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When you draw a chit, You may move your blocks, keeping the same facing (following orders). If you want to change facing (issue new orders), the HQ must flip to spent. When you are done moving the first block, its new facing indicates the new orders, and any block you move after that must end with the same facing.

You may refuse the flanks at the ends of your line.

When you attack, your block must be following orders (facing the right way) when it contacts the defending block, then you may have to adjust it to conform to the defender’s facing. You must always conform to defenders facing, and this facing change is free.

Your blocks in Road Column follow roads. Entering or leaving a road counts as changing the command’s facing, and requires issuing new orders.

You may rotate artillery to fire without changing orders.

Overlapping
A block in end to end contact with a block in combat gives that block advantage if it is not in contact with an enemy block.

Two such blocks grant an additional advantage.
In the event a block has two, or more, favorable advantages than the defender, the defender uses a disadvantaged die and the attacker uses the advantaged die.

Here is a link to my video explaining the rules:

The latest, and probably last, version of Pub Battles is now available. The name has been changed to Musket Battles, the 4.0 version of the rules is mostly the same, and now you can specify whether you want Divisional blocks (2″ wide) or Brigade (1″ wide) blocks. For all the latest news and info, check out my Facebook page “Musket Battles Fans.”

For the posts to long for Facebook, or possibly evolving, I will still use this blog format, with links from the Facebook page.

Here are the changes and updates to the rules that I have found so far:

Dangerous dice.

Upon review, I’ve noticed that the new dice are deadlier than the old method. Even if firing with disadvantage you have a pretty good chance of doing damage (1/3 miss, 1/3 hit, one third two hits). On the other hand, the only way to get 3 hits is to have advantage (1/6).

This should make combat much quicker. More combats with brigades, but fewer rounds of combat.

A unit with a flank attack (Charlie, take your brigade and sneak around the woods there, and hit’em right when we attack) can’t miss, does 2 hits 50% of the time, and has a 1/6 chance of dealing 3 hits.

In 4.0, “Ineffective” returns. A Command that has taken 50% losses can no longer rally.

This was in 2.x, but not 3.x. It was dropped because it rarely got remembered. It’s still a good rule.

Victory conditions don’t really change, but they are explained more fully. This is the same with night turns.

Finally, the Orders rules are included as optional, and are explained more clearly and succinctly.

4.0 has “bloated” from 8 to 10 pages. Roughly one page is the optional orders rules, and the rest is mostly taken up to explain rules more clearly, plus cool period art bits!

As stated in the rules, individual Baggage Trains now come on two blocks that must remain adjacent to each other. Think of them as flexing in the middle.

I had missed this, and was moving them around independently. This isn’t the case in Brandywine (they only use one block), but in Antietam every command with a Baggage Train, has two.

Austerlitz, that amazing Napoleonic victory, is a fraught endeavor to simulate in a game because the whole battle is predicated on a deception, without which the battle would never have occurred. Napoleon needed to convince the Coalition forces that he was weaker than he was so they would leave their secure position on the Pratzen and attack, wherein he could descend with his actual force at hand and defeat them.

As the Coalition forces player, you know the truth of the matter, and you are not going to be fooled this time. The trick as a game designer is how to simulate this deception. As a soloist, this is an even trickier problem. The simplest solution is to play as if the coalition thought they were facing a much smaller force, until the jig is up, and then you have them scramble to react to the full strength force. This is actually entirely satisfactory, and fun. But it leaves out the feel of the historical battle, and Pub Battles is all about the feel of the battle. How did it feel to be the Coalition command staff, and not know what you were facing?

The Published version of Austerlitz works well for 2 players and teams, what I am suggesting here is for solo play specifically, but it works for 2 player games as well.

I came up with a solution for myself playing solo, but in the process I came up with a solution for competitive play as well. Here’s how:

Neither side knows Napoleon’s real strength until it’s too late. In order to win, Napoleon must play as if he has his full strength, and the Coalition must play as if he does not! This is done by not determining if Napoleon’s full strength is present until the optional troops are within LOS of coalition forces. In that moment a die is rolled, and on a 3 or less his full strength is present, otherwise only Lannes and Soult are there.

