Converting or Modifying Hail Caesar and Black Powder to The Portable Wargame...working on the campaign

 

Hail Caesar (HC) and Black Powder (BP) both utilize a multi-base system for representing units on the tabletop. However, both games do not use base removal, instead removing the entire unit at once, because of combat or certain morale results.

Therefore, it makes sense to treat them in the same manner as The Portable Wargame (PW), that is as though it were a single-base unit. Hence, it also makes sense to just represent the unit as a single base. Doing so brings several benefits, one being that it reduces the costs of obtaining and preparing an army. Another is that more than one unit of standard or small sizes can be within the same square. And yet another benefit is that one is not having to deal with units either too large for a single square on the board or to deal with a single unit taking up more than one board square.

Both HC and BP (in its first edition) have or had a system for determining the points values of units. While the systems for these two games were dissimilar, it is not impossible to create a hybrid from one of them, to accommodate both.

The Black Powder point valuation system appears to be the one most suitable, in that it accounts for extended ranges for shooting and does not require a Sustained characteristic for unit stats. As the point costs for ranged shooting increase with distance, it is justifiable to also modify those rules slightly.

For shooting at ranges up to 6” it is .5 points per pip.

As the PW board is divided into squares, the range in inches also needs to be adjusted. 0-6” on contact, 6-11.9” = 1 adjacent square, 12-17.9” = 2 squares, 18-23.9” = 3 squares, 24-29.9” = 4 squares, 30-36” = 5 squares.

As the historical eras bring with them increasing technological advances over time, the ranges in squares will not need to increase, but rather the approximate distance between squares will do so. For Ancient Era battles, the approximate distance from square to square is 50 yards, but once we reach the Early Modern Era, that distance is now 100 yards, and so on.

Where HC/BP need more modifications is in the realm of unit activation. Instead of unit activation by die roll, a chit-pull/card-draw system (CP-CD) will be used, to help create a fog of war, but also to allow greater differentiation between leaders through the addition or subtraction of chits/cards. As HC and BP both allow for multiple moves for a unit within a single turn, the CP-CD mechanic will have to provide a means whereby units can also move more than once in a turn. This will be handled by including chits or cards for each unit, for each brigade, for brigade commanders, and for army commanders.

Any time a chit or card for a unit is pulled, that unit receives one activation. When a brigade is activated, all units within the brigade may move, as long as they are within cohesion range. When a brigadier is activated, it may activate any one unit with his/her command, as long as it is in command range, even if that unit has already activated that turn. With all of these, once the chit or card is pulled, it remains out of play for the remainder of the turn. However, when an army commander is activated, he/she may activate any one unit in the army or all units within its command range, even if the unit has already activated that turn and then that chit or card is returned to the cup (or deck, with the deck being reshuffled) for possible re-draw later that turn.

In consequence to these changes, what is next required is a way to limit turns in such a way as to prevent all units from moving every turn, unless the army is exceedingly small. The method under consideration deals with the commander’s skill rating.

Commanders are still given a Command Rating (CR), whether this be its name or Strategy Rating or Tactical Rating, for the nonce this is of no matter. The numerical rating is the number of activation draws a side is allowed per turn. So if the CR is 6, six chits or cards are drawn for activations; if 9, then nine are drawn, etc.

To limit the absolute advantage of well-placed leaders, a brigadier’s command range is the square it stands in, plus all squares adjacent orthogonally and diagonally. An army leader’s command range is the square it stands in and all squares up to two squares away orthogonally and diagonally.

 

Brigadier Command Range

 

Army Leader Command Range

 

Note: Brigade cohesion range is same square and/or orthogonally adjacent.

 

Obviously, more work is needed, especially with the point system, but this suffices as a foundation from which to continually build upon.