charles vasey - 06:21am Apr 26, 1999 PST (#251 of 261)
This Space For Rent

BOUVINES 1214 Patrick Daugé and Jean-Marie Leuckx for Delires SARL

If Hohenlinden is a forgotten French victory (a lack of Napoleon counts
for a lot with most of us) then Bouvines is a very famous French
victory. In 1214 Philip II Augustus campaigning in Flanders was attacked
by the Emperor Otto, seconded by Renauld de Dammartin, Count of
Boulogne, and Ferraud of Portugal, Count of Flanders (both titles held
uxor) and English stipendiary knights led by the bastard half-brother of
King John - William Longsword, Earl of Salisbury. In a classic medieval
battle (see Verbruggen and Duby+s -The Legend of Bouvines- a.k.a. La
Dimanche de Bouvines) the Coalition was shattered, King John abandoned
his Poitevin campaign, Otto lost his throne and the two counts their
liberty (Ferraud did recover his at great damage to his county, but
Renauld topped himself in the slammer). King Philip was nearly captured
at one point but his mesnie held his enemies at bay. The two sides were
fairly evenly balanced, but the result was so dramatic that it makes a
natural subject for Championnat de France. Not only is Bouvines to be
found in every French school-child+s history book but it has been
featured in a number of readily available English texts so that although
it meets the Number One French Design Criteria (a French Victory) it is
still accessible to those outwith France.

The game is a standard Igo Hugo game, using no stacking and two blocks
of troops facing each other. An odds based CRT gives the usual style of
CRT, and (as with Hohenlinden) one is looking at a classic gamer+s game.
Once again with a lot of neat ideas tacked on. However, the usual
reverse to this is also present - this is a computer-loopy game as both
sides bash away trying to kill, or more likely disorganised and finally
rout their enemies. You add up the odds, you dice, you test morale, you
rally and so on. Having been there and got the T-Shirt with The Flowers
of The Forest I think one needs quicker solutions to the dull bashing
bit, but Bouvines is no worse than (say) Prestags and not as long as
Yarmuk. My solution in The Flowers of The Forest was (effectively) to
prevent units reforming once they had broken thus removing the many
rally dicings. However The Flowers of The Forest had a different system
whereby the units on the map represented a number of stacks in Bouvines
and no-one actually decamped until the entire -battle- suffered from
broken morale. Bouvines is a medium length game (two hours a game) about
killing, and killing occupies most of it.

The first observation is that unlike many American medieval games where
the designer comes from another era and is using one source to produce a
bastard offspring of Charles Oman from Mel Gibson these designers like
and know their medieval troops. They have gone to a lot of effort to
model the different style of troops. The two sides are massed in battles
each led by a leader (Philip himself, Frere Guerin his fiery military
monk, and Robert of Dreux, Comte of Beauvais for the Lillies; Otto IV,
Renauld, Fearraud and Salisbury for the Coalition). Each leader has his
mesnie of knights gathered about him. The two French flank battles,
Beauvais and Guerin, are mostly crossbows, indifferent foot and mounted
sergeants and minor nobles. The central French battle is mostly
communard foot (visions of Jimmy Somerville in armour) backed with
knights under Philip. Otto+s battle is similarly lots of foot with
mounted support. Salisbury fields some anachronistic longbows, and good
foot and horse. Flanders has much the same but with short-bows. Boulogne
is however hedged about by his ribauds and trained foot whose -square-
stood the French off for much of the day. There is pretty much every
kind of weapon present, apart from the Courtrai-style pike (although we
do get the Flemish Bill or Goedendag).Finally the French baggage waits
across the pont de Bouvines to tempt the Coalises, and in the midst of
the Welf line stands a carocchio with a dragon emblem. [The dragon
inspires its defenders but its loss will badly weaken Army Morale].
Avoiding lots of heraldry the style remains evocative and involving. It
looks medieval without looking like Rodger MacGowan blew a ink-jet toner
on it. To help with spotting who is in which battle different colours
have been used for each, the French having the blue part of the spectrum
and the Coalition the red-yellow bit. The map is nice and clean with the
set-up printed on to it. It shows the plain of Cysoing, with the French
backed up against the river covering (they hope) their escape route over
the bridge to Bouvines.

The first reaction to the counters is that (unless I+ve missed a trick)
the French are very much in need of saintly intercession. They have less
strong units, lower morale and poorer numbers especially in infantry (in
cavalry it is not so bad). French leaders are however better than the
other sundry rascals (Philip and Guerin anyway). An immediate point to
mention is that the designers have been rather devious in their units. A
combat point of communards is 125 men whereas knights can be as few as
12 to a Strength Point. So that the -weak- body of foot could be about
600 men facing less than 100 knights. The different types of armoured
cavalry (from sergeants to full knights - banneret types) is similarly
marked by a scale differential. A fully armoured and fully trained
knight is a rare thing but a powerful one. He still has to kill those
foot though! Units have Combat, Morale and Movement factors with Fire
strength and range for archers/crossbowmen.

