of historical designations, the counters have artificial
formation numbers assigned, which the player, if interested, must check
against an OOB table in the rules. Why do designers persist in this
practice? Players _always_ complain about not having historical
designations on counters. Finally, the south hedge of the chateau
grounds seems to have been left off of the map in what I assume was a
printing error. 


Conclusions? I heartily recommend Hougoumont for all tactical
aficionados and all Napoleonic gamers so long as the latter have any
interest in what goes on below the Corps level. (If, on the other hand,
you're someone for whom Napoleonics means establishing a supply line
across the Vistula then forget it.) The game has its quirks and lapses,
but it's still well worth the modest investment (of both money and
time). Bunker Hill, by William Marsh in Command #32, was built on the
same system, but there have been no true Napoleonic successors.
Apparently there was once a proposal to do La Haye Sainte, adding
cavalry to the mix, but that never came to fruition. Too bad, though
surely tactical Napoleonics need not be confined to fortified farms in
southern Belgium--any designers out there listening? And until something
else like Hougoumont _does_ come along I'm sorely tempted to try out the
system on some of my Squad Leader boards--who can say a stray LMG or two
won't end up in the countermix?


Matthew G. Kirschenbaum
mgk -at- umd -dot- edu