Barossa replayed with Lasalle

One of the games I ran at one of my local clubs with Lasalle was a refight of the battle of Barossa. Photos can be seen here.

As with other games, I was struck by how decisive it was. By the time it was over, most of the British infantry was entirely gone. Not just in retreat or hard-pressed, but completely gone from the table. It's very characteristic of Sam Mustafa games--troops that are defeated just disappear. And unlike some of his other games (e.g., Might and Reason), they disappear quite quickly.

One of the things that I've decided I don't like is that with a limited range of factors to differentiate troops, results tend toward the average, which means that instead of better troops and generalship determining victory, luck tends to determine victory.

In the historical battle of Barossa, the British took the initiative, held it, and pressed the French to destruction despite being outnumbered almost 2:1. Graham threw two conglomerate British light battalions forward while he brought his main force up; the lights, being superior to the French skirmishers, kept the French on their back foot until the Guards under Wilkes rushed up Barossa Hill and defeated the division of Ruffin deployed there, then pushed them so hard that they had no opportunity to regroup and essentially chased them off the field. In the meantime, Wheatley's brigade held the division of Leval to a standstill on the left until it was forced to retire from the field or be enveloped by the victorious British right wing.

In our battle, the British took the opposite tack, sending the lights in to screen the advance but taking the stronger force (Wheatley's) against Ruffin and holding Leval with the weaker force. The French superiority in numbers totally outweighed the British superiority in firepower and discipline. If the British had used Dilkes' Guards, it would have gone even worse with them, as the French advantage in numbers would have been even greater. In effect, it's highly improbable that the British will be anything but badly defeated when playing this battle with Lasalle, a result that was possible but unlikely on the historical day.

One problem I can see, having played several games of Lasalle now, is that fire has exactly the same effect on troops no matter what their quality is. On the face of it, that seems as if it makes sense: bullets don't care about troop quality, and a dead hero is just as dead as a dead coward. But combat "damage" in a game like Lasalle is mostly about the effect of fire on morale. Both sides lost about 20-25% killed and wounded in the battle; when an entire unit in a game like Lasalle is wiped out, that means not that all its men are casualties but that the unit has become ineffective, more through fear and exhaustion and disorder than through losses. So fire should be less effective on a strong, cohesive unit than on a weak, disordered one. This is not the case in Lasalle. Some troops are slightly more effective at delivering fire than others (but again, it's mostly down to luck), but the effect of their fire is exactly the same on the rawest conscript as on the most seasoned veteran.

The one way it differs is the size of the unit taking fire. An average unit can take three hits from fire and will dissolve, permanently, on the fourth. A large unit can take five hits and dissolves on the sixth. Thus, while troop quality has little or no influence on the effect of fire, the size of units has considerable effect.

Also, because morale and cohesion play a great part in combat, you would think these would play a strong role in determining the outcome of combat in the game. Not so much; there are effectively only two discipline classes, and discipline plays no direct role in fire combat or melee. There are three esprit (morale) classes, plus additional modifiers for guard troops, shock cavalry, or lancers. But almost all troops fall into the middle esprit class, and the difference between one class and the other in combat is relatively little.

A major feature of close combat lies in the way combat is resolved. Combat may be decisive for the defender, but the attacker is almost never decisively defeated. But any defender can attempt to fall back out of combat, then re-initiate combat in his turn, and the odds are in favour of a defender being able to do this. Two opponents can thus keep attacking and falling back, attacking and falling back until one of them is unlucky enough to fail a fall-back test.

All in all, Lasalle has a very generic feel: standardised sizes for units; combat results that tend towards all or nothing and that are primarily dependent on luck; no particular reflection of the tactical, doctrinal, or command differences that made the development of warfare during the Napoleonic period interesting. The mechanisms are interesting and well thought-out; the game flows smoothly and is easy to learn. I can see that it has nuances that will reward growing familiarity with the rules mechanisms. But I don't see much that rewards the player for knowledge of the Napoleonic Wars, and I see lots of ways in which the game will often not reflect the history of the period without severe bending and twisting. So this goes into the "wargame recycling bin," with many other Napoleonic rules.