To help in this killing things go beyond the mere odds calculation. Our
600 foot may be worth 5 CVs but they are likely to be Class D [the games
uses a sort of social/experience scale from D (ghastly proles) to A
(upper-class twits)] facing Class A knights (whose 100 men translates
into 8 CVs). That difference in Combat Class gives the knights +2 in the
attack which turns the 1:1 to (effectively) a 2:1. If the foot dare to
attack the knights, their 1:2 becomes 1:4 after die adjustments. This
means that foot have to tuck their heads down and hope they can last
long enough for their own cavalry to use them as a base for their own
attacks. The CRT has another twist; its results are suffered only by the
defender - the attacker loses nothing. This means that we are not going
to see Courtrai, the weaker foot will remain, like Homeric infantry,
observers of the actions of their social superiors. How George Duby
would have enjoyed this!

The sequence starts runs French Rally, French Fire, French Movement (and
Coalition Reaction Fire), and French Combat then the four phases
repeated for the Coalition. This is standard stuff, since any French
missile unit will have had to move into range it is likely to have been
fired on in Reaction Fire before it can launch its own fire. The concept
of Offensive Fire proceeding Defensive Fire is thus less concerning than
it might have been. Stacking is a doddle, one unit per hex plus its
Leader. However this means retreating units may have to barge through
their supports setting up chains of morale tests (and occasionally
bringing out a very satisfactory massed collapse). Infantry have facing
whereas cavalry do not (being much more open order). All good stuff.
Units progress to collapse through three morale stages. Firstly,
organised units are face-up and in full strength. Disorganised units
have no ZOC (which leaves them open to surrounding) may not attack or
enter EZOCs, give there attackers +1 on the dice, and a further
disorganisation will rout them. Routed units have one morale point less,
no ZOC, give a +2/+3 to the attackers (infantry/cavalry) and try to run
off the map. Morale is tested 2d6 lower than or equal to being
successful. Morale is clearly important, Leaders can boost it,
especially Philip and Guerin, as does the Imperial Dragon banner. Morale
tests occur not only from fire and hand-to-hand combat, but where one
tries to pivot a unit in an EZOC (for infantry), retreats through
another unit and, of course, while trying to rally. Army Morale is
tackled by Cohesion points, lose four of these and the army collapses
(no matter how many of its enemy are dead). When a leader gets scragged
he can be killed, captured or free having given his parôle (and the dice
decide, not you). The death of Philip is worth three Cohesion Points to
the Coalition, but captured only two and free nothing. Guerin, Beauvais,
Ferrand, Renaud and Salisbury are worth one CP dead or captured. The
Emperor Otto (for some reason) is worth less dead than captured. Clearly
a heavy -snatch squad- grabbing the main enemy leader could do great
damage. My French is not strong enough to be sure but I suspect you must
stay with your battle and not run away! To complete the Cohesion Points
the capture of the Dragon will yield the French one CP, and the
Coalition gets points for Bouvines bridge and the French baggage. [The
Bridge is on one of the French flanks making a good target for the
English and routiers]. Movement includes pivoting to face enemy units;
cavalry charges; forming hedgehogs (herisson is the French word) and
evading combat. Cavalry charges against a higher morale enemy requires a
successful morale test. Charges in general bring dice modifiers but
advance after a charge is dice-driven so that you may go careering
through the enemy lines to be surrounded and slaughtered. [Standard
British cavalry tactics in the Napoleonic Wars]. Hedgehog formation are
available only to infantry. They have no ZOCs but no flanks either (and
flank attacks bring advantages that demonstrate the danger of the more
mobile cavalry arm in this era). Interestingly the hedgehog formation
benefits from a -1 against enemy fire, rather than suffering from being
a massed stationery target, this is based on the shields and massed
spears etc. deflecting arrows.

One can also have skirmishing and the cavalry version of a hedgehog
where a leader+s mesnie form around him to fight off the -snatch
squads-. Finally in movement (oddly enough) the naughty Frenchies can
set Bouvines ablaze to hold off the Coalition forces. Fire (I should say
shooting of course) uses an odds CRT but against the terrain strength
rather than the strength values. There are special rules to simulate the
slower loading speed of the crossbow over the long and short bows. The
reaction fire is extensive and can be very useful in damaging attacks
(especially with the one unit stacking rule). The results of fire are
morale tests, retreats and morale tests and disruptions, but no
eliminations. Melee does have the possibility of elimination and it
appears to be voluntary. Shooting seemed to be too be a little too
effective for the period, inching towards English Hundred Years War
stuff.

Victory arises from either shattering the opposition+s Cohesion or by
outpointing him in losses and captures. In reality the Coalition
collapsed although I am not entirely sure the game would have made this
happen. Bouvines was designed in 1983 to support a film that never got
made, so its techniques are perhaps more traditional than we might
expect. This is, however, balanced by the depth of knowledge its
designers have. This means they have gone far beyond the usual Sir
Lancelot de Chutney nonsense with which most games of the Middle Ages
are saddled. The operational possibilities seem to come down to the
German horse trying to smash through to Philip in short order (something
which they are well capable of doing), while Geurin tries to smash
Ferrand, and Salisbury and Renaud try to take the bridge. It remains
true to its subject without entirely removing the possibility for some
variety. It is however (as I said above) a game about biffing and
bashing and of these there is a lot.