General d'Armee2 - Reisswitz Press - the basics.

General d'Armee2 is the second edition of the popular General d'Armee rules, written by Dave and Christopher Brown, and available from the  Too Fat Lardies website. I'm not going to review the rules as a good number are already available online. What I am going to do is start breaking down the concepts the rule utilise so as to understand how to create the forces required in order to play.

As stated in the introduction to the rules this is "a game designed to allow Divisions or entire Army Corps to fight the battles of the Napoleonic Wars on table top." Nice and simple and the reviews I have read suggest it pretty much does what it says on the tin.

Ground scale is "very approximately, 1mm is equal to one yard or metre."

Time scale, "Each turn is a brief but unspecified period of time - as little as 5 minutes or considerably longer".

Figure Scale (the ratio of figures in game to the actual number of troops represented by each) is not a concept used by the game. Rather "each tactical unit is classified as Small, Standard or Large". In addition there is no specific basing style or requirement other than both forces in a battle be based in a similar fashion.

Distances (command influence, movement and weapon ranges) are quoted for 15mm figures in centimetres, and then with a second figure [in parenthesise] in inches for 28mm figures. In addition if the 28mm distances are read as centimetres these can then be used for 6mm and 10mm figures. 

As an example an infantry unit in column may according to the rules move 15cm [9"]. So if playing with 15mm figures they move the 15cm quoted, 28mm figures will move 9 inches (23cm) while the smaller 6/10mm figures would move 9cm. A simple and flexible system.

The rules advise the following are required to play the game.

• Two opposing armies and Brigadiers.
• One C-in-C model per side.
• ADC figures or markers.
• Two artillery caisson models per side, or equivalent markers.
• Around 10x six side dice (10x D6) per side.
• Unit Status and ADC Tasking Markers
• Casualty Markers, dials or Roster sheets.

and that in simple terms units will be one of three types

• Infantry  (either in close order or skirmish lines)
• Cavalry  (in close order)
• Artillery (either in batteries or as regimental guns)

And so armed with the above information we can now start to plan and build our army(s).