A Wargamers Needful Things

Old Guard Publishing

A new wargaming company

 This is news straight from the Grognard's mouth:

"Old Guard Publishing specializes in horse and musket period games with a particular emphasis on the epic period of the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars.

Our mission is to have fun while educating. Not only will you have a fun game, but each game contains a wealth of historical information in the scenario book that will rarely be found in any other game. With every game you'll have a complete understanding of the history and the choices faced by each commander as the action unfolds. In the scenario book you'll find primary source material that has never been translated into English until now.

Old Guard Publishing's motto is playability with historical accuracy. This means game mechanics should be as simple as possible to model the particular issue at hand. For example, in the tactical horse and musket system, Glory & Empire, a unit's fire strength is read from the counters/markers and modifiers are added or subtracted from the fire strength. In the case of skirmishers, the rules are more detailed, yet still with an eye towards simplicity and elegance, to differentiate the use of skirmishers prior to the French Revolution and their later use. These are not simple games, but the hope is to avoid bogging people down in complicated game mechanics.

Currently, Old Guard Publishing has two game series in development: a tactical horse and musket system called Glory & Empire, and an operational scale horse and musket system.

Glory and Empire is a game series devoted to grand tactical command, maneuver and combat during the horse and musket period. It will handle the time period from the introduction of cadenced marching up until the introduction of the mini-ball. The player is cast in the role of Army Leader. Though the player must still move all of his pieces on the ‘chess board.’ However, just as in chess there are limits on how he may maneuver his pawns and knights. The game is designed for two or more players but may be played solitaire.

The map scale is 125m per hex. Units are battalions and companies for infantry, regiments and squadrons for cavalry and companies for artillery. Each strength point is 100 men for infantry, 50 men and horses for cavalry or one section, or 2 guns, for artillery. Turns are 20 minutes. Unit counters and some markers are 5/8" and other markers are 1/2".

The rules consist of three sets: Soldier's, Battalion and Brigade rules set. Players can learn the basics with the Soldier's rules, move to a full-fledged simulation with the Battalion Game and pick and choose rules from the Brigade Game to suit their tastes. Or players can jump right into the Brigade Game and understand how grand tactical maneuvering was practiced on the battlefield during the 18th and 19th centuries.

The Soldier's Game gives players new to the era an introduction to foundational concepts of tactics in the horse and musket era. In the Soldier's and Battalion Games there are the usual line, column, square and skirmishers. The Battalion game expands the use of skirmishers, introduces important concepts for maneuvering forces on the battlefield and has more detailed close combat procedures. The Brigade Game adds close columns, attack columns, closed square, Austrian division masses. Artillery is simplified for the Soldier's and Battalion Games, but the Battalion Game adds artillery ammunition. The Brigade Game adds bombardment zones, bounce through, howitzer fire and separate ammunition tracking for round shot, shell, canister and shrapnel. The Brigade Game also gives players more tools to react to enemy moves.

However, the raison d'être of the Brigade Game is its unique command system designed to show how units really maneuvered on the battlefield. It's core concepts come straight out of the drill regulations of the period. Brigades maneuver in grand tactical formations as lines of battle and in grand columns. These grand tactical formations impose their own ebb and flow on the battlefield as they break apart in combat and reform as units rally. No longer will your games look like rugby scrums. More detail can be found on these BGG threads: [On Command - Brigade Game Command Rules](https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2809161/on-command-brigade-game-command-rules) and [On Orders of Battle](https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2841446/on-orders-of-battle).

The Glory & Empire system made it's debut with First Victories covering two smaller battles: Roliça and Vimeiro. The BGG entry can be found here: [First Victories](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/340120/first-victories-wellington-versus-napoleon).

The next entry in the series is a game on the less well-known battle of Fuentes de Oñoro that takes place on the Portuguese-Spanish border in May 1811, following Masséna's retreat from Portugal. Fuentes de Onoro consists of a tactical game with four maps and seven counter sheets. For this game a new feature, called the Marshal's Game, has been added. The Marshal's Game adds an operational map, about 4x the scale of the tactical maps, that overlays the tactical game. It has an additional sheet of 3/4" counters that represent the brigades and leaders of each army. Brigade units can leave the operational map and enter the tactical map converting to their tactical equivalents for battle. The Marshal's Game allows players to move units around the periphery of the battlefield on the operational map to try alternate strategies, without them being scripted by the designer, providing much more replay value in what if situations. Development is nearly complete and will be available for pre-order soon.

Old Guard Publishing's second system is the Glory & Empire Operational System (GEOSS). It's a working title. Once, it gets closer to publication a real name will be chosen. GEOSS is intended to be a more complete operational game, than the Marshal's Game. The scale is 1 to 2 KM per hex and 1 to 4 hours per daylight turn, depending on the length of the campaign. Units are mainly regiments or brigades, but there may be some artillery companies, battalions and regiments to handle mixed brigades and army and corps resources. This is more fine grained than Kevin Zucker's Campaigns of Napoleon series, which I've long enjoyed. These games will cover the critical period of a campaign when armies are on the march towards a pitched battle, usually a few days to a couple of weeks. The game system will focus on command and maneuver and the key relationship to logistics. The first game in this series will be the battle of Castiglione campaign from July 31 to August 8, 1796. The game is still very much in development.

Those are Old Guard Publishing's present plans, and the intent is to remain focused on horse and musket period games."

 So, as you can see, this announcement is about not just a new game company but also a new Napoleonic operational gaming system along with their tactical battles.