As per the Published scenario rules, if Napoleon has his full strength, the Coalition wins a draw. Conversely, if the French only have Soult and Lannes’ Corps present, the French win a draw. In either event, one side must win, or they lose, there is no final draw result. From the very beginning, both sides are in it to win it.

The Fog of Austerlitz — One of the reasons that this works as well as it does is that a thick fog covered the battlefield all morning reducing visibility to one third of a foot move. This allows the French forces to hid their true strength much more easily. In fact, it is an interesting problem for the French. Do they reveal their strength early so they know what kind of battle they are fighting, or hold off until the last moment and get maximum advantage from the reveal, whatever may be?

With the Orders Rules — I’m playing with the Beta orders rules. The essential thing you need to know for this battle is that to change orders requires a successful command roll. That means you roll equal to or less than your command rating. For the French it is 4, and for the Coalition it is 2. A 4 command rating means that you’ll succeed two thirds of the time, and a 2 command rating means you’ll fail two thirds of the time.

This means that it is harder for the Coalition to change their orders, and much easier for the French. This means the French can issue orders that might need to be changed with little concern, whilst the Coalition army is going to have problems deviating from the initial plan.

You can imagine how these two armies feel very different to command at Austerlitz!

The first time I played Double blind Pub Battles with a ref, I instantly felt how cool playing Kriegspiel can be. Just that uncertainty, moderated by an umpire, made me feel that THIIS was what no other wargame ever delivered. All the game’s mechanics are invisible to the players. There I was, sitting looking at the map with next to no knowledge as to what my troops were encountering, or where the enemy was.

Like Kriegspiel, the players should never come into contact with any game mechanic. Those are all the province of the ref. All the player does is get sit-reps from the judge (this is what you know, from your command tent), from which they issue orders. All the army commander sees on his map is his Corps HQs, and some limited intel on enemy positions and activities. He can send reinforcements to the Corps, either as a whole Corps, or a single bock (writes orders telling one HQ to send X blocks to another HQ). You would see the refs using Command ratings all the time, not for ATO attempts, but just to see if the orders are understood, or if the HQ does the right or wrong thing. Any time he is trying to decide whether an HQ could/would react to something, he could just roll a die and let fate decide. Maybe there is an exposed flank that requires a block to turn and maneuver a little to reach, do they do that? It isn’t strictly within their orders, would the commander see the opportunity? Roll a die. I think it would be great fun. The players just have paper maps to draw on. The actual map is in front of the ref, who is essentially playing the game solo with written orders. Not trying to “win” the game, just enjoying watching the battle unfold.

One caveat, at least initially, is to keep it simple. Two opposing players and a ref. Their actual locations could be in the same Pub, or the other side of the world. The ref could be playing it out, in a pub, or even better, at his FLGS with a dedicated cadre of interested kibitzers. I think this would be a fascinating game to watch. Being Pub Battles, it would move fast.

My personal opinion is that outside of a military training school where you have an almost unlimited number of participants, trying to incorporate individual Corps commanders is too ambitious. They do each need actual maps and units. You also want to have runners delivering orders. Plus, how do you keep players in a quiet sector engaged while other players in an active area of the battlefield are having a blast? The Jackson commander at Antietam is facing a full Union attack on the extreme Confederate left, while Longstreet guards the lower bridge, as per his orders. 

The ref would be rolling to ATO, trying to carry out the orders given. It would be a very interesting way to play “solo.” Essentially, three people playing solo, together!

Imagine Antietam, for starters. Lee would set up first on the main map, and mark his own map. Then McClellan would do the same. Neither would see the main map until after the battle. You could take pictures at the end of each turn, to show to them after the battle. That would be really fun for them to see. During the game you could have them sit at opposite sides of a table with a screen between them. That way you could walk over and hand them each the Sit rep for their commander, give them however long to write their orders, and then go back to play out the turn on the map and write new sit reps.