The Hard Decisions Are Made

The armies are deployed. Now comes the waiting.

Morning finds the opposing armies rested, reinforced and ready to go.

Rolling the battlefield back by 2 or 4 hexes was simple enough until I realized that the optimum shift was 3 hexes which was actually 3 back and 1/2 sideways. This was okay for houses and woods but was tricky with some of the multi-hex hills made of  various bits but I got close enough for my purposes.  

Rather than fiddle with the next day strength of each company, I brought all companies back to full strength since the hits are primarily fatigue, fear, ammo etc but subtracted 1 company from the worst hit regiments on each side.  

A wider view.

I've also done a fair bit of thinking, and revisiting past versions of my proposed rules for this period as far back as 2013, including stated intent as well as practical issues, and revisited some of my  sources and past battle reports with comments  on what went wrong or right. 

My firm intent has long been a fast, simple, game of toy soldiers to enable battles which remind me of the 1st hand accounts  that I've read of small actions from the 2nd half of the 19thC, without getting bogged down in tedious consistency and detail. The evidence is that many of the attempts were too finicky, too bland, or too tedious/repetitive/boring in play without capturing that feel, or were too generic or vague. It is some of the in between versions  of the  Square Brigadier that focused on the feel rather than the detail that have been most satisfying so I've wasted time, something that I luckily happen to have a fair amount of,  screwed up my willpower to overcome habit and expectations and, perhaps most important, have  squished my brain into a shape which allows it to see that some simple rules which are not strictly 'how' or 'why' processes manage to give a game with the right feel and narrative for me. 

So I'm going with in the same rules as in the last game with a few minor tweak to return certain process to earlier versions because they made for a better game while getting more or less the right feel even if for the wrong reasons. 

The proof will be in the playing.