How a "Vol de L'Aigle" Kriegsspiel Works

[Cyrano]

I thought to put up a few notes about what the rule system does and does not do for those who have never taken this journey before.

1.  R-E-L-A-X.  It's a game.  It's a game I like more than all others, but a game nonetheless.  Enjoy it.  That's entirely the point.

2.  I love questions.  Please ask them if you have them.  If I don't know the answer, I'm fortunate to have struck up a correspondence with the game's author who has been of great help.

3.  Re: Turns.  Turns will typically be one hour in length.  Time is kept here at the forums.  Please be attentive.   Some turns will be incredibly busy and some will be much like the middle bit of The Lord of the Rings, viz. "we're marching...we're marching, &c."  Don't worry if you don't get a message every turn.  Messages come and, when they do, they tend to come in a flurry.

4.  Once the game starts, communication is only through the jenacampaign e-mail.

5.  Much like in D&D which derived from the Kriegsspiel, I will often ask after your intentions and your order of march.  With respect to the latter, please note that your columns (especially the Russians) are very large indeed.  One of the great things this game teaches is how difficult it was to arrive at the battlefield with the forces you wanted when you wanted.  Do not attempt to parse out your orders into little details or alternatives.  No commander in 1807 did so.  Think in broad strokes and intentions.  Feel free to let me know what your perception of the situation is.  I won't tell and it will help me make your orders better.  Get to granular and I promise I will deliberately confuse everybody under your command.  It may wind up in Austria. Or Australia.

6.  Tire your men at your peril.  They are no automatons.  If I tell you they're running out of gas, listen. This game teaches that most losses are to wastage, not musket balls or cannons.

7.  There will be no patrolling.  Units can see ca. 5 km around them (allowing for piquets) and 10 km around them if they have or are cavalry.  Both distances are, of course, terrain allowing.  I still think this is generous, but strikes a reasonable compromise for which I remain in Dr. Sterrett's debt.

8.  Your units are divisions.  They may be divided into nothing smaller than a brigade (1,000 men).  Experience has taught that these units are very, very fragile.

9.  When you send a message, remember to include the time at which it is sent and to whom you intend to send it.  Think carefully about the safety of your lines of communication.  My estimate is that one in six messages sent in the 1809 KS was intercepted.

10.  Except under very rare circumstances, you cannot compel an enemy to give battle who does not want to.  This is not 1940 and you have no tanks.  Cavalry can pursue and punish the fleeing, buy there will be no big battle unless both sides will it.  I'll go over the details of combats when they happen, but, in brief, the game uses a "Left-Center-Right" system much like Napoleon, once from Avalon Hill and now Columbia Games.

More should it come to mind.

[besilarius]

In one of Conan Doyle's Brigadier Gerard stories, he and Violette frustrated Berthiers plan.  He was given a vital dispatch (to Bernadotte I think) and told to take a specific route.
After prodigies of valour, he returned to Berthier to report success.
The Marshal was furious because it was a false order.  Gerard was supposed to be intercepted by Cossacks on that route.

[Erzhog Karl]

Ah Sir, the vagaries of war !