Smaller units - firing and morale...
Whilst planning a late Peninsular encounter which will involve smallish units - and wanting to stick to GdeB for a variety of reasons, I was concerned to ensure that, for example, units of 11 and of 19 do not end up with the same firepower. I have therefore tried to produce a formula for casualties which uses the exact number of figures firing and which is as good a fit to the GdeB tables as possible whilst keeping the calculation fairly straightforward. The result for infantry was the formula: Casualties = (MDS / 2) plus ( Figures / 7 ) minus 5.5 where MDS is the modified score after rolling 2d6. Artillery fire proved a little more complex as the high modified scores include the 'canister' effect and the formula ends up being non-linear: Casualties =( (MDS plus 4) times (Guns plus 8 ) /48 ) less 2 to which IF the MDS is greater than 12 we add: (MDS - 12) / 4 at effective range or less. Please note that the 'Guns' number is exactly that - not the number of figures on the table... I know that folk won't want to sit with preprogrammed calculators to hand all through a game and have therefore produced the results as charts - which can be found at: http://www.alsbury.co.uk/GdeB/gdeb_infantry_table.pdf and http://www.alsbury.co.uk/GdeB/gdeb_artillery_table.pdf The charts have been produced with casualty figures to one decimal place. It seemed best with smaller units to do this and make the slight modification to firing that the roll should be of 2d6 and one d0. Where casualty number is, for example, 1.3 in the table this would then be 1 casualty anyway - the second only if the d0 score is 0,1 or 2 - that is less than the decimal part. For many folk with large battalions the tables may be somewhat irrelevant but if anyone who is using smaller units has any feedback on the idea and the tables it would be welcome. What I have yet to address is whether any variations to morale rules are needed - partly to speed up play as we could easily end up with most units testing on most moves for just taking the odd casualty... Thoughts in that area welcome.

Hi Griffin63 Nice work there. I'll try the tables at our next game and keep you informed how the work. Ceara

Can I assume that you will half the number of figures for firing at long range, rather than having to work out half of 1.3 or similar ? Also, since you have worked it out per figure, how are you deciding how many figures can fire, by bases or by individual figure ? If individual figure how do you work out the arc of fire ? If by base, then it might possibily give units based on smaller bases (6 or less) an advantage? Hope that doesn't come over as sounding a touch negative, for those of us who grew up on In the Grand Manner the different method of calculating fire effect did take a little getting used to, so I'd be interested to see where this takes us.