General de Brigade

[Griffin63]

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.

[ceara]

Hi Griffin63

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

Ceara

[Rudorff]

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.

[Griffin63]

[quote:="Rudorff"]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 [u][b][i]possibily[/i][/b][/u] 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.[/quote:]

Thanks for your questions...

The .pdf files of the tables are produced for long and effective range - they can be laminated back to back for ease of use in a game.
Simply halving the number of figures or guns doesn't work because of the formulae not being simply linearly dependent on that number.

There will still be occasions where numbers need to be halved because of 'low ammunition' effect - simply agree [u]before[/u] the game whether all odd halves will be rounded up or down - then any 1.3's will be rolled for as 0.6 or 0.7 accordingly.

As regards number firing it is actual figures - and I can see a clarificatory note about counting figures within arc of fire may be needed - especially for games where there isn't an '[i]independent[/i]' umpire. I will endeavour to produce a simple visual for this during next week.

I will also be posting a note about the background to my working this out which relates to a minor oddity in the existing tables regarding artillery effectiveness.