Campaign Waterloo Expansion Package - August 1st, 2005

Brought to you by:

Rich Hamilton
Rich White
Claes Melbro

Contents:

1) New versions of the 3 OOB files for the main game adding in Davout's Reserve Aile for the French, Paget's British Corps, the Portuguese under Lord Beresford for the Allies and the Prussian Nord Deutsche Korps.

2) 11 new scenarios utilizing the above OOB's - 3 of them from the existing game (Waterloo-Wavre, Full Campaign & Hypo 9 revised) and 8 new smaller actions which we call "Corps on Corps" using sub-maps.

3) 4 new maps, 3 OOB's & 83 new scenarios at the Company level covering all the major aspects of the big battles of this Campaign.

Following are some notes on the Company level portions of this package. At the bottom of this file you will find instructions on how to utilize the main expanded OOB's in existing scenarios that shipped with the game.

Notes on the Company level expansion pack files - by Rich White

For those of you who play the EAW series of games (FIW, 1776, 1812) or have tried my ACW versions of Big Bethel & Blackburn Ford, these company level Napoleonic   scenarios should seem quite familiar, but you may still find it worthwhile reading the following notes.

While in the standard regimental game, each unit is normally a battalion or regiment and contains hundreds of men, these company level scenario break each unit down into companies. Thus a standard French line battalion would become:

1 grenadier company
1 Voltigeur company
4 Fusilier companies

While the fusilier companies are "restricted" and unable to detach skirmisher sub-units, the grenadier company (if large enough) would be able to detach a single group of skirmishers, while the voltigeurs would be able to break down into several skirmisher sub-units and thus form a skirmisher screen for the entire battalion.

A French light battalion would consist of:

1 Carabinier company
1 Voltigeur company
4 Chasseur companies

Here the carabinier company would be the equivalent of a grenadier company, while the voltigeur and chasseur companies would all be counted as light, thus capable of detaching multiple skirmisher sub-units.

Dutch & Belgium troops, formerly part of Napoleon's imperial forces use the French six company system.

British units should logically be divided into ten companies, but play-testing has revealed that this creates too many small, ineffective units which would place a British player at a distinct disadvantage, so the following system has been adopted, with most companies - except the grenadier and light companies - combined into double strength companies.

1 Grenadier company
1 Light company
4 double strength ("restricted") line companies

Prussian units are divided into four companies, with regular line companies counting as "restricted" while fusilier companies count as "light".

Artillery batteries have normally been divided into 2 gun sections (or, for British, often 3 or 1 gun sections), allowing for the representation of different gun types within a battery. Thus a typical French foot battery would consist of three 2 gun 6pdrsections plus one 2 gun obusier (howitzer) section:

2 x 6pdrs
2 x 6pdrs
2 x 6pdrs
2 x obusiers

Just as infantry battalions have been divided into companies, cavalry regiments are divided into squadrons. With maximum cavalry stacking of 125 men, it'll normally be impossible for cavalry regiments to recombine and operate as larger units. Light and heavy cavalry have been treated differently, with light cavalry often able to divide squadron sized units into smaller sub-units for scouting purposes. Also, since they were actually issued firearms, most cavalry - except lancers - have been given some fire ability, mainly so that cavalry piquets can skirmish with each other and cavalry will have at least some (albeit rather limited) defensive capability. However, since this firepower is generally ineffective, cavalry should definitely avoid getting into fire-fights with infantry, because the infantry return fire will almost certainly be far more  effective.

The map scale, stacking limitations, time scale and weapon ranges have all been adjusted to reflect the different scale. It's best to think in terms of one hex at regimental level becoming three hexes (or rather 3 x 3 hexes) at company level. 

Thus musket range is 6 hexes and rifle range 9 hexes. At 1 hex range, muskets are significantly more effective than at the regimental scale, since this represents 1-33m rather than 1-100m. Artillery ranges are much longer than in the regimental game - for instance 12pdrs can fire up to 48 hexes instead of 16 hexes at the regimental scale - although their effectiveness at long range is relatively poor, so it's not a good idea to waste too much ammunition at distant targets.

Some of the scenarios are company level versions (and variants) of the various battles - Quatre Bras, Ligny, Wavre & Waterloo. There are also scenarios that cover sections of the Waterloo battle and distinct "episodes" of the battle - for instance, Hougoumont, La Haye Saint, d'Erlons attack, Papelotte & Plancenoit. Some of these scenarios are rather large and perhaps more suited to multiplayer games.

Apart from these historical scenarios and their "what if" variants, there's also a collection of hypothetical short, company level scenarios using the various maps & submaps. These scenarios are intended for players eager for a quick fight, so they involve a lot less troops than the larger encounters and range from about 8-16 turns. These scenarios would also be suitable for online games as well as PBEM, since they could be played through within a couple of hours.

Enjoy the scenarios!

Rich White

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The expansion OOB's included with this package were constructed so that they could easily be inserted into any existing scenario without causing problems. You would do this to expand any of the scenarios, if you wished. To do so, perform the following steps:

Open the .scn file in a text editor, such as Notepad and save it with a new file name.

Then, look on the 8th line of the text and you will see the OOB file it uses referenced, like in this example from the Historical Ligny battle:

7
The Battle of Ligny_h, June 1815
1815 6 16 14 0 0 0 1 38
1 6 6
1 6 6
-750 0 750 1500
Ligny.map
Waterloo_June16.oob

To make the change simply add an _XP to the OOB file name, it would then read:

Waterloo_June16_XP.oob

Save and close the file.

Now you are ready to go into the Scenario Editor, open up your new scenario and add in some or all of the new units that are available.

If you have any questions or comments feel free to direct them to me - Rich@hist-sdc.com

Enjoy!